"Another self..."
Annan chuckled: "It’s referring to you."
"How do you know the task isn’t referring to you?"
The dark Annan sneered.
The girl with long, straight hair, arms crossed, looked towards Annan with a mocking smile: "Perhaps... you are the superfluous one?"
"No one is superfluous."
Annan spoke softly: "We need each other, we validate each other."
"That sounds nice."
The dark Annan sighed, dispirited: "But in the end, it’s just pity.
"Palliative care, is it? Or coming with flowers to mourn with wine?"
"Your words... are too saddening."
Annan laughed lightly: "As if I ca specially to visit your grave."
"Isn’t it the case?"
The girl retorted.
Annan revealed a crisp smile: "Of course!"
While speaking, he extended his hand to the dark Annan: "I’m here to take you away from here—the correct statent would be this."
"...Heh."
The girl remained silent for a while, sighed: "Worthy of being .
"Do you need help, another ?"
"Please help !"
Annan imdiately called out unabashedly.
"...You really aren’t shy. Should I reply with ’please co this way’?"
"It’s called self-reliance. You should comnd for my self-sufficiency."
"The thickness of this face, worthy of being ."
The dark Annan’s mouth curved slightly upward: "This kind of tranquility... how nostalgic it is. If only I could have t you sooner."
"Quite blue, ha..."
Annan waved his hand with a smile: "Only when one of us between you and dies can we et here, right?"
"Then I’d rather be the one to die."
The dark Annan stated coldly: "After all, there are people who care about you... but no one misses .
"To everyone else, you are an upgraded version of ... You could be called Annan PLUS, or perhaps ga Annan. Just like how old models can only boast about ’cost-effectiveness’ after the new models co out.
"It is akin to praising a dish for its ’fresh ingredients’, or an actor for being ’good at morizing lines’. It’s the kind of praise that’s used when there’s nothing else to comnd."
"Of course, that’s not true."
Annan retorted without hesitation: "Even now, there are those who still rember you."
"People from Winter’s Hand?"
However, their highly synchronized thinking led the dark Annan to instantly guess the truth.
She scoffed, casually opened the refrigerator behind her, took out two cans of ice-cold Coke, and threw one to Annan: "I think you must miss it terribly."
"How could ’terribly’ begin to cover it!"
Annan joyfully caught the Coke, perfectly chilled: "A bubbly fruit tea with ice, it’s still not quite happy water..."
"But no matter how much you miss it, it’s still fake."
The dark Annan scoffed: "Just like ."
As she said this, she downed the can of ice-cold Coke in one gulp.
Afterwards, she carelessly tossed the empty cola can, and it dissipated into the void on its own.
Annan just chuckled: "To care so much about the ’True and False’... That’s unlike . Or are you trying to remind of sothing?"
Looking at Dark Annan, Annan seated in the wheelchair spoke faintly:
"—Is this a hint for the second round of the task? Or so sort of test?
"’Find the only deceased’ and ’find the real world line’..."
"How much have you figured out?"
Dark Annan suddenly asked.
Annan answered casually: "Around sixty to seventy percent, I guess."
"That’s a bit weak."
"I was just being modest, can’t you see?"
Annan replied, not satisfied.
He quickly beca serious and stated solemnly: "The situation has actually beco quite simple now.
"If we consider the world we were in before as the first layer, buried deep under the sea... then escaping upwards from here would be the second layer.
"That is the ’person amidst the sea of fire’ I encountered at the very start of my nightmare.
"He was drugged. Despite slowly regaining consciousness, he was still unable to move his body... and in the end, he was attacked by soone unknown.
"As he was on the brink of death, perhaps due to fear, or possibly the drugs he had ingested taking effect, he had hallucinations and thus conceived the nightmare we experienced in the first layer.
"So, he is the only deceased person."
Annan stated with certainty.
The young girl pursued with a question: "Then who is he?"
"The answer to that question is also quite simple."
Annan smiled: "In the nightmare of this first layer, besides ourselves... others actually all possess a certain trait."
"Fear of tomorrow’s arrival?"
"Not just that. To be accurate, they should not have appeared in this village in the first place. Be it the old lady who is on the brink of death but not dying, the laborer who has been fleeing for a month without being fired, the obese pregnant woman completely unattended and even without a husband, the farr working alone on the endless wheat field...
"Everyone’s ’character setting’ seems exceptionally illusory. It can even be described as bizarre. The reason for such circumstances is simple... they were never real people to begin with.
"They are the projections of soone’s hidden fears in their heart."
Annan replied calmly.
For a pregnant woman, being severely overweight is very dangerous to begin with.
And according to the mories of others... as well as what they wrote in their "diaries" on paper, there were "only ten people from the very beginning" in this village.
"Since she doesn’t have a husband and even lacks any caretakers, with no close relationships with other people, how did she get pregnant out of thin air?"
Annan counter-asked: "It can’t possibly be a virgin birth, can it?
"Even if it were a virgin birth, you, as a black silk beauty, are clearly more suitable to be the Virgin Mary than that pregnant woman who weighs over three hundred pounds..."
Before Annan had finished speaking, his words were interrupted by an ice-cold cola thrown by Dark Annan.
He smiled, casually opened the cola can in his hand, and let the cola foam spurt onto his hand and drip down his arm onto the wheelchair.
He directly provided the answer: "Therefore, the ’lady’ is not real. What she represents is not the fear of pregnant won, but the fear of newborns."
"Continuing to think from this angle, what the term ’old lady’ refers to... can only be the wealthy factory owner.
"Her body is in such poor condition, seemingly on the brink of death at any mont, which actually hints at the fear ’that even wealth cannot buy health.’ But conversely, this ans that the owner of the nightmare is not wealthy.
"He can’t imagine how the factory owner makes money, nor how the factory operates. A person cannot dream of things they’ve never seen or do not know... Hence, there’s such a scenario where a factory owner frantically chases the only worker who went missing for a month.
"At the sa ti, his physical condition may not be good. To the extent that he doubts ’even if he makes money, it might not cure his body.’
"The fear of the day of the surgery tomorrow suggests he might have lost soone important on the operating table before..."
As Annan spoke, he paused for a mont.
"Aside from you, aside from him. There are only six others left here... I’ve already explained a third of the puzzle, is there a need to continue?"
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