The clock struck eleven.
Everything in the illusion changed again. The fine red lines radiating from the man's body shrank and melted away like the tide. These fine lines reminded Wen Shi of the dense cracks on the fifth-floor wall.
"Spell..." Wen Shi didn't know how Zhen Ling preserved his father's brain. It looked similar to the old lady's method.
Back when they were in the tour group, the old lady used voodoo to forcibly extend the players' lives, which seemed to include a curse. Before using the voodoo to soak their hair, the wounds she sealed turned black and had strange shapes, just like tree rings.
So Ao's idea was not wrong, to have Jianguangsi split and search the cursed fifth floor. However, his luck was not good and he found nothing.
Wen Shi didn't know that Ao was even more unlucky than he thought.
On the day the doctor-patient game was finalized, a secret rule was automatically added to the hospital: whoever obtains the first dean's brain will inherit the hospital. As the hospital manager, Ao dreams of finding it, but sadly, this is actually a successor quest, not open to NPCs.
"Hour."
Wen Shi was stunned when he was trying to sort out his thoughts. When he came to his senses, he saw the smile that was almost blurred in his memory appear again, and his heart suddenly tightened.
Although the overwhelming red line disappeared, the cocoon-like pieces of flesh in the sky did not disappear, and each cocoon was full of memories.
I don't know if it was the game's rare mercy, but after the time limit for the task passed, the transmission did not start immediately. Wen Shi was still in the virtual world of illusion, and the man remembered everything at this moment.
Before he could call out "Dad", the other party had already walked up to him and rubbed Wen Shi's head with a big hand: "You've grown up."
Wen Shi's eyes were sore. He turned his back and raised his head. After a long while, he asked in a suppressed voice, "Do you want to be truly free?"
If it is for the other person's expectation, to get true spiritual rest, he will pull out the "oxygen tube" with his own hands.
The man shook his head.
"In the past, my life was always in danger, so I didn't want to interact too much with people for fear of hurting feelings. Monsters are stubborn and treat human life as worthless, so interacting with them is actually easier."
He shrugged. "So don't define a species lightly."
Wen Shi turned around and saw the man with a slightly helpless expression: "I sowed the seeds and I deserve the consequences. One day, when they figure it out, they will naturally come to put an end to me. You want to destroy the last trace of my consciousness? How can this be said?"
Wen Shi wanted to say something more, but the man interrupted her with a wave of his hand and forcibly changed the subject: "Are you getting along well with your parallel world self?"
After a moment of silence, Wen Shi nodded and couldn't help but ask the question that had puzzled him for a long time: "Their relationship is average, but they take good care of me."
The man said calmly, "Because you are the axis."
Wen Shi looked confused.
"When I made the bet with Yugi, I emphasized that we had to find people with difficult situations. A win-win situation was the only way to ensure there weren't any ulterior motives." The man showed a helpless expression. "That's one reason, well..."
He looked at Wen Shi and said, "Games can't forcibly create or take away lives in the real world. A 'parallel self' with a bad fate and already nearing death is the best choice."
Wen Shi was simply curious: "So I was the only one whose fate had ended at that time?"
The man thought about it and decided to tell him the truth: "Do you feel that your other selves are particularly powerful?"
Wen Xiaomao, the weakest in the family, nodded heavily.
"You are the weakest axis among us. To some extent, it seems that you have borne a certain amount of negative feedback. So even I feel a sense of pity when I see you."
"…"
"Hahahaha, I was just kidding." The man sat back on the sofa and laughed.
Wen Shi forced a shrug. Based on his understanding of this person, he couldn't be sure whether it was true or not.
As if he knew what he was thinking, the man said slowly: "It's hard to say about metaphysical matters. This is one of the hypotheses that the game once proposed, but you are indeed the weakest."
The weakest does not mean the most miserable. If we talk about people who suffered in the past, there are many of them here.
"But you've already met most of them a long time ago. After all, these things need to be arranged in advance. You can't wait until the day you enter the dungeon for the game to negotiate with those people." The man looked at him. "The game once arranged for you to spend some time together."
Wen Shi's expression changed. When did this happen?
"When you were in school, didn't I hire someone to play your mother in every parent-child activity?"
"And there's the disfigured little boy who lives next door to us and often pulls you over and calls you brother."
"When you were in junior high school, someone moved away, and you were quite reluctant to leave. A few days later, your neighbor was replaced by a little girl. During the holidays, she took you to the market, and a pervert tried to touch you..."
Wen Shi still remembers this incident. He picked up a brick and was about to hit the pervert, but when he turned around, the pervert was kicked to death by the girl.
"…"
The man went on talking one by one. Except for A Sang and the autistic old lady, all the rest of the people had interactions with him, but they just disguised their appearance to a certain extent.
Ayu wore sunglasses and a mask, a boy pretended to be disfigured, and Xie Tangyan dressed up as a "Shamatte" girl...
The man couldn't help laughing again. "To be honest, I'm surprised you didn't notice anything was wrong."
"Is there a possibility?" Wen Shi gritted his teeth: "Because you haven't shown me any normal people."
Aircraft and missile criminal groups, even the daily watch is the rule of law section. Because of his personality, not many of his peers are willing to play with him.
"So, you want to relive the old days?" The man said, as if by magic, a straw suddenly appeared in his hand. "I plucked it from the head of the straw demon some time ago."
"?"
"I didn't want to, but when I led the monster out of the ghost gate, it insisted on stopping me."
The straw of the Straw Demon can be hidden in the brain, which is convenient to carry and can be regarded as a good special prop.
"After becoming a disposable prop, it can freely locate a time-rewinding point."
Wen Shi was extremely heartbroken. He had encountered the straw demon so many times, but got nothing in return except being sprayed with dust in the face.
Weighing the straw in his palm, the man's tone suddenly changed: "Think twice before you act."
After all, that was a long time ago. The power of a straw is far less than that of the straw devil. If Wen Shi's behavior deviates significantly, or is discovered by his parallel world self, it will cause a series of bad butterfly effects.
"Anything that has happened is in the past, right?"
The man nodded.
"What if it is a fictional past? What if the me in the past is not myself?" After asking a question that was like a tongue twister, Wen Shi slowly told a story.
The man was startled after hearing this and said, "Because of Sting."
The father and son looked at each other, and Wen Shi rubbed his hands: "Try it?"
The man fulfilled his wish and waved his hand to express his agreement: "Okay."
A moment later.
He called Wen Shi to come in front of him and inserted the straw over his head.
"Dad, this always gives me the illusion that you are selling children." This piece of grass is a sign of trafficking.
The man used his two hands instead.
Wen Shi: "It's like you're burning incense for me."
The man glared at him and said, "Stand still, don't move, and don't talk."
"...oh."
However, within three seconds, he started talking again: "How long does this thing last? How do I locate the backtracking node?"
Before he could finish his words, his entire brain felt like it was stuffed with straw. The bloating made Wen Shi dizzy and it was difficult for him to open his eyes. There was only one thought left in his mind: Could this straw be a counterfeit product?
In the midst of extreme nausea and dizziness, he heard the voice of Yugi cursing his father.
This was the first time Wen Shi heard Yugi swear.
A vast tape measure of memory spread out in his mind, each time period occupying a fixed position on the tape. Wen Shi closed his eyes, concentrating his attention as much as possible, focusing on a single thing. The complex memory peeled away, leaving only the single point he desired. The moment the straw completely sank into his brain and disappeared, time had successfully rewound.
…
"Hurry up and go!" An impatient growl came from above.
Wen Shi opened his eyes and found himself standing in the elevator. The person who kept urging him was wearing the work clothes of the sanatorium.
Through the reflection of the car, Wen Shi saw his own image as a child.
His appearance seemed cast under some kind of spell, one glance and you'd forget it. He was thin, and his clothes reeked strongly of disinfectant, as if he'd just undergone a rough disinfection. Wen Shi's lips curled up slightly, a strange smile that made the staff frown, and they dragged him out of the elevator.
In the previous time travel, Wen Shi chose to go back to the time when he was doing side quests in the sanatorium.
He has always had doubts about the task of [Archives].
The characteristics of each time rewind are easy to distinguish, and the game sometimes even directly states that it is rewinding.
Only in the archive mission, Wen Shi was dragged into the record page of the archive, proving that it was not a pure illusion, but more like a half-true and half-false story constructed based on Jian Qingrong's memory.
There was a sentence in the mission introduction: Every file is a life. He entered the file and played the role of Jian Qingrong.
This is not a simple role-playing. According to the task setting, Wen Shi is Jian Qingrong himself, so he is forced to take on the role of Jian Qingrong and perform a series of actions that are consistent with the character's characteristics.
Now, looking back in time, a question arises.
In the archive mission, the rules determine that Wen Shi is equal to Jian Qingrong. How can time be reversed?
All the time can be reversed, and time can only go back to the time node that one has personally experienced. In that time node, Wen Shi does not exist, only Jian Qingrong.
Wen Shi's smile continued to grow: "There is only one most direct solution..."
First, send him to Jian Qingrong's past, so that the destroyed No. 83 can become real. In this way, when he goes back again, Jian Qingrong is still Jian Qingrong, and he is No. 83, so there is no collision.
This has changed the past to a certain extent, so the game is cursing its father.
However, this change has little impact. The most direct consequence is that Jian Qingrong has an extra memory and a high tolerance for gaming, so he can afford the price.
"I hate doing multiple-choice questions." Wen Shi's smile widened.
The archive mission was the only multiple-choice question he had to answer as someone else. In order to fit in with the character setting, Wen Shi had to give up No. 83 and watch it being destroyed.
After doing something so against my will, I have to get some of my money back.
Wen Shi was taken to the ward by the staff after passing through the silent corridor. When the door opened, he saw a smaller version of Jian Qingrong lying on the hospital bed. He looked gloomy and quiet, and his whole body exuded an aloofness that kept people at a distance.
Wen Shi showed an innocent smile and took the initiative to greet: "Hello."