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Chapter 759: The Neighbours Listened Attentively To Their Conversation

She pounced on Smith when he stepped into the apartment and coiled the shoelaces tightly around his neck, like a snake strangling its prey. The shoelaces sank into the layers of fat around his neck. Startled, Smith struggled as he bludgeoned her in the head and shoulders with all his might.

Braving against Smith’s salvo of attacks, Lin Sanjiu daren’t let go of the shoelaces and grasped the two ends as tight as possible. It was just that with Smith’s massive body and his rampaging, it was difficult for a person of her size to fully restrain him. Suddenly, the shoelaces snapped. Her hands lost their grip and she fell back.

Huffing and puffing like a freight train, Smith fell to the floor, his face a purplish-red.

His eyes bulged as if they might pop out of their sockets as he wheezed, disbelief accentuating his tone, “It’s... it’s you...”

However, before he could finish his sentence, something in his eyes glowed. He turned around, scrambling towards the door, and shouted, “Somebody...”

There was no way Lin Sanjiu was going to give him the chance to call for help. She picked up a shoe from the floor, slapped him in the face, and then shoved it into his mouth. Unwilling to admit himself outdone, Smith fought back. He swung his arms and threw about his legs furiously. It was never in Lin Sanjiu’s dream that Smith’s reaction would be so violent, and the funniest thing was that he was by far the toughest target for her to subdue.

Despite her possessing more physical strength, Smith was slowly breaking free. Be that as it may, as a well-seasoned veteran who’d gone through countless bloodsheds, Lin Sanjiu was far more experienced than Smith. She deliberately took one of his punches and fell back.

Just as Smith’s eyes lit up and lunged forward to the door to call for help, Lin Sanjiu seized the opportunity, took a chair, and smashed it hard on his head. The chair immediately exploded into fragments of wooden chunks.

Smith dropped to the floor like a marionette that had its string cut, his eyes rolling back in his head. He did not fall unconscious, but the throbbing pain that spread from the back of his head rendered him unable to speak.

Lin Sanjiu fumbled on the floor and found herself a sharp wooden chunk. She picked it up and pointed it at Smith’s artery.

Before she could say anything, a cold and taciturn female voice interceded. “Mr. Smith Gwen, the system on our side shows that you haven’t logged in within the allotted time yet. You now have 30 seconds left, 29, 28...”

As Lin Sanjiu searched for the source of the voice, Smith struggled to get up from the floor, disregarding the fact that he was at Lin Sanjiu’s mercy right now. Lin Sanjiu did not do anything but stepped back. Seeing his chance, Smith scrambled to a corner and opened a small black box on the wall.

“Smith Gwen,” he gasped, “L-Log in.”

Light spilled out from the black box and illuminated Smith’s face. He let out a long sigh of relief then closed the box before collapsing on the floor again.

He remained there unmoving until Lin Sanjiu cast her shadow on him; only then did he peel his heavy eyelids open.

“Let’s talk,” said Lin Sanjiu as she positioned the pointy wooden chunk against his fleshy neck. “If you dare to mess around with me, I will stab this into your artery. You hear me?”

Smith’s face scrunched up, but his jowly cheeks rendered his expression indistinguishable. Lin Sanjiu did not know whether he was scared or just angry.

“You are screwed!” he huffed. “Even if you kill me, the police will be onto you! There’s no way you can run away! ”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

“Hah! Isn’t it obvious? You snuck out after you logged in, correct?” He sneered. “If you think you can slip through their surveillance, let me tell you—in your dreams! We have to log in every 10 minutes, and so long as they realize you came out of your house without authorization, they will come for you. There is no way you can run away from them and get the chance to get out of Peanut Town... They will hunt you for...”

“I didn’t log in,” Lin Sanjiu interrupted, shrugging.

Looking at Smith, whose eyes were widening in shock, Lin Sanjiu continued softly, “I didn’t return to my house.”

“That is not possible!” Smith snapped himself out of his shock and shouted. However, he soon realized something was wrong as he lowered his head and fell silent. After a few seconds of hesitation, he raised his head and examined Lin Sanjiu. “But... But how? Where is your neighborhood group? It’s impossible for them to not have seen you.”

“Neighborhood group? What is that?”

Smith’s eyes grew even wider. It was as if he was looking at an alien. “After the morning stroll session, everyone who stays in the same neighborhood will go home together. How could they let you slip away?! I’m going to report them!”

“Hold your horses first,” Lin Sanjiu said, stabbing the wooden chunk deeper into his skin. “My neighborhood is right below the black mountain. It destroyed my house when it moved to the center of the town.”

“But, but, but,” Smith stammered. He instinctively looked around as if he was looking for someone who could explain the situation to him. “That happened about 30 years ago!”

Lin Sanjiu nodded simply. “So you guys knew about it all along? That the black mountain had crushed a lot of houses under its body?”

Hearing her words, Smith harrumphed. “Watch your mouth! The black mountain is a sacred mountain that has protected us for more than a thousand years. It is the pride and glory of Peanut Town!”

Lin Sanjiu deduced that Smith had been in his teen years when the black mountain invaded Peanut Town, so he should’ve seen the entire invading process. However, to Lin Sanjiu’s surprise, he deeply believed that the black mountain had existed for more than a thousand years.

“There were people inside the houses, right?” Lin Sanjiu asked. “I saw it with my own eyes how it turned an entire neighborhood into nothing but a meat pulp.”

“That was a long time ago,” Smith frowned. “Yes, you are right. In the process of migration, there were several casualties, but there is nothing the sacred mountain could do as the conditions were less than perfect at that time. The sacred mountain can only protect us, take care of us, and lead us better when it is in the center of the town, and you cannot dismiss the fact that everything that happened in the past was for the wellbeing of Peanut Town. Hence, for the sacred mountain to move to the center of the town, sacrifices and losses were inevitable. However, what you don’t understand is that this is a trend of history that cannot be avoided.”

The speech slid off his tongue so fluently, it was as if the entire passage had been inscribed in his brain.

Just when Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, he cleared his throat and continued. “If you can’t move forward from the past, you won’t be able to see the progress we have made so far. Let me tell you, I am the textbook editor for Peanut Town’s primary school. I advise you to go back, pick up your textbook again, and ingrain the history of Peanut Town into that little brain of yours.”

Smith was talking louder and louder and his voice had spread across the entire corridor. Lin Sanjiu poked the wooden chunk deeper and growled, “Keep your voice low!”

After that, she bowed her body and peeked into the corridor through the hole in the door. Then, Lin Sanjiu’s blood turned cold.

There was an eye inside of the door hole of the apartment directly across the corridor, staring straight at Smith’s house.

She shrunk back, and after ascertaining that the neighbor across the corridor could not see her, she took a quick glance up and down the corridor. Even though her vision was greatly restricted, she still caught sight of something. Behind the hole of each door along the corridor, there was an eye looking at her.

The ruckus they caused when they were fighting before probably spread across the thin and shabby residential building. Nevertheless, none of the residents came out to help Smith stop Lin Sanjiu or went to call the police. All of them just stayed quietly in their apartments, peeping through the hole in their doors as they waited to report the situation to the check-in device.

“How much time do I have before the next log-in?” she turned to Smith and asked.

“About 6 to 7 minutes,” Smith replied. He laid on the floor, and although his face was wan, there was an exultant look on his face. “There is nowhere you can run. You are now inside of a cage, and even if you had wings, you couldn’t run away from here.”

“Cage?” Lin Sanjiu found the word hard to comprehend. Sneering, she said, “I’m in a cage? Why don’t you look at yourself first and see what kind of life you’re living right now before saying that to me?”

“What’s wrong with my life?” Smith’s eyes grew wider. “I have plenty of food and can have whatever I want. Our town is peaceful, the people here are deeply attached to one another, our security system is the best, and thanks to that, no terrorists are able to breach through Peanut Town. Where can you find a paradise like this?”

“When I first arrived in Peanut Town, I saw a woman walking her dog,” Lin Sanjiu tilted her head and eyed Smith from head to toe. Holding the wooden chunk in her hand, she slowly rose to her feet. “Can you do that now? Haven’t you told me that you are not permitted to step out of your house without permission?”

“You don’t understand,” Smith pressed the back of his head to stop the blood from flowing, “It is very dangerous out there, and if the town hall does nothing and allows the people to roam around freely as they wish, who knows what kind of hell would befall on Peanut Town.”

“Did they not shut down all of Peanut Town? How do you know it is dangerous out there?”

“The TV, of course,” Smith inched towards the corner as he watched Lin Sanjiu rummage through his set of textbooks. As if he knew Lin Sanjiu was doomed, he dropped all resistance and smiled, triumph written all over his face. “There are no governments and no sacred mountains outside. There are only murderers, terrorists, and bombers, and all of that happened because the world outside lacks superior management like ours.”

“Okay, last question from me.”

Lin Sanjiu spoke without turning her head. While inwardly taking note of the time she had left, she flipped through the vibrantly printed primary school textbook. “Why do they keep feeding you all as if you’re pigs? What’ll happen to you in the end?”

Smith was stunned for a long while and then he laughed boisterously.

“So that we can be more healthy, of course! What the hell is wrong with you?!” He laughed so hard that his face contorted. “Do you think the sacred mountain or Mayor Orlean wants to eat us? Two days ago, an old lady in our building passed away. They took her body away and buried her in the graveyard. I’ve lived here for so long, yet I have never heard of anyone being killed for their meat because they were too fat!”

His wound began causing him too much pain so he stopped.

“Besides, all our food is distributed by the town hall. We have an unlimited supply of food, and if Mayor Orlean was hungry, why wouldn’t he just take some from there? Why bother making such an effort?”

Stunned, Lin Sanjiu rolled the book in her hand and looked at Smith.