Nan Zhou had a dream.
It's not so much a dream, it's more like a transitional plot before the script begins.
He was buried in a suffocating space, as if there was an overwhelming force on his chest, forcing him to breathe.
He could only use all his strength to push away the heavy burden pressing on his chest and in front of him, like a survival ant, struggling to wiggle its whiskers and limbs, trying to drill out of the hard soil and find a line in the infinite darkness come alive.
Finally, fresh air and sunlight slowly leaked through the loosening soil.
Nan Zhou finally came under the sun.
He briefly enjoyed the joy of freedom.
But the dipping sun soon brought severe, burning pain.
Nan Zhou's body started to catch fire.
He wanted to escape from where the sun could reach, but his power simply couldn't reach the sun beyond the moat.
The ubiquitous sunlight ignited a monstrous fire on him.
The raging fire went up to the sky, and Xinxin's flames rolled all the way, but he still couldn't touch the sun at all.
Nan Zhou used his last strength to look up, trying to see where the sun was, so that he could find a shaded place around him.
Immediately, he discovered that what was hanging high above his reach did not seem to be the sun.
… but a convex lens.
This is a game that many people played as children.
In the children's laughter, a lone ant had nowhere to hide. The sunlight refracted by the convex lens was firmly aimed at it, and smoke slowly rose from its body until its limbs convulsed and curled up.
For ants, this is an absolute catastrophe.
But to people, this is just a slightly cruel game.
In the burning pain, Nan Zhou propped up the bed with both hands, and suddenly turned over and sat up.
A few seconds later, Nan Zhou slowly lay back again.
He was in no hurry to open his eyes.
With one hand on his chest, he evenly breathed, allowing his senses to quickly return to normal from the illusion, so as not to mistake the illusion for reality again.
However, the moment he opened his eyes, Nan Zhou questioned: "… huh?"
Everything in front of me is too familiar.
A self-made calendar on the wall shows the date August 18th.
There are diaries spread out on the table.
Next to the half-painted watercolor, there is a palette that has not yet been cleaned.
Nan Zhou turned around and lifted the pillow, and below it was a book called "The Interpretation of Dreams".
He immediately raised his hand and made a gesture to wake up the game menu.
The tree of life in the background has withered away, leaving only an old branch. All the vitality and hope have been exchanged by them as the last card.
... which proves he's still in the game.
And when the strong tidal tinnitus subsided, a familiar and tactful chirping sounded outside the window.
Nan Zhou raised his legs to the ground.
The pair of slippers that he would never wear out were in the place he remembered.
He kicked off his slippers, opened his shirt slightly, walked straight to the window, and opened the hidden window.
The dark sky in the room suddenly brightened.
Nan Zhou noticed that there were no apple trees outside his window.
And the source of the chirping sound was captured by him in an instant.
—It was a chubby little bird with a short yellow beak.
Every morning for as long as he can remember, the bird has been a regular presence at his window.
Nanzhou has calculated that it will stay in front of its window for 50 seconds at 6:00 every morning, just like the alarm clock, just to make a few noises.
Sing for 50 seconds and it will go away on its own.
Even if Nanzhou opened the window, it would not have any of the frightened responses that any creature should have, and sang its song, coming on time and leaving on time.
When he was a teenager, Nan Zhou also tried to catch the bird into the room and forbid it to leave, wanting to see what would happen the next day.
This bird, which had no self-awareness and only obeyed the established instructions, flew around the house all day and night, from east to west, tirelessly, without making a sound.
The young Nan Zhou also stayed up all night, guarding it, wanting to see what would happen.
At 6am the next morning, the chirping sounded just in time outside the closed window.
The young Nan Zhou ran to the window with a little joy, thinking that he had really changed something.
Before opening the window, he turned back to the little yellow bird on the bookshelf and declared seriously, "I found another bird for you."
He didn't have a creature who could accompany him and understand him, but it would be nice to have a new bird to be friends with.
However, when he opened the window, it was completely empty.
When he was in a trance, the bird in the house leaned out from the gap in the window, landed firmly on the window where it was standing, and sang.
The melodious chirping sounded for 50 seconds, then he flapped his wings and turned away.
In never town, there has never been and never will be a second bird.
Even the first bird was Schrödinger's bird.
Before he opened the window, no one knew whether it was a bird outside or the chirping sound of 6 o'clock on time.
…
This time, when he opened the window and saw the bird again, Nan Zhou was not surprised at all.
He even politely greeted the long-lost little yellow bird: "Hello."
Immediately, he stepped on the window frame with one foot and jumped downstairs without hesitation.
Artificially creating the feeling of weightlessness and heart palpitations is the best way to force yourself to wake up from a dream or hallucination.
When his feet landed firmly and the scene around him remained the same, Nan Zhou let out a sigh of relief.
So, it's not a dream, it's not a hallucination.
Unless he is in a deep sleep that is not suicidal and cannot wake up, otherwise, this is the copy he wants to pass.
... he's back in Nevertown.
where everything has not yet begun.
The blazing sun shone on him, bringing endless warmth.
Nan Zhou thought, where is Brother Fang
What about his teammates
Are they scattered in the town, or are they not in this copy at all
Nan Zhou recalled today's date.
Fortunately, this is an extremely ordinary day, not the day of the extreme day when the light and charm collective is active, nor the day of the full moon that brings weakness.
Even if Yinhang and the others were lost in Nevertown, the residents of Nevertown during the day would not cause them any harm.
What's more, Jiang Fang had been here before, and he knew the way.
Nan Zhou wanted to try to wait for him here.
So, what is the task of the game copy
It seems that he received this question from him, and the mission description of the copy is long overdue.
The voice was different from usual, stiff and dull, with an inorganic coldness.
[Dear player, Nan Zhou, hello. 】
[Welcome to the copy: Ant Train]
【Number of participants: 1 person】
[Dungeon nature:… Sha Sha… Escape… Sha… ]
【I wish you game... sand... happy... 】
Suddenly, the voice that seemed to be losing its signal gave a clear and low laugh.
That kind of mechanical laugh is enough to make people instantly creepy.
【Do you really feel happy in the game? 】
[Your life is a ridiculous story written by others, you should be used to this kind of thing. 】
[It's really sad. 】
[Whatever, try to escape from here, even so, it’s just escaping into the next story. 】
[Unless, you can find a ticket and get on the train leaving the tragedy. 】
[Departure time is 12 hours later. 】
[Try to catch the train as much as possible, but it doesn’t matter if you can’t catch up. 】
【Because this is your home. 】
Nan Zhou listened to the statement of the rules quietly, and his expression did not change at all.
He didn't even notice that this was a high-dimensional person who was using the rules to ridicule him.
The life that should be thought about, he finished thinking about it as early as when he was a child.
He only noticed the amount of information after the taunt.
First, the "Cube Ark" was indeed torn apart.
He is the only one in Yongwu Town now. Brother Fang, Yinhang, Chen Sufeng, and Yuan Mingqing have all been torn apart. They are looking for tickets to successfully board the train that stops at an unknown station.
Second, no matter what mission other people have received, his temporary mission goal is to escape this world and find the so-called "ticket" to get on the train.
And... "Ants"
Nan Zhou couldn't help but think of the too real dream he had experienced before he woke up.
In that fantasy, he was burned alive from the perspective of an ant.
Is that some kind of metaphor
Or some kind of hint
Thinking of this, Nan Zhou breathed a sigh of relief.
As the voice said, it must not feel good to wake up and return to the original place alone.
Fortunately, Nan Zhou's distress never showed on his face.
His thinking will never delay his action.
He put on the pair of "or die" glasses.
The next second, a cloth puppet supported a tree more than ten meters away, sticking out half of its head in a naive manner.
Nan Zhou pushed the frame of his glasses.
The silk thread of the Qianren puppet took Nanzhou's pupil as the origin and spread out around.
Nan Zhou knew that it was almost impossible to escape from this world through formal means.
He lived in Nevertown for twenty-four years and explored twenty-four years.
If it wasn't for "Gravity" hitting him right and knocking a gap to the outside world, he might have been trapped here for the rest of his life.
After countless explorations, he has long known that there is a square transparent frame that firmly traps him in Never Town.
It was also the fourth wall that clearly separated him from the human world where Jiang Fang lived.
Of course, Nan Zhou would not expect a gap in the fourth wall to open out of thin air.
Since the apple tree has not been planted yet, the current time point must be before the official launch of Gravity.
It is impossible to borrow other players to leave.
So, the goal becomes simpler.
…find out if the world is missing something, or adding something more.
This must contain the core clue to escape from the world.
In the normal world, this is an enormous amount of work that is absolutely impossible to accomplish.
Fortunately, the town of NEVER has a limited size and regular operation, and it is a precision-running machine.
When the author does not arrange the plot, the residents of Never Town are a group of flesh and blood walking corpses, like the little fat bird, doing everything the author asks them to do step by step.
The housewife is always shopping, the students are always in class, and the children are always chasing and making trouble, carefree.
The "Eternal Day" comics ended when Nan Zhou was 19 years old.
After that, the author's absolute control over the dungeon has been greatly weakened, and Nan Zhou, who has a certain strength, can finally have a little influence on the characters in the dungeon.
But even so, the normal residents of Nevertown will only have limited responses to what they can comprehend in their paper heads.
In other words, even if the cloth puppets were running around the streets or openly entering their homes, they would not show any surprise to these guests.
Nan Zhou released all the puppets, opened his sights on the whole map, and used their eyes to search every corner of the town with the highest efficiency possible.
It is not only looking for an exit, but also looking for a ticket.
As for himself...
Nan Zhou turned around and returned to his room.
Taking him open the door as a signal naturally triggered the daily "hello" plot.
Two smiling faces stick out from different rooms.
Dad: "Are you back?"
Mom: "Are you back?"
Exactly the same opening remarks, common smile.
Nan Zhou greeted them as usual: "Well."
... it's been a long time.
With his room as the center, he started the search simultaneously.
With the help of the puppets, the search time for Nanzhou was greatly shortened.
About an hour later, through the eyes of a puppet, Nan Zhou found a pitch-black iron box on the desk of the school studio where he was an art teacher.
The box is quite delicate. It is a 50x25 rectangular box with fine and dense dark patterns carved on the surface and a lock on it.
The dolls made by Yi Shuige are rough and fine, but the dolls who found the box have spherical hands, like Doraemon, it is impossible to perform such a precise action of unlocking.
Of course, Nan Zhou can let the puppet destroy the box from a distance, in case there are any traps in the box.
However, although the box was no longer the same box, Nan Zhou recognized it at a glance. The lock on it was the first dungeon [Xiao Ming's Daily Life] that he, Fang and Yinhang had passed. Brass lock on invoice box.
… exactly the same.
Instead of destroying the box rashly, he let the puppet take the box home.
Nan Zhou, who practiced quietly and had a lock-picking skill of 5, could easily open this elementary lock.
He reached out to support the box.
The tentacles of the box were as cold as ice.
He pushed aside the mounting ears, twisted the lock body, took off the lock, and lifted the brass piece again.
He didn't rush to open it, but put his fingertips against the copper piece, thinking: Can we find it so quickly
He was still suspicious of what was in the box, so he waited quietly.
It wasn't until another hour later, after confirming that there was nothing strange in the town other than the box in front of him, Nan Zhou opened the box with his backhand and looked intently—
Everything that caught his eye made Nan Zhou's face change slightly.
… He saw a scaled-down, identical Nevertown.
The box that was originally in the closed darkness, because he lifted the lid of the box, the sun was shining in an instant.
Nanzhou seems to be the god who injects sunshine into the world.
When the sunlight shone into the box in front of him, Nan Zhou suddenly felt dizzy, and his body and mind sank into a bottomless darkness.
What woke him up was the familiar birdsong.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw a little yellow bird squatting on the window lattice, singing loudly and quietly.
There are still buildings without town all around, but he is no longer in the room, but in a woodland opposite his house.
The box in his hand was also missing.
Nan Zhou has not yet escaped from the stunned and puzzled. Not far away, his own window was pushed open from the inside.
Immediately afterwards, Nan Zhou took a breath.
He saw himself.
… the exact same self.
That one leaned out of the window and grabbed a handful of corn kernels in his hand.
The little fat bird stopped singing, twisted its chubby body to peck, and let Nanzhou caress the soft fur on its forehead obediently.
As if it came to sing just to beg for this handful of breakfast.
Nan Zhou was in a daze.
In the "Never Town" where he came, the little fat bird never let Nanzhou feed like this.
… also did not actively stay in this way for more than 50 seconds.
Nan Zhou hid behind the tree trunk, with the rough bark on his back, opened his mouth slightly, and used his mouth to assist his breathing, so that he could barely keep the rhythm and sound of his breathing not too heavy.
He had to think about something else to distract himself.
Here... where is it
Is it a world in a box
Has he escaped from the original world? still is-
The next moment, another completely unexpected thing happened.
A knock on the door came from the direction of his house.
A gentle and smiling young voice sounded behind him: "Nanzhou, I made breakfast, do you want to come eat?"
Nan Zhou's heart was beating wildly.
He probed out and found his neighbor's courtyard and gate open.
A figure in pajamas stood at the door of his house with his back to him, and his silver hair was draped casually and softly over his shoulders without time to take care of it.
Just by the figure, Nan Zhou recognized that it was Jiang Fang.
… No.
To be precise, it is Jiang Fang in the box.
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