IWBL: Chapter 213

Xiao Li didn’t sleep for long this time. He woke up automatically from his dream after an hour. He didn’t dream like last time, nor was there any external interference. He slept very heavily. He simply tidied up his clothes, opened the door and walked out.

The people outside were already sitting on the sofa. Jin Handong seemed to have slept. Her hair was different from the usual tidiness and was a bit messy. There were traces on her cheek that she was lying on her side. However, she didn’t have time to tidy up and was watching the door.

The door on the first floor was opened. Looking from the side facing the door, they could just see the outdoors. Wen Wenwen stood at the gate of the garden, his limbs twisted as he danced to something. Xiao Li even heard the music flying from there. It was a happy song of Starlord in the Marvel movie. This music seemed incompatible with this instance world and Xiao Li was taken aback for a moment.

He soon realized that the other person was verifying his own conjecture about whether a reaction or action that didn’t fit with the common sense of a horror movie was the way to live in this instance. People who encountered this type of thing normally wouldn’t sing and dance suddenly.

Xiao Li walked to the sofa. He half leaned on it as he asked, “Is it useful?”

Jin Handong shook her head. “It’s useless.”

Over there, Wen Wenwen was already coming to the end. He finished his last move and stood at the door holding his task book. He waited for a while with no response, so he walked back in a disappointed manner.

The moment he turned his head, he was faced with Wang Huai’s phone camera. Wang Huai told him, “I have recorded it and I am ready to put it on the forum. The title will be: A reincarnator went crazy due to the horror in an instance world and did such a thing.”

Wen Wenwen, “……”

He walked inside with a blank expression. He had thought of the consequences long before he made such an attempt. Still, he chose to do it because he felt that his conjecture was reasonable. Before dancing, Wen Wenwen was still a bit excited like he was following behind Sherlock. He thought that if Sherlock was awake, this person would choose to try and dance with him. He might’ve failed at the end but he didn’t regret the process. He felt like he had opened the door to a new world.

However, as he approached Wang Huai, Wen Wenwen was full of hatred and fought back. “Old Wang, if you have time like this then it is better to organize your feelings and to not interfere with other people’s relationship. Otherwise, you will be struck down by thunder.”

Wang Huai, “?”

Wen Wenwen felt the joy of revenge. He walked up to Xiao Li and directly said, “My guess has failed.”

“…I’m sorry?”

“I still can’t figure it out. Why did it fail? I think it makes sense.”

This time, Xiao Li thought about it. “If a protagonist reacted like you in a horror movie then I would want to watch it. It is much better than these movies currently released.”

Wen Wenwen, “……”

Wasn’t this his daily routine? Wen Wenwen wanted to express his thoughts but didn’t dare say it. Instead, he asked about the topic he most cared about. “Big Brother, have you sorted out your conjectures?”

His expression was pitiful and his eyes were earnest. It was as if he was looking at his only hope and Xiao Li felt quite uncomfortable. “I guess?”

“What is it?”

Xiao Li was about to speak when he suddenly looked behind Wen Wenwen.

“What’s the matter?”

Wen Wenwen noticed his gaze and followed it to the open door.

The outside was originally normal, with thin fog and cloudy daylight. Now he saw a grey area outside, like floating dust covering the entire house. The world fell into a strange chaos. The fog floated in the air like it was alive, as if it could invade this small house at any time.

If it wasn’t for the time on their watches reminding them that it was daytime, anyone seeing this scene would think it was night.

“The safety time is up.” Wen Wenwen’s voice immediately became serious. “Go out first. We can’t be trapped in the house.”

It was like being chased by a ghost. They couldn’t run upstairs or into an elevator. It was because once their only escape route was blocked, they would have nowhere to run.

Xiao Li told them, “Come with me.”

He took the lead this time. Shen Chenzhi followed him without hesitation and the others moved in unison.

The moment they rushed out of the small house, Jin Handong suddenly remembered the poster ‘Night of Fear’ hanging in the movie theatre previously. The people on the post fled the house in a panic like them. In addition, the last movie was called ‘Death.’

The moment he walked onto the road where the small house was located, Bruce heard the voice of the red-haired youth from where he was running in the rear. It was trembling and filled with a desire for help. “They texted me again. Bruce, are you there? Sherlock? Help me, I don’t dare read their messages.”

Bruce resisted the urge to look back. He had previously been responsible for sending the red-haired youth to the other house. He boldly thought that he could find out some secrets. As a result, the red-haired youth didn’t know a stick from three farts. He didn’t know anything. He just held his phone in a panic. Therefore, Bruce had found an excuse to come back.

The red-haired youth seemed to know that Bruce had heard his call for help but chose not to respond. The footsteps got closer and the voice became sterner. “Bruce, why are you ignoring me? Do you know that they have waited for me?”

Bruce’s back was stiff but he ran faster instead of slowing down.

The red-haired youth’s gasping voice lingered in his ears. “Just after you left, I received text messages from them on after another. I was so scared. Later, I became one of them.”

“They waited for me but we can’t go yet. We… are still waiting for you.”

“It is just you now.”

“Don’t let us wait for long. Come down, we are waiting for you.”

It wasn’t just the red-haired youth. There were the words of Xiao Qian and other young people. They were far and near, echoing from all directions. It was just like the appearance of He Tian last time. They hid in the fog and approached the reincarnators from all directions.

Bruce was already holding a life-saving item in his hands and he sped up to keep up with Xiao Li in front of him.

Kesia had run halfway when she suddenly wondered, “Is this the way to go there?”

Xiao Li was gasping while running. He nodded slightly and kept running to the destination. Soon, Wen Wenwen also discovered that their target destination didn’t conflict with the footsteps in the fog. In other words, these footsteps were forcing them to go there. It was the space where they encountered the invisible creature previously.

They soon ran into the previous clearing but the grey fog didn’t change back to its original shape this time. It still enveloped the area. This caused everyone to use a lot of effort to stare at the ground in front of them or they might accidentally fall into a pit.

Wen Wenwen stumbled and accidentally stepped into a big hole. His foot was soaked in mud when he lifted it up.

Xiao Li was following his lead. Fortunately, Shen Chenzhi reminded him in time. “35 degrees.”

Xiao Li took back his foot and changed directions. Xiao Li finally stopped in front of the railing. The situation was urgent and Wen Wenwen didn’t care about the mud on his foot. “What is the way to live?”

Kesia looked at the world outside the railing. This was the path they had come from. The black puddle that was the youth with the mole still remained on the path, warning the reincarnators.

Wang Huai raised his eyebrow. “You don’t want to…?”

Xiao Li pointed to the outside. “Going out here is the way to live.”

“What?” Jin Handong and Wen Wenwen exclaimed in the same tone.

Bruce gave three ‘NOs’. “No, no, no, this is our restriction. We will die if we leave…”

Xiao Li tried to explain briefly. “Yes, if we are in the real instance world, we will die if we leave Styland. However, what if we aren’t in it at all?”

Wen Wenwen tried to understand the meaning of the words. In the end, he couldn’t help transforming into a hundred thousand whys. “No, why aren’t we in Styland? Didn’t Mole die because he went outside the town?”

“He is a plot character and was arranged to show us this.” Xiao Li looked at the black mud outside the railing. “Frankly, I think that was a failure in the arrangements. ‘He’ was too eager and wanted to emphasize that ‘you will die if you leave town.’ This might be a restriction for us but it is also a clue.”

He continued without giving Wen Wenwen a chance to speak. “I think we were in a movie at first but we definitely weren’t in it at the beginning. We were drawn in while we were watching the movie.”

“In other words, our first restriction applied to Styland in reality.”

“The moment we entered the movie theatre and watched the movie, we actually left the real Styland and entered another completely reproduced world. This world might be a movie or a dream.”

“I personally prefer a dream.” Xiao Li said. “First of all, it has the incompatibility of a dream. I often made mistakes I wouldn’t make in reality such as dropping my pen or falling down.”

Wen Wenwen heard this and couldn’t help wanting to interrupt. “Sherlock, isn’t this your normal operation? The forum says that you aren’t physically strong…”

Xiao Li ignored him. “Second, there are all the possibilities and illogical nature of dreams. This explains Xu Jiaheng’s change, his mother and the townspeople. In a dream, everything is possible but it has to follow a certain temple of reality. Therefore, there are many changes.”

“There is also discontinuity so we need to cut this discontinuity through the movies or sleeping.”

“Of course, this can also be explained if we are in a movie but I am more inclined to believe it is a dream.”

“When we watched the opening CG, Xu Jiaheng was in reality. However, everything he experienced was a dream.” Xiao Li finished in one breath. “That time when I went to see him, Tan Li saw that he really was asleep. He wasn’t unconscious. So in reality, Xu Jiaheng is human and we were just experiencing his dream.”

“The first time we entered the movie theatre was the dividing line. After we watched it, we entered this world and saw Xu Jiaheng and his mother as ghosts.”

“He Tian’s life saving item was useless because this isn’t reality. The world just pulled in a phantom of the item so it naturally won’t work.”

Jin Handong listened carefully. “That’s why you previously said that where we are doesn’t matter. The important thing is the way to live?”

“Yes.” Xiao Li simply nodded. “It doesn’t matter if this is a movie or a dream. The restrictions are all in this parallel Styland and can’t radiate outside. Therefore, they use various means to tell us and remind us of the restriction to prevent us from leaving.”

“In fact, all we have to do is leave this parallel town and we can leave here. It is that simple.” Xiao Li tapped his temple with his finger. “This was the blind zone in our thinking.”

Jin Handong wondered, “In that case, why did the invisible creature want to knock us out of the town after killing Mole? Isn’t that a contradiction?”

“Did it really hit? It was only due to the dead Mole that our guess was triggered.”

Wen Wenwen hesitated. “However… your words are just a guess. If you make a mistake then you will die immediately…”

There was no buffer at all. Once the guess was wrong, the sacrifice would be his own life. He would instantly be turned into black water and there wouldn’t be a chance for the doll to act at all.

Xiao Li didn’t hesitate. “Yes, that’s why I’ll try it.”

He didn’t mean to let the others try first. He turned to the railing and tried to test his guess, just as he had done in many worlds previously. However, before Xiao Li could take that step, his arm was grabbed and he was pulled back.

Shen Chenzhi stared at him deeply for a moment. Then he smiled gently, placed a hand on Xiao Li’s shoulder and passed by him. “You stay here.”

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Proofreader: Tofu