Welcome to Rewind World Game-Chapter 1581 - 49: Who Killed the Robin (3)

Tian Yu’s eyes, like cool water, always watched everything.

Her "Magic and Martial Dual Cultivation System" possessed spells for remote peering, so after Su Ming’an and the pink-haired person teleported away, she continuously observed Su Ming’an’s actions.

In Tian Yu’s perspective, Experimental City was suffused with the smell of blood and Formalin, yet Su Ming’an’s expression seemed as if he smelled the beautiful wisteria flowers, with a relaxed gaze.

Neither knew the way, only able to run forward blindly, the pink-haired person’s pink-blue slightly curled long hair fluttering ahead, like a hundred flowers blooming one by one.

Silent along the way, yet it was the pink-haired person who first spoke: "Su Ming’an, how can I truly kill you?"

Su Ming’an’s reaction was calm, as if he heard wrongly: "Answer me a few questions"

"What questions?"

"If one day you became a very bad person, what would be the reason?"

The pink-haired person looked at the trembling white stone in her arms, gently raised a finger, and whispered: "I have already become a very bad person."

Tian Yu watched, thinking the pink-haired person would answer casually, but unexpectedly the pink-haired person said much:

"But compared to this world, me being a bad person is nothing."

"I once saw the child of the World Master deceived by two demons, becoming an accomplice to a false god, obliterating half a world with a blazing sun."

"I once saw a youth who dreamt of becoming a pilot, only to die under the persecution of light."

"I once saw the flames of the nest blazing into the sky, while under the shadows, companions divided and devoured their own flesh."

"Everything ugly, yet also everything beautiful."

"I once saw a girl with orange eyes, closing her eyes with satisfaction in her brother’s arms."

"I once saw a group with ears, wielding blood-stained blades and stabbing them into their own chests, dancing absurdly."

"I once saw a young man lifting us high up, realizing a bright and dazzling dream."

"I saw liars dying from truth, greedy ones eroded by restraint, arrogant ones perishing from humility, changeable ones destroyed by stubbornness, superficial ones trapped by weight, slackers dying from commitment, the closed ones bowing to change, the deconstructors passing from the source, the cowardly losing to courage, the usurpers falling from duty, the impostors drowning in true selves."

"I saw devoted believers awakening from paradox, anaerobes extinguished by tenderness, noisy ones deafened by celestial harmony, dreamless ones sleeping through ideals, spies blinded by openness, blasphemers fearing devotion, hypocrites collapsing from truth, passionate ones hurt by exclusivity, eternals lonely in the moment."

"I also saw a clever trickster stumbling on sincerity, rejecters burned by inclusion, conformists erased by uniqueness, flatterers despised by pride, divine defilers bewildered by divinity, escapists bound by worldly ties, indifferent ones severed from true heart."

Tian Yu listened in amazement to the pink-haired person’s many words. From the tone, this wasn’t mere rhetoric; it was as if every passage matched a person.

For a moment, she felt she too was among those words.

What depth of perspective on this world one must have to speak such lengthy words. Many things spoken by the pink-haired person she had not heard before.

"Which word refers to me?" Tian Yu thought, her heart pounding: "Arrogant one perishing from humility? Indifferent one severed from true heart?"

Finally, the pink-haired person chuckled lightly:

"I truly don’t know what’s wrong with this world."

"I don’t know who we can become."

Then, Su Ming’an pointed to the white stone in her arms:

"You decide to sell it? It’s not your possession."

"Trying to change?" the pink-haired person said: "Swallow it, or... let it go?"

"He is life, and you never had the right to sell him. You can come to our small world; there you could live abundantly, eat well, and perform on stage singing." Su Ming’an said.

"Haha..." The pink-haired person listened, laughed, weighing the scythe in her hand repeatedly, perhaps judging if she could completely kill Su Ming’an now.

Suddenly, Su Ming’an opened a wooden box, revealing—smooth, clean stones. He took a stone from inside and began putting them into his mouth one by one.

"Crunch, crunch..." The white ball’s teeth were excellent, biting with ease, with each stone swallowed, Su Ming’an’s expression grew increasingly relaxed, as if he consumed a batch of special medicine.

The pink-haired person raised an eyebrow, puzzled, muttering: "...So that’s how it is."

Tian Yu watched with furrowed brows, feeling the world no longer normal, full of madness. This bizarre scene, as if two people not on the same line, filled with absurdity that sent shivers down her spine.

"How long has he been like this?" Tian Yu frowned: "Did he hypnotize himself? No, not just hypnosis, it should be some intense external stimuli, making him need this method to protect his rationality... Why did he suddenly go mad? He was fine before..."

"According to... normal progress." Bei Wang suddenly spoke, like waking from a dream: "Now, we have already, ended."

By normal progress, now, everything of salvation has ended, Su Ming’an had become the World Master of the small world, or joined the organizers, living peacefully, traveling, recovering his spirit, about to celebrate his twentieth birthday.

However, destiny veered at the final junction, where Su Ming’an was supposed to reach the conclusion, intercepted midway by the Shitposter Demon, learning much information about the Awakener. That moment, Su Ming’an decided not to end the World Game, but to forcibly challenge the narrowest, hardest golden road, choosing to flip back pages, embarking on a new journey.

This is tantamount to forcibly prolonging the story; he refuses to end the first half "from front to back," insisting on opening the second half "from back to front."

Through eleven instances, his limit of persistence lay in the last few days; as long as he overcame that, he would have a long time to heal the wounds. But he insisted on exceeding his limits, dragging a soul riddled with holes back.

Like an inflated balloon, soaring to the sky at its limit, only to realize beyond the sky is more sky, with a "pop," as air is released, the balloon suddenly bursts.

Exceeding limits now results in stumbling, prolonged pain.

Up to now, Su Ming’an doesn’t know if his choice to turn the pages forward was wrong. If he hadn’t had Death Rebound, everyone should have reached the small world, enjoying happy and free lives.

He forcibly prolonged the latter half, insisted on solving unknown mysteries.

He chose the hardest path, aiming for a perfect score.

He tortured himself, and others.

He encountered pink-haired person, Ming, Phoenix... these unexpected individuals.

He doubts if his journey becomes worse, even less than the initial ending.

He doubts if persisting forward will achieve a better conclusion.

He doubts if he abandoned the happy ending, choosing a path potentially leading to Endless Abyss.

These confusions, doubts, pain, rejection... culminated at the moment he saw Ming’s betrayal.

"Pop." The balloon bursts.

He falls into madness.

"Bei Wang, what did you mean just now?" Tian Yu asked, confused.

However, Bei Wang fell back into sleep, his sleep time seemingly extending, often speaking things he shouldn’t know.

Soon, the suit-clad mechanical man stopped Su Ming’an and the pink-haired person, citing Nightingale’s history, proving the world’s cruelty, thus tempting the pink-haired person to swallow the stone. Yet the pink-haired person stood with arms crossed, indifferent.

Only Su Ming’an performed a solo act, persuading "Shi Ying" to spare the white stone.

This bizarre scene made the suit-clad mechanical man’s teeth ache; he fearfully glanced at this madman several times, hurriedly shifting his gaze.

"Wait..." Su Ming’an pressed Shi Ying’s (pink-haired person’s) hand.

His peripheral vision caught a figure standing in the corner. Long beautiful gorgeous pink-blue slightly curled hair, ornate patterned splendid mask.

—It was the pink-haired person (Shi Ying)!

The pink-haired person (Shi Ying) stood in the corner, seemingly listening for a long time.

In Tian Yu’s perspective, Shi Ying stood in the corner for a long while, always listening to the mechanical man speak.

Then, Shi Ying swung a sword, piercing the mechanical man.

Phoenix appeared thereafter, about to join forces with the pink-haired person to compete for the white stone in Shi Ying’s hand.

"Nightingale, calm down, will you?" Phoenix looked at Shi Ying: "Sell the white stone to me, don’t swallow it."

Shi Ying clutched the white stone tightly. Her head hung low, as if she were struggling intensely.

"The only solution now is to kill her to prevent her from swallowing the white stone," the pink-haired person spoke up, "Phoenix, let’s join forces."

She pulled out a scythe.

Phoenix thought it over, nodded, and raised a sword feather towards Shi Ying.

But Su Ming’an squinted his eyes.

He suddenly laughed maniacally:

"Ha, hahaha...hahahaha...so that’s how it is...so that’s how it is..."

At this moment, with the sensitivity of being the Number One Player, he understood where the sense of discord was.

So it was like this: the senses were deceiving themselves.

But even if he was going mad, he had to continue down this mad path. The most painful days were merely the state of san value in White Sand Paradise and Dome Sky, and he survived those, so he cannot succumb to madness now.

Looking at the pink-haired person up close, looking at Shi Ying in the corner, with the tension at its peak, Su Ming’an did something that no one expected—

He detonated the place.

If worst comes to worst, they’ll perish together, which is better than letting the awake pink-haired person take the white stone.

"—Boom!!!!"

The flames engulfed everything, including Tian Yu’s shocked eyes.

...

When he woke up under the ruins, Su Ming’an saw the pink-haired person with broken legs, fallen unconscious.

—but he knew this person was Shi Ying.

However, sight, hearing, touch, smell...in such a poor mental state, they all rushed up, choking his perception and deceiving him.

His mental state was so poor, perhaps also due to the Awakener’s influence—he had delved into the Awakener’s dreams more than once, and Noel had warned him to stay away from the Awakener.

"Noel mentioned soul longevity. Could it be that the more you contact the Awakener, the more your soul wears down? Especially in my already extreme state, the damage to the soul is multiplied..." Su Ming’an pondered.

Giving a punch to a healthy person and to a dying person has completely different consequences. Su Ming’an happened to be the latter.

If it were his main body, he could still activate the "Eternal Dawn" skill to forcibly maintain the best mental state, but now he could only endure it with his will.

He reached out and removed the mask of the pink-haired person (Shi Ying)—

He thought he would see Xiao Bai’s face, Pudding’s face, Yijulai’er’s face, or Shi Ying’s own face...

However, presented before his eyes was—

...

A face with no features.

...

Su Ming’an: "..."

Seeing this scene in the darkness was a bit frightening. He pinched her skin, and when he discovered "there wasn’t a more beautiful mask beneath this one," he gave up.

"I regarded Shi Ying as the pink-haired person and the pink-haired person as Shi Ying, so this is either the pink-haired person’s face or Shi Ying’s face. But I’m seeing a featureless face, so, is there a possibility that the pink-haired person never had facial features?" Su Ming’an was puzzled, "Who exactly is she?"

"Cough!" He suddenly began coughing violently, coughing up fine granules, which were stone fragments.

He had eaten quite a lot of stone just now, but only the taste of Roseblood lingered in his mouth. Those stones were what he had placed in the wooden box beforehand; the officer was not to eat Roseblood easily, yet he managed to eat them all cleanly.

He coughed a few more times, and suddenly there was movement from below.

The pink-haired person (Shi Ying) slowly opened her eyes, dazed for a moment, then cried out in pain, "Ah, my legs...my legs are trapped! It hurts..."

"You are Shi Ying, right?" Su Ming’an asked.

"Are you crazy? I’m the one hunting you down." The pink-haired person said.

Su Ming’an simply shut out the world, just listening to her inner thoughts in "voyeur mode."

(Yes, I am Shi Ying.) Her inner voice came through.

"It’s fine, I can hear your inner voice." Although his ears were deceived, the inner voice was correct. He seemed to have found the correct way to perceive the world.

...But this isn’t a long-term solution; once he returns, he’ll get some real mental recovery drugs, forcibly restore his mental state, even if they are stimulants or poisons. It’s the last few days, he can’t fall before dawn...

"You take a rest first, I’ll move all the stones away," Su Ming’an said.

(Shouldn’t I avoid sleeping now?) Shi Ying looked at her legs, which had lost a lot of blood.

"Yeah. Hang in there for a while, the white stone is no longer with us, I don’t know where it got blasted to."

(Should I sing you a song? It’s the least I can do now.)

"Just don’t fall asleep."

Su Ming’an didn’t know if inner voices could sing.

But soon, he heard a light, pure, clean song.

The singing of the Nightingale Clan was not soft, not a languid tune, but full of proud exaltation and cleanliness like the high notes sung from the treetops, like war horns on the battlefield, like holy songs in pre-war ceremonies.

Su Ming’an couldn’t tell whether it was the product of sensory confusion or whether it was her true voice coming from her throat—even if she had lost her ancestral abilities, the song was as it always was.

(If I had known that singing alone could win over a Seven-star like you, I wouldn’t have exchanged for those ’sparkling eyes,’ what a waste of points.) Sensing Su Ming’an’s appreciation, Shi Ying couldn’t help but think to herself.

"True heart is the strongest strategy tool," Su Ming’an said calmly.

In the dark and narrow space, the pure song resounded once more.

She hummed a countryside tune freely, and he chipped away the sky stone by stone.

...

"Cough...cough, cough!"

Phoenix crawled out of the ruins, his elegantly styled golden hair dotted with dust.

He dusted himself off irritably, pulled a cloth bag from his chest, quickly assembled the parts inside, and soon, a small camera appeared in his hand.

He snapped his fingers, and the camera flew towards the sky, aimed at him and the ruins at his feet.

"Alright, Noel Agnini," Phoenix talked to himself, "The secrets of the latter half will be completed by me in your stead."

"May you rest in that fantastic dream."

...

Xiber opened her eyes, finding herself in a lush forest.

She looked around and did not see Su Ming’an.

"Where’s Su Ming’an? Didn’t we land together?" She closed her eyes to perceive, discovering that Su Ming’an’s presence was absent for miles, yet she was still within Luowasha.

Suddenly, the forest caught fire, and she stepped on a patch of mud.

After a moment in shock, she gazed out—seeing at the edge of the forest a towering Black Wall.

...