1TWITF[C Chapter 149

Chapter 149

Where are they going?

Lu Yanli still had the last bottle of green spores on him. He quietly placed it in the easiest place to reach on his body and followed.

The group didn’t do anything, only kept walking forward, eventually gathering near the school. The opera troupe family went to prepare for the evening’s performance.

They didn’t even need to wait until evening. The sky was gloomy, sunlight seemingly unable to penetrate the thick cloud layer, and the wind quickly turned cold. He could already feel the humid thickness in the air.

Lu Yanli casually grabbed an umbrella from a passing small store and followed behind.

The people who had been chatting along the way suddenly stopped talking, silently standing in place, motionless.

As he spoke, he walked through the crowded people. They ignored him, and even if he accidentally bumped into their shoulders, they didn’t react. Lu Yanli came to the backstage, lifted the curtain, and saw several people getting dressed and applying something to their faces.

No one paid attention to him, acting as if they didn’t see him, busily working. But… in the hazy, fog-covered mirror, only Lu Yanli was reflected.

“They are all fake,” Lu Yanli said to the mirror, “Now, the only one who can be used in this entire town is me.”

He remembered the future selves he had summoned with the jade pendant. One of them told him that he must experience the cultural festival, or he would die. But another told him that he would die on the day of the cultural festival in the future.

Who was telling the truth? He didn’t know. One of them was already dead, and the other… had disappeared.

In the mirror, Lu Yanli’s face gradually oozed blood. These bloodstains clung to the mirror surface, slowly flowing down. He noticed a slight dampness on the ground, looked down, and saw that the ground was filled with thick, scarlet blood, slowly covering his feet.

He was in the room behind the stage. In Lu Yanli’s eyes, those people were still dressing and putting on makeup, occasionally exchanging a few words, but in the mirror, only he himself was standing in front of the mirror with a sinister smile. Even though he was stepping backward, the face in the mirror was gradually magnifying.

Along the way, the paper figures didn’t see him, and he also acted as if he didn’t see those things, standing in the middle of a pile of paper figures. He didn’t know that his own face was also pale, almost indistinguishable from those paper figures.

“Clang—”

Gongs and drums resounded through the sky.

A piercing suona horn ripped through half the sky, dense drumbeats like raindrops, extending to the center of the stage with the increasingly dense footsteps of the people on stage. The people on stage had painted eyebrows, painted mouths, and also drawn eyes, a stiff puppet face, limbs moving stiffly. Soon, a lively tune, whether it was a dirge or a joyful tune, began to play.

It was a tune that Lu Yanli was familiar with.

The raindrops and drumbeats were even denser, and a blood fog, which had risen from nowhere, filled the air, damp, cold, and sticky.

Lu Yanli held an umbrella in one hand, and with the other hand, he propped himself up and sat on the half-person-high stage. The rain couldn’t reach him. He cleared his throat and began to sing along with the paper figures’ tune.

Objectively speaking, his voice wasn’t unpleasant, and every word was in tune, but the effect was… Fortunately, there were no living audience members present, otherwise they would have all run away.

*

In another replicated future spiritual medium town that he didn’t know about.

After Lin Chu safely passed a day, she still planned to go out, but when she prepared to leave, she discovered that the door was locked.

The doors and windows were all locked, and the culprit was sitting at the desk in the lobby on the first floor, sketching.

“Don’t go out, it’s very dangerous outside,” Lu Yanli put down his paintbrush, turned his head and looked at Lin Chu.

Lin Chu leaned her back against the door, her eyes cold. She didn’t speak, and the hand behind her back tried to dismantle the newly installed lock on the door.

Lin Chu asked, “What exactly do you want to do?”

Lu Yanli was stunned, “What can I do?” He raised the paintbrush in his hand, still stained with paint, “It’s too dangerous outside, don’t go out.”

“What if I have to go out?”

Lin Chu wasn’t talking about going out the door, but about leaving this town. She believed that the other party understood what she meant.

A dagger slid down from her sleeve, and in her other hand, a miniature pistol appeared silently. Lin Chu pointed at him and asked again, “What if I have to go out?”

Lu Yanli laughed, as if watching an ignorant child pointing a toy gun at him, waving his hand, “You are so confident, then try it.”

Lin Chu immediately turned around and fired a shot at the door lock. Sparks flew, avoiding the bullet’s rebound path, and the door lock opened.

She cautiously opened the door with her hand behind her back. Lu Yanli was still standing in place, smiling quietly, and even made a gesture, inviting her to go out. Without thinking, she ran out, but she had only taken a few steps when a kind of impulse constantly arose in her mind, wanting to go back, wanting to return to his side.

It seemed that her subconscious had made her go in a circle, returning to the starting point.

Lu Yanli was standing at the door. Hearing footsteps, he waved to her casually, as if calling a pet, “Come here.”

But Lin Chu couldn’t control her steps. She trotted over, looking up at him slightly.

The two worlds were merging, and the order of this strange world would be briefly restored to normal because of the other world. During the period when the world order was normal, two identical things could not appear in the same space-time, whether it was a person or a town, only one could exist.

He had always done this, hiding in the future town, letting the outside world collapse into chaos. After everything settled, Lin Chu would attract the idol’s attention and be taken into the new, already merged world.

In this way, he could come out of this town. The past town would be destroyed, but a new town would be born. The past self would die, but he could live.

He had always done this. After the new world also collapsed, he would return to the past again, constantly looping in a time loop.

Lin Chu shuddered, “I, I understand.”

*

In the outside town, Lu Yanli sat on the stage. As the song began, the night gradually faded, and above the night seemed to be a clear blue sky.

He heard the sound of ocean waves, the roar of unknown sea beasts. It wasn’t an illusion. The coastline was indeed slowly appearing on the horizon. The virtual image of the waves gradually became clear, and he seemed to be able to smell the unique salty smell of the sea breeze.

The people in that world were also singing. He heard the sounds from the other side. The two songs overlapped, and the two worlds… slowly merged.

Is this the surface world? The source of all problems?

Lin Chu’s mind seemed to have a saw stirring, painful, chaotic, but when she saw Lu Yanli’s suddenly surprised gaze in front of her, she only felt relieved.

“Do you want to die?”

The sea belonging to another world had already emerged on the horizon. Lin Chu stared intently, suddenly feeling that the sea was a bit familiar.

“Why… why?” Her expression suddenly became equally horrified, “Why is there a sea here?”

She was very familiar with this sea and the mobile island on the sea.

Time was advanced.

Time was advanced, and another past self hadn’t died yet. After the world completely merged, only one of them… could live.

“Stop.” Lu Yanli’s voice came from behind.

She stopped subconsciously.

“You can tear that letter open.” Lu Yanli knew that this chess piece had lost its use. Letting her leave would involve the people from the research institute.

Lin Chu couldn’t control herself and took out a letter from her pocket.

It was Lu Yanli.

She turned her head, and that was also Lu Yanli.

Her hand had already opened the letter.

Inside the envelope were two paintings, depicting a young woman with a matronly hairstyle, a young girl sitting on her lap playing, and a young man reaching out to tease the little girl.

In the second painting, the young woman nervously handed the little girl to a man wearing a ghost mask.

A few seconds after she finished reading, the letter paper spontaneously ignited.

Can’t remember!!

She tried to recall her days in the research institute, and her memories flowed quickly, but when she recalled her childhood, she found that her childhood was blank again.

The Lu Yanli behind her watched the two people indifferently.

When Lin Chu recalled, she would immediately commit suicide. There were informants from the research institute nearby, and he had already been targeted by the “idol”, so he couldn’t do it himself.

But… why hadn’t Lin Chu done it yet?

He wanted to go and grab her back, but he suddenly couldn’t move, and could only watch Lin Chu continue to run forward.

“He has cooperated with that thing, he is the mastermind…”

“Bang—” A gunshot.

The Lu Yanli who had rushed over heard Lin Chu’s last words clearly. He still wanted to hear what the other party wanted to say, reaching out to shake her, but she was already out of breath.

Another gunshot.