From the end of the world

Chapter 316 Chang'an
The clues that can prove Xiaowan is "the young Zhu Shi" are increasing.

Perhaps after this matter is over, I should go back and ask Zhu Shi if she has a lot of abandoned dolls, and whether those dolls have been stored in the white box by her mother Zhu Jiu. Although I haven't formally asked, I have already prepared the answer to be "yes".

However, the Xiao Zhushi in this dream seemed to be different from the Xiaowan in my impression.

In my impression, Xiaowan is only ten years old, but she is quite mature. Under the first impression of being timid, she is calm, gentle and tolerant.

But the little Zhushi in front of me gave me a feeling that matched my age. After digesting the shock of the exact same appearance between Xiao Zhushi and Xiao Wan, I couldn't help but pay attention to the details that didn't match. However, my understanding of Xiao Zhushi was limited to the scenes I just saw. Perhaps in other situations, Xiao Zhushi would behave similarly to the Xiao Wan in my impression.

Besides, Xiaowan has been through a lot in the apocalypse, so it is understandable that she would behave in a way that is not appropriate for her age. Even if this is excluded, if Xiaowan is really Zhu Shi who has degenerated into a young girl due to an unknown accident, then she might have inherited some of the temperament of the adult Zhu Shi - although I think the mature temperament shown by Xiaowan is also different from the real Zhu Shi.

Anyway, the puzzles related to Zhu Shi and Xiao Wan probably won't be solved here. Everything will have to wait until I return to the real world. Now I should focus on Chang'an.

Little Changan looked at his sister packing up her dolls, his face becoming even gloomier. He said, "It's obvious that Jiu Xing has to undergo strict training every day, but I know nothing about it. My head is full of childish worries..."

"Are you talking about something where no one wants to believe what you say?"

I was still thinking about how to wake Chang'an up, wanting him to at least remember me. "But... it's not like there are no people who believe in the existence of weird things. There should be people who actively investigate urban legends and want to see real weird things... You must have met such people, right?"

After a moment of silence, he said, "...Yes, there is such a person. In the high school I used to attend, there was a weirdo who loved to investigate urban legends. His name was Zhuang Cheng..."

He started talking in ways that were beyond his background again. He was clearly an elementary school boy now, but he was talking about "the high school I attended before"... By the way, did he know me in high school?

As he was talking, Xiao Changan started walking again. At this time, the surrounding scene changed again, and became the scenery of the high school teaching building. There were many students in the corridor who were "taking a walk" outside during the break, and there were also many students chatting in the classroom. I was very familiar with this place, it was the high school campus where I used to study.

It seems that Xiao Changan was not making things up. He actually went to the same high school as me. If not, he would not be able to restore the scenery of this high school so realistically and in detail in his spiritual world. Thinking of this, I suddenly figured out what the sense of disharmony I just felt was.

By the way, if this is just Chang'an's spiritual world, then in the dream, only the things he knows will be presented. In this case, what about the previous conversation between Mr. Zhu and Xiao Zhushi, and the scene of Xiao Zhushi tidying up dolls in the room?
That should have happened after Chang'an's memories of the strange world were sealed. He couldn't have known that Zhu Shi had taken his place in demon hunter training, and it was unlikely that he had seen Zhu Shi abandon all his dolls. Even if he had seen it, he probably wouldn't have understood Zhu Shi's real motives for doing so, and wouldn't have been so impressed.

But if it was a memory he fabricated in his own mind, it would be too real, and it would also correspond to some clues I have.

While I was thinking about the possible reasons, Xiao Chang'an came to the door of one of the classrooms and looked at one of the students.

He was a boy of plain appearance. He sat in the middle seat of the classroom. He was neither chatting with other students nor reviewing his lessons. He just supported his chin and played with a suspicious Feng Shui ornament on the desk out of boredom.

That was me in high school.

At that time, I was still in the stage of exploring urban legends everywhere. Most of the time, I took the train to other places for investigation, because I had basically touched all the local legends in Xianshui City. Sometimes I would hear that there were Feng Shui experts or quacks who came to Xianshui City to cheat people, and then I would go to verify their authenticity, but the result was nothing more than a scene of exposing fakes, and all my eager expectations were dashed.

Looking back now, it seems like it was a lifetime ago. According to real time calculation, the turning point that I used Ma Zao's power to escape from the state of longing for the strange world only happened a month ago.

"Zhuang Cheng... he is different from me." Xiao Changan said, "When I was in high school, I had given up proving the existence of strange things to others, and gradually accepted the ordinary world and my ordinary self. "But he was indomitable in exploring another world, and he would never give up no matter how many times he failed. To me, he was really too dazzling. So I only dared to observe him from a distance and secretly inquire about all the information related to him.

"I've imagined myself approaching him and talking to him many times, but I didn't know how to start the conversation. Maybe I was afraid. Although I admired his courage, I didn't want to be involved in his exploration because I knew it would fail in the end. I didn't want to be disappointed again..."

He continued to move forward, and the scene around him changed again. This time it was a university campus, surrounded by many young men and women.

I intentionally did not interrupt his narration because as his narration progressed, the time phase of this dream seemed to be advancing as well. Perhaps if I let him continue to talk and advance the time to a stage that was synchronized with the real world, he would be able to regain his self-awareness in the real world.

But his appearance is still that of a boy in his early teens. Although the background time is changing, he himself has not grown at all. This seems to imply that his condition has not improved as I optimistically expected.

"Later, you and Zhuang Cheng—and I became friends, right?" I said.

"Yes... we became friends." He sighed and said, "It was an accident. I was causing trouble outside, and was caught in a sack and beaten in the wild. At this time, he stepped forward and saved me.

"He didn't know that we were actually high school alumni, and I knew he had no friends in college. So I took advantage of this momentum, plucked up my courage, and became his only friend in college."

I still remember that incident. I heard that someone had seen a ghost in white clothes in the wild, so I investigated nearby. In the end, I found out that the truth was just a piece of discarded white quilt hanging on a branch in the wild, swaying in the wind.

Then on the way back, I ran into a group of suspicious people beating up a strange young man. In order to vent my frustration of returning home in disappointment, I beat up those suspicious people in the name of saving people, but by chance I got to know Changan, a friend.

After that, we went through a lot. After I knew that he was a playboy who did bad things from time to time, I wanted to break off relations with him. Even though he promised me that he would not do bad things again, I did not believe him. But he was really pestering me at that time, and even if I didn't want to see it, I could only watch his changes little by little, and finally believed that his nature was really not bad.

Although he was far from my ideal friend, from another perspective, this could be considered a bad fate. “Bad fate” is a word I like very much, and it often appears in those surreal stories. With this in mind, I gladly accepted this friendship.

After that, he often joined me in investigating strange events. With a "Watson" who would shout and scream from time to time, the lonely journey of exploring strange stories became lively. Every time I returned home disappointed, I had someone to share my disappointment and anger at being deceived with.

When we set out during the day, we discussed what to do if we encountered monsters and ghosts. When we came back at night, we went to the night market to eat barbecue and complained about the unreliability of ghost stories and the fraudulent rumor spreaders. Occasionally, we would encounter danger in some remote and poor rural areas with poor security. At that time, I would rely on my superpowers to solve the problem secretly and then pretend that nothing happened.

The reason why I didn't tell him the truth about my superpowers was that at the time, I still regarded superpowers as "since they appeared for no reason, they might disappear for no reason in the future", which was a very suspicious power. Now that I know that my superpowers were awakened by the Suzaku Seed of Shan Liangyi, it can be said that my suspicions have been confirmed.

In short, I may not be as unyielding as he thought. From the beginning, I stood on a different position from him - I always knew that strange things were real, because I was the evidence, so of course I would not give up easily.

We continued walking in Xiao Chang'an, and the surroundings kept changing. Every place that appeared was a nostalgic scene that we had experienced in the past.

And finally, he came to a door.

That was the "haunted" room on the fifteenth floor that he had rented in Saltwater City in the past.

(End of this chapter)