Great! I'm surrounded by villains!-Chapter 432 - 351: The Storyteller

Returning to the familiar street once more, facing her high school at the end of the school day, Jiuyue became much more cautious.

She understood the purpose of Duan Mingyuan’s invitation to come here.

Duan Mingyuan couldn’t discern the authenticity of these memory fragments, because everything he believed in would eventually turn into history that truly happened. A middle-aged man of forty could be a Hunter of the Royal Hunting Court, but he could also be a homeless drifter, and the only reason for his presence here was due to a past incident mentioned by Da Jiang.

That night, an entire squad of Hunters had been laid to rest in the abandoned construction site.

The cause was a flaw in their intelligence; a wicked spirit not accounted for in their information manifested at the site.

Such incidents actually occurred frequently; there would always be Hunters dying due to incomplete intelligence.

Jiuyue followed Duan Mingyuan across the street, this time keeping her eyes on the middle-aged man blending in with the crowd.

So then...

Did this man truly exist?

If Duan Mingyuan’s perceptions could become a part of a history that truly transpired, then a "Hunter from the Royal Hunting Court who had been watching him for some time," conjured by his subconscious, could also become a living, breathing human being.

And this was their only clue thus far.

Duan Mingyuan was very clear that this man had not existed, at least not before he learned about the involvement of the Royal Hunting Court’s Hunters on that night.

The subtle point was that, before that, Duan Mingyuan had not attempted to delve into this "deep memory."

Therefore, even he couldn’t be sure whether he had simply overlooked the man’s existence in his shallow memories or if his memory had responded to his thoughts, spontaneously generating a person who had not originally existed.

"The target has appeared, he’s in front of the barbecue stand..."

"Hmm, I’ll follow closely," Jiuyue said.

The man picked up his phone and spoke the exact same words.

While on the phone, the man subconsciously glanced at Duan Mingyuan’s back. At the time, Duan Mingyuan was paying and didn’t make direct eye contact with the man.

But one way or another, before long, the man would disappear.

Either he would die under a speeding truck or get into a black sedan parked across the street.

There was always such a sedan parked at the school gates, and if it hadn’t been for Duan Mingyuan bringing up the man’s previous departure method, Jiuyue wouldn’t have paid attention to the movements of the black sedan.

Suddenly, the man halted in his tracks, the truck barely missing him as it sped past.

The man was startled and cursed at the departing truck several times.

It seemed that, in this version of the memory, Duan Mingyuan didn’t wish for a tragedy to occur right outside the gates of his alma mater.

Jiuyue watched the man get into the black sedan, and as the car started, it slowly disappeared at the end of the road.

"That truck, did it exist before?" Jiuyue suddenly asked, referring naturally to the "shallow memory" before Da Jiang brought up the Royal Hunting Court.

"It existed."

After receiving an affirmative reply, Jiuyue merely nodded but didn’t immediately voice her speculations. She knew that any hypothesis she suggested now could influence Duan Mingyuan’s judgement, causing the following "deep memory" to stray further from its original appearance.

She simply made a mental note of these unusual details.

The truck was driving fast, flooring the gas pedal, and showed no sign of stopping, even when it almost hit a pedestrian, allowing the man to stand there, cursing furiously.

Yet this was the gate of the high school, and in Jiuyue’s recollection, this school was a combined junior and senior high school; surely there had to be signs for slowing down on this road segment.

But the truck driver, for some reason, ignored the sign and whizzed past the school gate at an extremely dangerous speed.

This made Jiuyue take a closer look at the truck driver.

There was no sign of distraction or drunkenness, and even as he passed the school gate, he glanced at the sidewalk, but because the image of the truck passing zipped through Duan Mingyuan’s memory so quickly, she couldn’t scrutinize the truck driver’s mental state more carefully.

Jiuyue felt as if her brain was about to catch fire.

These subtle movements brought with them countless possibilities.

Did the truck driver become distracted as he looked towards the school gate and fail to notice the man crossing the street suddenly; or was he after the man, realizing he hadn’t hit his target, he could only speed up and leave the scene?

What was worse, she would never know the answer to this question.

Because every person in memory would change according to Duan Mingyuan’s perception and stance, and then a new version of history that actually happened would be regenerated.

At this moment, Jiuyue finally understood what He Ya had once said.

The world would respond to Duan Mingyuan’s expectations, at least on Blue Star.

Everyone he met on Blue Star was like an NPC in a large open-world game, where his slightest thought could directly change their lives.

"Deep memory" did not break off with the man’s departure, in fact, it was just the beginning of the entire night.

After finishing the barbecue, Duan Mingyuan took out a notebook from his backpack, which contained many cut-out news clippings that all looked like printed tabloid news, full of sensational headlines.

It was then that she also heard people in the crowd talking about the abandoned construction site.

Someone had found a body at the abandoned construction site.

Perhaps this news did officially exist and was reported by the authorities, but it quickly evolved into urban ghost stories concentrated around hauntings at the abandoned construction site. These ghost stories, unusual and tinged with bizarre horror, became the talk of the town for the homogenous high school students during their leisure time.

"But, Mr. Mingyuan, this habit of yours is really not good!"

After following the high school mini-version of Duan Mingyuan for a few minutes, Jiuyue couldn’t help but voice her criticism.

With her speaking up this time, the atmosphere between them eased considerably.

It had always been Mr. Mingyuan who criticized her, but this time she had found an opportunity, "Who walks without looking ahead? Just recently, I saw a news story about someone who was looking at their phone while going downstairs; they almost got killed falling. Even if they didn’t die, it would be bad if they accidentally stepped on *."

"I accept the criticism."

Duan Mingyuan accepted the criticism humbly, but his expression became tense, "But now is not a good time to talk about it."

He realized that what Jiuyue said could affect some details of the "deep memory."

Like just then, he had found a pile of * by the grass on the roadside.

He didn’t know whether it had suddenly appeared or had always been there.

"Mr. Mingyuan, I suddenly understand."

A mischievous smile appeared on Jiuyue’s face, "No matter how many times we repeat this, we can never find the truth in these fragments."

Because even if her analysis was wrong, completely at odds with reality, as long as it could influence Duan Mingyuan’s perception, it would become a new reality.

She thought, Duan Mingyuan must also know this, yet he still invited her here.

Once she understood the relationship, she was no longer anxious.

Duan Mingyuan wanted to hear a story.

A story that was deduced by her observations.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr(e)𝒆novelkiss