The room fell silent.
"When it says 'devour', what does that mean?" Lu Yanli asked.
He cast his gaze towards the rippling green sea outside the glass, his eyes were lifeless. Ever since he knew that he might just be a containment, his mentality had changed significantly.
No one answered him, including his own future self.
After a while, he said, "I'm going out for a while." Lu Yanli felt that he couldn't just wait here, he would rather take the initiative into his own hands.
The brain had no intention of imprisoning them, so Lu Yanli wanted to leave and the door opened smoothly. Lu Yanli returned to the room where the brain in the jar was stored.
"Oh, do you have any questions? I'm an old friend, I'm very busy now." The head made an exaggerated sound.
Lu Yanli: "Of course you know what I want to ask." As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and grasped one of the blood vessels that was as thick as the winding tentacles in Cthulhu's words, "You should know what answer I want to hear."
The head made a sharp and strange sound, very similar to the strange sound Lu Yanli had heard before. This sound was the only one in the empty room. A white head with bloodshot eyes was connected to several tubes and floated in the air. This scene was enough to make people suspicious. Lu Yanli just looked at it quietly and ignored it.
He now doubted even more that he had experienced everything, the familiar door of the institute, the familiar sound it made, some people he had met before were either abnormal or investigators from the institute... everything, everything, was related to the institute.
"Is that enough?" Lu Yanli said.
"I just think you're funny, really." The head said, "I didn't expect you to become a real human. It's really weird."
"If I'm not a human, what else can I be?"
"Yes..." It suddenly stopped talking, "In short, you are not the same as before."
"Also, I have to say that you willingly let us devour you. You cannot retaliate."
"voluntary?"
"Yes, to be honest, we wouldn't dare to do anything unless you were willing." The head shook twice excitedly, almost dropping the pipe connecting it to the tube. It immediately became quiet, and it made a sound, not knowing what illusion it had simulated for itself.
After a long while, it continued to speak vaguely: "You don't have to think that my situation is bad. In my opinion, you are the same as me. There is no difference between us."
Lu Yanli: "I won't just have a head left."
Brain: “It’s all because of you…” It suddenly stopped talking again, and was about to tell the news as if nothing had happened.
This made Lu Yanli feel even more uncomfortable. He looked at her for a few seconds, then slowly walked closer and stretched out his hand, with his fingertips about to touch her.
"Hey, hey, hey, stop, stop, don't touch it. Your brain is a delicate instrument. If it breaks, you can't fix it for me."
Lu Yanli didn't say anything, but just observed silently with his eyes, no one knew what he was looking at.
"You just said that you devoured me?" He said in a very light voice, "Let me guess, this half of you was once mine, right?"
"What else did you swallow?"
"First, you volunteered. Second, we are now a cooperative relationship, you can't be so fussy." The brain said, "Otherwise, I will have to find someone else to cooperate with."
"I just want to know what I used to be."
The brain is restless.
Lu Yanli could tell from its tone that if it was a dog, it must have a bad temper and a changeable personality. He had been trying to anger it intentionally or unintentionally, and now it seemed that he was about to succeed.
"What's the point of you knowing who you used to be? We're all going out together anyway, and you're already a woman, isn't that great? It's you who wanted to be a woman." The brain continued to chatter.
"The machine will be ready soon. They are still fighting each other and cannot take care of us. Tomorrow, tomorrow we can leave."
It keeps changing the subject.
Lu Yanli didn't believe it. He was more certain that his brain just wanted to trap him here. This thing seemed to say a lot, but in fact it didn't say anything. It had been secretly guiding him to do something. He suddenly asked, "You can hallucinate yourself, but can you hallucinate others?"
Still trying to persuade him, his brain immediately answered, "Yes."
“Do you have emotions?”
"Yes, a fish I raised died. I was very sad and heartbroken for a long time." The brain sighed formally.
"It takes a long time to raise someone, so the relationship becomes deep."
"Yes, I have had it for several years."
Both sides knew that this was just the brain's imagination of raising a fish, as if it had really changed the water and fed the fish, touched the cold and slippery fish scales with its own hands, and buried it with its own hands.
"You've never had any other pets before?"
"No, I won't think about it anymore." The brain sighed.
"Before the ocean mutated, there would be no mutant fish on the seafloor. Why don't you want to raise another one?"
"Forget it, I haven't shown up yet."
…
Lu Yanli had already obtained the information he wanted. He believed that he had acquired "feelings" for several years, and taking into account the other clues he had mentioned, he was completely certain that the other party's "feelings" were acquired.
After getting the answer, he walked out despite the dissuasion of his whole brain.
He needed to know something else, like what he was.