Chapter 636: The Illusory Reality

After climbing over a dozen floors in one breath, Roland felt a throbbing ache in his legs as he finally relaxed.

The old building had no elevator at all, and even in the dream, he was grateful that he hadn't appeared on the top floor.

Undoubtedly, Zero was the cause of all this, but not entirely Zero – because no one would retaliate in this way.

Painstakingly creating a bizarre dream, only to have him witness her defeat, not only stripping away her memories as a Pure, but also turning her into a powerless middle school student?

For a moment, many wicked thoughts popped into Roland's head.

Judging from Zero's current appearance, whatever he did to her, she would be completely defenseless.

Could this be considered revenge?

It could only be said that Zero had indeed done something that caused an incredible reconstruction of memories, but the final result was definitely not what she had hoped to see.

If the massive tenement building was a faithful reflection of Zero's memory, it was still just a building.

And in the distance, the undulating skyscrapers and the endless stream of vehicles and pedestrians on the street, clearly belonged to his memory – a soul from the modern world.

Zero and the people she had devoured had integrated into this dream as modern people, which meant that her attempt had completely failed.

This was a more reasonable deduction.

So, what about himself?

Roland pondered this question as he slowly walked downstairs.

He didn't belong here, at least not to this loser's building. A significant characteristic was that he still had complete memories, knew that he was in a dream, and could leave this place at any time.

Of course, next time he would have to order a more convenient falling tool. Last time he rolled off the sofa and bumped his head, and this time he could still feel a faint pain, indicating that the dream's level of realism had reached a point where it could be mistaken for reality.

If so, how far could it go in terms of richness?

Was it all-encompassing or just an empty shell?

...

Roland returned to room 0825 and carefully inspected the residence again.

It was a standard three-bedroom apartment, without a balcony. The three single rooms were Roland's bedroom, Zero's bedroom, and a storage room. The storage room was filled with large items, such as an old-fashioned bicycle without adjustable gears, a sewing machine, a rusted iron door, etc., probably not worth much even as scrap metal.

Then he walked to the door of Zero's bedroom, which had a clear sign on the door: "No unauthorized entry."

But this kind of warning was meaningless to Roland.

He rudely pushed open the door, and a faint fragrance wafted into his nose.

In the small room, the furniture was arranged neatly, even the bedding was folded. The clean table and floor were spotless, making it hard to believe that a middle school student could do all this.

After Roland took a look around, his eyes were quickly drawn to a cartoon diary on the corner of the table.

She actually had the habit of writing a diary?

This was a good opportunity to learn about Zero's past experiences.

For him, there was no psychological pressure in peeking at a little girl's diary in a dream.

Roland picked up the pink notebook and found that there was a plastic lock on the side.

But this kind of thing was completely impossible to stump him.

The function of the plastic lock was purely to give the child a psychological comfort, and did not prevent peeking. Roland found two toothpicks, inserted them into the lock hole, and fiddled with them. He pried open the lock in a few strokes.

Opening the first page, the handwriting on the paper was childish, but there were few ink blots or corrections, indicating that she was quite serious when writing these things.

"February 16th, because of the school relocation, I was entrusted to a family in another place. The landlord's name is LuoLan, and he is a not-so-particular uncle. He works at a bar, often sleeps during the day and goes out at night, and doesn't come back until the early hours of the morning, always with an unpleasant smell of alcohol on him. I really don't want to live here, but my family said that he charged the least for boarding, and included food, and I wasn't allowed to say another bad word, otherwise they would send me to the countryside."

What the hell kind of background was this? Roland couldn't help but grit his teeth. From childhood to adulthood, he had been to a bar only a handful of times, let alone work there. But the dream itself was an unreasonable place, and it often pieced together many unrelated fragments, and in the dream, it didn't feel strange at all.

Thinking of this, he was too lazy to argue with the dream.

"February 27th, school started. Uncle LuoLan seems to have lost his job and looks very depressed. Dinner has become instant noodles, which I bought back."

"March 2nd, my recent pocket money has been used on instant noodles. This won't work. The magazine said that twelve years old is the time to grow, and enough nutrition must be guaranteed. I have to negotiate with my uncle. If I get beaten, I'll... just endure it. I don't want to go to the countryside."

"March 3rd, he agreed to my proposal, great! Every month he will give me part of the living expenses to buy fresh food. But as long as I'm not at school, I have to cook three meals a day. Who is taking care of whom? I think he should give me an extra salary! Never mind, I often do these things at home anyway, I'm used to it."

"June 8th, three months after coming to Xincheng, I have gradually adapted to it. I have made many friends, and my grades are the best in the class. Although Uncle LuoLan is very careless and always unkempt, he is actually not a bad person, at least he never hits me. It's a pity that he still hasn't found a job, and he seems to be about to give up. This is not a good sign. He can't support me and himself just by relying on the living expenses sent by his family. I have to find a way to help him."

"June 22nd, um... it's so hard to make money. I drew some cartoon pictures and sold them to classmates in the tutoring class, and finally only earned fifteen yuan, which is not enough for two days of food money. By the way, has my tone towards my uncle been too casual lately? He is an adult after all, and it feels a little impolite, but I can't control it. Is this puberty?"

"June 25th, oh my god, I was scared to death today. As soon as I entered the door, I saw Uncle LuoLan fall from the chair, but luckily there was a sofa underneath. He set the chair so high, did he want to commit suicide? It's really infuriating, if he gets hurt, won't it be even harder to find a job? Forget it, I'll ask him what happened tomorrow."

Saving unnecessary details, Roland spent half an hour finishing the entire diary, and had a general understanding of the reason why Zero lived in the same house with him.

The dream seemed to have created a background that conformed to modern identities for everyone, which was undoubtedly an extremely complex structure. He probably couldn't complete it alone, which was why he was in a coma for almost two months after the soul duel.

When he locked the diary and put it back in its original place, Roland couldn't help but pause.

He saw a stack of books piled up next to the table, which seemed to be the little girl's textbooks.

He swallowed and reached out to move all the textbooks over.

The first book was Chinese, the second was Ideological and Moral Education, and when he turned to the third book, his breathing quickened a little.

It was the chemistry textbook used by junior high school sophomores.

Its content was very simple, with very few words, and most of it was illustrations, which at first glance looked like "100,000 Whys", but when Roland turned to the last page, a long sheet folded into several folds fell out.

After unfolding it, a complete periodic table of elements appeared before his eyes.