Before Fatty could voice the complints he had carefully prepared for Gu Mian, Xiao Qiao reached out and snatched the plate, looking very interested in its contents.
Fatty's mouth fell open, and he was about to say sothing when Liu Ruyan interrupted with a sarcastic tone, "You weren't going to say Gu Mian specifically asked you to bring this to us, were you?"
Fatty deflated. That was exactly what he had planned to say, but Liu Ruyan had seen right through him.
Liu Ruyan continued, still smiling, "He's not that kind of person. Now, if you said Gu Mian made too much, thought it was a waste to feed to the dogs, and so had you bring it to us, that might be sowhat believable."
Fatty's words of praise were stuck in his throat; he couldn't say a thing.
It seed the mission to expand the Doctor's harem was incredibly challenging. Liu Ruyan wouldn't fall for this.
"Still, thank you," Liu Ruyan said, leaning against the doorfra and looking at Xiao Qiao, who was engrossed in the crab roe soup dumplings. "She seems to really like them."
Xiao Qiao did indeed like them.
So much so that the next morning, when Gu Mian opened his door, he found Xiao Qiao crouching outside like a dog.
At first glance, it really did look like a dog crouching at the doorway.
Only when she heard the door opening did she lift her head, her eyes full of anticipation.
Gu Mian rubbed his temples, then squatted down to look at her. "What are you doing here?"
Xiao Qiao was a quick learner, especially when it ca to mimicking speech. She looked up at Gu Mian, her lips moving as she asked, "Do you have anything leftover that you thought would be a waste to feed to dogs?"
Gu Mian was completely puzzled, unable to comprehend what she was saying.
However, Fatty, standing behind him, imdiately understood. "Crab roe soup dumplings?"
But they had finished them all the day before, and making a new batch was too much trouble.
Eventually, Xiao Qiao left, completely satisfied, with a bowl of pear and snow fungus porridge in hand. It was the breakfast Fatty had just made.
As Xiao Qiao carried the steaming bowl of porridge back, she bumped into Accompany Next Year, who was wandering the hallway, wondering what else there was to eat.
Seeing the actress coming down the stairs with a bowl of porridge, Accompany Next Year asked curiously, "What's this…?"
Xiao Qiao stopped and looked at her seriously. "This is leftover from Gu Mian and the others; it would be a waste to feed to dogs."
Accompany Next Year's eyes widened as she watched Xiao Qiao carry the porridge downstairs.
Finally, Xiao Qiao disappeared from sight.
That steaming hot, fragrant pear and snow fungus porridge didn't look at all like leftovers that were too good to feed to dogs.
anwhile, inside the house, Gu Mian and the others, having finished breakfast, were sitting on the living room sofa. Fatty was curiously asking Gu Mian, "By the way, Doctor, you ca back late last night and didn't have ti to tell us about the Amnesia instance."
Chu Changge and Fatty had already learned from the announcent that the instance Gu Mian entered was called 'Amnesia'.
"Speaking of which, that na is the sa as an Oto ga I used to play… Is that instance also related to romance?" Fatty, an avid gar, mused.
It was indeed related to romance. If Zhao Shuang hadn't started dating Sun Zihao, none of this would have happened.
However…
"What's an Oto ga?" Gu Mian turned to ask Chu Changge, who was beside him.
Chu Changge shook his head, indicating he didn't know.
Fatty quickly waved his hand. "Let's not discuss that now. Let's talk about the Amnesia instance first."
As he spoke, he looked at Gu Mian. "Doctor, was that instance difficult? I noticed only you and Miss Keke made it out alive."
Gu Mian shook his head slightly. "It wasn't particularly difficult, but the instance had set significant traps. I guess many players stepped into them the mont they entered."
After shaking his head, he began to describe the Amnesia instance to Fatty.
In the Amnesia instance, if all the players did nothing but flee, then everyone would definitely survive.
But once they started looking for clues, they would step into the illusion carefully woven by the instance.
Ultimately, if even one person awakened Zhao Shuang's mory, then everyone in the instance would suffer for it.
Once Zhao Shuang's mory returned, it was essentially a guaranteed wipe for everyone.
However, because Gu Mian, that BUG, was present last ti, what should have been a guaranteed wipe wasn't.
After listening to Gu Mian's description, Fatty pondered, "It seems instances harbor a lot of malice towards players… All that tricking and deceiving to lure players into a trap… But Doctor, next ti you describe sothing, maybe you don't need to be quite so detailed about the corpses?"
"I noticed sothing in that instance," Gu Mian said, picking up a can of lychee soda. "Sunshine Taxi, you rember it, right?"
Of course, they rembered.
Fatty nodded. "That was the taxi company from that instance, right? I rember the taxi company in that instance was Sunshine Taxi."
He also rembered a psycho driver from that instance.
That driver probably didn't die peacefully.
"I discovered that the Amnesia instance also had the sa kind of phone booth and the sa Sunshine Taxi company. So, I surmise that the Amnesia instance and the Taxi instance are in the sa world."
Since he already knew that so instances existed in the sa world, Gu Mian wasn't surprised to see the sa company in two different instances.
"Later, I found out that there's a place called Sweet Manor in the city next to the one in the Amnesia instance. Sweet Manor is a station na from the 'Bizarre Train Great Escape' instance—one you two didn't enter."
Chu Changge and Fatty listened attentively.
"However, I later asked the NPC for the nas of other stations, including Shicha Sea and Crazy Ga City, but the NPC said it had never heard of those places. Of course, I had a cell phone in the Amnesia instance, and I managed to sneak so ti to search for those stations. I found that, apart from Sweet Manor, none of the other locations could be found."
What did this an? Fatty wondered.
Gu Mian continued, "Either the Sweet Manor in the Amnesia instance and the Sweet Manor in the train instance have no connection and just happen to share the sa na, or they are indeed the sa place. In that case, the reason I couldn't find the other stations while in the Amnesia instance is because that train travels between different worlds."
Indeed, searching for sothing from another world while in the current one would yield no results.
If it really was a train that could travel between different worlds…
Fatty looked sowhat dazed. "It's a pity, Doctor. You didn't know about Low-Dinsional Worlds when you entered the train instance."
Otherwise, they could have used that train to travel to different worlds.
Unfortunately, Gu Mian had smashed the train's control room to smithereens. The train was then unfortunately sent back to the factory for repairs, and he wondered if it had been fixed by now.
"So, now we can at least confirm that the Amnesia instance and the Taxi instance are in the sa world," Chu Changge said, pushing up his glasses. "Did you search for other instance locations when you were in the Amnesia instance?"
Gu Mian nodded. "I searched for all the ones I could rember. Most either couldn't be found, or the search returned too many places with the sa na."
For example, searching for 'Dajiale Supermarket' yields thousands of results, making verification impossible.
"I think if we enter more instances, we'll find more overlapping locations. Then we can group the instances with overlapping locations into several major categories, with each category representing a world."
Fatty rested his chin on his hand. "Will classifying the instances by their respective worlds help us figure out the truth behind this global ga?"
Categorizing them wasn't guaranteed to help, but not categorizing them definitely wouldn't.
"By the way, Doctor, you ntioned seeing this new packaging of lychee soda in the Amnesia instance. I guess the other things in the supermarket are also products from instances. Why don't we go and check the production sites of those things one by one?" Fatty thought he'd co up with a great idea.
Gu Mian stroked his chin. "I rember Chu Changge did that."
Back when the global ga had just started, the three of them went shopping in a supermarket. Gu Mian and Fatty shopped normally, but Chu Changge was already investigating the manufacturers of the products. He really was a prophet.
Gu Mian felt that if a 'prophet' profession existed, Chu Changge should apply for it. Fatty was the chef. As for those downstairs… Keke didn't seem to have a profession that fit her. Liu Ruyan's persona was that of a charming and alluring proprietress, which sowhat resembled that of a madam. As for Xiao Qiao... a valkyrie? But this valkyrie might be a bit expressionless.
Just then, Fatty's voice pulled Gu Mian back from his thoughts. "So, Doctor, the next instance…"
Gu Mian knew what Fatty was thinking without him having to say it. It was just the usual 'the instance is so big, I want to go see it' kind of idea.
"Better not," Gu Mian shook his head. "If you die in an instance now, it's a real death. I rember you've died twice in instances before, right?"
One ti was in the Doctor-exclusive instance, 'Slaughter Ga,' and the other was in a werewolf ga.
Players nowadays weren't trying to get stronger; they just wanted to survive. Players with enough Ga Coins mostly avoided entering instances. Soone like Fatty, who had no worries about food or drink, had even less need to risk himself in an instance.
Seeing the concerned look on Gu Mian's face, Fatty was deeply moved. "Doctor, you even rember that I died twice! I knew you couldn't bear for to die…"
But before he could finish, Gu Mian's voice cut in, "If you died, there'd be no one to cook, and I'd have to go back to eating instant noodles."
Fatty closed his mouth, tears welling up in his eyes.
Chu Changge glanced at the dejected Fatty and said, "The Amnesia instance and the Taxi instance are in the sa world. Both of these instances are very similar to our real world."
They weren't extre worlds like Slaughter Ga or the Old World, nor were they isolated ga-show settings like Crazy Guessing Words or Sweet Lovers.
"We only know of two worlds right now: one is the Second World, and the other is the Old World," Chu Changge continued. "As for the other worlds, we haven't figured them out yet, nor do we know their fundantal nature. Based on the current situation, I guess these two instances belong to the Second World."
Based on the current clues about the Second World, it was indeed the world most similar to their real world. It was just baffling why so worlds were so bizarre—naly, the Old World and Slaughter Ga.
"Speaking of which, you're actually from the Second World," Gu Mian said, looking at Chu Changge.
A school from the Second World had descended directly to Earth during the 'College Entrance Exam' event, only to unexpectedly collapse midway and never return. And that place also happened to be where Chu Changge's laboratory stored its failed experints.
Gu Mian didn't expect to use Chu Changge to differentiate which instances belonged to the Second World. After all, Chu Changge had grown up in a laboratory and had never seen the outside world. The first ti he ever saw the sky was the day the old man from the orphanage brought him to Gu Mian.
Thinking about the Old World instance and the Slaughter Ga instance, although the worldviews of both were twisted, they clearly weren't from the sa world.
The world where the Old World instance is located is called the Old World; Gu Mian had already learned this from Liu Ruyan.
And Liu Ruyan, having co from a twisted world like the Old World, was indeed quite twisted herself.
The na of the world to which the Slaughter Ga instance belongs is still unknown…
Gu Mian looked at Chu Changge. "You said every Low-Dinsional World sends out a Guardian. So, the world where Slaughter Ga is located also sent a Guardian, right?"
Chu Changge stared at Gu Mian for a few seconds before nodding.
Gu Mian frowned slightly. "Who is it?"
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