Chapter 156 Angelina's Tea Party 25

For example.

Imagine a child before you, abandoned by unloving parents to die in the wilderness. Because of their tragic death, they harbor deep resentment and refuse to leave, becoming the source of pollution in an instance.

If it were you, how would you clear this source of pollution?

A. Give them a loving hug, tell them the world is beautiful, and that their parents had no choice but to abandon them due to illness, poverty, or being hunted. Tell them not to hold onto hatred and to hurry toward a beautiful and happy next life!

B. Scathingly curse the parents for their lack of virtue, saying their ancestral graves deserve to be struck by lightning, and that their ancestors must have had some Dongying blood to act so inhumanely. Then, find these wicked parents and subject them to whips, tiger benches, branding irons, and all eighteen kinds of torture in front of the child to vent their resentment.

C. Tell them about your own tragic childhood, showing that many people in the world are just like them. Let them be moved by your story, so they abandon evil for good, dedicating themselves to helping children like them and hunting down parents like theirs.

Which is your choice?

Choice A? Choice B? Choice C?

Congratulations, you are both entirely right and entirely wrong.

This is a classic simulation question created by a certain guild later on. They simulated an instance that collapsed after they cleared its source of pollution and invited many players to participate, attempting to cultivate a group of talents capable of clearing pollution sources.

This caused quite a stir at the time, but it ultimately ended in a disastrous failure.

Because people discovered that even in the same instance, each of these three paths had people who succeeded and people who failed.

There was no pattern, no pattern at all.

Some people refused to believe it and used items that allowed communication across instances, making two participants say and do exactly the same things, and finally choosing B.

Everything they said and did in the instance, even what they ate, was identical. Yet, the final result was still disappointing—one succeeded, and the other failed.

From then on, people knew that there were no shortcuts or established experiences to rely on when it came to overcoming a source of pollution.

Clearing a source of pollution depends entirely on the challenger's own observation and judgment, and of course, a bit of luck.

Lin Xiangjun's own luck wasn't that great. While solving the pollution source while clearing an instance would be great, she never intended to rely on clearing it to get rewards.

As if sensing Lin Xiangjun's hesitation, the butler fell silent for a moment before speaking again, "I've told you everything I know. However, there is one small thing I'm not sure of—it's just a personal guess."

"Nancy envied Miss Angelina. She would usually imitate Miss Angelina's every word and action. But after obtaining Miss Angelina's identity, she instead began to revert to her original personality."

"The first piece of jewelry Miss Angelina gave Nancy was a Pearl Necklace. She has always worn it, refusing to take it off even though its luster has faded from wear."

"A Pearl Necklace... she's always wearing it?"

"Yes, always. This was also the key factor that allowed me to immediately distinguish her from Miss Angelina. Miss Angelina never wore Pearl Necklaces; she said she would only wear them once she reached the age of a grandmother."

"..."

Lin Xiangjun ignored the Guests who had retreated to the other side of the room in fear. She raised her hand, removed the Pearl Necklace from the neck of the headless corpse sitting in the main seat, and waved it before the eyes of the head on the floor.

Angelina... no, Nancy's eyes were fixed on the Pearl Necklace. She said hatefully, "Give me back my Pearl Necklace!"

"Yours?" Lin Xiangjun sneered. "This belongs to Miss Angelina, not to an impostor like you."

Whether it was Angelina's name or the word "impostor" that triggered her, Nancy suddenly flew into a frenzy. "It's mine! It's mine! She said with her own mouth that she was giving it to me! So it's mine!"

The sight of a head on the floor in a fit of impotent rage was actually quite comical, giving off a sense of being 'disabled but determined.'

"Oh? Just because Miss Angelina said she'd give it to you, it becomes yours?"

"She said she was giving it to me with her own mouth, so it's mine!"

Looking down at the floor from above was too taxing on the neck. Lin Xiangjun leaned down, grabbed Nancy's hair, and carried her toward the study.

"If she said she'd give it to you, then it's yours—but what about Angelina's face and her identity? Did she say she'd give those to you too?"

Of course not.

The head in her hand fell silent for a moment. Blood dripped from the severed neck onto the floor, pitter-pattering and splashing into tiny blooms of red.

"Angelina... was a very kind and beautiful girl. She didn't have the haughty airs of those noble ladies. She was gentle with others and had a good reputation in high society."

"Even when facing a rustic, common girl from the countryside like me, she never looked down on me. She lent me her clothes and jewelry, let me stay in her home, attended classes with her, and prepared the food I liked."

"I liked her and respected her from the bottom of my heart. But of course, I was also jealous of her—she was kind, beautiful, and from a wealthy family. Her brother and father loved her, and her fiancé was a paragon among men. She was born with everything."

"I was once truly happy for her happiness. But why, why did I end up doing such a thing?"

Nancy's voice was calm yet tinged with a hint of bewilderment, as if she were truly pondering why she had done it.

By now, they had reached the steps leading down to the study. She said as if suddenly realizing something, "Later, I figured it out."

"Because she was stupid!"

"She didn't say she'd give them to me, but so what? For a fool like her, even if it wasn't me, someone else would have eventually snatched them. I just moved a bit faster than the others!"

"What did I do wrong? I saw a fool enjoying a life she didn't deserve. It's like seeing a three-year-old child trying to gnaw on a whole hind leg of a cow—she couldn't eat that much anyway! Giving her so much is the real waste; she didn't know how to make the best use of things at all!"

"Besides, I stole this identity; I stole it with my own ability! She couldn't protect her own things, so can she blame me for having bad intentions? When she was being so charitable, was she too stupid to even consider what kind of person she was dealing with? She deserved to be deceived!"

"Why should she be the Marchioness? Aside from her family background, in what way did her looks, etiquette, knowledge, refinement, or social skills surpass mine? This position of Marchioness should have been mine! Mine! Not that fool's, who didn't even have the most basic sense of caution!"

Parasites never consider that they only grew so large because they stole nutrients from their host. Nor do they think about how those nutrients originally belonged to the host, and those things never belonged to them in the first place.