Translator: AnubisTL
Viola chatted casually with Amy for a few more moments before being called by a young man in a suit who looked somewhat nervous. It seemed to be an urgent matter related to her work.
After bidding them farewell, she turned with a graceful flourish, her face still wearing that flawless, gentle smile. She naturally handed her handbag to the man.
The man took it, visibly flattered, a faint blush creeping up his cheeks. He followed her away, keeping a respectful distance.
Amy watched their retreating figures and shook her head in resignation, muttering under her breath, "Another poor soul..."
Jieming and Victor shot her confused glances.
Amy sighed and explained, "My aunt... she's the same way at work. She loves to toy with her male colleagues, using that vague, ambiguous charm to reel them in. And just when they're completely smitten, thinking they're finally making a move, she rejects them without a shred of mercy."
"Then... well, in her words, she 'appreciates the exquisite agony on their faces the moment their dreams shatter.' And with her looks, the routine works every single time."
Jieming and Victor exchanged a glance, both seeing a cold sweat beading on the other's brow.
The man carrying the handbag now appeared to them as nothing more than a lamb led to the slaughter.
"What a... terrifying woman," Victor commented drily.
Jieming silently wiped the cold sweat from his own brow, thinking how this man perfectly fit his impression of his senior sister's personality.
The three parted ways at the entrance of the mall.
On the way back, Jieming took the long route, using the excuse of wanting to go for a stroll. He wandered through different city blocks, observing the details of this world more extensively.
As he passed a public primary school with a colorful running track and the sounds of laughter, his footsteps involuntarily came to a halt again.
Through the white fence, he saw a burly man in a tracksuit on the playground, wearing a smile full of affection as he led a group of seven- and eight-year-old children in a game. The man's movements were agile yet cautious, as if he were afraid of bumping into the children, his booming voice filled with encouragement and laughter.
Jieming's pupils constricted once more.
This man... he remembered him too!
He was a fifth-tier wizard from the Expeditionary Force!
And Jieming's impression of this man was extremely deep, because at that time, even just a single glance was enough to clearly feel the tyrannical aura emanating from him.
But now, judging by the situation, he was actually a beloved PE teacher at this primary school?
Seeing the satisfaction and joy nearly overflowing from the man's face, Jieming was struck by a profound sense of absurdity.
He stood in silence for a moment, then finally turned and quickened his pace back to that "home."
Locking himself in his bedroom, Jieming leaned his back against the door, took a deep breath, and began to systematically organize the information he had gathered today.
First, and most importantly: the density of "familiar faces" was extraordinarily high.
The city's population numbered in the tens of millions, yet within his limited range of activity—his route to and from school, the downtown commercial district, and the areas he had deliberately detoured through today—he had encountered Kevin (the former school bully), the "Chief Scientist" of a high-tech company, Senior Viola, and that "PE Teacher."
And these were only the ones he could recognize from a single meeting.
He had to keep in mind that the wizards he could identify represented only a tiny fraction of the nearly two million who had fallen.
What did this mean?
It meant that the individuals scattered across every corner of this world, constructed using fallen wizards as "prototypes," might be vast beyond imagination!
Second, the authenticity of these "acquaintances" far exceeded that of his "parents."
Whether it was Kevin's delinquent manner, the Chief Scientist's elite demeanor, the PE Teacher's sunny kindness, or Viola's deeply ingrained viciousness, they all displayed distinct, self-consistent personalities and independent life paths.
Unlike his "parents," who carried the stiffness and flaws of a template, they were filled with the complexity and authenticity of real "people."
Third, there was the vast array of independent cultural products in this world.
Movies, games, art styles, social news...
All these elements that formed the world's background exceeded his own personal knowledge base. Yet they were logically consistent, creating a complete and authentic civilization.
If the mastermind had constructed such a vast and realistic otherworld culture for him alone, the cost would be incomprehensibly high.
Connecting these clues, a bold, heart-pounding hypothesis gradually took shape in Jieming's mind:
Could it be... that this so-called "False World" is not just a cage prepared for him alone?
What if... this "false world" wasn't just a cage built for him alone?
What if it contained all two million of the Fallen Wizards?
Perhaps each one of them, just like he had been at first, was implanted with a different identity and false memories, then scattered to every corner of this world.
Like drops of water merging into a vast ocean, they collectively formed a part of this "reality."
If that were the case, then so many contradictions would suddenly make sense.
The genuine knowledge he encountered might have been contributed by other Fallen Wizards.
Those vivid "acquaintances" were simply the other Fallen Wizards themselves, living out their lives under their false identities.
And that immense cultural backdrop—it must have been synthesized by the planar rules, drawing upon the collective knowledge of all the Fallen!
A super-colossal stage... with at least two million "actors"? Jieming felt his hypothesis becoming more and more certain.
More importantly, this would also explain part of why the Profound Astral Red Dust Barrier had failed.
The enemy hadn't needed to break through the Barrier's defenses at all. They only had to construct the entire plane to match its internal image.
Just like in The Truman Show, when the entire world is a deliberately constructed reality, even the Profound Astral Red Dust Barrier cannot function.
But that still doesn't explain how those false memories were created...
Jieming shook his head, setting the question aside for now to focus on the more pressing issue.
To test this hypothesis, the key was to confirm whether there were other "real people" around him—those who, like him, had come from the wizard world but were temporarily deceived and fallen.
His gaze involuntarily drifted to the "Viola" he had encountered today.
His intuition told him that this senior sister was highly likely to be a "real person."
...After all, a psychopath as naturally gifted as her, who drew pleasure from others' pain, was a rare find.
Jieming asked himself: even if he racked his brain to invent such a person, he could never have come up with lines like "It will hurt more if you don't say it out loud" or "You deserve it."
The bone-deep malice and the precise insight into the human heart felt more like Viola's own authentic performance.
"Calculating the timing, if Senior Viola was part of the first wave of reinforcements sent here, the timeline fits," Jieming reasoned, recalling the expeditionary force's schedule.
(End of the Chapter)
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