"Bronya-oneechan, and... Sin?"
Seele was a bit dazed. How could she not recognize this person, who was practically radiating exhaustion and irritability?
Sin Mal, one of her companions from the orphanage, and also someone she could never get along with back then, someone who had even left her with a lot of psychological trauma...
But why was she here?
I was in...
No, wait... where is this?
Why am I here?
In that instant, countless pieces of information and questions flooded her brain at once, causing her thoughts to nearly crash.
Familiar people, a familiar room. Looking out through the open door down the hall, the wooden corridor outside was exactly as she remembered.
Through the large window on the other side of the corridor, she could see the swirling snow outside, which seemed to turn the entire world into a cold, white expanse.
Cold air seeped through the narrow cracks in the window, spreading a chill through the supposedly warm corridor. The children walking back and forth in the corridor stirred this chill into a flowing breeze, making even Seele, deep inside the room, shiver.
"Sin, you..."
Bronya quickly turned around, wanting to ask Sin to close the door again, but she saw that Sin had already turned back and kicked the door once more with a BANG! before she could speak.
Then, she glared fiercely at Bronya with her heterochromatic eyes and snapped impatiently, "Seriously, so annoying! Who needs you to nag?"
After snapping at Bronya, as if not satisfied, she turned her spearhead back to Seele, sneering in an extremely harsh tone, "Crying all day long, and such a weakling. If you ask me, you might as well just die already!"
A familiar argument, Seele thought. It was just like being back in the past.
If it were before, being mocked so mercilessly like this, she would have definitely started crying out of grievance. But now, she felt a rare sense of nostalgia, even... emotion.
"I... I'm back?" Seele muttered to herself in a daze.
"Hey, this person is as annoying as ever!"
Deep in her consciousness, the voice that had always accompanied her in the darkness sounded in her ear, as impatient and as caring as ever.
"Hey, Seele, calm down. Something's not right. Did you forget what that person wanted us to do? We just set off, we haven't even seen the face of the person he wants us to find. How could he send us back so easily?"
Veliona had a fresh and deeply ingrained fear of that cold, commanding voice that had threatened and ordered her in the darkness.
She frowned and thought for a long time before muttering suspiciously to herself, "Could this be a so-called... world bubble?"
"A world bubble? What's that?"
Veliona's familiar voice quickly gave the still-dazed Seele something to lean on. She quickly pulled herself together and asked, wanting to understand what was happening.
As an orphan adopted by Cocolia, and then trapped in a dark, senseless void after two terrifying experiments, Seele had never received a good education. How could she possibly have a clear concept of terms like "Sea of Quanta" or "world bubble"?
"I only instinctively remembered that name. In fact, I'm not very clear on what it is either..." Veliona said, a bit uncertain. "Based on the current situation, it's probably... something like a 'parallel world'?"
"A parallel world?"
That term was much easier to understand. Seele nodded thoughtfully, a bit wistful.
Just now, she had thought for a moment that she had really returned to the long-missed reality, even back to the past.
She had even thought that her terrible experiences were just a long nightmare, that she had never actually left...
But apparently, reality was never as beautiful as one imagined.
"So, everything now... is the dream..." Seele thought sadly, tears almost welling up in her eyes.
"Seele, are you okay?"
Seeing Seele's constantly dazed and absent-minded state, Bronya, who didn't understand what was happening, couldn't help but worry more.
She quickly called out to her, then turned her head to cast a reproachful look at Sin, before sighing and saying, "Sin, don't say that. I know you're also worried about Seele's safety, otherwise you wouldn't have gone out hunting in such a blizzard. Look at you, your clothes are almost soaked through with snow."
The wild rabbit Sin was holding to her chest was still warm.
In such freezing weather, one could only imagine how fast Sin must have run to bring it back before it froze into a block of ice, let alone still being so warm.
"Hah?! Don't be so full of yourself, Bronya!" Sin immediately jumped up as if her foot had been stepped on, yelling in a flustered rage, "You know what the food in the orphanage kitchen is like! Nothing but beets and more beets, stew and more stew! I've had enough!"
"So you were worried the patient wasn't getting enough nutrition..." Bronya watched the flailing Sin with a sense of helplessness. After her performance came to an end, she said sincerely, "Thank you."
"..."
That simple sentence immediately extinguished Sin's fire. Her whole face turned red, and after a long moment, she said angrily, "Tch, so sentimental, just like this crybaby! I'm leaving, I really don't want to be in the same room as you guys!"
Though she said she was leaving, she didn't actually turn and go. She just leaned against the wall by the door, her arms crossed, looking like she wouldn't talk to anyone.
"You see, Seele, Sin has always been like this. Don't mind her too much." Bronya gave Seele a helpless smile, trying her best to soothe her fragile nerves. Then she asked, "How are you feeling, Seele? You suddenly fainted just now, everyone was so worried."
"...This person doesn't seem as annoying as she looks?" Veliona, who had been watching the whole time, muttered.
"...Suddenly... fainted?" Seele was still a bit out of it, at a loss about everything that was happening. She just subconsciously responded to Bronya's words, "Everyone... Rozaliya... and Liliya, are they here?"
It's been so, so long since I've seen everyone, Seele thought blankly. I wonder how those two young children are doing now?
After thinking for a moment, Bronya seemed to find those two names unfamiliar.
"Rozaliya... who's that?" Bronya couldn't help but look back at Sin behind her and ask suspiciously, "Did... Mother Cocolia's orphanage get new children?"
But this orphanage was so tiny. Even if a new companion had just arrived today, how could she have no impression of them at all?
She wanted to get an answer from Sin, but what she got was a pair of equally confused eyes.
"What-liya what-ya? Never heard of them... What's all this nonsense?"
If it weren't for Seele's consistently timid and gutless personality, Sin would have even suspected she was messing with her.
"So... they're not here?"
Seele couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by this answer, because it completely shattered her last sliver of illusion. "It seems this really isn't the original world..."
The facts were clear. She hadn't returned to her home, much less truly returned to the past. She had just arrived at a strange place that seemed familiar but wasn't, and met some strangers who seemed familiar but weren't...
"Bronya-oneechan..."
Looking at the familiar face before her, at her worried and concerned expression, Seele thought again of the video she had always treasured, of the her in the video whose expression was as numb as a machine's.
The contrast was too great, and Seele finally couldn't help but cry.
"Alright, alright, pull yourself together! What's the point of crying all the time? Don't forget why we're here—to find that guy named Lin Wei and bring him back to that terrifying unknown entity!"
Her weak appearance was a bit much for Veliona to watch. She reminded her impatiently, "The real Bronya is still waiting for you in the original world. Are you planning to just keep deceiving yourself here, playing this ridiculously boring 'house game'?"
"I..."
Veliona's words were harsh. Seele wanted to retort, but she couldn't refute them at all, because she knew that everything the other said was true. There was no possibility of self-deception.
"You're right, my other self..." Seele wiped her tears. "Since we finally got out of that dark place, we can definitely go back, and we must go back!"
She desperately tried to cheer herself up, then mustered her courage and raised her head. "Bronya-oneechan, and... Sin..."
She had just started speaking when she felt the courage she had just gathered rapidly receding. She couldn't help but lower her head again and ask in a timid voice, "Do we have... a person named Lin Wei... here?"
She knew that if she wanted to find clues about that stranger, starting with the two people she was most familiar with was the best and almost only option right now...
"..."
"Lin... what?" Bronya was completely lost. Seele's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz; she hadn't heard clearly at all.
"Oh, crybaby, did you sleep yourself stupid?"
Although Sin was further away, she had heard more clearly. She couldn't help but sneer again, mocking, "That stupid name sounds like it's from Shenzhou—you know we don't have any people from Shenzhou here, don't you?"
"No... one?" Seele was disappointed. The clue had been cut off from the very beginning.
As she thought this, she couldn't help but look out the window again at the swirling snow that blurred everything. In this vast white world, this small orphanage was like a tiny, isolated island.
Seele just watched quietly, for a moment falling into an even deeper confusion. If there are no clues I need even here, then where should I start looking?
---||---
On the other side.
The moment Lin Wei opened his eyes, he found himself all alone in a world of ice and snow, shivering from the cold. He immediately shivered again. "What the hell is this place?!"
"As you can see, an arctic snowfield of ice and snow."
Schrodinger's voice came from the half-open iron box, stating an obvious fact in a deadpan manner. "Judging from the experience of the native world, the possibility of you being in Northern Europe, northern Canada, or the Siberian wilderness is much greater than being in a temperate or tropical zone. After all, the coniferous forests you see everywhere are the most obvious cold-resistant tree species."
"...Is that so? What a surprising fact..." Lin Wei complained helplessly.
Who the hell can't see that at a glance?
"Although the environment is a bit harsh, at least you've successfully arrived at the first world bubble. Compared to being directly exposed to the tidal energy of the Sea of Quanta, this is obviously good news."
Schrodinger didn't react to Lin Wei's complaint at all, simply continuing in her consistently deadpan voice, "Before considering anything else, I suggest you find a place to shelter from the wind and start a bonfire as soon as possible. After all, you currently lack basic warming measures—alright, I take that back..."
Lin Wei was seen holding his hand in a loose fist, and a strangely shaped, pitch-black greatsword appeared out of thin air.
Black flames leaped from the blade, causing the temperature of the surrounding air to rise sharply.
"Although your ability to summon a Divine Key out of thin air concerns me a little, as it reminds me of some bad memories, from a rational point of view, I will not inquire about it for the time being, just as I have not asked about your origins. Because there are more important issues to deal with right now."
Schrodinger's voice was still as calm as ever, as rational as a cold machine. "Using a Divine Key to keep yourself warm is certainly an effective method with immediate results, but it seems overly extravagant. After all, the reason Divine Keys are named after 'gods' is that mortals always have to bear a certain price to use this power, it's just a matter of size. So, are you sure you want to waste precious time and energy on such a small matter?"
"Thank you for the reminder, Dr. Schrodinger. I certainly know that in a strange world, the first priority is to be cautious, and the second is to conserve energy. So I'm just using this for an emergency, to avoid getting frostbite or even freezing," Lin Wei said.
"In fact, you're not the only one who's reminded of some bad things... Standing in a snowfield like this, I also can't help but have some unpleasant speculations—"
"The worst outcome I can think of right now is that we might have to participate in that grand event called the 'Second Honkai Eruption'!"