Chapter 095: Dimension 02

Chapter 095: Dimension 02

Amidst a backdrop of endlessly quivering seas of exclamation marks, the young man on the film set and the middle-aged man in his police office stared blankly into the air beside them, their faces agape with shock, speechless for a long while.

In the end, it was Uncle Policeman who broke the silence with a question.

"Little Bai, why can I see you in the air? What is this?"

Yu Bai wasn't entirely sure if there was a specific term to describe the technique used in anime where the audience could see the other side of a phone call during a conversation.

In any case, it was something akin to a split-screen?

As the chaotic swirls above the young man's head were about to speak, a familiar, magnetic voice sounded beside him.

"This is..." Xie Wufang looked at Li Nanxiao in the air, unsure, "a video call?"

Upon hearing this, the bird's nest of lines swirling above Yu Bai's head spun even faster, scattering stars of confusion and disorder.

This isn't what video calls mean, damn it!!

...But in a certain sense, it was indeed a video call.

In his dazed amusement, Yu Bai thought: Brother Tian would definitely love this world in animation mode.

Now, the whole world is on a video call.

Ha ha.

How humorous 🙂

With a wooden expression, he answered the person on the phone, "Well, it's sort of a video call, actually, it's like the split-screen in comics and animations..."

Li Nanxiao heard Xie Wufang's voice coming through and his gaze shifted, as if searching for the corresponding figure.

"Is that neighbor of yours also by your side?"

"Ahh, yes, he is." Yu Bai reacted, quickly addressing the person beside him, "Xiao Xie, come a little closer."

The view he had of Li Nanxiao's surroundings wasn't very wide, limited to the area above the chest and a small portion of the background, which appeared to be a bookshelf behind a desk.

Li Nanxiao probably saw things similarly.

After all, the shot range when making a phone call in an anime was roughly this size.

Xie Wufang moved closer as instructed, and Li Nanxiao caught sight of part of his figure, inexplicably feeling relieved.

He said instinctively, "It's good that you're not alone."

Hearing these words, Yu Bai was taken aback, a strange emotion welling up within him. "I'm fine, Uncle Li, don't worry about me."

Li Nanxiao followed his lead in referring to Xie Wufang. "Mm, knowing Xiao Xie is here, I'm suddenly not too worried."

Despite not understanding why he felt such a subtle shift in his emotions.

"So, after seeing that error in time, have we all returned to the past?"

Despite the countless questions in his heart, the criminal investigation team leader quickly regained his composure, carefully recalling the details before the time travel, and asked about the current situation, peeling away the layers bit by bit.

"Yes, all four of us have returned to the past." Yu Bai gritted his teeth and took the initiative to say, "Uncle Li, but this isn't entirely the past..."

He decided to simply recount everything that had happened to Li Nanxiao in a concise manner.

From the strange neighbor who restored the exploded kitchen, to the time loop filled with bizarre adventures, and then the inexplicable return to the loop...

As he spoke, he nervously stared at Li Nanxiao on the other end of the phone, short black lines trembling slightly around his body.

After discovering that Xie Wufang wasn't human, he had called Li Nanxiao over.

However, Uncle Policeman, who had lived in a materialistic society for over forty years, naturally didn't believe the ghost story that no normal person could possibly believe. And due to Yu Bai's recent elevator mishap, he understandably assumed that Yu Bai was experiencing delusions from post-traumatic stress.

Now, Yu Bai revealed everything.

About the world that had gradually become chaotic since a certain day, and the mastermind behind all this chaos.

Yes, the global anomaly of the sky turning into a lake, the craze for winter clothing in the summer hemisphere, the citizens' inexplicable longing for snowflakes, and so on—all these oddities were related to the two of them.

Would Uncle Li, as an upright and incorruptible people's policeman, report Xie Wufang's existence?

Yu Bai was somewhat uneasy, his mind buzzing with doubts, as he tensely observed Li Nanxiao's reaction.

Fortunately, it was a very direct video call, coupled with the animation mode where emotions were laid bare.

Eliminating the possibility of humans saying one thing and thinking another.

If Uncle Li really intended to do so, Yu Bai could only—

try his very hardest to persuade him not to.

...

There was no way he could assault a police officer, right?

Besides, he couldn't even beat Uncle Li, who consistently ranked first in the department's annual practical exercises.

Not even Yan Jing could!

But to Yu Bai's surprise, he didn't see any intense emotions on Li Nanxiao's face upon learning the truth.

Even the sea of quivering exclamation marks behind him gradually disappeared.

Instead, there was the pitter-patter of rain.

The rain was soundless, yet it extended a lingering, damp sorrow.

"I remember you told me before..." Li Nanxiao sighed deeply, "I'm sorry I didn't believe you back then."

"If only I had asked Xiao Xie one more question when we met downstairs, asking if he received half of a huge watermelon."

Li Nanxiao murmured, "You told me about a watermelon as big as a yoga ball growing on the rooftop and that you gave half to your neighbor. But without any photos as evidence, I assumed you were talking about an ordinary watermelon you grew yourself, just imagining it to be large. If I had asked Xiao Xie at the time, I would have realized something was off. Two people couldn't possibly have the same hallucination simultaneously..."

Yubai, hearing his apologetic whisper, hurriedly said, "It's alright, Uncle Li. Later on, I gave up trying to prove it to you myself. It's normal not to believe such things."

Li Nanxiao fell silent for a moment before asking, "Was the time in the loop particularly unbearable?"

"You must have been miserable being trapped there alone," he said. "If I had believed you earlier, perhaps you wouldn't have had to face all this by yourself."

His voice wasn't loud, but Yubai was lost in thought for a long while because of it.

Xie Wufang had been listening quietly to their conversation, but suddenly, he lowered his gaze to look at the nape of Yubai's neck.

Summer fabrics were thin and light, and the bright sunlight illuminated the skin exposed at the collar.

Light brown hair brushed against skin so pale it was almost translucent, and on the slender, beautifully lined back of the neck, there was a crudely drawn little white figure, faintly visible, silently shedding tears.

What emotion was this?

Yubai, who was looking at the air video, didn't see it, nor did Li Nanxiao, who was deep in thought.

The young man holding the phone spoke with a gentle smile.

"It wasn't unbearable, Uncle Li, don't overthink it." He said with a smile, "The days in the loop were especially happy. Before, I almost didn't want to come back from there... really, can you see? Have I become much more outgoing?"

"Mm, I've noticed. This is good now."

Li Nanxiao's expression was as tolerant and gentle as a father's. He paused and added, "Before was good too, everything was fine."

Only the little white figure in those gray-blue eyes cried even harder, its tears falling with a pattering sound, seemingly wetting the pale, fragile skin of the neck, but in reality, they vanished intangibly into the air.

As the two continued their conversation, the little figure gradually disappeared.

Li Nanxiao asked, "You said that after a time-space that has been re-entered dissipates, ordinary people in the real world will retain impressions from that time-space, right?"

Yubai nodded. "That's why three days ago, the people in our city felt inexplicably cold and missed the snow."

"Mm, I had those feelings that day too," Li Nanxiao said thoughtfully. "No wonder when I saw you today, I vaguely felt like I'd seen you like this somewhere before."

That's why he wasn't surprised by the change in Yubai's character.

It seemed that in that Star City where it snowed, he had already encountered such a Yubai.

"No wonder I felt, without any reason, that your neighbor was trustworthy... even though he's not a regular human."

It turned out these were the residual impressions left behind after the alternate time-space dissipated.

This unexpected statement caused another sea of exclamation marks to ripple behind Yubai again.

"What?!" Yubai looked shocked. "What did you say?"

He blurted out, "Impossible! In that time-space, Uncle Li, you didn't know Xiao Xie's identity at all!"

In the Go time-space, the three of them only met once at the police station at the beginning. At that time, he had concealed Xie Wufang's identity very well. How could Li Nanxiao have discovered that the other party wasn't human, and how could he have felt that He was trustworthy?!

With a head full of literal question marks, Yubai heard the man beside him speak calmly.

Xie Wufang said, "He knew."

His voice was calm, but the rows of exclamation marks behind the brown-haired youth trembled violently.

"!!How did Uncle Li know!"

Yubai, with the background of an earthquake in the sea of exclamation marks, immediately turned to look at Xie Wufang.

"How did you know that Uncle Li knew?" he asked in rapid-fire questions. "Wait, why do I know nothing about this? When did this happen?!"

During the nine days in the alternate time-space, he had basically been with Xie Wufang the whole time. How could there be anything he didn't know!

Wait! Could it be...

Seeing Yubai's shocked and bewildered reaction, Li Nanxiao, who had been somewhat puzzled on the other end of the call, got a sudden flash of insight when he heard this tongue-twister-like question. A light bulb instantly lit up beside his head.

It was a moment of epiphany, a sudden realization.

Li Nanxiao directly looked at Xie Wufang in the air video, speaking with certainty, "Did Xiaobai drink in that time-space?"

Xie Wufang also looked at him. "Mm, after he got drunk, he called you and asked about He Xi's domestic violence situation."

"So that's how it was... I thought I had talked about this issue with Xiaobai somewhere before."

All the doubts piled up in Li Nanxiao's heart were completely resolved, and he quickly deduced what happened next.

"After Xiaobai got drunk, his way of speaking was easy to recognize. I must have been worried about him being alone, so I had him pass the phone to the person next to him - you - wanting to entrust you to help keep an eye on him, right?"

"Yes," Xie Wufang said indifferently. "You're smart."

The conversation between smart people was concise and efficient, progressing so quickly that Yubai almost couldn't keep up.

"You two talked on the phone after I got drunk?!"

Yubai was now shocked, confused, and filled with questions.

The animation effects around him were equally busy.

An ocean of exclamation marks, bird's nests tangled with yarn, and question marks covering his head.

"What did you guys talk about?" Yu Bai was in a daze, feeling social death looming right before him. "No, why do I have no memory of it—"

In that phone call, Uncle Li had actually seen through Xie Wufang's identity and even developed a sense of trust in Them.

...What on earth did those two talk about!!

"Because you were drunk," Xie Wufang glanced at him. "You said you would black out after waking up, forgetting everything that happened while you were drunk."

It was indeed the case.

Yu Bai stiffened, blurting out instinctively, "But the next day when I asked you if I caused any trouble, you said no, and even said that I was good when I was drunk, not causing you any trouble..."

The gray-blue lake, close enough to touch, remained calm as ever, rippling with a nearly tender smile amidst the surging memories.

"There was no trouble," Xie Wufang's expression was earnest. "And indeed, it was good. I didn't lie to you."

In this magnetic, ear-catching voice, Yu Bai's belly full of complaints instantly got stuck.

Bullshit! He now completely disbelieved Xie Wufang's claim of "good"!!

Who knew what the hell happened that night when he was drunk!!

...He was not only clueless but was even a bit afraid to ask.

For a moment, the young man, unsure of what to say, his eyes flickering, glared at the man beside him in annoyance. The ocean of exclamation marks, the bird's nests, and the question marks all faded away.

Soft wisps of hair suddenly emitted puffs of heat.

Like a kettle boiling, the white lines were plump and vividly lifelike.

"..."

Xie Wufang watched this latest special effect appear, along with Yu Bai's cheeks suddenly flushing red, and softly asked, "Are you embarrassed?"

As the words fell, the young man, filled with shame and anger, froze for a moment, instinctively reaching out to touch his face.

Yeah, it was hot to the touch.

So in the next second, the brown kettle boiled even more fiercely.

Bubbling and emitting white steam.