The Experience Hall was situated in the midst of towering mushrooms, occupying a quiet piece of land all by itself. Even in the gradually bustling morning of the city, sitting here, you wouldn't hear much noise. The divan had been thoroughly cleaned, but the two won and a cat chose to sit on the floor. The sight was as if they were workers having their lunch break, and even Dr. Hu didn't climb onto the divan. According to it, Puppeteer had gone for a stroll and might return at any mont.
"Don't worry,"
owie Hu was seated on Bohemia's widespread skirt. She refused to place her paws directly on the ground. "Walking around is good for his recovery."
"I'm not worried about him,"
Lin Sanjiu said with a hint of annoyance, "I'm worried about this guy."
She turned her head and asked, "Hey, are you serious?"
'This guy' blinked blankly. As Dr. Hu deigned to sit on her skirt, it remained motionless.
"I didn't think about it carefully earlier,"
Bohemia admitted, "I just thought it seed nice, so I said it offhandedly... But don't worry; I've thought it through seriously."
Lin Sanjiu breathed a sigh of relief.
"I still want to convert."
The room fell silent for a mont.
"Good luck," Dr. Hu said politely after a pause, extending a paw toward Bohemia. But before their hands could et, Lin Sanjiu's hand shot out and separated them.
"What's going on with you?"
She heaved a sigh and looked fatigued down to her bones. "Weren't you the ones who tried so hard to stop from converting earlier? Now it's like I've just woken up from a dream, and you..."
Her words hung in the air for several seconds before Bohemia lifted her head, clasping her arms, and softly spoke, "The sky here... it's really blue. So blue it seems like it can shine right through your body."
"Is that why you want to stay?"
She shook her head. "I... just don't want to wander anymore."
Lin Sanjiu could tell that the reasons motivating Bohemia to stay were far more complex than she could articulate. Bohemia wasn't skilled at expressing herself, and even though the Experience Hall had touched on so hidden desires within her, at the mont, she could only co up with this simple reason.
"So let explain why I choose not to convert."
Two pairs of eyes, one green and one golden, turned to her.
"First," Lin Sanjiu held up a finger, "the people we saw in the Experience Hall, like i Jia and that garbage worker, they might not have had spores on them at the ti. This is the premise."
"How do you know?"
"Because it's unnecessary," she shrugged, casting a glance at Bohemia. "The primary purpose of spores is to facilitate the spread and reproduction of mushrooms. Requiring a large quantity to brainwash everyone would be counterproductive... Even if we don't consider that, the daily state of the local residents here is very different from how I felt after absorbing the spores."
She thought she might never forget her experience of absorbing the spores.
She didn't even have the right words to describe how she felt at the ti—like a mathematician who had been toiling over a conjecture for a lifeti and finally proved it, like a mother hearing her newborn baby's first cry, like the goosebumps that appear suddenly on your skin when you have an epiphany...
It was like opening her eyes for the first ti and seeing the vast expanse of the universe.
If human beings have been struggling and groping in the dark since the day they were born, it must be because they are pursuing sothing, sothing universal and profound. It's not money, fa, or even love—it's sothing intangible that transcends human existence. What that sothing is, Lin Sanjiu still didn't know.
And that's where the brilliance of the mushrooms lies.
"They actually don't know what human beings are pursuing—their 'aning' or 'truth,' you can call it whatever you want. But they've cleverly dodged that. They tell you that the thing you're chasing is actually the mushrooms themselves... well, you can say it's a harmonious way of life with the mushrooms."
Lin Sanjiu continued, "Ordinary outsiders wouldn't believe in this concept, right? So, they release spores, triggering chemical reactions in your brain, making you feel like you've finally found the truth, found sothing that gives aning to your life. At that ti, it felt sowhat like 'enlightennt' in Buddhism or like a scientist unraveling the mysteries of the universe... It was a profound kind of happiness, sothing not many people can resist."
She was thrown into the Pocket Dinsion during the peak of that sensation, abruptly cutting it off, which made the aftereffects even stronger. She desperately wanted to regain her lost 'truth.'
"In that case, you were deceived by the spores?" Dr. Hu asked, tilting its head.
A cat's perspective on the world is entirely different, even for a cat that can speak human language. It doesn't fret over the aning of life or beco exhausted and empty from chasing desires. It simply enjoys existing in the world. In that sense, Lin Sanjiu envied cats.
"Well, strictly speaking, the mushrooms' thods are a form of deception," she admitted after a brief pause. "But it's more like a mutual agreent. Human beings don't know what they truly want or how to find peace and happiness. So, the mushrooms provide a complete substitute. You're a cat, you don't understand the struggles and chaos within our species, and the sacrifices we've made throughout history."
She paused and added, "But from another perspective, the mushrooms rely replaced sothing elusive and intangible that humans have been seeking with sothing practical and imdiate. Besides the difference in form, it ans the sa thing for humans. To use an inappropriate analogy, it's like dressing soone who is color-blind. Whether you put them in yellow or blue, it doesn't really matter. What's important is that the color-blind person has clothes to wear. Switch to an optimist or a pragmatist, and they might think the mushrooms have saved them a lot of ti."
Upon hearing this, Bohemia couldn't help but ask, "Then why don't the local people need it?"
"I didn't say they don't need it," Lin Sanjiu smiled. "But for the locals, they don't need to use spores all the ti to achieve spiritual satisfaction and tranquility. They've grown up here for generations, which is more about culture, shaping, and education. In many ways, they are already fundantally different from us."
"So, the mushrooms haven't really lied," Bohemia seed to finally relax.
Lin Sanjiu lowered her voice, "Not necessarily."
The two words struck Bohemia like shards of ice on her skin.
"I believe that what we experienced in the Experience Hall is probably true... but not the entire truth," she looked up at the pristine blue sky, adorned with various shadows that divided the blue. She didn't know if her voice could be captured by the mushrooms that constructed the entire city. "They have concealed certain things they thought outsiders wouldn't be able to accept."
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