"Getting back on track, I kept repairing my relationship with Zhou Ming. I began to teach him, I even thought about deliberately showing weakness to give Zhou Ming some confidence, so he wouldn't get scolded by our uncle."
"You know, there's a kind of idiot in this world who can't succeed themselves, but when their child can't measure up to others, they get angry at the kid."
"During that time, I thought maybe Zhou Ming and I could progress together."
"In my second and third years of high school, my grades started to plummet. It wasn't because of medication or what the others said, that I was deliberately showing weakness..."
"It was because I knew doing this would make our uncle treat me better, and Zhou Ming would feel less pressure."
"Zhou Ming could actually, with normal effort, get into a school that everyone thinks is quite good."
"But if I performed too well, it would put too much pressure on him. Because although parents outwardly forbid comparing material things, they constantly compare their children's grades."
"I didn't want to pressure Zhou Ming."
"My relationship with Zhou Ming also eased... no, it made a significant breakthrough because one day he apologized to me!"
"No, that's wrong... it's all fake. It's all fake, I never did that. Zhou Ming never apologized to me either..."
Zhou Fei pressed his head, appearing to be in some pain:
"It's all fake? No... how can it all be fake! Zhou Ming even promised to tell me a secret!"
"No... fake, when I woke up, Zhou Ming was still the same as before!"
"What is true and what is false?"
Wen Xishu didn't expect Zhou Fei's memory to be like this.
Zhou Fei exhibited a sense of madness, unable to distinguish dreams from reality.
"What is truly real?"
This question seemed to stimulate Chris, who was currently controlled by Wen Xishu.
He unconsciously muttered the same question:
"What... what is truly real?"
Margaret.
War, invasion, treatment, psychologist...
Sss.
Wen Xishu felt a headache.
At this moment, Zhou Fei felt the same:
"Zhou Ming apologized to me, said sorry, and promised to tell me something important one day."
"But everything... everything ended when I woke up."
"I'm afraid of waking up! I'm afraid of suddenly opening my eyes, lying in bed, and everything I worked for being overturned!"
"I hate my sleepwalking disorder! I really hate why I have this illness."
"Why can't it be plain sleepwalking? Why must I experience an entirely different world?"
"No, not entirely different, just that some parts are terrifying, but overall, it's the same."
"In that world, Zhou Ming seemed to have made a significant resolution. I felt at that moment, Zhou Ming was very real, but in the other world... Zhou Ming seemed to be acting deliberately."
"No... no, I was wrong, it's not like that... It's all my imagination, Zhou Ming... Zhou Ming is just like that."
"Their whole family is disgusting! All of them are disgusting!"
"After coming here, the doctors told me to think less and sleep more."
"For a while, I felt that after taking their medicine, I started getting better."
"But I still can't believe, which side is real, because... because I feel they are not human."
"Just like you told me, they are parasitizing us."
"I want to escape here... many times when I open my eyes, I wonder if I suddenly wake up, would I return to my previous home?"
"Is it all just a long sleepwalk?"
"I am always cautious."
"Because I found that every time I encounter something strange, even something bizarrely terrifying... I suddenly wake up!"
"And then my world becomes normal again, everyone as usual, hateful!"
"But after coming here, I felt again... this place is full of bizarre, terrifying things. I desperately deny them, I don't want to wake up too quickly..."
Contradictory.
Wen Xishu noticed that Zhou Fei longed to escape here.
The way to escape here is to wake up.
Because before, every time Zhou Fei encountered something bizarre, a child with a cracked face, a brother suddenly apologizing, a father shedding skin...
He would suddenly wake up, realizing it was all a dream.
That's why Zhou Fei feared here, wanting to wake up.
But Zhou Fei also wanted to understand everything to avoid waking up.
So Zhou Fei tried his best to deny certain things, pretend not to know these things, thinking that this way, he wouldn't need to wake up.
Wen Xishu suddenly understood why, at the beginning, Zhou Fei's memory had a person like Zhou Ming.
The secret Zhou Ming was going to reveal might be a key.
At this moment, Zhou Fei seemed really unable to distinguish reality from dreams.
He even thought he sometimes dreamed inside his dream.
But as an observer, Wen Xishu knew that Zhou Fei was currently in a state of reality.
Now, he could roughly divide Zhou Fei's world into sleepwalking line, awakening line.
Sleepwalking line always ended abruptly.
In the awakening line, the brother never liked the younger brother Zhou Fei, and the uncle was a typical mindless villain.
And Zhou Fei, tormented, could not differentiate where was sleepwalking and where was reality.
But it seemed that Zhou Fei's heart leaned towards—awakening line being real.
Zhou Fei painfully cradled his head, narrating everything.
Undoubtedly, Zhou Fei had made a significant determination, otherwise, he wouldn't expose his pain and madness.
Wen Xishu said:
"Zhou Fei, maybe you're not sleepwalking at all."