Forces of Temptation

After I left, how could this world still exist?

Actually... Didn't it crash?

With thousands of doubts, Nan Zhou wanted to get up.

As soon as his feet landed on the ground, his knees softened, and he suddenly fell forward on his knees, supporting the ground with his arms, and managed to stabilize his balance.

The cold sweat on his forehead was dense and dripped down with this kneeling.

The few bright bloodstains on the cheeks were also washed away by cold sweat, revealing a pale background.

He maintained this posture, his thin and beautiful shoulder blades rose and fell with his heavy breathing for a while, before he struggled to get up from the ground and opened the window.

The little yellow bird that called early had already left.

The sun is shining brightly outside the window, and the scenery remains the same.

Combining everything in the room, Nan Zhou is convinced that he has indeed returned to the first box world.

The good thing is that he got a period of absolutely safe rest.

The bad thing is that he is lost in confusion.

Nanzhou's first reaction was: Did I play wrong?

Could it be that the ticket is like a tin box, every world has it, but I unilaterally gave up the mission of the ticket and focused on looking for the tin box, which caused the mission to fail and restarted directly?

Or, are there only these three worlds in the box?

Where will the train leaving this world stop?

Where is the station?

Or to put it another way, will it be different if you do it all over again?

There are too many problems to think about blindly.

Nan Zhou decisively used the "Dance of Puppets" to summon a group of cloth puppets, and then turned around and entered the bathroom.

After washing off the blood all over his body, and fully relaxing his tense muscles with hot water and steaming heat, Nan Zhou checked the time.

...There are only 6 hours and 50 minutes left before the scheduled departure time of the game.

After Nan Zhou concentrated on washing himself, and changed into clean clothes from the infinitely refreshed closet, three puppet dolls who had gone elsewhere to find tickets and boxes returned, squatting beside the bed, waiting for him Come out of the bathroom.

After seeing him, the three blank faces aimed at him like sunflowers.

One of them took out an iron box with its round hands.

...The iron box used for teleportation was changed, and it was placed under the giant tree in the town where he usually rode a bicycle.

The box was found, but the "ticket" was still missing.

Nan Zhou was not surprised by this result.

The first world was too peaceful, with no enemies, no disturbances, and the huge town was completely left to him to search.

From the perspective of the difficulty of the game, even if you want to hide the bus ticket, you won't hide it here.

However, even so, Nan Zhou had to search before he could feel at ease.

He knew in his heart that he couldn't waste too long here.

He also has to go to the next world.

When time restarts and time restarts, no one knows what he will encounter in the next world.

Perhaps it was dealing with [Southern Boat] and {Jiang Fang} of those two worlds again.

Or maybe, those two worlds have been destroyed, and what awaits him is another new world.

It's just that his state is no longer at its peak.

Most of the penetrating wounds on Nan Zhou's calf and palm healed, and a few bite wounds on his body also healed, but the bone wounds were difficult to heal, and even with a little effort on his legs, the pain was still severe.

After spending an hour confirming that there were indeed no new items other than the box in this safe spot, Nanzhou made the choice of "leave".

Everything next is unknown, and we can only do our best.

The lock is the same model, and he has successfully opened it twice.

At this time, the trembling muscles also calmed down.

So opening the box has become extremely simple.

He flipped the lock pin with one finger, lifted the lock plate, pulled off the lock body, put his hand on the lid of the box for a moment, and then decisively opened the box.

After a short period of darkness, there was overwhelming sunshine.

In order to confirm his situation, Nan Zhou squinted his eyes and forcibly observed the surrounding environment before he got used to the light.

Upon seeing this, he suddenly froze.

... Everything in front of him was so familiar that it confused him.

He was standing in a woodland opposite his house.

And on the window lattice of the room on the second floor, a few steps away, there was that little fat bird.

A few seconds later, the window opened as he remembered, but no hand came out to feed the little bird that had come to ask for food.

[Nanzhou] Holding the window with both hands, looking outside, and saw Nanzhou opposite for the first time.

There was a light in his cold eyes.

He made a "come here" gesture to Nan Zhou, immediately left the window, turned around and ran downstairs.

Nan Zhou froze in place, a cloud of suspicion rose in his heart.

But he still did what he should do most.

He staggered a little, and ran all the way to the door of [Nanzhou].

When he stepped on the second step, the tightly closed door suddenly opened in front of Nan Zhou.

[Nan Zhou] in pajamas stood inside the door, panting slightly because of the boiling emotions in his chest, and looked at Nan Zhou.

[Nan Zhou]'s voice was full of surprise: "Why are you back?"

Nan Zhou was also extremely surprised: "...do you still remember me?"

The two were in a state of confusion, not knowing what to ask each other, when the door next door rang.

——NPC [Jiang Fang] is coming to find his good friend.

In order not to cause unnecessary confusion, [Nan Zhou] grabbed Nan Zhou by the collar, pulled him in, and quickly and silently closed the door.

Half a minute later, [Jiang Fang] came to the door briskly and knocked on the door.

【Nan Zhou】Press Nan Zhou behind the door, press down his throat with one arm, but don't use any force, just warn him, don't allow him to speak.

He himself didn't say a word, and looked straight at the person in front of him.

——His eyes are black and white and clear, like a mirror, with the same focus and heart as when he sees people.

They can see their shadows in each other's eyes.

[Nanzhou] said to [Jiang Fang] who was knocking on the door: "Brother Fang, I still want to sleep a little longer. I don't want to have breakfast today."

【Jiang Fang】Wen Xu replied: "Okay. How about lunch?"

[Nan Zhou]: "Yes. I want noodles."

[Jiang Fang] replied with a smile: "Got it, Mr. Nan."

If [Jiang Fang] had a little bit of his own thinking ability, he would find that [Nan Zhou] was clearly behind the door, why couldn't he open the door and talk to him face to face?

...but he didn't.

When the sound of footsteps outside gradually faded away, [Nan Zhou] relaxed the hand that restrained Nan Zhou, and looked him up and down: "Why are you back again?"

... The world in the box was not destroyed with his departure, but just refreshed and restarted.

[Nan Zhou], as the core figure that constitutes the world, still retains all the memories, and has not been erased with the restart of the world.

This recognition inexplicably relieved Nan Zhou's heart, and also made his doubts increase rather than decrease.

He honestly replied, "I don't know either."

"I just woke up in bed again." [Nan Zhou] asked him sharply: "Will you leave again? Will I be stuck in this day forever?"

Nan Zhou: "No, I want to leave here, only..."

He glanced at his watch: "...less than six hours."

[Nanzhou] Oh, "After six hours, won't you be able to leave?"

Nan Zhou shook his head: "Maybe. I may be trapped in these three worlds forever...or maybe we will all disappear."

[Nan Zhou] said to himself: "Ah, 50% possibility."

Nan Zhou asked bluntly: "Can you help me?"

[Nanzhou] also responded with the most straightforward attitude: "I don't want you to go."

Nan Zhou: "Someone is waiting for me outside."

[Nanzhou]: "No one is waiting for me. I want someone to wait too."

The two straightforward people made no secret of their selfishness and ideas, and told each other their demands clearly.

Nan Zhou didn't speak, but just raised one hand, put it on [Nan Zhou]'s neck, and gently rubbed the back of his neck.

When he was lonely and hesitant, he always hoped that someone would caress him gently like this, without saying anything, it would be the most peaceful and beautiful.

He wanted to comfort another self.

[Nan Zhou] obediently did not move.

After letting his emotions settle quickly, he grabbed Nan Zhou's wrist with his backhand: "Okay... I know what is the right thing to do. How do you want me to help you?"

According to Nanzhou's instructions, [Nanzhou] walked around in person, and searched for it according to the daily route he often took in the small town.

Soon, he brought back the familiar iron box from a stone in a small river.

After Nan Zhou got the iron box, he tapped on the side of the box with engraved patterns, thinking that {Jiang Fang} was hidden inside, and felt quite strange.

He also scattered his puppets, driving them to avoid people.

But because the layout of the town was not completely similar to the Neverland he was familiar with, it took far more time and effort than the first world in a box.

While waiting, Nan Zhou briefly described to [Nan Zhou] what he was going to do.

[Nan Zhou] also gave the same answer as {Jiang Fang}: "I haven't seen anything like a 'ticket' in a small town before... maybe it only appeared after you arrived."

Nan Zhou replied: "Then look for it."

[Nanzhou] made a hypothesis: "Will it be buried in the ground? Or in other residents' homes?"

Nan Zhou shook his head: "No."

[Nan Zhou] also quickly communicated with him: "...Well, no. If so, the twelve-hour limit may not even be able to search a whole world. The game will not be like this, no Balanced setup."

indeed so.

This time the game is not a test server that is not open to the public, it can openly increase the difficulty and hide clues from the players.

This is the final battle, and there are countless high-dimensional people watching.

Even if the game party wants to make a move, they don't dare to be too open and aboveboard.

……

After searching for an hour and a half, all they got was the same result as the first world in a box.

...At least on the surface of the world in the second box, there is nothing that can be called a "ticket".

Not even an extra corner of paper.

It seems that in order to successfully find the "ticket", he has to go to the third world in a box to find out.

When Nan Zhou was sitting on the sofa at [Nan Zhou]'s house, twisting and twisting the lock with a wire, [Nan Zhou] sat beside him, watching his every movement.

When the small lock tongue was turned and the lock head popped open with a click, [Nanzhou] suddenly asked in a low voice behind him: "...will you come back?"

When Nan Zhou's heart moved, he had a sudden thought: "Put your hand on my shoulder."

【Nan Zhou】: "...Huh?"

Nan Zhou: "I want to try and see if I can take you to the next world."

"There is also a person there... who is as lonely as you." Nan Zhou said, "I can introduce you to each other."

This is both an experiment and an adventure.

Nanzhou wants to try it out, the iron box can take away several people at once.

And, if he takes away the core characters in the second world, will this world collapse.

[Nanzhou] After thinking for a long time, he didn't answer, but lightly pressed a hand on Nanzhou's shoulder.

……

It's a pity that when the darkness came, the weight of the hand on his shoulder suddenly disappeared.

...Nan Zhou was the only one who appeared under the lonely moon.

Nanzhou sighed.

After testing, the box can only teleport away the person who opened the box.

Uncertain in his mind, Nan Zhou swayed and almost fell off the roof.

Fortunately, he stabilized his figure in the end.

...but he still stepped on the tile with a soft crack.

After standing still, Nan Zhou suddenly felt that someone had described this scene to him.

The next second, a familiar face poked out from the balcony below.

{Jiang Fang} looked at him for a moment, and greeted Nan Zhou first: "Yo."

...Judging from the tone of voice, he also recognized himself.

Nan Zhou didn't respond, but just sighed: "... Alas."

He couldn't figure out what all these settings were for.

Just to tire him out in three worlds?

still is……

Nanzhou thought of the theme of the dungeon [ants].

What's the point of ants racing for blood and running non-stop?

……

{Jiang Fang} clearly saw the whole process of his disappearance and reorganization.

When he regained full consciousness, he also returned to the room where Nan Zhou was imprisoned.

He watched as he watched his originally broken limbs grow bloody flesh inch by inch, the room that should have been in a mess during the fight was not in a mess, the messy bed stained with Nan Zhou's blood was clean, and even the handcuffs were worn on the metal bed rails The faint scratches left behind also disappeared without a trace.

The moon hangs high outside the window.

{Jiang Fang} sat down beside the bed, and put his hand on the clean bedrail.

He was out of his mind at first, but suddenly he heard a familiar sound coming from the roof, and he felt it, so he rushed to the balcony and saw Nanzhou.

Looking at it from this angle, Nan Zhou's eyebrows are very beautiful. Under the moonlight, they cast a shadow that just covered half of his pupils, making the other half as clear as water.

Nan Zhou had an injury on his leg, and he didn't want to jump down. The injury was involved, so he simply squatted on the eaves like a black cat, looking down at him.

{Jiang Fang} leaned on the railing and smiled: "Hey, do you see that I am so disappointed? Just smile."

Seeing this person go and come back, but looking at himself sighing, {Jiang Fang}'s state of mind is unexpectedly relaxed that has rarely been seen in 25 years.

He rested his chin and asked, "Why, are you back to collect debts?"

"Ah."

After adjusting his mentality, Nan Zhou said directly: "I want you to help me find out, is there any 'ticket' I want in this world."