Chapter 370: Gazing Into The Abyss
by xennovel“This…”
Hearing Lu Xin’s answer, Xia Chong was momentarily speechless.
She was an honest girl and didn’t know how to respond. She just found it impossible to look at Lu Xin the same way again.
Doctor An, however, who had been watching with interest from the side, glanced thoughtfully towards her office door.
She nodded, then gently stepped forward, took Xia Chong’s arm, and said with a smile, “The Abyss is ever-changing; unexpected things happening are quite normal. Go keep the people from Qinggang company for now. I’ll handle things here.”
“Yes!”
Xia Chong agreed, glanced at Lu Xin, then turned and left the office.
This time, when she opened the door, those bugs didn’t appear on her body. The door she opened was just an ordinary door.
Doctor An then approached Lu Xin with a smile, leaning down slightly, her red lips curling upwards:
“You saw it clearly, didn’t you?”
“Saw it clearly…”
Lu Xin answered subconsciously, then suddenly realized, “Saw what clearly?”
Doctor An just smiled at him, her hands crossed over her chest, making her figure appear even fuller.
“The source of the pollution.”
She murmured, “Or you could call it the homeland of mental monsters!”
…
“Hmm?”
Lu Xin abruptly looked up at her.
The female researcher’s expression seemed tinged with emotion as she spoke softly:
“For someone seeing the Abyss for the first time, your reaction is relatively calm.”
“As for others, aside from those naturally chosen and protected by the monsters within the Abyss, seeing it usually results in one of two outcomes. One is going completely mad, the other is desperately wanting to stay there.”
Lu Xin remained silent for a long moment before asking, “So, what exactly is this Abyss?”
“Haven’t you heard the saying?”
Doctor An looked up at Lu Xin and asked with a smile, “When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you!”
Lu Xin hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Anyone with a slight understanding of the culture from the Civilization Era knew this saying.
“That saying can help you understand the Abyss better.”
Doctor An explained softly, “You can think of the Abyss as something like an ocean of the collective subconscious. Everyone has their own mental power and their own mental radiation. This radiation intertwines, connecting humanity into a whole.”
“It’s a projection of our spiritual world, a tapestry woven from our desires and emotions.”
“Each of us is a drop in this ocean, and this ocean is forever linked to every single one of us.”
…
“Collective subconscious?”
Lu Xin frowned slightly upon hearing her words.
He had read many books on psychology in the past, trying to figure out what illness he had.
Naturally, he had encountered concepts like this in those books.
It was supposed to be a psychological term, generally referring to a kind of spiritual deposit universally possessed and inherited during the evolution of human ancestors, residing at the deepest level of the human psyche.
Although this world of the collective subconscious was just a hypothesis, it constantly manifested in human culture – religion, mythology, art, most were related to it.
“The Abyss you’re talking about should just be a symbolic existence…”
Lu Xin tried clumsily to express his viewpoint, looking at Doctor An, “But what I just experienced felt… real. Besides, even if such an ocean of collective subconscious exists where all human thoughts and feelings are projected, creating another level of reality, shouldn’t it project both good and evil thoughts? How could it possibly be only negative?”
…
“Oh my…”
Doctor An looked Lu Xin over with pleasant surprise. “You’ve given me a little surprise.”
Saying this, she bit her lip, looking softly at Lu Xin, and chuckled quietly, “Little brother, in this era where civilization is practically fractured, where everyone only thinks about eating, sleeping, and women, being able to raise these questions is quite unexpected.”
Lu Xin immediately felt a bit helpless.
He rarely discussed academic issues so seriously with people.
Why was it that right now, this woman’s words sounded somewhat inappropriate?
“You’re quite right.”
Doctor An chuckled softly. “The world of the spiritual depths should have both evil and good thoughts, negative and positive. In fact, good thoughts should always outweigh evil ones. Only then can humanity survive and continue to develop.”
“Even the term ‘Abyss’ implies that the evil thoughts in the spiritual depths have overwhelmed the good.”
“If the good thoughts there outweighed the evil, it should really be called Heaven.”
…
As she spoke, she held a cigarette between two fingers, took a light drag, and slowly exhaled faint smoke.
This woman had actually learned to smoke in such a short time!
“We’ve speculated that before the Red Moon incident, during the old Civilization Era, a terrifying change occurred.”
“Because of this change, the collective evil thoughts of everyone in the world overwhelmed the good thoughts, reaching a terrifying ratio, almost causing a collapse. Consequently, the world of spiritual sedimentation not only formed the Abyss but even nearly spilled over into the real world.”
Doctor An continued, her voice soft, “It was precisely this phenomenon that led to the occurrence of the Red Moon incident.”
…
“Collective evil thoughts overwhelming good thoughts?”
“And severely so?”
Listening, Lu Xin was both shocked and bewildered. “How could something like that happen?”
“We don’t know.”
When Doctor An addressed this question, even her cold, beautiful face seemed covered by a layer of shadow:
“It might be due to some external reason that caused a mutation in this underlying spiritual world.”
“It could also be that certain events in reality caused everyone in the world at that time to generate endless malicious thoughts, severely unbalancing the underlying spiritual world. It’s even more possible that…”
“The very existence of humanity, the accumulation of desire and malice, inherently leads to such a situation…”
…
Reaching this point, she sighed softly, “The Research Institute knows many things, but there’s no answer to this.”
“Regardless, what can be confirmed is that precisely because of the imbalance between evil and good thoughts in the underlying spiritual world during a certain period, the Red Moon incident occurred, subsequently leading to the end of the old Civilization Era. Ultimately, it resulted in what we just saw: the Abyss becoming real…”
“And it’s already spying on the real world!”
…
Lu Xin fell silent.
He still found it somewhat unbelievable.
Why the Red Moon appeared has always been a topic that puzzled everyone.
Whenever someone talked about how good the old era’s civilization was, how orderly, how affluent life was, how bright the sun shone, it naturally led to another question: how did such a wonderful world become like this?
Everyone knew it was because of the Red Moon. The Red Moon was right there in the sky.
But where did the Red Moon come from?
Nobody knew.
Now, listening to this female doctor, it wasn’t that the Red Moon appeared, causing human malice to overwhelm goodness.
Instead, it was because human malice overwhelmed goodness that the moon turned red?
If so, what could have caused the people of this world to suddenly surge with so much malice?
…
“Regardless of the truth behind the world’s destruction, the Red Moon has appeared.”
“Therefore, the Abyss is the most severe problem we face.”
“Just like under the Red Moon, human malice or other negative emotions can turn into pollution sources and some mental monsters. The Abyss is a similar place; you can understand it as an unprecedentedly massive pollution source…”
Doctor An continued softly without waiting for Lu Xin’s questions, “Many people intuitively believe the pollution source is the Red Moon.”
“But the moon is lifeless, and no one has ever detected mental radiation in moonlight. So, the Research Institute has long speculated: could the Red Moon just be a characteristic? Is the source of pollution, the origin of all pollution, actually somewhere else?”
At this point, she tapped the ash from her cigarette. “With the discovery of Abyss-type Ability Users, this question gradually found an answer.”
“Abyss-type Ability Users are relatively rare. Moreover, this group of ability users is often dominated by strong malice or possesses intense suicidal urges. Thus, finding and identifying them initially wasn’t easy; many were directly cleaned up as pollution sources.”
“But once one or two more stable ability users were discovered, the problem was solved.”
“Through the Abyss-type Ability Users, we confirmed the existence of the Abyss.”
…
As Doctor An spoke, her expression turned more serious as she looked at Lu Xin.
“Pollution, or the mental monsters we usually clean up, actually fall into two categories. One type is naturally born among the population; perhaps someone collapses due to various emotional problems, causing mental malfunction, forming pollution or a mental monster.”
“The other type penetrates our real world from within the Abyss…”
By this point, her expression could be called grim. “Many cracks have already appeared between the Abyss and the real world.”
…
Hearing her words, Lu Xin once again thought of that mysterious organization called the Locals Association.
At that time, a question had troubled him and the Drunkard: where did the mental monsters they controlled come from?
Now, he suddenly had the answer.
“The existence of the Abyss makes many problems more complicated.”
Doctor An was now gently pinching the bridge of her nose with her slender fingers.
“One of the biggest problems is the increase in pollution.”
“Moreover, it’s not just ordinary pollution. Within the Abyss, there are also certain mental monsters…”
“Like the kind the two of you just encountered.”
“They were originally supposed to exist only within the Abyss, like in a nightmare, not appearing in reality.”
“But as the power of the Abyss grows stronger, they have moved from the underlying spiritual world to the surface, even into reality…”
…
“You can understand it this way…”
She spoke slowly, pausing slightly, apparently thinking about how to help Lu Xin understand better:
“The real world and the Abyss originally covered and overlapped each other.”
“Before, there was an invisible wall between them. This wall was very sturdy. Occasionally, a small crack would appear, and the things flowing out weren’t that terrifying. But when the cracks on this wall become more numerous and larger, it becomes terrifying.”
Lu Xin quickly nodded.
More cracks meant more things entering the real world.
And similarly, more terrifying things.
As a special pollution cleanup personnel, he professionally thought of a problem.
Doesn’t this mean he’s cleaning a pool, making its water clear, but the connection to the neighboring pool already has holes, constantly letting dirty water flow in? When will this cleanup ever end?
“As the cracks multiply, the mental monsters and pollution entering the real world undoubtedly become more terrifying.”
The female researcher continued, then suddenly looked at Lu Xin, “But have you thought about what’s the most terrifying part?”
Lu Xin’s expression shifted slightly as a possibility struck him.
His face instantly showed a look of astonishment.
Doctor An nodded. “Yes. The most terrifying thing isn’t how many cracks appear. It’s that, based on pressure characteristics, if the pressure within the Abyss isn’t reduced, then once the first crack appears, the cracks will only multiply, and the openings will only get bigger.”
“Like a thousand-mile dike collapsing due to an ant hole.”
“No one knows if this ‘wall’ will also one day suddenly collapse completely…”
When she reached this point, her expression also became slightly grave.
“When this wall completely collapses, and the Abyss fully pollutes reality…”
“What will our world become?”