Chapter 3011: Fishing Someone Out
The players exchanged glances: Was this real or fake?
No one could be so relaxed and at ease inside an instance. If someone truly was, then that person was definitely connected to the instance. Therefore, none of the players had any intention of approaching.
Xu Huo walked toward the person in the pavilion.
At first, Wang Xiaohui remained unchanged, but as soon as he stepped onto the steps, her figure began to shrink, gradually transforming from an adult into a child, until she became a child under ten years old.
The ten-year-old Wang Xiaohui was sickly and uneasy. Seeing someone suddenly appear before her frightened her, but she couldn't get off the steps, nor could she operate the wheelchair to leave quickly.
Xu Huo sat down across from her and asked, "Wei Mang also came in. Didn't you notice him?"
Wang Xiaohui looked at him with confusion, not understanding what he was saying.
"Almost everyone who came in earlier is dead," Xu Huo said. "I didn't find Wei Mang's body. I don't know if he's still alive."
Wang Xiaohui still stared at him, as if she hadn't noticed the people standing outside the pavilion.
The silence lasted only a few seconds before black Spiritual Power surged around the pavilion. In the next moment, all the players waiting outside vanished. As the pavilion sank deeper into the Reflection World again and again, Wang Xiaohui's figure gradually grew larger.
By the time she returned to her current form, the surrounding scenery had also changed. They were no longer in the pavilion but had entered a small building. When a black shadow peeled away from Wang Xiaohui's body, she looked at Xu Huo and the Painting Woman with some surprise. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but the next second, she closed it again.
"You still don't plan to leave?" Xu Huo spoke again.
Wang Xiaohui was genuinely startled. "How did you get here?"
"Wei Mang invited me," Xu Huo told her frankly. "As payment, he gave me the Snow and Ice World."
Wang Xiaohui was speechless. After a moment, she said, "I clearly told him to keep the Snow and Ice World safe. That was his life-saving item."
"He probably thought his life wasn't as important as yours," Xu Huo said.
Wang Xiaohui smiled bitterly. "How could anyone be more important than oneself? If I die one day, will he die too?"
"You have a child," Xu Huo reminded her.
Wang Xiaohui had little affection for that child. She had used technology in another district to conceive it. Before the child was born, she had only seen it once. After bringing it back, to avoid unnecessary trouble, she had the child raised elsewhere, with only Wei Mang occasionally visiting.
After a pause, she said, "Since you're here, you should have a good understanding of the instance situation. My Reflection Person is different from others. It's probably very difficult to clear. And since the game panel can't be opened, I can't get out."
In fact, this wasn't hard to understand. The formation of this instance had the right timing and conditions, and naturally, human factors were involved. Ms. Yao had long left the manor, but her Spiritual Realm was still preserved by the instance grounds. Judging from the Reflection Person's situation, besides behavioral patterns, her emotions and feelings also influenced the instance to some extent. It was understandable that she would be fixated on Wang Xiaohui.
Wang Xiaohui's Reflection Person was bound to be hidden even deeper.
"Do you know where your Reflection Person is?" Xu Huo caught her implication.
Wang Xiaohui glanced at him, turned her wheelchair to the window, and pointed at the observation tower in the distance.
"That's the center of the Wang Family Manor. Aunt Yao used to like sitting there to rest."
"But I've tried many times and couldn't get in. I'm afraid I need the Reflection Person's permission."
Xu Huo nodded, stood up, and prepared to head toward the observation tower.
Wang Xiaohui was stunned for a moment and quickly said, "I'm not in immediate danger here. Can you find Wei Mang first?"
"I'll see how it goes," Xu Huo didn't give a definite answer. After all, it was hard to say whether Wei Mang was still alive.
When he stood in the pavilion again, Wang Xiaohui was no longer there.
The players waiting outside, who had witnessed Xu Huo suddenly disappear and reappear, were all startled. They had thought Xu Huo wouldn't come out again.
Ignoring these people, Xu Huo passed through the Spiritual Gate and went straight to the observation tower. The moment he stepped into the small building, the surrounding scenery rapidly switched with the changes in the Reflection World. A few seconds later, he stood once again before that flower.
It was still the same Spiritual Realm of Ms. Yao from before.
Xu Huo frowned. Had he missed something earlier?
But he soon realized it wasn't that he had missed something, but that this place had changed. Beneath the Spiritual Realm filled with fruit-bearing memories, a new Reflection World had appeared.
He stood above it, as if positioned at the top of space, ignoring the passage of time, browsing everything that had happened in this space from an observer's perspective.
It was a very strange experience. Unlike watching a film, from this angle, he seemed able to intervene at any moment.
Thinking this, he did it, reaching into the space and pulling Wang Xiaohui out.
"Who are you!" Wang Xiaohui's expression instantly turned terrified, and she immediately opened her mouth to call for help.
Xu Huo frowned and put her back. Once returned to her original position, Wang Xiaohui immediately forgot this episode and continued moving along her original trajectory, as if nothing had happened.
This was the past displayed in the Reflection World, yet it could be interrupted. After interruption, it could still respond according to the current timeline, indicating that what the Reflection World showed wasn't entirely false. At least the Reflection Person played a real role in it.
Waiting for time to pass in the Reflection World until Ms. Yao moved away and Wang Xiaohui became the manor's owner again, Xu Huo tried pulling her out once more.
This time, Wang Xiaohui remembered him, but she was very guarded. She instinctively reached for a prop on her body. However, when her hand came up empty, she seemed to suffer a shock. Her entire expression changed, and her figure immediately began to tremble, as if something was about to peel away from her body.
Seizing the moment, Xu Huo took off his glove and grabbed toward her head.
The next second, Wang Xiaohui's shadow dissipated from its spot. As she vanished, the Reflection World was also paused, time frozen at a certain instant.
But this pause lasted only a few seconds. Then the Reflection World began to collapse. A massive wave rolled in from the distance, not only destroying the Reflection World but also scattering all of Ms. Yao's memory fruits.
Xu Huo was caught in the middle and couldn't avoid it. He was carried along by the giant wave, forced to repeatedly watch Ms. Yao's memory fruits. These memories played before his eyes over and over, like a chaotically edited film, sometimes jumping, sometimes looping back, again and again washing over his spirit.
Under this dual pressure, he had to use the Library Tower to resist. But the moment the Library Tower appeared, he immediately sensed something was wrong—because the Reflection Person, Ms. Yao, had almost simultaneously appeared in his core Spiritual Realm!