Chapter 578

In short, I could!

So I took the opportunity to say to Sister An Lian—

“Sister An Lian, look, I’ve been researching this all along. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get in touch with Senior and Liguang, right?

“So, just in case I miss my chance… why don’t you secretly tell me that underlying command?

“Pretty please? Pretty, pretty please!”

I was completely sincere at the time. I practically got down on my knees and begged her!

And what happened?

Sister An Lian rejected me without even hesitating. No matter how much I begged, she wouldn’t tell me!

She even said that she wouldn’t tell that underlying command to anyone except Xiao Qi.

Good grief!

What kind of thing is that to say?

I was terrified when I heard it!

I told Sister An Lian, “I understand that you don’t want to tell me. I’m not exactly the most reliable person sometimes…

“But you can’t tell Senior, either!

“He’s hopelessly stupid!

“If you tell him, that’s basically the same as telling Liguang, isn’t it? She’d trick it out of him in no time!

“One hundred percent!

“No, ten thousand percent!

“A hundred million percent!

“Who knows what Liguang would do once she found out!”

…Senior, you don’t need to look at me like that.

Think about it yourself. Wouldn’t you?

Look, even Liguang is admitting it!

See? See? The corners of her mouth are curling up!

Oh, please, Senior. With the way your wife has you completely wrapped around her finger right now…

Even after she tricks you, you’d still have to praise her and say, “My wife is so sweet and adorable!”

So I immediately tried to reason with Sister An Lian…

I told her, “Sister An Lian, you’d better keep that command buried in your stomach!

“Don’t tell anyone! Especially Senior!

“Whatever you do, don’t tell Senior!”

Senior, tell me…

Do you think Sister An Lian set me up?

What’s that saying called again… the door-in-the-face technique?

Sigh, it’s such a shame Sister An Lian didn’t tell me the command.

If she’d given it to me back then…

Would I still be afraid of Liguang now?

I’d pin Liguang to the ground and beat her senseless!

If she dared to fight back, I’d kill her!

I’d make her pay back every last bit of humiliation she’d ever put me through…!

…Whoa, Liguang, calm down! Don’t get so worked up!

S-S-Senior! You need to do something about your wife!

Oh, fine, fine! I know! Only you’re allowed to smack Liguang’s butt—I’m not! Happy now?

I was just running my mouth! Happy?

…Hmph!

You two really are more impossible to joke with than the other!

Hey, wait… I’ll keep talking, okay?

Anyway, after I pestered her relentlessly, Sister An Lian finally understood what I meant.

When I said “kill Liguang,” I didn’t literally mean kill her!

I, Lin You, may be reckless, but I’m not stupid. If I really dared to hurt your wife, Senior, wouldn’t you fight me to the death?

What I actually meant was that I wanted to push Senior a little, push Liguang a little, and get the two of us to…

“Wake up from the dream.”

This world has become a complete mess, and this dream… has gone on for far too long.

It’s time to wake up.

Or rather, maybe it shouldn’t be called a “dream.” Maybe it should be called…

“Rollback”?

…Actually, forget it.

I don’t really like using the word “rollback.” Every time I say it, it feels like I’m…

Admitting that our world is fake.

…Let’s just call it “waking from the dream.”

It sounds much more poetic, don’t you think?

Anyway, Sister An Lian agreed with my idea.

Because she’s suffering, too.

She told me that because the world lines kept changing, she would occasionally see her family alive in one of the altered worlds.

Her parents, her older brother—they’d all be there, sitting around the table and eating together as a family.

But…

She would also lose them again and again, without warning.

She said the world kept changing back and forth, and she was really about to reach her limit.

I understand her.

Senior, just think about it. You lost everything when you were young, and then one day, you suddenly woke up…

Your father was alive. Your mother was alive. Your older brother had a family of his own. Everyone was gathered together, laughing and cheerfully putting food in your bowl.

You spent three happy days with them like that. Then, on the night of the third day, you were laughing and chatting with them…

And the world suddenly changed.

One second, the room was still filled with laughter. The next, it had fallen silent.

You hadn’t even finished your sentence, but the person who had been listening to you…

Was gone.

You’d fallen straight from heaven into hell.

No. Maybe it was even crueler than falling into hell.

Sister An Lian said she didn’t even know whether she should hope for her family to “come back to life.”

In the normal world, she was constantly hoping for things to change, hoping that her family would return once more.

But whenever she happened to spend time with her “resurrected” family, she would also be…

Constantly afraid.

She would always be wondering…

Would she lose them again in the very next second?

It was torture.

For Sister An Lian, and for me… too.

So we both felt that this dream really had to end.

She said she could help me.

But on one condition…

She had to be the one to contact Liguang personally.

What else could I do?

I had no choice but to help her!

So I continued my experiments, continuing to pursue my original objective—

Sneaking into Senior and Liguang’s world and giving you two a great big scare!

But…

Because the world was such a mess, my experiments were extremely unstable.

My equipment was all over the place!

And that was when our Miss Eyeliner made her entrance!

Although Miss Eyeliner and I don’t exactly get along, I have to admit that she really does have some impressive skills.

I hadn’t placed much hope in her to begin with. I just wanted her not to interfere with me like she had before.

All I hoped for was that she’d give me permission to legally approach Senior’s house in the normal world line.

I wasn’t counting on her for anything else.

After all…

Every time the world changed, she disappeared!

She ceased to exist in that world!

She was just as unstable as my experimental equipment! How was she supposed to help me?

But, Senior, this is where it gets really amazing.

Miss Eyeliner…

She actually knew that about herself!

She knew about the world lines!

She also knew that she would cease to exist whenever the world line changed!

I was so surprised. I asked her, “What exactly are you?”

But she refused to tell me.

Senior, your Miss Eyeliner’s secret identity is really making me itch with curiosity!

Is this what an “official” person is like? I still can’t figure it out…

But Senior, you must know what’s going on, right?

It’s just a shame that you’ve lost your memory now.

You’ve become a stupid Senior, all dazed and clueless…

Ahem. Anyway, Miss Eyeliner told me that all I had to do was tell her what I needed.

She said that even if she disappeared, she would still be able to help me!

What did I need at the time?

I told her that the world was such a mess that I couldn’t conduct my research, so…

I needed a stable environment for my experiments!

I really didn’t think she could make that happen. After all, she wasn’t stable herself.

But then…

Miss Eyeliner didn’t hesitate for even a moment. She said she could solve the problem, and immediately tried to take me to the police station!

Xiaoqing wouldn’t let me go, saying that the woman was obviously planning to use the opportunity to arrest me!

I said, “Then why don’t you come along, too?”

Miss Eyeliner didn’t object.

I wasn’t afraid of her, anyway. The moment the worldline changed, she’d disappear. What was there to be afraid of?

So, the three of us went to the police station together.

And then…

Senior, Liguang, guess what I discovered at the police station?

Hee-hee, let me tell you—

There was a very special interrogation room in the police station!

It existed beyond the Three Realms and outside the Five Elements!

Ah, all right, all right, I’ll put it in plain English.

What? No, I wasn’t interrogated! What I mean is…

That interrogation room was completely unaffected by the outside world!

No matter how much the world changed, the interrogation room remained the same!

Its interior always retained its original appearance!

I was completely stunned!

I circled that interrogation room seven or eight times. I was practically ready to lick the walls just to see what they tasted like!

It was seriously amazing!

And then my first reaction was…

“Hey, Miss Eyeliner, could I bring my dad here next time?”

“I could lock him in this interrogation room! For a few days!”

“If the worldline changed, wouldn’t he… be left behind?”

But Miss Eyeliner just rolled her eyes at me and said no.

She said that anyone with a “soul” wouldn’t work.

She explained it in such a mysterious way, too. And when I pressed her for details, she refused to say anything.

Talk about leaving me hanging!

Still, it was good enough. After all, none of my experimental equipment has a “soul”!

After that, I moved all my equipment to the police station and converted the interrogation room into a laboratory.

It wasn’t exactly close to Senior’s house, but with data transmission over the internet…

I could still send over and preserve the data from my on-site surveys!

Every time the worldline changed, I’d sneak over to the police station and conduct experiments using the data I’d saved previously.

And let me tell you!

Although Miss Eyeliner disappeared from every one of those chaotic worldlines, the police station would still open its doors for me!

They’d even respectfully address me as “Dr. Lin”!

It was as if I’d had my own private laboratory at the police station for years.

Although, come to think of it…

Was it really reasonable for an interrogation room in a police station to be used as a laboratory?

It wasn’t reasonable at all, was it?

But the police officers at the station didn’t find anything strange about it. Not even the slightest bit!

They were incredibly respectful toward me. I once asked a rookie police officer to buy me some milk tea, and he dashed off at top speed!

What exactly had Miss Eyeliner done?

I even asked them whether they knew Gu Xi, but every single one of them looked utterly bewildered. It was obvious they’d never heard of her.

That was when I realized…

Miss Eyeliner might be an even more powerful, world-class memory-altering hypnotist than I was!

She could hypnotize an entire crowd in one go!

Even when the worldline changed, even when she herself disappeared, the effects of her hypnosis remained!

…Senior, your “Miss Eyeliner” is becoming harder and harder to understand.

Anyway, through the combined efforts of the three of us—

I contributed the brains, Sister An Lian contributed her trump card, and Miss Eyeliner contributed her mysterious powers!

On the seventh day of our collaboration, I finally succeeded in opening a crack in your little world!

Although I still couldn’t sneak inside and give you all a huge scare…

It was enough for Sister An Lian to establish contact with you!

She stood right outside your door and talked with you for half a day.

Unfortunately, I was pushed far away by the rejection force. I couldn’t get anywhere near you, so I had no idea what exactly she and you discussed.

All I knew was that afterward…

Her expression looked absolutely terrible!

Then she chose to stay in my laboratory and urged me to continue my research!

She said that simply talking wasn’t enough to use the command, and that we needed to take things a step further.

She’d clearly been hesitating before about whether to use the command to “deal with” Liguang. But after talking with you…

She became completely determined!

That was one heck of a change!

I asked her what you had talked about that day, but she refused to tell me. She just kept a gloomy expression while helping me further improve the experiment.

So, Senior, what exactly did you and Sister An Lian talk about?

She’s such a kindhearted person, and you actually managed to make her that angry…

…Hm?

Senior, what’s with that expression?

Hm? Wait a second…

Y-you, you’re not telling me you don’t know?!

Huh?

Liguang? Don’t tell me that back then, it was only you…!

Oh, my gaaaaaawd!

Senior!

Look! Look!

Your Liguang actually dared to have a secret private conversation with someone else behind your back for half a day!

And you were kept completely in the dark, Senior!

She didn’t even tell you about something that important afterward!

You’re really going to put up with that, Senior?

If you can put up with it, then you’re no man!

You’ve got to give her a serious spanking! Spank her until her butt turns bright red! Spank her until—

…Liguang, what are you doing?

Wait! Y-you, you…!

You’re just lashing out because you’re embarrassed! You’re throwing a tantrum!

You have no shame! You’re trying to silence me!

Senior, look at her!

Not only did she deceive you, now she’s trying to hit your loyal partner for telling you the truth!

She—!

Waaah!

Wait, Liguang! Why can’t you take a joke?!

Hey! No!! Don’t drag me into the room!!

Senior!! Help me! Control your wife!!

I went through countless hardships to come find you and ask for your cooperation! I—

Waaahhhhh!!!!