Chapter 48: The Id

Facing the anger rising from the bottom of Lin Nian's heart, Miyahama Isshin lowered his gaze slightly, a cool smile playing on his lips. "Lin Nian-san, have you ever considered what kind of person you are?"

"That would seem to have nothing to do with you, Mr. Miyahama."

"No, ever since your enrollment, I have been observing you from all aspects, Lin Nian-san," Miyahama Isshin said. "People are always curious. Someone who draws the eyes of the world should possess some extraordinary trait—whether pride, anger, humility, or indifference. Yet in you, I saw nothing of the sort. I only saw a person, an ordinary person."

"If my performance since enrollment has disappointed you, I feel neither regret nor dismay. I cannot please everyone, nor have I ever intended to please others. I only need to live my own life well," Lin Nian said coldly.

"Yet ordinary people have no need for sharpness." Miyahama Isshin made a downward pressing gesture with his finger. "But from the very moment we met just now, I could feel an irrepressible sense of sharpness in you, as if with just the gentlest press right now, the blade would pierce right out from beneath your skin."

"Everyone has a temper, and I am not particularly fond of your condescending conversational style." Lin Nian laid his cards directly on the table. "As things stand right now, I do not believe there is anyone in this academy capable of 'sculpting' or 'guiding' me. And even if there were, it certainly wouldn't be you, Mr. Miyahama."

"Is it a matter of age? Do you feel that I am still too young?" Miyahama Isshin looked somewhat surprised by Lin Nian's perspective.

"No. If I were to judge people by age, I would be committing the exact same mistake as you."

"Then how did Lin Nian-san determine that I am not qualified to speak to you in such a domineering manner?"

"Such things are hard to put into words. If Mr. Miyahama insists on asking, I can only reply—I knew the moment I laid eyes on you." Lin Nian said calmly.

Miyahama Isshin began to applaud once more. "As expected, my judgment wasn't wrong, but I feel I still don't understand you on a deeper level."

"I'm sorry, I don't even understand myself." Lin Nian turned as if to leave the dining table. "You will have to excuse me, for this conversation between us is truly far from pleasant."

"Lin Nian, don't be in such a hurry to leave." Miyahama Isshin's voice sounded from behind him. For no apparent reason, Lin Nian sharply sidestepped and shifted nearly half a meter to the side. He whipped his head around, staring in shock and anger behind him, only to be stunned to find that Miyahama Isshin was still standing right where he was, completely motionless, his hands relaxed at his sides, his gaze resting loosely on him.

This was the second time today that Lin Nian had made such an unprovoked movement. This sensation was deeply unpleasant. Although nothing had happened, his body had reacted as if by reflex, creating a terrible feeling of losing control and becoming a marionette on strings.

Without a doubt, both of these meaningless actions had occurred after meeting this man, Miyahama Isshin. Lin Nian could only assume that everything was connected to the man standing before him. Driven by a mixture of curiosity, shock, and anger, he suppressed the urge to simply walk away, stood his ground, and asked, "What did you do to me?"

"What did I do to you?" Miyahama Isshin tilted his head. "Didn't you just say it yourself? You don't even understand yourself, so how can you be certain that you didn't do something to yourself?"

Words shrouded in mist, a nonsensical conversation.

Lin Nian was growing weary of this kind of dialogue. At the same time, he reminded himself that this was Kassel Academy, a gathering place for the anomalous, and that he was currently standing in the Annenberg Hall of the Student Union—among an elite group of anomalies, encountering bizarre occurrences was entirely par for the course.

"A Spiritual Speech?"

"Of course not. Under the 'Discipline' of the Man in Black, no one can unleash a Spiritual Speech, and I am no exception." Miyahama Isshin said with a faint smile. "Perhaps if you chat with me a bit longer and figure out a question that concerns us both most deeply, your answer will become self-evident."

"I am curious, how can a person manage to live within prescribed circumstances for decades and successfully blend into those circumstances as if it were entirely natural?" Miyahama Isshin looked closely at Lin Nian's face. "I have read your file. Throughout the past sixteen years of your life, you were ordinary—extremely ordinary. You spent your childhood in an orphanage and drifted through your youth in a rented apartment. Your biggest daily worries were school grades, utility bills, and rent. Your life seemed to consist of nothing more than the most mundane necessities and the monthly electricity bill."

"When I first saw this record, I thought the academy had made some mistake, or that there had been a technical error in rating you as 'S'-grade, because a half-breed should not be this ordinary." Miyahama Isshin said indifferently. "You have claws, and you have teeth, yet you chose to disguise yourself as an ordinary person for sixteen whole years. You even actively integrated into that life, struggling desperately to maintain and preserve it, terrified that your bloodline would destroy it all. To me, that is an incredible feat."

"May I ask if you have some sort of opinion on my life?" If Miyahama Isshin's initial arrogance had caused Lin Nian mild discomfort, these words were now bordering on provoking his true ire.

To invalidate someone's past life experiences was tantamount to completely rejecting that person's existence. It was a provocation; even if Lin Nian were to lunge forward right now and smash this Japanese man into the dining table, no one would say he was in the wrong.

"—Of course, I do not mean to imply that the lifestyle of 'retreating to the mountains' is incorrect, because I have seen such people in Japan, and quite a few of them at that. But these individuals share a common characteristic: they have suffered deeply from the torment brought by their bloodline. Some were mafia leaders, others ghosts living in the underworld. After experiencing seas of corpses, mountains of blood, and the Asura hells, they saw through the benefits, the drawbacks, the beautiful and the cruel aspects of their bloodline. Only then did they choose a life like yours." Miyahama Isshin looked calmly into Lin Nian's eyes, as if trying to pierce through to the deepest secrets hidden within those pupils. "Yet Lin Nian, the experiences of your past sixteen years should not have involved such things, right? Just what kind of cruel hells could you possibly have witnessed to make you choose to retract your claws and teeth and play the ordinary person for over a decade?"

Hell?

The black, solitary fortress set within the icy wasteland flashed briefly through Lin Nian's mind. A wave of desolation and chill rose from the depths of his heart, but he instantly forced it back down. He looked coldly at Miyahama Isshin and said, "I'm sorry, I have never seen any hell, nor have I seen any mountains of corpses or seas of blood. I am entirely satisfied with the life I led for the past sixteen years, and I can assure you that I am simply an ordinary, unremarkable person."

"If truly, as you say, your past sixteen years of life were without a ripple, then whether you are ordinary or not is not for you to decide right now, seeing as you have not yet experienced very much." Miyahama Isshin said slowly. "To tell whether a person is a leader or a coward, a revolutionary or a traitor, simply 'self-identifying' is not enough. Judging what kind of person someone is requires experiencing 'things'—a multitude of 'things,' both good and bad. When you stand before the threshold of a choice and make your own decision, only then will you know what kind of person you truly are."

Although annoyed by the ongoing conversation, Lin Nian listened carefully to Miyahama Isshin's words to the end. For he had always been a rational person; even when engaged in a verbal spat, he would analyze whether it was a 'debate' or a 'quarrel.' If it were the latter, he would abandon it without hesitation, refusing to waste time and simply walking away. If it were the former, he would see the debate through to completion without any extraneous emotional baggage.

He had to admit that Miyahama Isshin was right. The only way for a person to discover who they truly were was by encountering various situations and making reactions and choices in response.

Yet the past sixteen years of Lin Nian's life had been far too ordinary. He possessed 'power,' yet he had cowered and chosen to live as an ordinary person. Often, lying in his bed within that rented room, he would get excited alone, imagining what he could accomplish with this 'power.' He could become a track and athlete, compete in the Olympics, or even become a vigilante like Batman!

However, whenever his imagination reached its peak of excitement, he would feel afraid.

It was an unprovoked fear, lying in wait like something silently watching him from the dark, fathomless depths of his heart. Whenever Lin Nian's mind drifted to such thoughts, that fear would slither out like a venomous snake, pressing down upon him with its icy temperature and immense dread, dragging up memories of various harrowing periods and forcing him to abandon the idea altogether.

It almost felt as though someone had implanted a thought directly into his brain.

—Expose yourself, and you will be utterly destroyed beyond redemption.