Su Xing couldn’t believe what was happening before her eyes.
She suppressed the shock she felt inside and waved her hand in front of Evangel.
Evangel didn’t react at all.
“Hmm? This is different from the people outside. They can clearly see me.”
Su Xing spoke again, “Evangel? Evangel?”
Evangel still didn’t answer, but the smile on her lips vanished the next second, and her virtual outline disappeared with it.
Evangel snapped out of the illusion.
The moment she opened her eyes, she saw a hand held up in front of her.
She instinctively reached out, wanting to control the hand that might pose a threat to her.
However, the next second, the hand’s owner cleverly pulled it back and smugly mocked, “I knew your first reaction would be that, good thing I pulled back fast!”
It was Su Xing.
Evangel rolled her eyes, then turned and asked, “What did you find out about me just now?”
Su Xing shook her head, “Let’s observe the others first.”
With that, she turned and walked towards Kaka.
Kaka had his usual wide smile, and in front of him were two virtual figures.
Evangel frowned when she saw these two figures.
Su Xing motioned for her not to speak, then walked over to Kaka and said, “Kaka, Kaka, can you hear me?”
Kaka was still smiling, but his brow furrowed.
Soon, he also woke up, “Su Xing, were you calling me just now?”
Su Xing nodded, “You heard me?”
Kaka gestured, “I vaguely heard someone calling me, and then I suddenly remembered my mom and dad were outside, and these two were fake. Then I came out.”
Su Xing understood, “Our illusions are different from those who have been here for a long time. I think it might be because we don’t really believe in this stuff, so the illusions aren’t solid enough, only appearing as imaginary phantoms, instead of real people like the others. It’s also precisely because of this that the painted world refuses for us to hear other people’s voices when we’re in an illusion, fearing we’ll wake up immediately.”
Kaka nodded, half-understanding, and suddenly remembered something, “Why hasn’t Quinn woken up yet?”
The three turned their heads to look.
Quinn had somehow shrunk into a corner, his face full of a happy smile.
On the wall in front of him were not phantoms, but direct projections of two figures.
Kaka frowned in confusion, “Why do I feel… these two people look a little familiar?”
Evangel slowly, word by word, spoke the identities of the two people on the wall, “The Raelmina couple.”
These two people were none other than Rael and Mina, the famous scientists of Mercury, and also the hidden characters from their previous adventure.
“Eh?”
Kaka was clearly extremely surprised, his eyes wide as lanterns, his eyebrows raised high, “Quinn is their child?”
He turned to look at Evangel and Su Xing, suddenly becoming a little smarter, “…You two, why aren’t you very surprised?”
Evangel uninterestedly looked away from the wall, her gaze returning to Quinn, and a mocking smile curled at her lips, “You’re the only one who didn’t guess.”
Su Xing, on the other hand, explained with a smile, “Putting everything else aside, just Quinn and Rael’s hair color, and his and Mina’s eye color, would lead one to speculate. Besides, I went to the snowy plain because I got a free ticket, you went because you wanted to run away from home, and Evangel wanted to kill you. So, what reason would Quinn have to go to the snowy plain? He doesn’t seem like a child who enjoys adventurous travel, does he? Connecting these dots, it’s easy to think he went to trace his parents’ footsteps.”
After finishing, she winked proudly and said with a touch of “Versailles” flair, “How about it? Isn’t it simple?”
Kaka made a bitter face, then reached up and rubbed his cheeks, “Forget it, I’m really not suited for brainy work. I’ll leave this kind of job to you guys.”
Evangel, who had been observing Quinn, spoke up, “Quinn’s happiness seems to be concentrated in the time he spent with his parents, and he’s still a child. So his parents must have left him before he grew up.”
Both Kaka and she had their physical forms revert a bit because their previous memories were from a later period in their lives.
Only Quinn remained in the form of a six-year-old child.
It was rare for her to speak such a long sentence.
Su Xing reacted for a moment before nodding, “Yes, I noticed yesterday that Quinn really yearns for that time…”
She hesitated for a few seconds, “…He seems to be quite deeply trapped. The painted world’s attacks are quite strong today. I don’t think he’ll be able to get out on his own.”
She guessed correctly.
The three waited for a few more minutes, but Quinn still showed no signs of breaking free.
Helpless, Su Xing and Kaka could only shout his name loudly into his ear, hoping to rouse him.
Why no Evangel, you ask?
A joke, Evangel never does such embarrassing things 🙂
But Quinn still didn’t wake up, not even when Evangel finally tried to cut his arm with a dagger.
What scared the three of them the most was that Quinn’s arm had started to become gelatinous.
Kaka didn’t understand at first, but after Su Xing’s explanation, he finally realized, Quinn was receiving the protection of the painting world, which proved he was gradually integrating into it.
Because people like those on the walls, flowers, plants, and even other houses, they cannot be harmed.
This is precisely the painting world’s protection for its “materials” within the painting.
Now Quinn was also receiving such protection, and what this meant was self-evident.
Kaka immediately became anxious, pacing back and forth on the ground like a wound-up toy, muttering, “What should we do? What should we do? How can we make Quinn sober up? How could he be deluded? These things are clearly fake!”
Su Xing actually understood Quinn quite well.
If the illusion had shown her lying on a mountain of money, she probably wouldn’t have wanted to leave it either.
After all, that situation would be too wonderful, and she would truly be reluctant to give it up.
It was the same for Quinn now.
Although they didn’t know what happened to his parents, from external reports that they had been missing for a long time, Quinn probably hadn’t seen his parents in a long time.
It’s perfectly normal for a child longing for parental love to be immersed in an illusion where their parents are by their side.
Kaka couldn’t understand because he didn’t really desire anything. He had almost everything he wanted in reality.
Even small setbacks weren’t a big deal in the eyes of this open-hearted guy.
Considering it, among the four of them, he was probably the least likely to be lost in an illusion.
However, if the painting world continued to only offer “memory attacks” like it was doing now, Su Xing dared to guarantee that she would also not lose her mind.
Her past had nothing worth reminiscing about.
Evangel couldn’t stand Kaka pacing back and forth in front of her.
Annoyed, she finally got up, “What’s the use of muttering here? Let’s go out and find a solution!”
With that, she strode out.
Su Xing and the other hurried to follow, thinking as they walked, “Currently, we can’t go down the path of destroying the painting, so we can only start with those people.”
But saying it was one thing; looking at the neighbors immersed in their happiness, the three of them found themselves in a difficult position again.
They couldn’t harm them, and they couldn’t have a proper conversation.
So how exactly could they find a flaw in the painting world and escape?
Walking to the next house, the residents had already started another day of their happy loop.
Su Xing and the others squatted in front of the person for a while when Kaka suddenly asked, “Are they really happy?”
Su Xing was puzzled, “What do you mean?”
“One moment they’re happy because this flower pot survived, the next they’re happy because they got a new flower pot. What happened to her previous flower? Wouldn’t she be sad about that flower?”
Su Xing was stunned for a moment, then suddenly stood up and clapped her hands, “Kaka, you’re so smart! I think I have a way!”
Seeing Su Xing already sprinting away, Evangel immediately got up and chased after her, taking a moment to turn and shout to the bewildered Kaka, “Follow!”
The three arrived at Su Xing’s residence, where the two brides next door were in their mid-teens.
Su Xing squatted down again and gestured for Evangel and Kaka to be quiet, “Wait a moment, I hope we can find a surprise.”
After a long wait, the brides finally reached the “married” state.
Seeing the groom appear, Su Xing immediately ran to the side of the groom of the bride who would experience a divorce in the next scene.
After carefully observing for a while, Su Xing indeed found what she was looking for, her eyes lit up, and she shouted to the bride, “This guy cheated! Are you still going to marry him?”
The bride’s expression changed, and Su Xing pressed on, “There’s a hickey on the back of his neck! He probably just got intimate with someone else before coming to pick you up for the wedding!”
At this, the bride could no longer bear it.
She rushed over and indeed saw the red mark on the groom’s neck.
The next second, the groom’s smiling face suddenly turned distorted, and he shouted, “You’re so unattractive, who else would marry you besides me? Why do you have to divorce me! Youè´± woman!”
Su Xing felt like she was going to throw up, “You didn’t like her but married her because she was profitable, not because you were doing charity. You’re truly disgusting, playing both sides.”
Unfortunately, the man was just a phantom and couldn’t hear her words.
The screaming groom gradually faded and disappeared before everyone.
The bride was in tears, kneeling on the ground, muttering, “Why… Is it so hard to find someone who loves me?”
Su Xing frowned and walked to her side, “You already knew he was cheating, didn’t you?”
She had just remembered that these were all phantoms, so they should theoretically be extracted from the dreamers’ memories.
But the mark on the groom’s neck was shown, indicating that the woman had known this all along.
The woman nodded, weeping silently.
Evangel hadn’t wanted to speak, but after hearing Su Xing’s words, she mocked mercilessly, “Is your life only about romantic love?”
Kaka also asked, puzzled, “Don’t your mom and dad love you? Don’t any of your family or friends love you? Why do you have to be so fixated on that kind of person?”
The woman’s body trembled, and she looked up.
Her eyes were no longer sad, but resolute.
“Thank you for reminding me of these things. In fact, I should also thank that man. If it weren’t for him, I would never have realized that there are so many feelings more important than romantic love in life.”
Su Xing patted her shoulder, “You should thank yourself. We should never thank suffering. The ones we should truly thank are always ourselves for overcoming suffering, and the people who love you and help you overcome suffering.”
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