0713: You who shine in the parallel world

You can't walk completely.

The moment Su Xing stepped out of the study, the screen next to him lit up again, forcing him to come back and watch the cutscene.

The footage released this time is not animation, but live-action footage.

On the screen, their NPC friends are locked in seven single cells, which are likely all together, as they can detect other people around them.

They also revealed an important piece of information: this is not a normal world, and there is a reason why the clown, or Xiaoyu, tricked them into coming here. Perhaps this reason is also an important factor in Xiaoyu's insistence that the brothers can only save one person in the end.

Zhang Yuan's theory that the seven of them are Xiaoyu's different personalities seems to be slowly being confirmed. For example, this is not a normal world, but perhaps it is Xiaoyu's inner world, which is why the seven different personalities can coexist.

But something seems off. If all seven of them are the same person, why is Xiaoyu so insistent on having their various "personalities" choose only one friend?

Yu Yu stroked his chin. Judging from the information Xiao Yu left in the previous mission, he was very envious that they were able to make seven different friends. No, he should say that he was very envious of those seven NPC friends, who were so outstanding.

He must have longed to have friends. If he longed for it so much, he couldn't possibly let his personalities only have one NPC friend. He should have found a way to keep them all.

unless……

"Brothers, what do you think about changing our approach? Instead of saying we are different personalities of the same person, why not say that our seven friends are the same person? That would clear up a lot of the doubts," Yu Yu said after a moment of contemplation.

The brothers were slightly taken aback.

“Hey, that’s interesting.” Su Xing was the first to react. “Xiao Yu split into seven different personalities to befriend us, but he lost control and was about to lose himself, so he decided to let us choose the personality we liked best to replace him.”

“That’s right, exactly.” Yu Yu snapped her fingers.

"Wearing different identities and masks to experience different lives, but in the end losing oneself, is it because one has too many identities and cannot find one's original self, or is it because one never recognized one's own existence from the beginning?"

Chen Chusheng suddenly sighed.

Yu Yu did not continue the conversation.

Wang Zhengliang jokingly remarked, "Brother Sheng, why have you suddenly become so philosophical? Is it because you're a year older today on your birthday?"

“Xiaoyu won’t lose himself. If he really did, there wouldn’t be a clown popping out here every now and then to scare us and push us to do tasks,” Su Xing joked.

Land Rover nodded and patted his chest: "Besides, we're here. Xiaoyu called us over not to make him disappear, but to make him stay. That's what it means to be friends with him."

"I don't want to do multiple-choice questions. I can't choose. If they're all the same person, why do we have to choose one out of seven? I want them all." Zhang Yuan made a fist gesture to indicate that everything was in his grasp.

"What else is there to say, guys? Let's hurry up and go. Don't leave Xiaoyu waiting alone for too long." Wang Yuexin waved her hand and took the lead, rushing into the darkness first.

No matter what you become, in your friends' eyes, you will always be just yourself.

Since 2022, Yu Yu has rarely felt lost, because he can always see his original self in the eyes of his brothers.

With the goal of rescuing Xiaoyu, the group pushed open the door, walked around the corridor, and came to the next room. They saw a large round table full of delicious food. Smelling the aroma of the food, they belatedly realized that it was mealtime, and their stomachs were rumbling.

"Good heavens, what time is it? Our friends are still waiting for us to rescue them. Is this really okay?" Land Rover expressed strong condemnation. "Since there are so many empty seats, I'll sit here first. Please make yourselves at home."

"Haha, sorry Xiaoyu, we've been waiting for so long, why don't you wait by yourself for a while?" Wang Yuexin laughed awkwardly. "I need to go get some rice first."

He filled two bowls with rice, one in each hand, and casually asked who wanted rice.

"I'll have some...tsk, then what did you ask?" Zhang Yuan glared at Wang Yuexin, because the moment Wang Yuexin finished asking that question, she casually placed another bowl of rice in front of Yu Yu.

"I was just asking politely," Wang Yue said, though she felt uneasy.

However, since he was sitting next to the rice cooker, he ended up serving his brothers rice with a slightly guilty smile.

Midway through the show, the crew brought in a large cake to celebrate Chen Chusheng's birthday, which led them to jokingly say that they should do a scene for this, and have the production team conjure up the large cake on the table for them in post-production.

Since the production team had to put some effort into this segment, they figured they might as well go all out. Su Xing even came up with a brilliant idea: their tables and chairs should be transformed into a spaceship and launched into space, allowing people all over the world to hear them hold a concert in space. That would be much bigger than a show with 100,000 people.

So, Query's biggest concert to date only had 12 people, right? Compared to that, who does Query even stand against?

The moment Su Xing made his grand statement, he immediately apologized to Yu Yu in front of the camera. Since Yu Yu was Q God's friend on the surface, Yu Yu could only laugh and cry, saying that Q God wouldn't care about such things.

The cake was brought in, and of course, there was a sense of ceremony. Yu Yu, who was sitting next to Chen Chusheng, put a birthday hat on his head and then sang a birthday song adapted from the scary nursery rhyme they had sung before, making Chen Chusheng close his eyes, make a wish, and blow out the candles.

Just as Chen Chusheng was about to speak, Land Rover stopped him again, because he shouldn't say his own wish out loud, otherwise it wouldn't come true. However, he could help others make wishes and become a wish-granting fairy for a day.

The cake was so big that even seven people couldn't finish it. After each person took a symbolic piece, Chen Chusheng distributed the cake to the staff who came to clean up.

After resting for a moment, the game continued. Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet shook for a moment, and then they and their chairs slid down together.

This room is actually an elevator lobby!

Before the elevator even landed on the ground floor, everyone could see their seven NPC friends locked in narrow single cabins in the circular space below. Their eyes were closed, and they stood quietly in place. If it weren't for their normal breathing, they would have looked like mannequins in a shop window.

After the elevator came to a stop, the seven people got up and went to the single cabins, but no matter how they called out or pounded on the doors, the people inside did not respond. Before they could think of any other solutions, the lights in the single cabins went out at the same time.

Without light, the semi-transparent hatch is like a mirror, reflecting only the figures of people outside.

The Joker's cutscene appears again, but this time he doesn't give them any other challenges. Instead, he announces that the second phase of the game is about to begin. If they want to rescue their friends, they need to go to their friends' memories and interact with key figures to obtain verification tickets.

Hopefully, after learning about their friend's story, they will still be willing to be friends with them.

Having begun to suspect the relationship between Xiaoyu and her seven NPC friends, the group thought this was a good opportunity to learn about Xiaoyu's past. Perhaps the past of these friends was Xiaoyu's past, and the root cause of the emergence of these different personalities.

This floor has a very large space, divided into several different unit scenes, and the style here is completely different from the previous ones, mostly in gray and green tones, as if they have really stepped into a memory. Obviously, the production team is very good at creating atmosphere and setting.

Passing through the dimly lit corridor, the first scene, the courtyard, is the door on the left that is lit up.

It's hard to imagine that this isn't a real courtyard but rather an indoor room, even though it looks no different from the traditional courtyard houses of the 1980s and 90s.

The background music plays at just the right moment; this is Xuexue's story.

Xuexue is Wang Yuexin's friend, and the brothers subconsciously assumed that this was Wang Yuexin's mission location.

The background noise tells us that Xuexue has angered his mother again today. His mother found the things he had secretly hidden in his schoolbag. Xuexue must stand in the courtyard to reflect on his actions and solve the problems on the blackboard before he can eat.

This is actually telling the brothers that they need to find clues in their backpacks and solve the puzzle before they can move on to the next stage.

But Xuexue's schoolbag didn't contain the comic books or toys they expected; instead, it contained some spicy snacks, jellies, a cat toy, and a notebook.

Wang Yuexin flipped through the notebook and couldn't help but marvel at how strict Xuexue's mother was with him, almost forbidding him from having any extracurricular hobbies. It was hard to imagine what kind of person a child would grow up to be under such strict parenting.

However, although……

"Uh, is it strict?"

Yu Yu looked at the prohibitions: no spicy food, no jelly, no touching small animals, no skipping homework, etc. Was this considered strict? He scratched his face, comparing it to the treatment he received in the Alaric family after arriving in this world. Perhaps he should redefine "strict"?

The others were silent for a moment.

Although they didn't know the specifics of the brutal elite education Yu Yu had experienced in her childhood, they understood more or less that it was absolutely incomparable to the "minor incidents" recorded in this notebook.

Xuexue looks to be in elementary school age, a time when children are usually mischievous and naughty. Of course, his mother is strict and suppresses his nature. But when they looked at Yu Yu's confused and innocent face, they didn't know how to say these words.

I feel that Yu Yu was repressed for a long time in his childhood, which is why he is so mischievous when he grows up.

"Of course it's strict. High-pressure education is not good for a child's growth under normal circumstances. Even if it's an adult instead of a child who has to withstand the pressure, many people can't handle it." Yu Yu blinked as if mocking them for thinking too much.

...No, this fish must have been this mischievous from birth.