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Chen Simiao is looking at XĂź Beijin with uncertainty.
His voice is a little dry, and his tone is almost desperate. He can’t believe someone still knew who he was, or knew his past. He asks, “but… but, if you already know who I am, then what is there to ask? I have nothing I can tell you anymore…”
“The defect.”
Chen Simiao immediately stops.
Xü Beijin slowly says, “when you were building this labyrinth, there was a traitor among us humans. A traitor who sneaked into the design, construction and final quality check.
They left a defect in this labyrinth, a defect that ‘they’ could leave from.
I need you to tell me, exactly where that defect is.”
Chen Simiao’s body starts shaking. Grabbing his hair, with a painful expression, he yells, “no! I can’t tell you! It’s… I don’t know! I don’t even know!”
“Do you really not?” Xü Beijin says, “your student betrayed humanity. He is the one to blame for all this. There was a slim hope we could have succeeded if not for him. He destroyed humanity’s hope.”
Chen Simiao is now kneeling on the ground. Veins are popping on his neck, as if he wants to explain, but there is nothing he can say. He cannot possibly excuse his student’s sin.
His favourite student.
Some scenes flash before his eyes. The past he spent with his student. This labyrinth. And the last moment… the moment of failure…
Chen Simiao is a renowned architect. He had students all over the world, and he enjoyed a stellar reputation. He was one of the main designers of this labyrinth.
He, and other architects and professionals of other fields, all built this labyrinth together, while they only had one week to come up with a design.
It might have been the most complex architectural plan ever produced in the history of architecture.
Chen Simiao himself toiled to perfect every detail, even foregoing sleep and whatnot. He and his student were solely in charge of, and are the only ones to have access to, the design.
Chen Simiao and his student were the only ones to have ever touched the actual physical document, and the storage carrying the electronic document during transfers.
In other words, any problems with the design must have been there on the document all along, while they were coming up with the baseline design in the very beginning.
Chen Simiao knows he never left any design flaws to betray humanity. There was no way he could do that, so, it could only be…
His student.
But why? He knew his student was a studious, positive and inquisitive child.
Why would he do that? What’s the meaning of all that?
He betrayed his own species, and he should know damned well that ‘they,’ the enemy, will never accept someone who betrayed their own species in the first place.
Chen Simiao cannot comprehend.
Not that anything would change whether he could understand his student or not.
He just watched humanity falter. He watched humans become prisoners, including him.
So here, he, alone, still lucid, but also insane, stays right there in the middle of the labyrinth, wondering──Wondering, why?
Xü Beijin is not interested in the ‘why.’ He doesn’t even know if this man really is Chen Simiao or an Actor Acting as ‘Chen Simiao.’
Maybe he just learned everything from his assigned script and gone mad to assume the role of ‘Chen Simiao’… Anything could have been possible.
He has no interest in learning his thoughts, his image of his student, or anything else.
He only wants to know…
His solemn gaze exerts a powerful pressure. Staring at this middle-aged man, he asks once again, pronouncing each and every syllable clearly, “where, is the defect?”
“I won’t tell you,” replies Chen Simiao.
XĂź Beijin takes a deep breath.
Chen Simiao starts incoherently blabbering, “I can’t possibly tell you. What are you trying to do with it? I can’t tell you… I don’t even trust you. I don’t believe… There can’t have been anyone who still knows about this.
They… we, humans, are done for. We’re off the deep end. That’s it. There’s no way to use that defect…”
“That is just your opinion!” Xü Beijin, for once, is speaking with a slightly wrathful tone, “but I have my ways. I can use the defect to…”
“But I don’t believe you,” Chen Simiao stubbornly refutes, “there’s no way I will just give up the defect to any rando who just comes and tells me to.”
XĂź Beijin quietly glares at him.
Lin Qin, standing by his side, gently grips his hand.
XĂź Beijin breathes out. He can feel an anger bubbling in his chest, but he knows it would do nothing to help. He also has nothing he could do to force Chen Simiao to spit it out.
So he changes the topic, “it’s because of you student, isn’t it.”
Chen Simiao holds his breath for a second.
Xü Beijin says, “if you made the defect known, it would have proven that your student is a shameless traitor. You don’t want to admit that.”
It’s the first time Xü Beijin has ever spoken using such harsh terms.
Chen Simiao’s face is all red, like a child being scolded for their mistakes. Even so, he still says, “I will not tell you anything.”
Lin Qin, seeing how difficult XĂź Beijin is faring, starts working his wrists.
Xü Beijin just sighs, and tiredly grabs Lin Qin’s hand to say, “it’s useless.”
Chen Simiao is still warily looking over at them.
Lin Qin stares at him for a bit and asks, “why?”
“Because he’s insane,” Xü Beijin says, “that’s why he insists… insists on thinking. It’s already known to all that his student betrayed humanity, otherwise, ‘they’ couldn’t have destroyed this labyrinth so effortlessly.
But where exactly that defect is, is probably something only Chen Simiao and his student, who worked on the original design, would know.”
Xü Beijin’s voice grows quieter as he speaks, almost turning into a whisper by the end.
Lin Qin, confused, curiously asks, “so what is that defect?”
A-Two also can’t help but perk his ears up.
He’s also curious what this defect Xü Beijin and Chen Simiao referring to is.
XĂź Beijin stays quiet for a moment, then finally answers.