“Ah…”
The demoness sighed softly, as if lamenting his unremarkable life.
“I know you can’t accept it. You created the best possible world for yourself—and now you must face reality. That is, truly, a cruel thing…”
“…The best… world?” Shen Mo closed his eyes; his mind reeled in waves of dizziness.
He could not agree with that description.
This absurd, preposterous world—how could it be the best world?
“Yes, at least to you it is…” the demoness said quietly. “Society has been dismantled, family structures torn apart. No meaning to the word ‘spouse,’ no meaning to ‘children,’ no meaning to ‘siblings’… Every relationship that society’s frameworks would impose has become a burden. Every person faces separation and death at any moment. From now on, one lives in this world alone—as the sole individual, living only for oneself…”
The gentle female voice drifted into his ears, as if parting the fog for him.
“Ah… what a pure and simple world this is. Except that, deep within your heart, you still seem to yearn for those burdensome relationships… And so, you invented a partner, an elder, a brother for yourself…”
Shen Mo murmured: “They… are all my imagination?… People I… invented?”
The demoness: “How else would you explain a partner with crippled legs learning to stand again… Do things like labyrinths actually exist? How would you explain a teacher who educates students still holding true to that calling in these games—is there truly such a good-natured person in this world, someone good to the point of foolishness? And how would you explain… the young student who followed your group, never fussing or crying, without any child’s willfulness or mischief—always obedient, well-behaved, able to endure hardship? Ah, how could that be possible?”
The demoness sighed again: “Because it’s all your imagination… You needed them to maintain perfect images. Even street thugs were reimagined in your mind as naive, overgrown boys. And it just so happened—every last one of these people lost their families.”
Shen Mo’s head throbbed with an almost unbearable ache.
…Yes, none of them had family…
Tan Xiao had been raised by his grandparents. Both elders passed away during his elementary school years, leaving him an orphan.
Cheng Weicai had lost his spouse in middle age. He apparently had a child working abroad, and elderly parents in their eighties and nineties living in Yangzhou—but they’d never been located. In any case, he too was alone in the world.
Pan Xiaoxin had also lived with grandparents; her parents worked in another city and had completely lost contact.
And Bai Youwei… Bai Youwei came from a single-parent household, and her only remaining family—her mother—whereabouts unknown.
One or two could be called coincidence. But four people—all without family. Could it truly be as the demoness said? That those people were all his imagination? Fabricated? That they were… false?
Shen Mo grew more and more disoriented, more and more lost.
He tried to see clearly, but the surroundings were fracturing and dissolving—the snakes invisible, the cave invisible, the demoness invisible… Everything, melting away…
—
Could all of this truly be his delusion? False?
Had he invented those people because of an emptiness within himself, a need to construct so-called social bonds?
It was too absurd…
…
And yet…
Wasn’t the doll game even more absurd?
“Come back, Shen Mo…” The demoness’s voice was cool and gentle as flowing water. “Wake up—look at your teammates, your family… everyone is waiting for you… Shen Mo…”
“Shen Mo…”
“Shen Mo… wake up…”
“Wake up…”
“Shen… Mo…”
Through the haze, he dimly glimpsed the silhouettes of teammates. They were gathered around a hospital bed connected to some device, calling his name anxiously.
Was it real…
Or had he conjured another hallucination?
He saw Yu Chaohui, and Fang Yu… So they hadn’t died? They were waiting for him to return in the real world…
Shen Mo, his consciousness drifting, opened his eyes and tried to walk toward them.
A metallic clunk at his feet.
He looked down and saw, in his hand, a rust-pitted sword.