Sheh, perched outside the tree, saw Shi Jinzhe return safely from within. She emerged from the purple mist and, before even getting close, asked, "Why do you look so bitter?"

"Would you like to come in and have a look around?"

Shi Jinzhe asked himself and answered, "Come in and have a look with me."

"..."

Shekh didn't speak, but followed him into the tree hollow, where they saw the woman lying in the white coffin.

Shi Jinzhe showed her the leaf with writing on it, "North."

Shekh examined the tree hollow and the photograph. "This is your mother, and this tree might be your... father?"

“Right,” Shi Jinzhe shrugged and gave Shehe a smirk. “When I was very young, I wrote a diary entry in the orphanage, saying that I hoped to have a father who could shelter me from the rain and be as steady as a big tree. Now my dream has come true. My biological father must really be a tree.”

"Then he is a very powerful tree."

Shekh didn't sense anything was wrong and responded earnestly.

This giant white tree is no longer at its peak, yet she still feels a sense of crisis; what else could this be but remarkable?

"Right...it must be pretty impressive."

Seeing Shi Jinzhe's unusually calm expression, Sheh reached out and patted him on the back.

She didn't know how to comfort people, so she could only learn by imitating what others did.

This reassurance was too obvious, and Shi Jinzhe didn't want Shekh to worry.

The reason for calling her here was twofold: first, to see her mother; and second, based on her previous dream, they should have met a long time ago, and Shekh might be able to recall something.

Shi Jinzhe breathed a sigh of relief, but his smile didn't really reach his heart: "I'm fine, I just didn't expect our family traditions to be so consistent, with such unique tastes."

...

Shekh didn't want to comment on this bitter, lame joke, but he still laughed along with him.

He didn't spend too much time lamenting the passing of autumn and spring. After meeting his mother once, Shi Jinzhe left the tree hollow.

Leaving the white giant tree and the lake, without resting, the two headed north into the valley.

As they walked through the sea of ​​white flowers, Shi Jinzhe said, "The words on the wind chimes, 'The wind keeps its promise, the flowers never fail, year after year, never betraying each other,' are probably the promise of my parents. I can understand that the flowers represent my father, but why does the wind represent my mother?"

Schech's hand gently brushed across the petals, and even from a distance, the occasional sound of wind chimes could still be heard.

wind…

A wind chime that only rings when the wind blows...

"Because the wind has no shadow, they are not from the same world."

The barriers of spacetime are difficult to break. If parallel universes could be entered at will, the system wouldn't clear the ring every time and use the settlement space as a transit point for players to stay.

Locking up the activity area outside the instance is its way of preventing players from being left behind in the instance world.

Sheh's next words were merciless: "This useless system can't even fix the bug in the greeting card spinning feature. If a player finds other bugs and leaves them in the instance world, I doubt it can fix them either."

“So the best way is to prevent players from leaving the system’s restricted area,” Shi Jinzhe quickly added. “Unless my mother finds a system loophole that allows her to stay here indefinitely, it will be very difficult for her to return to this world.”

“Your mother went back to the original world, but she is still here. Maybe she found a way back, but something unexpected happened.”

Shi Jinzhe shook his head: "It's unlikely. She gave me willow branches and good luck, and then sent me to the orphanage. She was obviously going to do something. Something must have happened before she came back here."

Shekh countered, "Then... if something happened to her, how did she get back here?"

Shi Jinzhe stopped on the hillside, thinking, "We'll find out soon enough..."

Shekh followed his gaze, his eyes focusing on the man lying in the flowerbed in the distance.

She lay sprawled among the flowers with her long, slightly curly white hair, several thin white vines beneath her. Her chest cavity was hollow, just like that hollowed-out giant white tree, with only her supporting ribs remaining.

Noticing the gaze, he opened his empty eyes and looked in the direction of Shi Jinzhe.

"So this is what it looks like."

My heart was pounding with anxiety, and as soon as I got closer, I heard those words.

The uncertainties on the way here were confirmed by this sentence: the man who was only half human was indeed his biological father.

However, Shi Jinzhe was in no hurry to acknowledge his relatives.

Why did his mother die? Where is her body in that tree? Why did he become like this? What was their relationship like? These are all unanswered questions.

How did you recognize me?

The green vine first appeared in the rift valley more than two thousand miles away. At that time, the vine helped them block the mysterious black mist. Shi Jinzhe suspected that he had already recognized him.

The man, nearing the end of his life, spoke slowly, laboriously raising the hand connected to the vines, "Your heart, I gave it to you."

"heart?"

“You couldn’t survive in any world, so I gave you my heart. I recognized you as soon as you crossed the rift.”

He paused for a moment, then continued, "The energy in your body was also replaced by me without your consent. I'm sorry."

Shi Jinzhe asked, "Why?"

"To see you here, you've entered that game just like Wei Shuang, but you don't seem to know how to use my skills. Is the game restricting you?"

"Is Wei Shuang...my mother's name?"

Shi Jinzhe has become unfamiliar with the word "mother".

Shouting it out like this feels completely different from shouting it out for Qiao Huiyun.

There were no other complicated factors; it was simply because she was his mother, and because he knew she loved him, that he felt confident when he said those two words.

"Bai Weishuang." The man's tone softened as he uttered the name.

Then he asked again, "What restrictions were placed on you by the game? Why can't you even use the simplest skills?"

"I am a cheater and I am not entitled to use skills or items."

“Cheater? That’s a new term. I’ve never heard of it, at least not when Frost was around.” The man chuckled. “But you should be able to use it after this game.”

"Is it you who puts us to sleep every night?"

"Yes, if you're awake, this process will be quite painful. I'm replacing all the energy in your body with that of this world."

For the sake of his own son, the man didn't say that the energy you had accumulated in your body before was too weak.

Aside from the fact that he didn't touch the skin that looked like Wei Shuang, Shi Jinzhe was no different from someone who had swapped bodies with him.

Having said too much, the man coughed twice, and Shi Jinzhe saw golden blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

Why have you all become like this?

“I don’t know exactly what your mother did. When I left this world and found her, that’s how it was. As for me, because I left here without permission, this place was invaded by evil things from other worlds.”

Shi Jinzhe: "You can't recover because your heart is inside my body?"

The heart is the skill; without the skill, his father couldn't restore it.

“Yes, so I replaced the skill with my body.” He reached out to Shi Jinzhe, “Get to your business first. Here’s the golden butterfly. Put it on my body.”