The earlier heart palpitations still lingered around him. He gripped the edge of the blanket with one hand and held the short blade he had just taken out with the other, his posture still somewhat defensive. However, Yan Wei’s muscles had relaxed, and his rationality was gradually returning.
—No matter whether what stood before him was the Benevolent Automaton or Yan Mingguang’s true self, as long as it was Yan Mingguang, it was trustworthy.
He said, “I can trust you.”
Yan Mingguang replied without hesitation, “You can trust me.”
The man paused for a moment and added, “As long as it’s me. Did you just remember—did you dream of something?”
Yan Wei raised his gaze.
Outside, many footsteps could be heard, and Yu Feizhou knocked on his door, saying, “Yan Wei, come out quickly, it’s dawn.”
Lin Zhen was also shouting, “Little pet, you’re not sleeping in at this time, are you? Hurry out, Yan Mingguang is missing, his door is open and he’s nowhere to be seen.”
Of course, he wouldn’t be seen. Yan Mingguang was right by his bedside, looking at him with a worried expression, waiting for his response.
He shouted, “Yan Mingguang is here with me, we’re coming out immediately.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Wei put away the short blade, threw off the blanket, got out of bed, and composed himself. He said to Yan Mingguang, “I had a nightmare. Yan Mingguang, I almost couldn’t tell the difference between the dream and reality just now, and I questioned the current you because I didn’t know what was real.”
The man naturally handed him the coat hanging at the head of the bed and asked, “What nightmare?”
“It was a sea of blood, with several boats floating on it, and we were in bed. I saw two of you… just like the current Benevolent Automaton and the true self, I couldn’t tell any difference. I was talking to one of you, and you kept persuading me to give up, and then suddenly… another person appeared behind me, telling me not to trust the you who was advising me to give up…”
At this moment, Yan Wei had calmed down, his rationality returning to his mind. The previous experiences and this seemingly dreamlike fragment overlapped, and he immediately understood the key to it.
The man had already walked toward the door of the room, and Yan Wei reached out to grab him. He said, “Yan Mingguang.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t you have anything you want to tell me?”
Yan Mingguang clearly knew something. Yet, he had just remained silent, showing no sign of wanting him to know anything. Yan Wei had learned from Lin Qing that perhaps he had instructed those close to him before the formatting to not tell him anything about the past, even if they encountered him. But people are inherently curious.
Especially regarding such ambiguous matters concerning oneself.
He said, “Before, I could play dumb, waiting until we reached the top, and everything would naturally become clear. But I feel it’s necessary for me to know some things now… Did we once walk through an instance together, where there were two of you? I’m afraid of all this; did I… misidentify someone?”
He didn’t ask for reasons or relationships because he knew that perhaps Yan Mingguang didn’t want to discuss those.
He just wanted to clarify this dream.
Outside, Lin Zhen knocked quickly again, urging Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang to come out. There were many footsteps outside, and occasionally, there were distant screams echoing from who knows where. Yan Wei knew that at night, the castle was dark, and it was the favorite darkness of Puppets and NPCs in all instances, so there wouldn’t be many active players. But during the day, with the light slightly brighter, he had destroyed the power supply, making it impossible for everyone to see the numbers beneath their feet. At this moment, someone would definitely be checking each room for Puppets and players to save time; they had to leave quickly.
Yan Wei looked at Yan Mingguang, his light tea-colored eyes reflecting the man’s figure, his expression serious. He said, “I hope you can answer me seriously and tell me everything you know about this scene. Because I’ve already experienced a psychological shake just now, and I feel I must be clear; otherwise, it could lead to endless troubles for our subsequent actions.”
Amidst the urging voices of Yu Feizhou and Lin Zhen, Yan Mingguang stared at him intently.
After a moment, the man’s calm voice rang out, “You will know. Don’t worry, with me here, you don’t need to waver.”
Yan Mingguang turned and directly took Yan Wei’s arm, heading toward the door, then said, “Let’s leave the room first.”
Yan Wei didn’t say anything more. Yan Mingguang was never less intelligent than him; it was just that in these few instances, Yan Mingguang had trusted him immensely, always following Yan Wei’s choices, but that didn’t mean Yan Mingguang didn’t have his own thoughts.
In that case, he chose to trust Yan Mingguang’s judgment.
The door opened, and Yan Wei happened to see Lin Zhen, who was about to kick the door open.
Lin Zhen: “…”
Yan Wei raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Let’s go.”
He didn’t delay any further and was the first to walk ahead.
The castle was surrounded by glass windows, and sunlight filtered through the hazy morning mist of the Jungle Maze outside, illuminating a little. However, the internal corridors of the castle were too many and too long, causing the light in the corridors to remain dim, which not only didn’t lessen the eerie feeling but instead brought a thick sense of foreboding to the entire interior of the castle.
Outside, the hurried footsteps of players continued, but once they stepped out, Yan Wei didn’t see many figures.
At this moment, having already detached from the dream and surrounded by trustworthy people, Yan Wei relaxed a bit and began to outline his strategy for the day.
He cautiously surveyed his surroundings and quickly said, “The leaderboard has already started moving, and we haven’t caught a single Benevolent Automaton, so we must be at the very bottom with 0 points. But today, I want to explore the entire castle first, find all the clear and hidden paths, and roughly calculate the entire electrical circuit design of the castle.”
Yu Feizhou: “You mean…”
“We only destroyed the power box, not the entire floor of the castle. Why can’t we exchange for the corresponding items ourselves, connect to the electrical circuits running through the entire castle, and read the number of Puppets at each point?”
Yan Wei had thought of this last night.
Displaying the number of Puppets within a certain distance was a crucial function that became more important as time went on. In the end, this number could even be used to distinguish between Benevolent Automatons and players. Yan Wei destroyed this thing—or rather, Yan Wei’s Benevolent Automaton destroyed this thing—to slow down the players’ scoring speed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to use it himself.
Such a good function, wouldn’t it be a pity not to use it?
“Another me would definitely think of this after the explosion. And to explore the route, we need to traverse the castle, and for efficiency, the fewer players we encounter, the better. If it were me, I would choose one person to set off alone first, drawing away the people in front, while the others follow closely to carefully explore the terrain and the electrical trends beneath the floor… My Benevolent Automaton is alone; he must be ahead acting as bait to draw away the players—”
Yan Wei paused in his steps.
He looked at Yan Mingguang, who had stopped beside him, confused, “Ice block, why aren’t you moving?”
Yan Mingguang glanced at him, raised his hand, and pointed behind Yan Wei.
Yan Wei followed Yan Mingguang’s direction. In the long corridor, many room doors had already been opened, and the not-so-bright light intertwined, faintly illuminating the floating dust.
In the narrow corridor, just a few meters away, a silver-haired man wearing silver-framed glasses stood upright, his black eyes deep, his gaze lightly resting on him.
Yan Wei’s gaze froze, and he took a step back toward Yan Mingguang, tensing up in defense. The hand he had in his coat pocket curled slightly, wanting to grasp the coin he always carried for some sense of security.
“…Is that your Benevolent Automaton?” he said, “Yu Feizhou, Lin Zhen, be careful.”
Beside him, the man nodded, “Mm. Stay behind me.”
As Yan Wei was about to retreat, not far away, the identical Yan Mingguang frowned and walked closer. This Yan Mingguang, who had moved to the other side, slowly spoke, his cold voice penetrating the dust, as if emerging from the haze, “Yan Wei, come here, that’s not me; he’s lying to you.”
The same voice, the same words, in a similarly narrow and dim corridor.
Yan Mingguang’s voice gradually echoed in Yan Wei’s ears, and he felt his heartbeat suddenly stop for a moment. The sounds from other parts of the castle seemed to vanish at this moment; the space beside him was empty, and Yu Feizhou and Lin Zhen had also suddenly disappeared.
Only the Yan Mingguang beside him and the Yan Mingguang not far away remained.
His expression unchanged, his light tea-colored eyes grew heavier, and the hand hidden in his pocket moved slightly, his thumb gliding over the Black Ring. In the next moment, a small dagger appeared in his pocket, and he held it tightly, adopting a defensive posture toward the Yan Mingguang beside him.
“You step back,” the man beside him simply said, “I’ll deal with him.”
This was Yan Mingguang’s style—no explanations, no extra words.
Yan Wei took a deep breath and slowly drew out the short blade.
He stepped back a few paces, his brows slightly lowered, his eyelashes trembling lightly. He spoke deliberately, “You say who is the fake, then that person is the fake? I have my own judgment—whoever can tell me why I misidentified someone in that sea of blood instance, I will trust them.”
There was a moment of silence around.
The Yan Mingguang on the other side of the corridor spoke first, “What are you talking about?”
“That instance in your dream? You just saw two of me,” the Yan Mingguang in front said, “Where’s the misidentification?”
Yan Wei’s brow twitched.
He gripped the dagger tightly in his hand, and in this strange atmosphere, he still chuckled lightly, saying, “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with your answers? These are all answers based on my understanding. The dream was mine, the scene with the two Yan Mingguangs was what I saw, so if I ask Yan Mingguang, I would subconsciously expect Yan Mingguang’s answer. Either you completely pretend not to know and ask me what I’m talking about, or you can’t answer anything—because your answers are generated based on my understanding. I only know that I saw two Yan Mingguangs in the dream; I have no idea what would happen next. Even if I say ‘misidentified someone,’ that’s just my speculation.”
“I don’t know; your answers based on my understanding naturally can’t provide new information.”
Yan Wei slowly raised the hand holding the dagger.
But the dagger was not aimed at the Yan Mingguang in front of him, nor at the Yan Mingguang at the end of the corridor, but at his own heart.
“Dreams are the most mysterious things in the human brain. They are formed based on all the cognitive structures of the dreamer and appear when a person is most defenseless. Most contain premises that prevent the dreamer from realizing the world is false. When each segment of the dream occurs, even if there are many unusual things around, the dreamer will not realize that their world is false.”
“For example, Yu Feizhou, who should appear together but is not here, or the Swallow Coin I always carry suddenly becoming unreachable, or the fact that we’ve been talking for so long and it’s still this quiet around us.”
“But once one realizes they have transcended the dream, these unusual things will become ordinary. And this state can be easily pierced, which is what I just said: each person’s dream can only be formed based on all the cognitive structures they currently possess; everything is a reconstruction or reappearance of information that my brain has already acquired.”
Yan Mingguang could answer the questions he wanted to know.
But the Yan Mingguang in the dream could not, because the dream was constructed by his subconscious, and the things he didn’t know, everyone in the dream also didn’t know.
Yan Wei took a deep breath, suddenly exerting force in his hand, and in the surprised expressions of the two Yan Mingguangs, he unhesitatingly plunged the short blade into his own heart.
—Yan Wei suddenly opened his eyes wide.
It was indeed another dream.
Surrounded by the identical single rooms on the second floor of the castle.
He sat up abruptly, gripping the blanket tightly, gasping for air. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, and his light tea-colored eyes still held a lingering confusion.
At least he was completely awake.
Yan Wei sighed in relief, just about to wipe his sweat and get up quickly when he suddenly heard Yan Mingguang’s cold yet somewhat worried voice beside him, “Yan Wei.”
Yan Wei turned his head sharply to see Yan Mingguang standing by the bed, looking at him.
“What’s wrong with you?”
