“Damn it…”
Seeing the little girl’s appearance, Liu Nanfeng was furious. He turned and looked around.
Given the girl’s condition and her young age, she might have been intentionally crippled and then controlled to beg.
In such cases, there would usually be a beggar king watching nearby.
Su Jinxiu also felt great pity and placed the four yuan she had just retrieved into the milk powder can on the girl’s chest.
The little girl immediately gave them a big smile and then turned to leave.
Her smile looked very bright, but everyone could sense that it lacked any emotion, like a puppet on strings.
“Hey…”
Liu Nanfeng wanted to call out to her but didn’t know what to say.
“Let’s first think about how to leave this place. Perhaps all of this is fake, and our actions are in vain,” Su Jinxiu comforted him.
“And if it’s real?” Su Huamei asked.
“Then we’ll come back. I left a mark on her milk powder can earlier,” Su Jinxiu said.
As expected, Su Jinxiu was reliable and thoughtful.
So the group continued forward, but certainly not according to the old lady’s advice to take a bus to some Yue Dong City.
Instead, they followed the nearest exit towards a less populated area.
Any illusion had boundaries; it couldn’t conjure an entire world.
Therefore, according to their thinking, as long as they kept moving forward, they would eventually reach the end.
All four of them were extraordinary individuals, and their speed was naturally incredibly fast.
Su Jinxiu and Su Huamei could fly directly, while Zhan Dundun, despite his seemingly immense size, was incredibly light. Unhindered on the ground, he merely touched the ground and flew far away.
The slowest was naturally Liu Nanfeng. Although his swordsmanship was formidable, it was due to Feng Zhirun’s inheritance. In other aspects, besides eating, he was a complete mess.
But his slowness didn't matter. With Su Jinxiu and Su Huamei, two kings, carrying him, not only was the speed fast, but it was also incredibly relaxed and pleasant.
Seeing Zhan Dundun’s displeased expression, he was a panda, yet he was force-fed dog food.
Indeed, as they crossed a mountain forest, the view in front of them turned a vast expanse of white. When they regained their senses, they were back on the street.
Liu Nanfeng looked up at the sun in the sky; it seemed no different from the first time.
He turned to look beside him but didn’t see the old lady they had spoken to earlier passing by.
“Is it not a reset, but a restart?” Zhan Dundun also realized at this point.
“Coo, coo…”
At this moment, a calling sound entered everyone’s ears. They all thought they had encountered the begging little girl again and looked towards the sound. It turned out to be several pigeons flying overhead.
“What do we do now?” Zhan Dundun asked.
“Let’s go look around the street and see if the people we met before still recognize us,” Su Jinxiu said.
So the few of them continued forward.
The first place to go was naturally the oil cake stall they had visited earlier, to see if the owner remembered them.
Su Jinxiu employed her usual trick, using a leaf to conjure five yuan.
“Boss, two oil cakes for us,” Su Jinxiu said.
“Coming right up.” The boss happily took the money.
“We bought two earlier, and they tasted very good,” Su Jinxiu added.
The boss looked puzzled. Seeing his expression, everyone knew that the boss no longer remembered them.
Su Jinxiu didn’t say anything further, handed the oil cakes to Su Huamei, and continued forward.
Su Huamei glanced at the oil cake in her hand, frowned, and then handed it to Liu Nanfeng.
“I really don’t want to eat it anymore, you eat it.”
When it came to eating, Liu Nanfeng never refused. So he didn’t stand on ceremony, took the cake, and was about to put it in his mouth. Suddenly, he remembered Zhan Dundun was nearby, so he stopped and asked, “Do you want to eat it?”
“No,” Zhan Dundun said grumpily.
“If you don’t want it, don’t want it. Why get so worked up?” Liu Nanfeng devoured the oil cake in two bites.
“Huh?”
Then Liu Nanfeng was greatly surprised.
“What’s wrong?” Su Jinxiu, walking ahead, asked curiously.
“This cake isn’t fake,” Liu Nanfeng said, touching his stomach.
Su Jinxiu immediately understood. Liu Nanfeng had eaten two scallion pancakes and had actually absorbed energy from them.
Just then, the rustling sound echoed in their ears again.
“Coo, coo…”
The little beggar they had seen before reappeared before them.
Exactly the same as before, with no change whatsoever.
Su Jinxiu first gave her the four yuan she had, then asked, “Do you remember us?”
The little beggar looked at them blankly, clearly not remembering them either.
After receiving the money, the little beggar gave them the familiar smile again and then moved past them.
Liu Nanfeng looked at her retreating back and fell into thought.
“Should we keep going?” Zhan Dundun asked.
It was clear that since it had been confirmed that no one remembered them, there was no point in going further.
“Let’s change direction,” Su Jinxiu said.
So they walked out of the town, changed direction, and sped off. Then they encountered the same situation: the view ahead turned white, and then they were back in the town.
They tried seven or eight times in a row, always returning to the same spot. In the later attempts, they didn’t rush to leave. They explored the entire small town and met many different people.
They even met the old lady they had encountered the first time and even struck up a conversation, but each encounter was subtly different, just like a real world.
“How about we try taking the bus?” Liu Nanfeng finally suggested.
The first time, they had heard the old lady say that taking the bus could lead to Yue Dong City.
The few of them felt a flicker of hope, thinking this might be the way to leave.
So they walked forward.
The rustling sound echoed, and the little beggar appeared before them again.
“Sister doesn’t have money for you this time, but if this world is real, I will definitely come back and take you away.”
Su Jinxiu took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the little girl’s face. This was not the first time she had done this.
But the little beggar, like in the previous instances, looked at her blankly with little reaction. Only when she left did she give them the familiar smile.
However, Su Jinxiu again left a mark under her milk powder can, hoping that this mark wouldn’t disappear due to a restart.
Soon, they arrived at the place where the old lady had mentioned taking the bus.
However, there was no bus, but quite a few people were sitting by the roadside with their luggage, waiting.
Seeing a young man in a blue jacket nearby, Liu Nanfeng walked up to strike up a conversation.
“Hello, brother.”
“Hello.”
The young man had actually noticed them much earlier. After all, their clothes were too trendy, especially for the Su sisters. Their already perfect looks made them even more stunning in the eyes of young men like him, surpassing even the female stars from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan on television.
Liu Nanfeng’s sudden approach made the young man a little nervous, thinking he had been caught staring.
“Are you also going to Yue Dong City?”
“Uh… yes.”
The young man quickly nodded. Inwardly, he couldn’t help but grumble. There was only one bus to Yue Dong, so where else could they be going if not Yue Dong?
“We are also going to Yue Dong. When will the bus to Yue Dong arrive?” Liu Nanfeng continued to ask.
“In about two hours.”
As the young man spoke, he glanced at his wrist, inadvertently revealing the mechanical watch he was wearing.
“We are from out of town and got lost. This Luojiaji belongs to…”
Liu Nanfeng chatted casually with the young man, and soon they became more familiar.
The young man was named Chen Dahai. He was from Simianqiao Village, under Luojiaji, and had been working in Yue Dong. He had returned to help with the farming and was now preparing to go back to Yue Dong.
“I saw a beggar girl who was disabled on the street earlier. Are there many beggars in town?” Liu Nanfeng asked casually.
Chen Dahai glanced towards the town center and then said, “They should be from outside. Although we are poor here, we haven’t reached the point of begging. And you mentioned that disabled child; I haven’t heard of any family having one.”
“She’s the granddaughter of Old Man Yu from the town. But Old Man Yu has been a widower for over thirty years and doesn’t even have children. How could he have a granddaughter? I don’t know where he abducted her from,”
A thin young man standing nearby, who had been listening to their conversation, couldn’t help but chime in at this point.
At this moment, the bus arrived…
ps: One more chapter.