Tang Ye walked over, held the book in his hands, and then realized it wasn’t a book at all, but a photo album. The cover of the album had several crooked characters, likely blurred from its owner frequently handling it. Whether or not the text could be made out, Tang Ye couldn’t tell, as he didn’t recognize the characters at all.
"These..."
Initially thinking the album would contain records of Bick’s family life, he turned the first page only to see a young Bick, probably in his twenties, with his arm around a man of similar age, both smiling at the cara. Oddly, although Tang Ye should not recognize the man next to Bick, his features gave him a sense of familiarity as if he knew him.
"Strange."
With a frown, Tang Ye turned the page. Two more photos ca into view: the second displayed a woman sitting in a chair, her hand propped on the table, holding her face as she looked at a girl beside her working on a puzzle. He knew at once the girl was Dairya. Next to Dairya, a slightly older boy was grinning at her.
Similarly, apart from Dairya, whether it was the woman or the boy, Tang Ye felt like he had seen them before.
The third was a joint photo of Ariana and Dairya.
The fourth depicted a man wearing a whimsical mask standing beside Bick, who appeared to be in his thirties in this photo.
The fifth showed two n unfamiliar yet familiar to Tang Ye, their hands holding wrenches, beaming smiles at the cara. The sixth was Dairya’s selfie; her expressionless face and icy gaze towards the cara seed to penetrate the dinsion of the photo, locking eyes with whoever snuck a peek at the picture.
The seventh was of Ariana in pain, a man not too far away holding a cat and seeming to approach her.
One after another, Tang Ye flipped through the photos, the eighth, ninth, tenth... After twenty-three pages, the entire album seed to record Bick’s family’s idyllic life before the war, the slightly yellowed pages exuding a sense of serene and warm nostalgia.
However, when Tang Ye turned to the twenty-fourth page, he froze.
Upon opening the twenty-fourth page, the photograph inside showed a man in military uniform holding a gun, his face wearing a proud smirk, looking triumphant. Of course, Tang Ye didn’t recognize him, but imdiately understood why the previous people looked familiar to him!
The man had a noticeable birthmark from his cheek down to his neck, about ten centiters in size. This guy was one of the seven soldiers Tang Ye had just killed! Among those seven, the one Tang Ye rembered was solely due to that glaring birthmark; a glance might not recall the man’s face, but that mark was unmistakable.
The difference was, the uniform the man was wearing when Tang Ye saw him was Arican, whereas the soldier in the photograph wore a different style of uniform with a triangular cap.
"This..."
In a mont, Tang Ye ntally retraced his mories from his arrival in Kimberlite City to the present, his eyes growing cold instantly.
"Familiar? Or maybe..."
He flipped back to the first page of the album, realizing that these people all lived in Kimberlite City. Tang Ye quickly recognized the man with his arm around Bick in the first photograph as the first person he t in Kimberlite City, a wandering Number One; the woman in the second photo Tang Ye was still unsure about but might very well be that madwoman. As for the "strangers" that followed, Tang Ye had seen them all, but their appearances in the photos differed sowhat from reality, bearing only a slight resemblance.
After reviewing the photos in the album again, Tang Ye put it back in its place, then walked out of the bedroom belonging to Bick and Ariana, where there were no clues – although it seed he might not need any clues now?
Without a word, he returned to the living room sofa. His arm flesh squird open a slit, and Tang Ye, seemingly at random, emptied the hardly-touched al in front of him into the opening in his arm, then reset the tableware on the table, fabricating a scene of the aftermath of a whirlwind al.
The contents of the album had made it clear to Tang Ye that everyone in this city nad Kimberlite had a good relationship with Bick’s family. Their identities were complex, clearly well-acquainted!
The instant before, Tang Ye felt as if he were a novice just learning to play a ga, who then plunged headfirst into it, thinking the people around him were the sa as him. Little did he know, he was the only player in this server, and the others he saw were rely NPCs.
But such thought was fleeting, and he rembered the sudden change in Bick and his wife when Dairya stepped out earlier, ringing the term "outsider" in his mind.
He was an outsider, but what should an outsider like him do here?
Glancing at the tableware, Tang Ye’s gaze hardened for a mont before he tidied it up and stood, taking the dishes to the kitchen sink. Yet in his mind, fragnts of Dairya’s mories kept surfacing.
The seven soldiers in Arican uniforms, Number One and Number Two wanderers, the father and son hiding in the high-rise, the two ard bandits, that madwoman, and the man who starved to death shortly after Tang Ye returned to the starting point—they had all appeared in both the photo album and Dairya’s mories.
However, they played roles in the album and in Dairya’s mories that were different from what he had seen. Among those seven soldiers, one of them, by all ans, should have been a guardian soldier. Yet in Kimberlite, he was an invader!
As for the others, they all had deep connections to Dairya’s family. However, when Tang Ye first saw Dairya’s ho, among those who killed, were one or two of them.
He recalled Lu Xiaojie’s analogy: the people here were like extras who had run through countless drama sets, continuously switching identities. Here, Tang Ye, the outsider, was the only real one.
Similarly, the people of Kimberlite City seed to play roles completely different from their true identities. Yet they didn’t know that. But how could he prove they were unaware? And what was Tang Ye supposed to do?
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