The Threshold Between Humanity and Technology

Chapter 12 • Shackles and Gaze

The woman thrashed violently, only to be pinned down hard by two pairs of hands.

Her eyes blazed with the feral desperation of a cornered stray dog, as if she knew there was no way out for her.

Xie Chuan was strong, yet his eyes held his usual lazy disdain as he spoke:"C'mon, can we hurry this up with her? She's trying to dig her nails into my skin here."

Cui Xun moved faster than he spoke, driving a knee into the back of her knee to pin her down even harder. His voice was low and cold:"Stop moving. I won't promise the next move won't be a chokehold."

Half her mouth was muffled, but she still struggled fiercely, her feet kicking at the floor, her gaze still that feral stray's:"You have no idea what you're doing! I'm not… I'm not the one—!"

The system's cold chime cut through her cries:[Suspect Identified: Individual Han Ce.][Ruling: Voluntary Aggravated Homicide.][Current Threat Level: High.][Please make a Group Decision on Individual Quarantine or Elimination within 10 minutes.]

An invisible tension spread through the room, thick enough to choke on, making everyone's breath quicken despite themselves.

The room fell into an eerie silence.

"…What the hell is this?""Are we… are we supposed to kill her? Or let her go?""The system's abdicating judgment and making us the executioners now?""So her name's Han Ce…"

Murmurs burst forth, quiet and hesitant. Some pressed their backs to the walls, others shrank away.

For all their whispered doubts, those cold, stark words on the system's display cut like a knife through every heart. To end a living person's life with their own hands—there was no one who did not struggle with the thought.

Han Ce seemed to seize on their hesitation, a ragged snarl tearing from her throat:"You're just the ones who haven't been picked to kill yet! Soon you'll see—you'll all become me!"

Cui Xun slammed a fist into her back. "Shut up."

But she laughed, her wild cackle laced with triumphant glee, and went on:"You're all gathered around me now—but next time, you'll be gathered around someone among you!" Her gaze suddenly flicked to Lu Zhibai.

A collective gasp rippled through the room.

Lu Zhibai stood perfectly still, an invisible shroud of cold seeming to wrap around her. She was so frigid, it was as if the very air dared not touch her.

Her eyes, however, swept silently past the system camera and settled on the woman—staring at her like a wild card marked for elimination.

She did not speak a single word. She had already seen the truth clearly:

The system was not judging whether she had participated in the murder. It was recording whether she could exert control over the situation.

From the moment Han Ce had started screaming, the system's red glow had locked onto her once more. It was a silent question, hanging in the air:

How will you deal with an irrational killer? Will you choose to kill for the sake of logic?

Just then, Ji Yuan spoke up slowly:"Calm down. We are not the system."

He glanced around at the crowd, his voice steady: "This is not a test of whether we will kill. This is the system trying to turn us against each other, so it can clean up the mess itself."

"She killed someone. She is a murderer. The system said we 'may deal with her'—it did not order us to kill her."

He paused, his gaze falling to the floor: "So why can't we just lock her up?"

A voice shot back in protest: "Easy for you to say, but the second we let go, she'll kill again.""Lock her up how? Pin her down 24/7 with our bare hands?""The system gave us the right to deal with her, but no tools, no cages—nothing.""It's forcing our hand."

Xie Chuan spoke up suddenly, his tone half-joke, half-sneer: "Why not lock her up with Lu Zhibai? Isn't she the system's favorite?"

The air grew heavy once more. Every eye in the room snapped to Lu Zhibai. And for the first time, she moved.

She lifted her head, a flicker of assessment in her eyes, as if the question had piqued her curiosity. She glanced at Han Ce, her voice calm and flat:"She is not a suitable subject for observation.""She will disrupt the natural evolution of the variables."

No one fully understood her words, but her utterly emotionless tone—stripped of all human feeling—made everyone take an instinctive step back.

There was no anger in her, no hatred, no desire for justice. She simply did not want a "messy variable that would ruin the experiment" to continue existing.

Shen Zheng let out a soft laugh, as if he had understood every word, and murmured under his breath:"…This is murder, not grading a test paper."

The system's digital ticking started, counting down the seconds:[Remaining Disposal Time: 07:12]

And in the room, for the first time, a group of people faced a choice that would decide the fate of a living person.

While everyone still argued over killing or locking her up, Lu Zhibai moved.

She walked straight toward Han Ce, and in full view of everyone, knelt down in front of her, her gaze cool and assessing as she stared at the woman. Han Ce's jaw was clamped tight, madness still glinting in her eyes:"…You think you've caught me, but you're just the first to step into the next level. And we're all just… guinea pigs…"

Crack—

Lu Zhibai's palm slammed down without mercy on Han Ce's throat. Han Ce's thrashing cut off abruptly, a crushing sense of suffocation rising in her throat, her eyes glazing over, her consciousness fading fast.

Then Lu Zhibai lifted her head, her gaze sweeping over the crowd, her voice cold and restrained:"You're all so incompetent."

It was a comment, directed at a group of inefficient test subjects—and no one dared to reply.

In the next second, Lu Zhibai stood up. She assessed the load-bearing structure of the bed frame, then moved quickly to tear sheets off an adjacent bed and rip them into thick strips.

She did not ask for help, nor did she explain. She only acted.

She tested the tension of each knot, then used the cloth strips to bind the woman in gray's limbs tightly to the bed rails.

Layer upon layer, her knots were precise and tight—enough to hold fast, but not tight enough to cut off her circulation or kill her.

Cui Xun, who had still been gripping Han Ce's shoulders, slowly let go. Xie Chuan raised an eyebrow, let out a low whistle, and stepped back:"D*mn. She's good."

Lu Zhibai bent down to check each bound wrist and ankle, making sure Han Ce could not break free. Only then did she step back half a step and brush off her hands.

Her movements were crisp and efficient—so much so that even the system fell silent for a heartbeat.

An unspoken pressure hung in the air. Ji Yuan looked at Lu Zhibai, his voice slow as he asked: "Aren't you afraid of triggering the system's reaction?"

Lu Zhibai did not turn back, only tossing over a single sentence:"Action is faster than argument."

The red glow of the camera still clung to her like a shadow, unrelenting—but it issued no punishment, no new ruling.

The system only broadcast its cold, mechanical message:[Target: Status Stable. Individual Restraint Measures Implemented.][System Identification: Lu Zhibai, Individual with Highest Response Frequency and Efficiency.][Internal System Note: Abnormal Weight Fluctuation Detected. Sustained Tracking Recommended.]

Someone whispered the words aloud: "Individual Lu Zhibai…"

When they looked at her again, their expressions had shifted, unconsciously.

The room fell into a brief silence once more.

This time, however, no one dared to say a single word about Lu Zhibai.

Shen Zheng watched it all unfold, then let out a soft laugh, his voice low, as if speaking to himself:"Truly… a beautiful solution."

He leaned back against the wall, his interest clearly piqued even more than before.

On the other side of the room, Lu Xu lowered his head slightly, as if jotting down every detail. His expression was blank, but a storm raged in his eyes.

The system's red glow flickered across the room—then, once again, locked onto Lu Zhibai.

[Current Observation Level of Individual Lu Zhibai: 4.][Sustained High-Priority Tracking Activated.][System Red Dot to Follow Complete Behavioral Trajectory.]

The camera moved silently, unblinking. Wherever she went, it followed.

In that moment, Lu Zhibai stood in the light, her gaze calm and unwavering as she stared ahead—as if she did not care at all about the system's unblinking watch.

Beneath the surface, however, her mind was already quietly deducing the next step:

Does the system want me to solve problems… or is it recording who holds the power?

She was no longer just analyzing the situation. She had begun to try to understand the very pattern of the system's will.

If it was a logical construct, then its flaws could be exploited—exploited for her survival.

In this world controlled by the system, everyone was under constant surveillance and judgment, life and death hanging by a single thread.

But she had no idea that the system's fascination with her was far from over.

[Chapter 12 • End]