"So, school's pretty nice. Studying may be dull, but there are cute girls—lovely, pleasing-to-the-eye cute girls. Seeing them lifts my mood, and I feel my life is still quite interesting."
Lin Ye, without the slightest embarrassment, just said it outright.
But this scene, in Sora's eyes, seemed all the more genuine.
She even thought this was Lin Ye's way of persuading her to go to school, to meet outsiders, and to stop hiding alone in a world that belonged to her alone.
Gratitude flowed through her heart, and Sora felt more and more that Lin Ye was a good person.
Mm, a good person in the literal sense.
"Do you like this junior?"
"Which kind of like?"
"Liking comes in kinds too?"
Sora asked.
"Of course—there's liking purely for beauty and cuteness, and liking the girl herself."
"So which kind do you feel?"
"For this junior, mine is more the liking for beauty and cuteness."
As for the person herself, Lin Ye actually found her pretty alright too. Constantly stirring up trouble was a kind of fun in its own right; he could often bully her, tease her, and seek amusement.
He merely found it fun, lacking any feeling of romantic love—that was how Lin Ye felt about Isshiki.
It was completely different from what he felt for Yukinoshita and Mai.
"Mm,"
She gave another "mm" and fell silent, as if pondering something important.
Lin Ye looked around once more, then spoke up, "Sora, may I have a look around? I'd like to see your room."
It was a very impolite suggestion.
As things stood, this was only the second time Lin Ye and Sora had met, and for a man like Lin Ye to request to look around the young girl Sora's room could hardly fail to set people imagining, thinking Lin Ye had ulterior motives.
"..."
She hesitated for a moment. "It's messy,"
Sora said.
She didn't refuse outright, but she made clear the reason for her hesitation.
"I'll help you tidy it up,"
But the girl grew embarrassed instead.
"Just think of me as your big brother. Isn't it only natural for a big brother to help his Sister clean up?"
But in Sora's heart, that word 'big brother' was instead the biggest reason she froze in place, unable to react for a long while.
A big brother—that was family.
Did Lin Ye want to be her family?
"Alright, let's go,"
Lin Ye stood up. The girl didn't object, so he could get moving and check this house to see where exactly the problem lay—where the object with the Strange infection was.
He didn't head straight for the second floor; instead, he first started wandering around the first floor.
Sora followed, simply following along, completely unconcerned with Lin Ye's behavior.
Soon,
Lin Ye went up the stairs to the second floor.
'Thud...'
The door opened.
Messy.
Extremely messy.
That was Lin Ye's first impression of the girl's room.
Brightly colored panties and underwear, along with socks, were scattered all over the floor.
Lin Ye was stunned for a moment; the scene far exceeded his imagination.
Sora caught on as well.
"I told you, it's messy,"
Her words carried a note of reproach, and likewise a faint trace of shyness.
"So, this is the moment for me as your big brother to lend a hand. Sora, wait outside for a bit."
With that, Lin Ye went in.
Under the gaze of the silver-long-haired girl, Lin Ye bent down and picked up one piece of clothing after another scattered on the floor, gathering them together.
Watching Lin Ye pick up her panties and underwear, her body involuntarily had a slight, peculiar reaction.
She couldn't help feeling as if her own body were being touched.
A few minutes later,
Lin Ye finished tidying up.
Even now, he hadn't found anything strange worth noting—no place, no object.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Then Lin Ye carried the clothes over to the washing machine, put them in, added detergent, and adjusted the wash mode and time.
Before long, the washing machine started running.
Sora just watched as Lin Ye completed every step.
"Why..."
Sora's voice was somewhat subdued.
"Why are you...so good to me?"
She didn't understand why Lin Ye would be so good to her.
"Didn't you say it yourself, Sora?"
Her eyes were puzzled.
"I'm a very good person, so naturally I'll be good to you, Sora."
She had no words to refute it.
"Of course, it also has something to do with you, Sora, being so cute that it makes me want to take care of you."
"..."
She really wanted to blurt out "Pervert,"
but on second thought she felt Lin Ye wasn't that kind of person.
Though she was young, she understood ordinary matters. If Lin Ye had harbored ill intentions, she would have already fallen victim to him. In this house where only the two of them were alone, if Lin Ye wanted to do something bad to her, to harm her, he certainly would have.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be able to escape,
unless...
Recalling those people with ill intentions,
Sora only felt that Lin Ye was a truly good person, a very, very good person.
After putting in the laundry, Lin Ye followed the girl to her room.
A faint, delicate fragrance belonging to a young girl filled the air.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her expression calm, but the fingers of both hands moved involuntarily, hinting at her somewhat nervous heart.
"I'll go to the bathroom for a moment,"
With that, Lin Ye headed for the second-floor bathroom.
There was nothing special there either.
Could it be...that there really was nothing abnormal or Strange here?
But the next moment, Lin Ye felt a wave of dank cold against his back. The already rather cold room dropped a few more degrees.
Lin Ye immediately turned to look, but found nothing.
Something was wrong.
When it came to this sense of dangerous Strange things, he had basically never been wrong.
It was precisely this intuition that had let him pinpoint the key to the Strange time and again, clear the stage successfully, and finally come back alive.
So,
there must be a problem here.
This couldn't be an illusion.
Lin Ye turned around, deliberately exposing his back.
'Splash, splash...'
He reached out and washed his hands.
While his consciousness focused on sensing his surroundings,
one second,
three seconds,
five seconds,
that cold sensation appeared once more.
Time Stop—activated.
Everything fell into stillness.
Lin Ye immediately sprang into action.
'Tap-tap-tap...'
Lin Ye strode quickly. The nearest bedroom with its door open was Sora's room,
and the sensation just now had also felt as though the cold was coming from here.
One step,
Lin Ye arrived at the bedroom doorway.
He immediately saw that the girl, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed all along, had now stood up, reaching out to grab something,
and the direction in which she was reaching held a doll—a black rabbit doll.
Earlier, while searching, Lin Ye had consciously been looking for this black rabbit doll that Sora held in the original work, but he had never found it. He had searched the girl's room with particular care, yet still hadn't discovered it.
How had it appeared now?
Lin Ye reached out to touch it, but for safety's sake he picked up a bag and slipped it over the doll, then immediately went to the room next door.
Time Stop ended,
and time resumed its flow.
The doll, which should have been motionless, began to move the very instant time resumed flowing.
In that moment,
Lin Ye realized this doll was absolutely problematic—it must have suffered a Strange infection.
"You..."
The black doll broke free of the bag and raised its eyes toward Lin Ye.
The next second, its scarlet eyes gleaming, it lunged at him.
Meanwhile, in the room next door.
In the blink of an eye, Sora noticed the black rabbit doll had vanished from her sight, gone who knew where.
"Bunny..."
Her voice was a little tense.
And the next second,
the sound of an impact from the room next door instantly made her realize something.
"No..."
"Big Brother is a good person,"
"Bunny, don't hurt Big Brother."
With that, Sora ran out of the room, trembling and stumbling.
'Rattle, rattle, rattle...'
But the door was shut fast,
"Open up, open up, open up now,"
Sora twisted at the door with all her strength, but the door stayed shut and wouldn't open no matter what.
She grew even more frantic; tears were on the verge of falling.
'Click...'
Finally,
Sora got the door open,
The guest room, which had held next to nothing to begin with, now looked a mess, with torn fabric scattered across the floor.
"Big Brother..."
There was no sign of anyone.
Sora's head spun; she nearly lost her footing.
Gone—vanished just like the people who had come here before and tried to harm her.
Sora knew the fate of those people.
Big Brother was going to die just like them.
"No!"
"Bunny, Big Brother isn't a bad person, he won't hurt Sora,"
"Bring Big Brother back, ⒉≡$94∽)☆<∑⊥{↓QUN… p-please, I'm begging you..."
But there was no response at all.
The black rabbit doll gave no response either, as if it too had vanished.
This was markedly different from before.
Sora searched the entire room but couldn't find a trace of the rabbit or Lin Ye. She began to search the other rooms, from the second floor to the first—nothing anywhere.
At this moment,
She sat down listlessly on the sofa, and the next second slumped down limply.
"Why..."
"did it turn out like this,"
"Bunny is gone,"
"Big Brother is gone too."
"Big Brother...isn't a bad person, isn't...a bad person,"
...
In the vast, empty house, only a cute girl with long silver hair sobbed softly, her weeping plaintive, desolate, sorrowful.
As if the whole world had abandoned her.
...
...
Meanwhile, after hearing the Strange Game's mission notification, Lin Ye accepted the mission.
[Detected: the player has been attacked by a Strange rabbit doll.]
[Mission trigger conditions have been met.]
[A mission is now issued,]
[Mission Name: Trial of the Rabbit Doll.]
[Mission Type: Reality Regular Type.]
[Mission Objective: Stay alive.]
[Accept?]
[If no answer within five seconds, it will default to automatic refusal.]
Lin Ye chose to accept,
and the next second,
his field of vision changed.
A wave of dizziness left his mind hazy for a while.
A few seconds later,
he slowly opened his eyes again.
"Where is this..."
He found himself sitting in a car,
in the right-hand seat of the back row. Through the right window, the scenery outside kept sliding backward at a relatively fast speed.
He turned his head,
and saw an adult man in the front row, sitting in the driver's seat, driving.
In the passenger seat was a beautiful adult woman, very well maintained, her skin so tender it looked as if water could be squeezed from it.
"Mmh..."
A soft whimper came from his left,
the kind of sound made unconsciously while asleep.
Lin Ye turned to look and saw a familiar, cute face.
"Sora,"
It was Sora Kasugano.
Wait, why was Sora here?
Could it be that she too had been drawn into the Strange instance?
Hearing Lin Ye's voice, the girl slowly raised her eyes and gazed at him groggily. "Big brother..."
She seemed to sense the confusion in Lin Ye's eyes, and spoke again, "What's wrong?"
"You're..."
In that instant Lin Ye realized,
he noticed his own voice had changed too.
"Big brother, what's wrong?"
Sora spoke.
She was a little worried.
The repeated calls made the adult woman in the front passenger seat turn around as well.
"Haruka, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
The adult woman's face was full of concern.
"I'm, I'm fine,"
Looking at his own reflection on the phone screen, Lin Ye realized what his situation was now.
Haruka Kasugano,
the body he was currently using was Haruka Kasugano's.
A family car traveling at high speed,
a father, a Mother, and in the back seat Sora, along with himself—this Haruka Kasugano.
Lin Ye had already grasped what was going on this time.
Unlike previous instances,
this time, in the Strange instance mission, he had been placed into the role of a character within this constructed instance world.
This was something that had already happened in history.
This was a fabricated stretch of time,
Lin Ye had not failed to consider that he had crossed over into reality, that by changing this car accident he could change history.
That he could let that lonely girl return to a life of family wholeness.
But he understood this was impossible.
Even so, he would do his best to see this family of four go on living, and complete this instance mission.
"Father, pull over,"
"There's danger ahead,"
Lin Ye said directly,
"Hmm?"
The Kasugano father was startled, his eyes unconsciously glancing back, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Trust your dad's skill—if there really is danger ahead, I'll smoothly avoid it."
"Father, please pull over immediately—you don't want the family to come to harm, do you!"
Lin Ye said with a stern, serious face.
He didn't expect his father to listen, but he had to say it.
The other methods were rather more drastic.
"The reason?"
"Pull over first, or it'll be too late."
"Fine!"
Seeing his son so earnest, the father hesitated as well, and finally began to slow down, the car gradually coming to a stop to pull over.
"Stopping here on the expressway is very dangerous,"
Finally,
he added.
"Whoosh..."
At this moment,
from behind, a black car came speeding toward them.
The moment the father saw it in the rearview mirror, he immediately turned the steering wheel to avoid it,
"That was close..."
They had nearly been clipped,
"Quick, turn to the left."
Lin Ye, who had been keeping watch on the sides and rear, spotted a large freight truck coming from the other side. The truck was traveling fast, but its cargo bed was lurching crookedly, liable to topple at any moment.
The father noticed too and immediately cranked the steering wheel all the way,
'Crash...'
but the cargo bed collapsed,
and in that instant Lin Ye realized it was inevitable that the car would be caught up by the falling cargo.
Time Stop,
could still be used.
His Constitution had been restricted—he had only the Constitution of Haruka Kasugano, this timid young boy,
but the skills that came with the Strange Game panel could still be used.
Everything fell into silence,
and Lin Ye sprang into action.
He was going to save this family of four.
...
...
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