About the time I was picked up and adopted by Tallulah

Only now did Orson notice that his hands were tied to a pillar on the ground, depriving him of the ability to move, and that he was not alone. Behind the dim lantern, a figure that seemed very familiar was sitting there.

Tallulah...

The villain boss in the game [Arknights] is a terrifying existence that can easily melt an entire street.

“Um, I—Ugh!?

Orson had just opened his mouth to say the word Tallulah, but before any sound came out of his mouth, an extremely severe headache suddenly came over him, followed by vomiting and nausea.

"Ahem...what's going on now? Where is this?"

After the sudden, exploding headache ended, Orson reluctantly asked Tallulah, who was barely wearing the straight clothes that looked like a military uniform.

"If you're faking amnesia, you better make it look more convincing."

Tallulah responded coldly, implying that Orson should take off his disguise.

What's with pretending to have amnesia...?

Just when he was confused and didn't understand the situation, Orson suddenly remembered.

There was no smell of decay, yet the space was suffocating. A numb body, everything mired in darkness, the girl who had died in his arms, a chaotic convergence of emotions, and darkness... darkness?

Orson frowned. As he cursed his own weakness and impending death, he felt as if a part of his body was being torn apart.

Was it something real... or just another one of my illusions?

"You seem genuinely shaken and stunned. Let me fill you in on some details. When I found you, you were sitting in the center of the village, surrounded by ruins and corpses mutilated by something. Can you recall what happened in that village now?

"Cutting... what cutting? I don't know anything about that... I was locked in the barn for about five or six days, or seven or eight days... Damn, I don't know the exact time, anyway, I died immediately, and those infected people even tried to eat each other to survive. I was... No, I don't know if that was an illusion... But I don't know what the village itself is... Hmm!"

The exploding pain came again, and Orson, completely at a loss for words, had no idea what had happened in the village.

Orson wanted to explain something, but before he could finish, a cold wind suddenly blew in from the open tent door, and a woman in a white coat, with long white hair and a pair of eye-catching big rabbit ears walked into the tent.

There are pictures here, which can be viewed after the updated version

Orson also had a deep impression of this girl - the captain of the Snow Monster Team, the infected rabbit known as Frost Star, the conscience of the Integration Movement, who later died in Lungmen, and one of Orson's wives.

"I saw what happened in that village, Tallulah. Even the ghosts of the legendary ice fields couldn't do this. This unstable existence should be eliminated."

“Wait, wait a minute…!?”

Although he met his second wife, the first thing she said was that she wanted to kill herself.

"Very reasonable advice."

Tallulah did not refute Froststar's proposal, and as the center of the topic, Orson, trapped on the pillar, could only watch in confusion and helplessness.

These "wives" who were once in the game that he was familiar with, now appeared in front of him, but what they were discussing was how to kill him, the "weird survivor"

This is completely different from my impression of time travel!

"I want to ask you a question, and I hope you can answer it truthfully."

After a few seconds of silence, Tallulah asked Orson, and the latter naturally nodded immediately, indicating that he would cooperate with whatever she said and was eager to reveal all his sexual fetishes.

"When we found you, the granaries in those villages were filled with infected corpses. Unlike the other villagers' bodies that had been chopped up, those infected had signs of being eaten, but they had not been cut up, and their bodies were still relatively intact. And when I found you, you were holding the only girl without any wounds in your arms. Who is she to you?"

Tallulah looked at Orson, her black pupils holding an oppressive feeling that was not typical for a girl of her age.

"That girl—I have no connection with that child. The only connection is that I witnessed her death with my own eyes. She lost her breath right in my arms. I can't accept this fact, and I can't accept that I can only watch this fact. That's not the way people should die!"

Orson spoke out what was on his mind in one breath.

"But that's what we infected people deserve in the eyes of others. You're infected, so you should understand.

"What... infected, me?"

Orson was stunned. The words he heard from Tallulah were like a wake-up call.

Before traveling through time, Orson had always thought that the "infected" was just a disease that gave the young ladies more lines on their bodies that were more in line with their XP, and it was not a serious disease other than that.

But in his previous life on the farm, he had seen the end of the infected - losing their five senses, coughing up blood, their bodies covered with stones, and in the end even their bodies could not be preserved intact, without tombstones, no one to pay tribute to them, and they would only wait for the pollution to dissipate before being broken into pieces to search for Originium.

"You seem to be a newly infected person, don't you? Then learn to understand. Understand the pain and suffering that those people you once watched carry."

Talulah noticed Orson's hesitation and quickly realized that the young man in front of her might have been a "normal person" not long ago.

Faced with Tallulah's cold sarcasm, Orson did not get angry or complain. After a brief moment of confusion, he could only accept this fact.

"I...I think people infected with the virus should be given special care and management. But I've never thought they should be discriminated against or persecuted."

Orson lowered his head and whispered, and his words made Tallulah turn her attention back to Orson.

"Because of the infection of mineral disease, this matter has nothing to do with a person's character, beliefs, or race. It's simply due to birth and luck. I never think it's right to use birth and luck as reasons for discrimination and differential treatment!"

"..."

Tallulah was silent for a moment, then asked the next question.

"What do you think you can offer the guerrillas?"

"Tallulah, are you planning to—"

Frost Star looked at Tallulah in surprise

"Let's listen to his answer first."

Orson, who had never thought that he would meet his "wives" in this way and whose mind was full of confusion, realized that this sentence might be a chance given to him by Tallulah, a chance to survive.

"I-I can offer--uh..."

In his 20-plus years of life, Orson had never hated himself so much for being a waste.

"Me, yes—I can speak Guo Degang's crosstalk!!"

Ah, it’s over, I’m dead.

With 10 seconds left on the clock, he had to decide between cutting the red or blue wire. With his mind already spinning, Orson chose to "cut his nails."

But faced with this outrageous answer, Tallulah simply frowned slightly and asked one last question:

"Have I met you before? Why do you call me 'wife'?"

"—"

Orson's face flushed red, he wished Tallulah would kill him right now.

02. The Princess in the Dream

"Survived..."

In an inconspicuous camp in the world of ice and snow, Orson sat on a wooden stake with his eyes blank, staring at the blue sky and white clouds in dull and confusion.

At this time, Orson's hands were tied together with a pair of chains and handcuffs, and there was a thick round iron ring around his neck, which was said to be able to easily melt his head off.

Although Orson now looks like a garlic man whose chains have not yet been broken, or a death row prisoner who is about to be taken to the Wumen Vegetable Market to be executed, at least Orson is alive.

"I can't even remember how I answered the last question..."

Because of triggering the "excessive shame self-protection mechanism", Orson forgot how he answered the question "What is it like to be called wife when you first meet someone?" when Frost Star and Tallulah were staring at him.

Judging from the results, Tallulah didn't turn herself into a match and set it on fire, nor did she chop off her head with a sword. It seems that she barely... got through the difficult times?

Orson never thought that he would meet the girls in the game in this way.

Normally, the standard plot after time travel is that the girl is in crisis and then makes a heroic appearance. But in this case, the girl makes a heroic appearance and then discusses whether to kill herself.

But then again, what time point am I at in [Arknights] now?

After experiencing his peaceful daily life being disrupted, being dragged into a grave of despair, barely surviving, being rescued by Tallulah, and fighting for his own life, Orson finally had a chance to think and sort out his current situation after being able to sit on a wooden stake for a moment and rest.

Although they had not spent much time together, Orson could sense a sense of disharmony when meeting Talulah and Froststar just now.

I always feel that these two cadres of the integration movement are different from my memory?

Orson lowered his head and thought hard, trying to first eliminate his extremely embarrassing answers and then find the root of this sense of disharmony.

Was it her appearance? Tallulah did seem a lot softer than he'd remembered, while Froststar hadn't changed much.

Is it personality? Tallulah didn't resort to many pretentiously profound riddles during the conversation, while Froststar remained steady and cold.

Was it clothing? While Talulah's uniform looked handsome at first glance, it didn't fit in with the infected around her. Froststar's outfit, on the other hand, was exactly the same as he remembered it, save for the fading... Wait, fading!

Orson had an idea. He stood up from the tree stump and looked around the settlement, confirming his guess.

Whether it's Tallulah, Frost Star, or these infected people, none of them have the DNA-like symbol of the Red and Black Integration Movement.

"I quit the game temporarily after finishing Chapter 7. Chapter 8 was said to be coming, but I didn't even get to play it before running off to this lousy place to dig potatoes. So this is the storyline after that? No, Frost Star..."

Orson muttered quietly to himself as he sorted out the situation.

Frost Star is still alive, so the current timeline must be before Chapter 1, and there is no node between 7 to .

"Perhaps it's not that the Reunion has collapsed, but... it hasn't been established yet?"

Another point is Tallulah. In Chapter 7, she was almost like a madman. Not only did she plot against all her teammates, she even tried to cut through the city and chase after the black advanced dragon gate. The number of lives she had on hand was estimated to be at least in the five digits.

Although I was not fully conscious at that time, I actually called this war maniac who even abandoned his teammates "wife". Could it be that I was actually a face lover in my subconscious?

Orson thought for two seconds.

"Well, all men are obsessed with looks anyway!"

Then he suddenly smiled with relief.

I took stock of the current situation, but the information was still overwhelmingly insufficient. Tallulah hadn't told me what to do, so I decided to just wander around.

Orson got up and strolled around the camp. After a few steps, he met several infected warriors. These infected people, who wrapped themselves with clothes and cloth strips, were chopping wood.

"Whether you're infected or an ordinary person, if you want to survive, the things you need to do are pretty much the same."

Orson once again realized that whether they were infected or ordinary people, they all needed fire, warmth, and a place to live in order to survive. There was no difference in this regard.

"Hmm? You're, oh, you're the survivor that Tallulah found in the village, right? Why are you being detained?"

Orson's arrival attracted the attention of the infected warriors. They looked at this inconspicuous young man with handcuffs, who was said to be a survivor, with some curiosity.

"I... uh, my current situation is rather delicate, isn't it? I'm not sure if this is a precautionary measure or simply because X was harassing your boss."

"?"

Orson's explanation left the infected people with question marks in their heads.

"Are you really a purebred idiot?"

Suddenly, Frost Star's voice was heard from behind. Orson turned around and found that White Rabbit had come here without him knowing when, and he didn't hear her footsteps at all.

Persecution aside, it is said that Frost Star is actually too light, and it seems to be true.

"Froststar, the Snow Monster Team just came to you and said that the process of the last battle with the Patrol Team could be optimized."

"Got it. Thanks for letting me know."

Froststar walked to the firewood pile and picked up a few pieces of firewood, glancing at Orson again.

"Anyway, be honest. We don't have the manpower or energy to figure out your position and true nature. Tallulah may not want to eliminate you as the only survivor, but I don't mind."

"..."

After finishing his threatening words, Froststar turned around and prepared to leave, but at this time Orson opened his mouth.

"Miss Froststar—"

"?"

Froststar stopped and looked at Orson with a frown.

"Um... nice to meet you."

"..."

Frost Star remained silent and did not respond, walking straight towards another tent not far away.

——Please take care of yourself and live well.

Orson didn't say the rest.

Although from the current standpoint, Frost Star is probably an existence that he needs to "treat with caution", but for Orson, being able to see the living Snow Rabbit in person makes him very... happy.

After helping to chop a few pieces of wood, Orson continued to wander around. When he came to the most remote corner of the settlement, he suddenly felt a certain [melody]