HI Chapter 198

Yan Wei originally planned to enjoy a good eight to ten years in the real world with Yan Mingguang.

It was too short.

Yan Mingguang had never left the Tower before, and the world outside was vast. Many people spend their entire lives without exploring every corner, so eight to ten years were considered a short time.

But there were many matters in the Tower that required his and Yan Mingguang’s decisions, so they couldn’t stay away for too long.

What Yan Wei didn’t expect was that in less than three years, he had to return.

The issue initially stemmed from the rules within the Tower.

At first, to ensure the supernatural existence of the Tower didn’t leak and cause turmoil in the real world, Yan Wei chose to seal the memories of those who left.

At that time, Yan Mingguang had just regained control of the Tower, and implementing complex operations was difficult.

Years passed, and their control over the Tower became much more proficient. Many changes could be made precisely, without the need for the previous method of forcibly sealing all memories.

Moreover, after a few years, new needs arose within the Tower—for example, Xu Miaomiao wanted to retain her player status in the Tower because Ding Xiao relied on her Puppet technique for existence. If she gave up her player status, Ding Xiao would be as good as dead. However, Yan Wei investigated in the real world and found that Xu Miaomiao’s parents were still alive but elderly, with only a few years left.

Xu Miaomiao wanted to preserve Ding Xiao’s existence while also returning to care for her parents in their final years. If she simply sealed her memories and left the Tower, it wouldn’t work.

There were many similar cases.

After discussing, they decided to slightly modify the method of directly sealing everyone’s memories, turning it into a “contract” stored in the players’ minds.

Those who signed the contract could freely enter and exit the Tower, retaining their player status while keeping the existence of the Tower world a secret.

Players could keep their abilities but were not allowed to misuse them.

If they accidentally revealed the Tower or misused their abilities, causing irreversible consequences, their memories and abilities would be forcibly sealed, and players responsible for maintaining stability in the Tower would handle the fallout.

This solution seemed perfect.

Yan Wei finally felt that he wasn’t walking this path alone.

Whether inside or outside the Tower, there were people who shared similar memories with him and Mingguang.

As soon as this method was implemented, many players who had already left the Tower chose to unlock their previously sealed memories and sign the “contract.”

They lived in the real world, just like ordinary people with nine-to-five jobs.

Only the memories in their minds hinted at what they had experienced.

That year, Yan Wei had his New Year’s Eve dinner in the real world.

The streets were decorated with lanterns and streamers, the sound of fireworks filled the air, and smoke from cooking fires rose from countless corners.

Amid the festive music, every household was bustling with joy.

Before entering the Tower, Yan Wei had been a loner, and Yan Mingguang had no place to call home. They had never celebrated the New Year before, but Xu Miaomiao, who had reunited with her parents after leaving the Tower for the first time, said her family’s New Year celebration was too quiet with just three people, so she dragged everyone along to liven things up.

Lin Zhen and Lin Qing still hadn’t separated. Yan Wei had heard their arguments about whether to split so often that his ears were calloused.

The Pandora’s Box remained unused, and the two brothers were even worried that the other might secretly use the wish-granting box while they were unconscious. After mutual agreement, they entrusted the box to an impartial third party—Yu Feizhou.

Yu Feizhou found a chain and wore the box around his neck like a necklace.

So, when these three souls in two bodies, along with Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang, attended Xu Miaomiao’s family dinner, Lin Zhen’s “schizophrenia” nearly scared her parents to death.

Xu Miaomiao’s parents had heard she would bring four male friends, sparking various speculations.

—Were any of them her boyfriend?

—They all looked good. Could they all be suitors?

—Was Miaomiao about to start dating?

—Could they, as parents, pick one from the group?

And so on, endlessly.

In the evening, Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang arrived normally, exchanged pleasantries with Xu Miaomiao’s family, and then went to the kitchen to help.

Not long after, Lin Zhen (who was also Lin Qing) and Yu Feizhou walked in together.

Xu Miaomiao’s father, with his good manners as a host, washed an apple for each of them—two in total.

Lin Zhen took one, took a bite, and said nonchalantly, “Sweet. I prefer sour ones.”

Xu’s father said, “There are sour oranges…”

Unexpectedly, Lin Qing took control of the body and said, “Then I’ll eat it. I like sweet ones.”

So Lin Qing sat up straight, putting down Lin Zhen’s previously crossed legs, and took small bites of the apple.

Yu Feizhou stood up and asked, “Where are the oranges? I’ll peel one for him.”

Lin Zhen immediately regained control of the body, crossing his legs again, “Two!”

Yu Feizhou smiled gently under Xu’s father’s astonished gaze, “Okay. Uncle Xu, could you show me the way?”

Xu’s father, still puzzled, handed Yu Feizhou two oranges and asked, “Xiao Yu, what’s wrong with Xiao Lin…”

He wanted to ask if something was wrong with his brain but felt it would be impolite.

Xu Miaomiao walked by with a plate of sweet and sour fish her mother had just made. Having witnessed all sorts of things in the Tower, she forgot her parents were just ordinary people with fragile hearts and casually told her father, “It’s nothing, just think of it as, well, schizophrenia.”

Xu’s father: “???” Is that all?

With a head full of questions, Xu’s father returned to the kitchen, thinking that the two young men helping in the kitchen seemed normal, good-looking, and had no issues with their personalities—one was a bit cold, but the other could chat with anyone.

Could Xu Miaomiao’s boyfriend be one of these two?

With this thought, Xu’s father walked into the kitchen.

He saw Yan Wei carefully arranging a cold dish, then suddenly turned and kissed the cheek of the man beside him.

Though the action seemed quick, Yan Mingguang smiled subtly the moment he was kissed, clearly anticipating the “sneak attack.”

Before Yan Wei could pull away, Yan Mingguang suddenly pulled him into his arms and kissed him deeply.

Xu’s father stood at the door, stunned.

During dinner, everyone sat around the table.

Xu’s mother was engrossed in a TV show, while Xu’s father looked at his daughter with concern.

Xu Miaomiao immediately felt the warning bells ring, “Dad, don’t pressure me to get married. I’m not planning to date right now—”

“Not pressuring,” her father said sadly, “but remember, find someone normal.”

Xu Miaomiao: “???”

The New Year’s Eve dinner ended with Xu Miaomiao vowing to be normal.

After the New Year, Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang returned to the Tower world to ensure the new rules were functioning properly, then planned to continue their vacation in the real world.

But players living in the real world with memories of the Tower brought strange news.

Thanks to their memories, they could sense something was wrong.

It started with players noticing people around them going missing.

Tower players were all too familiar with disappearances.

Every person who entered the Tower initially appeared to others as someone who had inexplicably disappeared or even died.

They thought the missing people had entered the Tower. Perhaps they were just newly selected by the Tower and hadn’t signed the “contract” allowing them to freely enter and exit, causing temporary disappearances.

But when they returned to the Tower world, they found that the people they knew in the real world weren’t there.

Some had indeed entered the Tower.

After accepting the Tower’s existence, most signed a confidentiality agreement and left the Tower, ending their disappearance.

But others truly vanished, never to be seen again.

No one knew where they went.

As such cases increased, Yan Wei began to sense something was wrong.

The characteristics of these disappearances were too similar to being pulled into another world by supernatural forces.

But these people hadn’t entered the Tower.

Where did they go?

“Yan Mingguang,” he frowned, turning to the man beside him, “I have a theory.”

Yan Mingguang directly voiced the theory, “There’s another world similar to the Tower.”

Yan Wei glanced out the window at the endless stone tablets.

After gaining control of the Tower, they had turned the endless tablets into a monument, engraving the names of all the players who had died and could never return.

Was it so few?

He had always thought the Tower had existed for an unknown amount of time, yet the tablets were enough to hold the names of all the deceased players—the number of dead players was so small.

Yan Mingguang once told him, “Over the years, it has continuously absorbed emotions to regenerate, and over time, some brave individuals have destroyed it through wishes. Regeneration, destruction… until the Tower we know now, which could be any number in the sequence.”

“Suppose the Tower has been rebuilt countless times. Among those who succeeded, some might have realized this. They saw that the Tower would rebuild itself amidst the endless flow of emotions in the world, and those who reached this point would surely want to prevent the Tower from being rebuilt.”

The method he and Yan Mingguang chose was to coexist with the Tower indefinitely, ensuring no other Tower would appear.

But previous players, after destroying the Tower, realized that greed, hatred, and delusion could still gather and possibly give rise to another Tower. To prevent this, they might have thought of another way.

Yan Mingguang said, “Collect negative emotions, greed, hatred, and delusion, and seal away all the bad things.”

Yan Wei nodded, “I suspect that some players who successfully left the Tower, to prevent its rebirth, sealed all the greed, hatred, and evil scattered in the real world, creating another world specifically designed to contain these negative emotions. Their intentions might not have been pure…”

Not everyone who destroyed the Tower did so for noble reasons. Some did it to protect others, but others might have simply wanted to escape the Tower. Those who wanted to escape didn’t want the Tower to rebuild in their lifetime, so they used a similar method to seal all the greed, hatred, and evil in the world, creating another world.

However, emotions in the world are endless and impossible to fully contain. After an unknown period, the Tower still reappeared, but the world created by those ancient players continued to exist.

Previously, the Tower wasn’t under Mingguang’s control, so all disappearances were attributed to the same supernatural phenomenon.

But after they took control of the Tower, different situations were separated, revealing the existence of another world.

Yan Wei’s conjecture was also supported by evidence.

Over the years, he had reviewed many documents possibly related to the Tower and information about the Tower world. Combined with the circumstances of the missing people, he reached this conclusion.

A few days later, Xu Miaomiao helped him gather information about people who had mysteriously disappeared in the real world recently.

Yan Wei decided to go investigate personally with Yan Mingguang, Lin Zhen, Lin Qing, and Yu Feizhou.

As soon as he opened the files on the missing people, his expression froze.

Yan Mingguang asked, “What’s wrong?”

“This address…” he pointed to what was clearly a cemetery, “I’ve been there before. I have a cousin who lives nearby, named Yan Xingchen. Our names were chosen together. I only saw him once after growing up, many years ago. I went to this cemetery and told him I could take him with me to take care of him, but he wanted to live alone, so I left. Could he be connected to the disappearances caused by this other world?”

Yan Wei rarely mentioned family, so Yan Mingguang was intrigued.

“Shall we go take a look?” Yan Mingguang asked.

Yan Wei glanced at the weather outside the Tower—it was early spring, chilly with a cool breeze.

He grabbed a windbreaker and smiled, “Let’s go. I want to find out what’s going on with this other world.”

Outside the Tower, a spring rain began to fall.

To avoid startling ordinary people by suddenly appearing, Yan Wei prepared a car and drove with Yan Mingguang to the cemetery.

The wheels kicked up mud, and the vitality of spring accompanied the soaring geese.

The car stopped outside the cemetery. Yan Wei straightened his windbreaker and stepped out, only to see a boy standing in the drizzle at the cemetery entrance, without an umbrella. The boy had a faint red birthmark between his eyebrows, red lips, white teeth, and a cold demeanor.

Hearing the car stop, he turned and waved at Yan Wei from a distance.

A spring breeze blew, slanting the fine rain.

A flock of white doves flew low, and the distant mountains swayed in the wind.

The trees wanted to remain still, but the wind wouldn’t let them.