usatvline Chapter 44 Char
Chapter 44 Char
Howard walked slowly forward in the new environment. After about fifty steps, he was blocked by a long object in front of him.
Howard raised his hand and touched the object. His fingertips felt the soft and fine texture of wool, so Howard knew that it was Arabelle who reached out to stop him.
So Howard stopped and listened carefully to the movements around him.
First, the hum of machinery could still be heard, but it was faint and distant. The rest was a series of indistinguishable noises, perhaps from people walking or the clatter of moving objects. However, because the source was so far away, the sound waves were constantly diluted and mixed in the medium they traveled through, ultimately becoming completely meaningless.
However, among these noises, Howard also found a special sound. It was a very slight crackling sound. Howard felt that this sound was a little familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it.
Suddenly, Howard heard hurried footsteps approaching rapidly from the front of him.
After losing vision, human psychology becomes fragile. Even Howard was a little panicked when he heard an unidentified person approaching him quickly, so he couldn't help but want to step back.
But just as he took half a step back with his left foot, someone grabbed his arm. In this situation, the only person who could directly grab Howard's right hand was Arabelle.
Howard then felt more confident, and he retracted his left foot, which had originally taken half a step back, and then stood up straight.
The rapidly approaching footsteps stopped in front of Howard, and then the man grabbed Howard's bound hands. After a cold touch, Howard's hands were untied.
"You can take over the blindfold now." At this time, Howard heard a low, hoarse voice coming from a farther distance, which seemed to be made by a patient with throat cancer.
So Howard took off the blindfold and looked around.
It looks like this should be the internal warehouse of a factory. There are wooden boxes scattered around. There are several exhaust holes at the top of the surrounding walls. The fans installed in the exhaust holes are rotating slowly. Light shines in from the gaps between the fan blades, leaving a constantly changing grating on the ground.
Arabelle stood beside him, her windbreaker, which had been unbuttoned but still completely covered her, but now she had pulled the hem back to reveal the revolver on her belt.
Arabelle's purpose of acting like this should be to show off her weapons, because in reality, the laws of some countries allow citizens to carry guns, but if you carry a gun in public, you must put your gun where everyone can see it. After all, swords on the table are easy to defend against, but swords hidden under the table are difficult to defend against.
So Arabelle's display of weapons on this occasion was probably to comply with some kind of "rules."
Also, Arabelle's original inner garment was an ordinary black shirt, but because the hem was torn off to tie up Howard, it now became a belly-baring top.
Around the warehouse and in the corners, there were also a few people standing sparsely, whose appearance and clothing could be described as "gang members". Some of them stood against the wall, while some simply sat on the ground. Most of them were busy with their own work, and only a few were watching Arabelle and Howard from afar.
And there was a person sitting on the wooden box right in front of Arabelle and Howard. That person was the cyborg who came to check on Arabelle on the day she was injured.
And the hissing sound Howard heard was the sound of the hose behind him pumping the green potion into his brain.
If Howard's judgment was correct, the person in front of him should be the leader named "Char" mentioned by Arabel.
"Arabelle, I'm so glad you came to me on your own initiative." Char spoke first, his tone quite cordial, just like an old friend.
But Arabelle turned her head away, as if avoiding Char's gaze, and said, "Do you still understand what happiness is in your current state?"
"Before removing that part of my brain, I recorded my emotions into a program. Now that program tells me that I'm happy to see you," Char replied calmly.
Howard felt Arabelle's grip on his arm suddenly tighten.
"If you came to me to come back to us, everyone would be happy." Char looked at Arabel and said, "But I know you didn't come for that. Tell me, how can I help you?"
Hearing this answer, Arabelle loosened her grip on Howard's hand, then gently pushed his back, and Howard took two steps forward.
"Please help me check the background of this person." Arabelle did not hide anything.
"You're acting strangely, saying you want to investigate your target right in front of him." Xia's gaze didn't linger on Howard for long before he replied, "I'll meet your request."
"One more thing," Arabelle added. "I've received some unusual information I think you should know."
Arabelle then told Xia Xia about Howard's experience and the results of his analysis. Xia Xia listened politely and said nothing. After listening, he replied, "Arabelle, I think you are worrying too much."
"Your analysis seems logically rigorous, but each argument is based on a previous conjecture. While the analysis is logically convincing, it still lacks concrete evidence to prove it," Xia said. "It's just speculation, not proof. I can only be cautiously skeptical of your judgment."
To put it simply, what Char meant was that he believed Arabel's guess used the reverse "slippery slope argument."
Regarding the slippery slope argument, Howard still remembers a fable: a missing nail, a horseshoe fell off; a lost horseshoe broke a horse's leg; a broken horse's leg injured a warhorse; an injured warhorse lost a knight; a lost knight lost a war; a lost war destroyed a kingdom.
When young Howard first heard this fable, he was stunned. Later, when his brain developed a little, he saw the absurdity of this story again: the story seems very reasonable and logical, as if the kingdom really died because of an iron nail, but in fact it has two fatal flaws:
First: In the fifth part of this story, it seems to be assumed that if the knight had not been injured, the war would not have been lost, but this did not happen. However, in this story, something that did not happen is used as an argument. This is the first loophole and is also a common tactic used by many sophistry.
The second loophole is that if you trace back all the way, the iron nail is not the starting point. You can trace back to the reason that prevented the blacksmith from hammering out the iron nail, and you can continue to trace back.
Just like the butterfly effect, there would be no tornado without a butterfly, and there would be no butterfly without a caterpillar... We can even trace it back to the origin of life and even the Big Bang, and it all "seems" logically correct.
But just like when a police officer makes a judgment, they can't just rely on logic; they also need witnesses and physical evidence. Because there may be multiple logical conclusions to a single event, the obstacle to solving a case is often not the inability to analyze the whole story, but the need to choose the most accurate one from multiple "reasonable" possible options.
In Howard's story, the tax collector knew Howard's specific deposits. It could be that he was monitoring Howard, or he just guessed it by accident, or he checked Howard's turnover before he came and subtracted the cost estimate. After all, he is a professional; and those who chased Howard behind the tram but failed, you can say they were people who were monitoring Howard, or you can say they were people sent by the tax collector to follow Howard and prevent him from transferring assets.
In short, what Char meant was that even if there was nothing wrong with Arabel and Howard's logic, in his opinion these were all result-oriented analyses, and there was insufficient evidence to convince him.