Chapter 95#
Distant Star Reflection 03#
Yu Feichen was, of course, obedient.
He loosened his grip slightly. But he found that rather than letting Tan Per arch his neck pretending constraint, it was easier keeping him gripped like this.
To prevent sound from being recorded, Yu Feichen leaned close to Tan Per’s ear: “This time, do I need to help the rebels overthrow the church?”
Unlike the chaotic fragment dungeons, complete worlds operated with self-consistent rules and rigorous logic. Yu Feichen hadn’t forgotten the Door’s requirement: deconstruct fragment dungeons, occupy complete worlds. Once believers changed a world’s destiny through their own power, paradise could assume control.
Yet paradise hadn’t specified which side to take—whether to rebel against the church or dutifully serve it.
“That depends on you,” Tan Per’s gaze remained calm. “You can join the rebel faction, or participate in the empire’s operations through the duke’s position. As long as you complete the occupation.”
Yu Feichen’s gaze shifted from red abrasion marks visible at Tan Per’s collar, fixing directly on the deity’s eyes. The supreme god apparently wasn’t planning to guide him—perhaps planning to shirk again. But Its current predicament was dire; shirking meant accepting electrical therapy.
Yu Feichen said: “I’ll consider it.”
Thinking further, he realized choosing required certain knowledge. He needed to understand this world.
From Claros, he knew believers entering the Door of Eternal Night truly became “adults.” Yet even so, full competence required successfully completing five Door missions before being classified as skilled, unlocking additional features—free team formation, communication platforms and such. Additionally, there was memory function: acquiring the replaced person’s key memories, understanding the world’s background and the character’s social relationships.
Far better than the current state of ignorance, even suspected by the secretary of mental illness.
“I think,” Yu Feichen said, “you could consider granting early memory access. Then I could make choices quickly and incidentally rescue you from this interrogation room.”
Tan Per said flatly: “You’re inexperienced. Hastily receiving memories invites unnecessary emotional interference in cold judgment.”
This wasn’t the answer Yu Feichen wanted.
“Recently I heard something,” he said.
“What?”
Yu Feichen pulled up Tan Per’s collar, covering the red bruises, continuing: “Paradise’s supreme deity treats Its believers like a kindergarten teacher, wishing to tear bread into tiny pieces and feed them sequentially.”
Tan Per seemed to smile slightly.
“Claros said that?”
The comment indeed came from Claros, who scorned paradise’s systems, believing shouldn’t exist the Power Goddess’s gates one through seven, shouldn’t exist believers’ lengthy growth periods, especially shouldn’t exist cheat-code-like Resurrection Days.
“If it were me, I’d pour all knowledge into them day one, then throw everyone into the eternal night. A believer takes several epochs training before entry to the night—yet if I used energy spent raising these hothouse flowers to feed dogs, those dogs would bring back dozens of worlds—stop looking at me like that. Everyone outside operates this way,” Claros had said.
Perhaps it was the interrogation room’s excessively desolate lighting, or perhaps Yu Feichen’s interrogator role made every expression this person wore seem like resistance—the faint smile at Tan Per’s lips differed from the deity’s merciful warmth, instead cutting with icy sharpness.
“Yet my believers beyond the gate have always been unstoppable. The power they bring me far surpasses other eternal night deities.”
Yu Feichen grasped the supreme god’s position.
It preferred electrical torture over giving him rank advancement.
The two faced off. Tan Per: “Besides, I don’t wish to see you understand the entire world through merely one person’s eyes.”
Yu Feichen listened with feigned casualness, not even looking at Tan Per’s eyes. His gaze fixed on the other’s thin lips, slightly opening and closing with speech.
Yu Feichen released the electric chair back restraint. Another rigid leather strap was slowly pulled from the retraction clasp with sharp clicking sounds. Tan Per pressed his lips together, gazing at Yu Feichen with eyes like quenched steel points, yet trembling slightly just before they cut skin—this slow, irregular sound apparently triggered physiological fear. His pupils dilated slightly, a thin red tint appearing at the eye’s bottom.
Rather beautiful, actually.
Yu Feichen found his mind wandering—seemingly from alpha instinct—though he couldn’t understand why his gaze fixed so on another alpha. Was it from same-species antagonism?
Yet his hand movements proceeded unaffected—lifting Tan Per’s jaw, forcing it open, compelling him to bite the restraint, then securing it firmly across the other side, sealing this person’s mouth.
Tan Per probably planned his execution by a future date. But imprisoned as he was, Yu Feichen felt no concern about such threats.
The instant Yu Feichen finished, the warden appeared beyond the glass.
Yu Feichen withdrew his hand. Tan Per’s head hung downward, restrained by the strap, completely deprived of voice, only ragged breathing remaining.
The warden watched with interest.
“Duke,” he said, “did you extract anything?”
“Nothing more than you,” Yu Feichen replied unhurriedly. “Don’t forget to feed him. Tonight I’ll continue questioning.”
Finishing, he turned toward the exit. Pausing briefly at the door, he heard the warden’s assistant ask whether to continue interrogation.
“How interrogate when he can’t speak? Release it?” The warden smiled meaningfully. “Since the Duke personally interrogates, we simply follow the Duke’s wishes.”
Yu Feichen glanced back at Tan Per. The warden’s earlier frustration partly stemmed from failed interrogation, yet more from fearing consequences for ineffective work. Since a duke volunteered to become that ineffective person, he happily transferred interrogation authority entirely, saving Tan Per from electricity.
The warden was settled, but Yu Feichen wasn’t certain the priest would be as easily dismissed.
He left the corridor, secretary following, driver following too. The secretary asked: “Did you harshly interrogate Bishop Tan Per? No, Duke, no, don’t play with guns. You have authorized arms, but they’re not things you should touch.”
Yu Feichen’s finger stopped on the trigger. When today’s Tan Per’s image overlapped with the supreme god’s in his mind, an unmotivated surge arose—dominance instinct, like naturally wanting to pull a trigger when holding a lethal weapon. His gun muzzle aimed first at vast nebulae beyond the viewport, then drifted aimlessly across the ceiling, the silver-white authorized weapon coiling like a tamed fish in his hand, making the secretary nervous.
“Manager,” the driver said shakily, “what are alpha mania precursors?”
“Violence impulse,” the secretary sighed sadly. “Little Si, I think we’ll lose our employment soon.”
“Actually, whenever the Duke appears I deeply contemplate—do I really need this salary?”
Yet Yu Feichen’s voice held no mania whatsoever, instead chillingly calm, almost like lucid interval: “Take me to the cockpit.”
“Tell me on the way—what are these priests here for?”
The starship operator was a priest, the electrical apparatus controller was a priest. They hardly seemed clergy, more like engineers.
A civilization with interstellar vessels governed by popes, emperors, and nobility was inherently abnormal.
At that moment, the ship tilted slightly.
Broadcast sounded throughout: “Isabella will commence first jump transition in five minutes. Immediately leave corridors, passages, and decks. Proceed to nearest metal compartments and await transition completion.”
The vast starfield beyond the viewport dimmed momentarily, as if suddenly drained of light and heat.