Chapter 10: Flowery Words and Lie Detector Tests
Chapter 10: Flowery Words and Lie Detector Tests
The man did not move towards the bed, but merely stood in the doorway and nodded to Jenkins, "Come with me."
He said.
Jenkins immediately rolled out of bed and put on his shoes and followed with his head bowed, feeling a bit uneasy.
The two made their way through the back corridors of the church, greeting many acquaintances, and eventually came to a small three-storey building that Jenkins had never been inside before.
The small building was as unremarkable as it seemed from his memory, and the original owner never seemed to notice it.
The middle-aged man remained silent and led Jenkins into the small building.
At the doorway there was a young man who was sitting there while drinking tea.
"Good morning Captain Bincy, eh, and is this the newbie?"
He stood up and greeted warmly, but the middle-aged man didn't stop his stride, simply nodding and leading Jenkins around the corner into a side corridor.
Jenkins could hear shouting behind him, "Hey, with the new guy is it possible to adjust the duty roster? I've had enough of watching the door here!"
"Very workmanlike."
Jenkins thought to himself.
The two men made their way inward along the corridor. The walls of the corridor were in a bad condition, but fortunately no spiders were hanging down. They eventually stopped at the door of a room marked [034], and the middle-aged man pulled out a large set of keys threaded together with iron rings, staring at them for a while before picking one up and pulling Jenkins through the door.
Inside it seemed to be a study. It was clean and tidy, nothing fancy, and it was very dark due to the lack of windows.
With the little bit of light that filtered through the door, Jenkins noticed that the middle aged man reached out and pulled a book from the shelf. From somewhere else there came a soft sound of gears turning and the floor started shrinking of its own accord, revealing a downward passage in the floor.
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"Pretty traditional, huh?"
The man's muffled voice came, and it took Jenkins sometime to realise that he was talking to him.
"Oh, yes, sir, just as written in those legends."
"Although traditional,its necessary"
The man said with his back to Jenkins, then took the lead down the downward steps with Jenkins following close behind.
The stone walls on either side of the passage were hollowed out to create small holes, and as he heard the walls close behind him, Jenkins saw the candles in the small holes ,light up one by one.
"There are no steam pipes here, for the sake of safety and confidentiality."
The middle-aged man explained.
Jenkins nodded knowingly, it made perfect sense. A place like this which is a secret stronghold wouldn't invite a whole army of workers to work on it, no matter how you thought about it.
The downward staircase was not too long,it spiralled down towards the bottom after about two turns.
The staircase extended below the ground into another vast corridor, or tunnel, with a solid stone floor and ceiling. On one side of the tunnel were only walls, while on the other side were rows of rooms.
The tunnel stretched far and the light underground was not very good, so Jenkins could not see the end of it.
Opening the first room next to the stairs , the middle aged man motioned to Jenkins to sit on the chair facing the door and sat himself on the other side.
The door closed automatically from behind them and the row of oil lamps fixed to the walls of the room instantly lit up, illuminating the only three items in the room....
Two folding chairs and a wooden table.
The middle-aged man gestured for Jenkins to sit in the chair directly opposite the door, while he himself sat opposite.
"If there's another sign on the back [Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist], then this really is a police station, is a legitimate party exposed?"
(TN : "Leniency for those who confess, Severity for those who resist" is the oldest and most important maxim of Chinese criminal justice)
He muttered, but remained obedient and sat down.
"My name is Stephen Bincy, you can just address me as Mr Bincy, now its your turn to introduce yourself."
"Hello Mr Bincy, I'm Jenkins Williams, I've just turned 20 and I live in the Sabine district of Nola......"
"Well, that's enough."
Bincy interrupted Jenkins, who in turn gloated over his excellent performance. He felt he had just done an excellent job of portraying the excited, overwhelmed, nervous and a slightly frightened young man.
These were all normal performances of Jenkins in his memory.
"I'll ask and you'll answer."
"What kind of ground to grow a melon on, that's a hard question to ask me ......"
(TN: it basically means the person knows before what question the other person want to ask)
Jenkins sang in his mind, but in reality was busy nodding his head.
"What's your name?"
"Didn't I say that?"
He complained in his mind, but was suddenly remembered the fact about the legendary must-have obstacle for transmigrators - a lie detector test, it couldn't be that, could it?
Pretending to fix his hair, he tapped his temples, trying to find out the feeling of opening the [Eye of Reality]. The process went exceptionally well, and Jenkins immediately saw nine coloured dots of light in front of the man across from him, and three clusters of light appeared on the wall to his left.
"A one-sided mirror? Someone behind it?"
He understood immediately, but these were clearly not the things he was looking for.
Feigning a light laugh to stall for time, Jenkins finally caught sight of the golden glow where Bincy's sagging left hand had been.
"Sure enough, a supernatural item similar to a polygraph, did all those who wrote novels before my transmigration really came here and know everything?"
(TN: A polygraph is a machine which measures a person's blood pressure , skin conductivity etc. when a person is asked questions.You would have seen them in movies.)
He smiled and replied, "My name is Jenkins."
The "S" was very softly pronounced, or at least what Jenkins had in mind was his old name, Jenkin. ( )
(TN: What the hell he only got a 'S' . I just hope it's not due to the fact that now he has memories of two people. . ())
"Have you been exposed to the supernatural before last night?"
The expressionless man asked again.
"That's a hard question to answer!"
In his mind,Jenkins decided what he should say.
"I swear, last night's experience was the first time I'd ever been confronted with the supernatural and gods, it was amazing!"
Yes, the transmigration was also last night, so it was indeed the first time he ever encountered supernatural things.
"Very well, one last question, what is your faith?"
The golden ball in Jenkins' vision was extraordinarily bright at the moment.
He threw away the smile on his face and changed it to seriousness, then recalled in his mind everything that belonged to Jenkins.
He had no idea how the lie detector test was being administered, so he was unable to deal with it. Jenkins was tempted to suddenly make the Goddess of the Inherited Sage his lifelong religion, but was surprised to find it so difficult to lie to himself.
If given time to adjust to the world and his new identity, Jenkins would have been confident in accepting a true "god" as his belief, albeit he would have been a shallow one .
But convincing himself in haste would not be so easy.
"Why do I have to gamble my luck so many times ."
He said helplessly to himself in his mind, trying to keep his face as neutral as possible.
"I believe in knowledge, respect teachers and recognise books as the greatest human creations and a necessity for human heritage. I consider scholars and teachers of high moral character to be the greatest group of people, and I believe in a great being who puts knowledge and heritage first."