Fu Miaoxue went still.

Bai Youwei continued: “After this conversation ends, you’ll go to the dining room to eat. Joanna will scold you for your table manners, and then you’ll fly into a rage. Joanna will punish you by refusing to let you have lunch, so you’ll storm off to the garden to sulk. There you’ll encounter a young gardener who approaches you on his own initiative, performing magic tricks to delight you—when in fact he’s trying to find out where the treasure vault is. He and his accomplices will be caught at two in the morning. Seeing that he can make you happy, you’ll spare his life and lock him in a golden cage to keep as a pet.”

Bai Youwei said all of this in one breath, then looked at Fu Miaoxue. “If you don’t believe me, just wait and see whether everything that happens matches exactly what I’ve said.”

Fu Miaoxue was thunderstruck.

After a very long pause, she slowly nodded. “Wow… that truly is… a shocking… piece of… big news!”

Bai Youwei gave a slight shrug.

With someone like Fu Miaoxue, there was no choice but to be this direct. Dancing around it would only make her grow more suspicious. It was better to lay everything out in the open and let her think it through and work it out herself.

“If this is a dream, why am I in it?” Fu Miaoxue studied Bai Youwei’s expression and slowly asked, “And why have you appeared in my dream?”

Bai Youwei frowned slightly. “It’s difficult to explain fully in such a short time. In brief—you entered the dream together with companions in order to achieve a certain goal. Everyone else managed to escape; only you got trapped inside and lost some of your memories. I was entrusted by someone to enter the dream and take you out. If you stay, you’ll be trapped in this looping dream forever, until you die.”

This explanation sounded wildly implausible and difficult to believe, but Bai Youwei had no way to explain to her the world’s changes, the doll invasion, or anything else—nor could she explain how she had died in the game and then been brought back by Du Lai, or how she had survived for so long as a doll…

It was all far too convoluted.

If she told Fu Miaoxue every last detail, Fu Miaoxue might become even less willing to believe her!

Sure enough, Fu Miaoxue began to question her: “…Companions? I’m genuinely curious—what kind of people would qualify to be my companions?”

Bai Youwei: “…”

Fu Miaoxue looked at her thoughtfully. “What you’re saying is frankly beyond belief, and yet… strangely, your very existence here is enough to puzzle me. I couldn’t possibly have a friend, and I have no memory of becoming friends with you—yet somehow my mind is telling me that you are my friend.”

“That’s because you’re in a dream. Everything in here can be altered.” Bai Youwei replied.

Fu Miaoxue mulled this over for a moment, then asked: “You mentioned just now that you were entrusted by someone—so, who sent you in?”

“Du Lai.” Bai Youwei hesitated for a moment, then said, “He’s the gardener you’ll be meeting shortly. You love each other very deeply, and he was willing to give up everything to save you.”

Fu Miaoxue let out a small laugh, lifted her chin, and spoke coldly: “I could never fall in love with a dog.”

“Perhaps something happened between you two—who knows about matters between two people?” Bai Youwei said with a slight frown. “The only way you’ll ever know the nature of your relationship is by getting out of this dream.”

Fu Miaoxue thought for a moment, then asked: “So how do you intend to get me out?”

Bai Youwei raised a hand and pointed upward. “Go to the top floor. We jump together. As long as you have doubts about this place and genuinely want to be free of it, you’ll certainly be able to leave.”

Fu Miaoxue laughed. “You know, many people have wanted my life, but you’re the first person who’s ever tried to kill me by having me commit suicide.”

—