Chapter 138: “What’s your father’s name?”
How could it be?
An Wujiu turned his head, frowned, and mouthed to Shen Ti.
[Is it Erci?]
Shen Ti shot the communicator, then slowly raised his gun, aiming at the pollutant in front of them.
“Don’t shoot yet.”
An Wujiu grabbed his arm.
He still felt something was off.
An Wujiu took another step closer, following the smell of blood to inspect behind the pollutant. He discovered a pile of gnawed bones and chewed meat. Clearly, this pollutant was being kept, and the person keeping it was likely the one on the other end of the communicator.
“We should find Yirou first.”
An Wujiu felt more and more uneasy, pulling Shen Ti to run upstairs.
As unbelievable as it seemed, if things were indeed as he suspected…
The situation would be much more complicated.
After entering the altar, Zhong Yirou had experienced countless bizarre events, from the absurd to the grotesque, but she never imagined witnessing such a scene.
So, people could come back to life.
The person she couldn’t save was now pointing a gun at her.
Zhong Yirou suppressed her turmoil, trying to stay calm. Whatever the conspiracy behind this, whether manipulated or truly resurrected, she couldn’t break down now.
“Erci, it’s me… Are you really Erci?”
Zhong Yirou raised her hands in a non-threatening gesture and said, “You know me; I’m Zhong Yirou…”
“Enough.” Yang Erci’s cold demeanor was extreme, her brows furrowing with a hint of disdain.
Zhong Yirou was pained by her gaze. She didn’t understand what was happening, but she couldn’t question it now.
She quickly wiped her tears with the back of her hand and glanced at Wu You, who was still struggling on the shelf.
The syringe likely contained a sedative, effective against pollutants.
“Do you want to kill me?” Zhong Yirou stared at Yang Erci through the shattered glass, “If so, why haven’t you done it?”
Yang Erci’s brows furrowed again.
Zhong Yirou noticed her finger twitching slightly on the trigger but ultimately not pulling it.
Suddenly, Yang Erci shifted her aim to Wu You, who was lying down.
“No!”
Zhong Yirou threw herself over Wu You. Her arm was corroded by his mucus, but she felt no pain. “Don’t shoot.”
Wu You smelled Zhong Yirou and immediately retracted the defensive mucus on his skin.
“You want to kill me. Isn’t that what you want?” Zhong Yirou lay on Wu You, looking up at Yang Erci with panic and helplessness. “He’s Wu You; can’t you recognize him? He won’t harm anyone.”
Zhong Yirou was now filled with despair. Both people were very familiar with her, but one didn’t recognize her and wanted to kill her, while the other was polluted and couldn’t hear her.
Yang Erci stood there, staring into Zhong Yirou’s tear-filled eyes, gripping her gun tighter.
Zhong Yirou, slowly emerging from her shock and panic, realized that the Yang Erci before her was different from yesterday.
Yesterday, she wore a white shirt and black pants, but now she had on a gray-black hoodie Zhong Yirou had never seen before.
Yang Erci’s wardrobe didn’t have this item.
Looking closely, Zhong Yirou noticed that under the hood, her hair was shoulder-length and dyed blue-black.
It wasn’t long black hair.
Her gaze fell on Yang Erci’s arm, where her sleeve was soaked in blood, possibly injured, with a burn scar on her hand, half-covered by her sleeve.
Everything but her appearance seemed different.
Zhong Yirou thought, dazed, could this not be Yang Erci…
Or not the Yang Erci she knew?
Realizing this, a cold chill spread through her heart.
Yang Erci wasn’t being controlled. She had no knife wound on her chest, and her condition didn’t resemble that of someone who had died. Many features were different from Yang Erci, like two different bodies.
Zhong Yirou recalled Yang Erci’s reaction when she called her name…
She said, “Enough,” without denying it.
Could her name also be Yang Erci?
Her thoughts grew more complex and increasingly frightening the deeper she pondered.
But how could this be? How could there be two of her? Zhong Yirou kept denying her own thoughts, but the reality unfolding before her forced her to confront it all.
They were indeed in the altar; otherwise, how could something like this happen?
Zhong Yirou was desperate to know why another Yang Erci had appeared, but she feared angering the one in front of her.
If she really opened fire, Wu You would be in grave danger.
She decided to stall, at least until Wu You recovered a bit and An Wujiu and Shen Ti arrived.
The Yang Erci before her stared down at her with a complex expression, as if wanting to kill her but unable to.
This was unusual. She had pointed a gun at her as soon as she appeared, likely intending to kill her or extract some information, but she had done neither.
Zhong Yirou suddenly thought, could this Yang Erci also recognize her and tell at a glance that she was not the Zhong Yirou she knew?
There was only one possibility in this situation: the Zhong Yirou she knew was already dead, just like what she had encountered.
Wu You, underneath her, wrapped his tentacle around her hand, reminding her that there wasn’t just one possibility.
Another one was that the other Zhong Yirou had been polluted…
“You…” Zhong Yirou tried to speak, “You recognize my face, right?”
She quickly added, “But I’m not the person you’re looking for.”
The shadow of the hood covered Yang Erci’s brows and eyes, and in her pupils, Zhong Yirou’s face was reflected.
Exactly the same…
Yang Erci had considered shooting, something she had anticipated and prepared for.
When she saw someone looking exactly like her friend appear before her and she killed them, she was ready.
There would surely be another Zhong Yirou, who could appear at any moment.
She couldn’t be fooled and had to kill her.
“I’m just guessing.” Zhong Yirou lowered her eyes and then looked up at her, “I have a… friend.” She bit her lip and said, “She looks a lot like you, so when I saw you, I was mistaken.”
Zhong Yirou looked up at her and said something very daring.
“I won’t hurt you, you look so much like her.”
Yang Erci’s tense nerves inevitably relaxed for a moment. She knew the person before her was not the real Zhong Yirou.
The real one had long become a pollutant, locked by her own hands in the cold storage room.
But they were identical, even down to the tone and expressions.
Yang Erci was still dazed for a moment.
But it was this moment of hesitation that made her vulnerable. Several tentacles swiftly shot out like snakes, attacking this Yang Erci, one striking her wrist to make her drop the gun, and the rest coiled around her like constricting pythons.
Zhong Yirou didn’t expect Wu You to recover so quickly. She hurriedly picked up the gun and put it in her bag.
Wu You’s tentacles wrapped around Yang Erci’s neck, squeezing her throat. Zhong Yirou saw her struggling to breathe and anxiously patted Wu You’s tentacles.
“Wu You! Wu You, don’t strangle her, let her go!” Zhong Yirou was so anxious that she didn’t realize Wu You was in attack mode, his skin covered in mucus, even corroding her hands.
But it was useless; Wu You couldn’t hear her.
Zhong Yirou was almost in tears, but she couldn’t attack Wu You. Watching Yang Erci about to be strangled to death, Wu You extended another tentacle, its tip opening with sharp teeth, aiming at Yang Erci’s heart.
“No!”
But in the next moment, his tentacle stopped in mid-air.
“Wu You, let her go.”
An Wujiu’s voice was calm, contrasting sharply with Zhong Yirou’s panic.
Zhong Yirou looked over and saw him and Shen Ti, finally feeling relieved.
Wu You obeyed his words, releasing the constricting tentacle.
Zhong Yirou felt her whole body go limp, sliding down to sit on the ground against the shelf.
The tentacles retracted, and An Wujiu looked at the person Wu You had attacked. Even though it was exactly as he had suspected, seeing her face still stunned him.
Yang Erci was almost strangled to death, her face pale, her hands clutching her throat, gasping, and looking at An Wujiu with hostility.
Shen Ti directly pointed his gun at her and asked, “What’s your father’s name?”
Even Wu You was confused by this question, nudging Shen Ti with a tentacle.
[Are you conducting a household survey?]
Shen Ti almost rolled his eyes, glancing at Zhong Yirou, “There’s no need to think; she would definitely call her Yang Erci, so what’s the point of asking her name?”
The Yang Erci sitting on the ground looked at him coldly, clearly unwilling to speak or cooperate.
After a brief examination of her features, An Wujiu concluded that this Yang Erci was probably another person.
Whether she was a friend or foe was uncertain.
An Wujiu slightly lowered his head, looking down at the Yang Erci before him, and gave a faint smile.
“What you heard in the cold storage room was our voices.”
Sure enough, her expression changed at these words.
An Wujiu squatted down, staring into her eyes, and continued, “Rest assured, we didn’t kill her; she’s still alive.”
Yang Erci found the person in front of her terrifying.
He was smiling with a calm expression, but for some reason, he gave her a deep, scheming impression, with a coldness hidden in his smile.
Seeing her silence, An Wujiu tilted his head slightly, “However, we left a little something in the cold storage room. If you cooperate with us, that thing won’t be a problem.”
“Otherwise,” An Wujiu’s expression turned blank as he reached out, making a fist between them and then suddenly opening it with a small “boom” sound effect.
His manner even startled Zhong Yirou. It had been a long time since he had shown this side of himself after his breakdown; she rarely saw An Wujiu threaten others.
This was different from his previous madness. The current An Wujiu was terrifyingly calm when he was mad.
Sure enough, under such psychological pressure, the Yang Erci in front of him couldn’t remain silent.
“Yang Ce.” She glanced at Shen Ti and said, “That’s my father’s name.”
Shen Ti raised an eyebrow and said, “So it’s the same.” He lowered his gun, took out a lollipop he had just found from his pocket, tore open the wrapper, and put it in his mouth.
Shen Ti pointed at Zhong Yirou, mumbling around the lollipop, “Do you know her?”
Yang Erci didn’t look in the indicated direction, remaining unmoved.
Shen Ti took out the lollipop, pausing.
“She’s your wife.”
Zhong Yirou, who had been extremely tense, suddenly got angry at this, grabbing something nearby and throwing it at Shen Ti, “Can you be serious? At a time like this…”
An Wujiu also sat down on the floor, facing the short-haired Yang Erci, “The person in the cold storage looks just like her, right?”
“Yes,” Yang Erci admitted, “exactly the same. You also have someone who looks just like me, don’t you?”
An Wujiu nodded, “Describe more about yourself, like how many events you’ve participated in at the altar, what games, your profession, your residence… the more, the better.”
Initially, Yang Erci didn’t want to speak, but recalling the threatening demeanor of the man in front of her, she felt compelled to.
From what she said, they learned that this person’s life mirrored Yang Erci’s exactly, from birth to her father’s departure.
The difference lay in her experiences after entering the Altar. She had participated in containment center games but had never encountered Shen Ti and An Wujiu, instead meeting other people, including Zhong Yirou and even Nán Shān, since she mentioned a Taoist priest.
Moreover, her post-Altar return to reality differed. After the containment center game, she woke up at midnight to find her apartment on fire, which is why her hands had burn scars. Following that incident, she cut her hair.
In her version, she had confirmed her relationship with Zhong Yirou, having initiated it, and her father was still alive. Before the double moons appeared, she had even pinpointed his location, only needing to go there to find him.
Thus, she entered this alternate reality escape game while on her way to her father’s hideout. Unlike them, she initialized with a friend but discovered another person identical to her friend during their escape.
That person initially sought their help, but later, after she had reluctantly agreed to travel together, they killed her friend when she was searching for new weapons, stealing her aircraft.
Left alone, she was consumed by endless remorse and danger. When she finally found Zhong Yirou amidst the chaos, Zhong Yirou was already bitten on the neck by a pollutant.
It was too late.
She watched as Zhong Yirou gradually lost her human form, but she couldn’t bring herself to act. In the end, all she could do was tie her up, steal a vehicle that could hold a pollutant, and take Zhong Yirou to a deserted area.
That night, she didn’t close her eyes, constantly changing locations. Pollutants go mad without food, so she cut her own arm to feed Zhong Yirou her blood, but she couldn’t keep it up for long.
It wasn’t until she found this supermarket that she finally felt relieved.
But she never expected that the completely inhuman pollutant would be beyond her control. When she returned with medicine, she saw that her former lover, now a monster, had killed the people seeking refuge in the supermarket.
Yang Erci was already exhausted. She used the anesthetic methods Zhong Yirou had taught her, using the maximum dosage of anesthesia and sedatives to stabilize her, locked her up, and fed her raw meat, keeping her like a wild beast.
When they arrived, she was trying to contact her father. From the second-floor monitoring room, she noticed their presence, especially the pollutant among them, which seemed controllable.
Yang Erci didn’t understand and found it unbelievable, so she left the monitoring room and quietly sought out the large pollutant.
She never thought she would see Zhong Yirou looking normal again.
But she saw it, and she saw her laughing and joking with the pollutant, touching its tentacles. Yang Erci couldn’t help but think of the person who killed her friend, who had the same face.
At that moment, she told herself that if she encountered someone who looked like Zhong Yirou, she must kill her.
Otherwise, she would definitely be confused; after all, it was the same face.
Unexpectedly, she still failed.
After listening to what this short-haired Yang Erci had to say, Shen Ti, with a lollipop in his mouth, gave a long “hmm,” as if in thought, and then suddenly made a conclusion.
“Could it be parallel universes?”
With completely different parts as well as overlapping ones, it indeed seemed like people from parallel universes, even though this theory hadn’t been truly proven.
But An Wujiu wasn’t surprised. At this point, scientific or not, anything happening in the Altar could be mysterious.
However, this parallel universe seemed different from what he knew, not entirely parallel. From Yang Erci’s life experience, for a long period, the two of them were identical, like overlapping worlds.
After entering the altar, the paths diverged, becoming two different routes.
He suddenly thought of the two moons in the sky.
Could this mean that the entire world is now a blend of two overlapping spaces?
The land they were standing on might not belong to their original time-space domain.
“I’ve told you everything I can,” the Yang Erci in front of them said coldly, staring into his eyes. “Is that enough?”
An Wujiu stood up and extended a hand to her, but she did not accept it.
“Here, this is for you.” Zhong Yirou took out the handgun and handed it to her. As she did, she accidentally pulled out a pain relief bandage from the bag, quickly retracting it and stuffing it back into her pocket, smiling awkwardly, “I just found this myself; it’s quite expensive…”
Yang Erci stared at the handgun for a moment, then looked up, gazing at Zhong Yirou’s face.
Zhong Yirou, feeling a bit uncomfortable under her gaze, was about to say something, but the other person spoke first.
“You really are alike.”
Both the petty and greedy parts and the soft-heartedness.
The short-haired Yang Erci took the gun from her hand, expressionless, “You’re not afraid I’ll use it to kill you now that you’ve given it to me?”
Zhong Yirou smiled and shook her head, “The Yang Erci I love wouldn’t kill the Zhong Yirou you love either.”
“In this regard, you two are the same,” she said.
Hearing this story from this Yang Erci about them, Zhong Yirou suddenly felt relieved.
Even if the Yang Erci who belonged to her was gone, she wasn’t so regretful anymore.
It turned out that in another time-space, she was also loved. How lucky was that?
Yang Erci’s hat fell back, revealing her blue-black short hair. Even though the face was the same, it seemed different.
She said nothing, turned around, and left.
An Wujiu watched her back and suddenly spoke up.
“I didn’t set a time bomb.”
The other’s steps halted.
“One more thing.”
In essence, she was also Yang Erci, his friend.
An Wujiu asked, “Would you like to come with us?”
