Gamers Are Fierce

Chapter 1110: Chapter 109: My Love (14)

The barrel lifted her hair, revealing the face hidden beneath the black hair.

The features were exactly the same as those of Mavis in the photograph.

But she was expressionless, her eyes hollow and devoid of any human emotion visible in the pale blue iris.

Comparatively, the wooden doll held by Li Ang at this moment had more "humanity" than she did.

Mavis stared at the television, not even flinching when Li Ang pointed the gun at her forehead.

[Quick... do it...]

A searing pain spread across Li Ang’s arm again, with new, scrawled chaotic tattoos appearing,

like those of a person on the verge of death, enduring immense pain and fright.

"..."

Li Ang glanced calmly at the tattoo, slowly unlocking the safety of the pistol, his finger gently resting on the trigger.

Then, he abruptly twirled the gun in his hand, twirling it like a flourish, and slipped it into his suit pocket without pulling the trigger on Mavis.

[Steven, what are you doing?!]

The tattoo appeared on his arm,

Li Ang glanced at the relentless burning tattoo, raised his head, and said towards the air, "You should be able to see the scene around me, right?

I’m giving you one last chance to tell me the truth."

[What are you talking about? Quick, stop Mavis, I’m about to break down, think about your family...]

The tattoo continued to write more frantically,

Li Ang sighed deeply, grabbed the wooden doll suspended in mid-air, and stepped onto the double bed, rushing towards the window on the left side of the room.

Bam!

The wooden doll slammed heavily against the window, the craft knife in its hand cutting the glass with a sharp screech.

The next second, that sensation of detachment flooded in,

When he opened his eyes again, Li Ang found himself back in the house’s living room.

The living room was still filled with black mist, the silver cross in Spirit Medium Barbara’s hand emitting a faint glow, forming a barrier against the black fog,

And Barbara herself, both angry and surprised, stared at Li Ang, asking in a stern voice, "Why?"

"Hmm?"

Li Ang raised an eyebrow slightly, remarking nonchalantly, "You’re questioning why I didn’t just shoot Mavis a moment ago,

resulting in you, Steven’s parents, and Steven himself being in mortal danger right now.

Right?"

Barbara took a deep breath and said, "Mavis has completely lost her self-awareness. She’s no longer the person you remember..."

"Stop."

Li Ang interrupted Barbara’s words, casually saying, "You’ve got one thing wrong.

The reason I didn’t shoot just now isn’t because I felt sorry for Mavis, nor did I hesitate because Mavis is Steven’s wife.

It’s because I wanted to return to this world to confirm something."

"Confirm what?"

Barbara subconsciously asked, "What thing?"

"Heh,"

Li Ang chuckled, casually glancing at Steven’s parents, and replied calmly, "What do you think happened to Steven and Mavis, as a couple?

Both are fond of cryptography, share common interests and language, have a son and a daughter, live in harmony, and lead a happy life.

The husband is a well-paid white-collar worker, the wife is well-educated, plays the piano, and likes to collect high-end dolls.

The two children are also very easy to care for.

So, why did this family fall apart?"

"What are you talking about?"

Barbara frowned and said, "Didn’t I just explain? Mavis is an orphan, introverted from a young age, and only improved after marrying you.

However, during a family trip, she was involved in a collision with a motorcycle, resulting in the death of the rider.

This incident left a severe mental scar on her, causing her to progressively deteriorate over the years, experiencing bouts of depression and mania,

to the point where even constant medication couldn’t cure her.

Ultimately, she chose self-destruction."

"Is that really the case?"

Li Ang smiled and said, "I have a different theory about the ’truth’ behind the Stevens family."

He raised his hand, pointing to his eyes, and calmly asked, "Right now, what color are my iris in your eyes."

"What? Are you crazy?"

Barbara looked incredulously, bewildered as the black mist threatened to engulf them, yet he still found time to discuss eye color.

Steven’s mother trembled and said, "Steven, my dear, were you shocked somehow in the Spirit Realm?"

"Shocked? Not really."

Li Ang waved his hand dismissively, perceiving the pervasive black mist as nonexistent, "I just need you to answer my question. If your answer satisfies me, I’ll cooperate again and return to the Spirit Realm."

"..."

Barbara took a deep breath, "Pale blue. The color of your irises is pale blue."

"Very good."

Li Ang snapped his fingers and casually remarked, "The so-called iris is the circular and flat membrane within the middle layer of the eye wall, mainly composed of connective tissue, containing pigments, blood vessels, and smooth muscle.

Iris colors can be broadly classified into dark brown, light brown, amber, green, gray, blue, purple, and pink.

Of course, regardless of the iris color, it depends on the amount, type, and distribution of melanin within the iris.

And these are controlled by multiple genetic loci in the human gene sequence. The known genetic loci include EYCL1, EYCL2, and EYCL3, among which the OCA2 gene at EYCL3 plays a critical role in most eye colors."

Li Ang paused for a moment, then smilingly said, "The OCA2 gene is an integral membrane protein involved in transmembrane transport of small molecules, particularly tyrosine, a precursor of melanin, affecting skin color, hair color, eye color, as well as physical features like freckles and moles.

Since it’s a gene, it can be inherited,

The most common iris color worldwide is dark brown,

Light brown typically appears among the Middle Eastern white ethnic groups,

The lighter amber color is even rarer, usually belonging to mixed-race individuals in Europe.

Comparatively, blue iris colors are more common in Europe.

Green iris colors are often found among the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Turkish, Pashtun peoples, etc.

These traits get passed down within the same ethnic group,

as for gray and purple, they’re variations of blue iris, while pink appears due to lack of pigment in the iris, common among albinos.

So what kind of iris color results from intermarriage between different ethnic groups?"

Li Ang slipped his hand into his pocket, calmly saying, "Iris color is a qualitative trait controlled by multiple genes, four equivalent genes lacking a dominant-recessive relationship but add up with each other.

In the absence of mutation,

Each effective gene increases an effect value.

For instance, mixing red with blue produces purple, mixing brown with blue produces green.

Notice anything odd?

Steven himself has pale blue irises, his wife Mavis has hazel irises, and their children’s eyes are also brown.

Not the genetically governed green or light green."

Li Ang chuckled and said, "This is very strange,

Why do both children, Robin and Rin, have brown irises?

According to genetic rules, all four genes must simultaneously determine the same color to produce a pure iris color.

In other words, Robin and Rin might not be Steven’s children."

Steven’s parents were stunned and exclaimed on the spot: "What did you say?!"

"Is that so surprising?"

Li Ang spread his hands and said: "Alright, let me give you a hypothesis.

Steven came from a well-off family, with wealthy parents,

whereas Mavis was an orphan, growing up in poor conditions.

Although they truly loved each other, their differing family backgrounds led to frequent clashes in life views,

Steven’s parents, being upper-class, privately held various prejudices against their daughter-in-law despite not expressing it verbally.

Steven, often busy with work, lacked care for the family,

so Mavis, enduring long-term loneliness, seeking other diversions was quite reasonable.

She wove a broccoli-colored hat for Steven and had two children that weren’t his.

Steven, oblivious to this, treated the two children as his own.

The days passed by like this,

until an accident occurred during a family trip.

Mavis drove a Chevrolet SUV and hit a motorcycle,

the injured was sent to the hospital and died despite rescue efforts.

Afterward, Mavis discovered that the deceased was her lover.

The "puppy" lover, unsatisfied with merely being a third party, might have wanted to join in by driving along with the Stevens Family for some adventure,

or perhaps he simply wanted to see his two children.

In any case, no one realized this except Mavis herself.

With the marriage failing and love shattered, Mavis’s mental state worsened, leading to subsequent chain reactions,

ultimately resulting in a tragedy."

Li Ang paused for a moment, glanced at the dazed Steven’s parents and the spirit medium, and said with a relaxed smile: "What do the three of you think of this story?"

"..."

The spirit medium Barbara was the first to react, taking a deep breath and slowly saying: "Because you discovered the fact that the two children aren’t Steven’s, you fell into anger and despair,

refusing to kill Mavis in the spirit realm.

You want her to endure eternal torment in the spirit realm, unable to live, unable to die; that’s the price of her betrayal.

As for Robin and Rin,

those two children have nothing to do with you, so naturally, you don’t care about their life or death."

"You’ve learned to answer rapidly, huh?"

Li Ang chuckled and nodded, "That’s right...a ghostly answer?

This isn’t some ’Temptation of Going Home’ family ethics drama with themes of betrayal, infidelity, downfall, third parties, punishment, etc.,

nor is it a scene of ’bull-headed joy and pure love warriors weeping.’

Mavis and Steven’s relationship didn’t break, they didn’t betray each other.

Or rather, there was no foundation for them to betray each other."

"No betrayal?"

Steven’s parents said hesitantly: "What do you mean?"

"It’s simple."

Li Ang shrugged and said calmly: "You just mentioned, Steven is the person Mavis most cares about.

Because of this, only Steven can freely enter the spirit realm modeled after this house without being indiscriminately attacked by Mavis.

If Mavis harbored hatred and murderous intent towards Steven, then an unarmed Steven would hardly have survived in the spirit realm for so long.

In the spirit realm, the black cat and wooden puppet Steven encountered, were naturally emanating residual power from Mavis without her conscious control.

That’s why, in the spirit realm, the black cat and wooden puppet instinctively attacked Steven.

And in this world, the environment we are in now, these black gases are essentially the same as the black cat and wooden puppet,

all unconsciously emitted by Mavis.

Knowing this,

now, let me narrate the second hypothesis.

Mavis and Steven love each other, their souls are in harmony, living a happy and fulfilling life.

Until one day, Mavis discovered a fact.

She was about to die."

Li Ang paused, quickly speaking before Barbara could: "I know what you want to say.

The cause of Mavis’s death was taking too many sleeping pills and cutting herself with a blade, losing too much blood.

Ultimately, it was her mental illness.

But what if you see effects as causes?

Mavis’s mental illness wasn’t because she injured someone while driving, but because she knew her days were numbered.

She realized that her husband had been deceiving her all along,

all of this,

a harmonious family, a joyous life, were fabricated illusions, freewebnøvel.coɱ

even she herself could hardly say why she existed."

"What exactly are you talking about?"

Barbara clenched the silver cross in her hand, her fingers turning pale due to excessive force.

"Hehe,"

Li Ang shook his head with a smile, "You should be able to see in the spirit realm, everything of mine, or rather experiences?

The matters within the spirit realm are constructed based on the deceased’s memories and imagination.

Everything in the spirit realm house served its final value and had a reason for existence.

Whether it was the padlock I opened at the start or the rabbit doll corpse I dragged out from the bathroom, they all did.

But some clues I’ve found remain unexplained.

First, the Chevrolet SUV I saw in the house’s garage.

That car was brand new, intact, with no signs of crash damage, and the surface paint was not repainted.

If Mavis couldn’t accept the car accident, then why allow the Chevrolet to remain in the garage?

If Mavis didn’t mind the Chevrolet, only because the spirit realm modeled on reality, why didn’t the car show any damage marks?

Furthermore, with Steven’s high income and well-off family, why would they continue to keep this accident car in the garage?

Where’s Steven’s own vehicle? He surely wouldn’t be driving an SUV to work, right?"

He casually shook his head towards the garage and said, "If I now pass through these black gases and open the garage door, what will I see inside?

A broken SUV? A new SUV?

Or a sedan?

Of course, the focus isn’t on this, but on the hidden box I found on the driver’s seat of the spirit realm Chevrolet SUV."