Rebirth
"Why do you doubt Peng Yue?"
When Anna mentioned this person, only disgust remained on her face. "After Zheng Tong died, he kept pestering me. During the few days when the secret room was not reopened, I hid in the rental house. I kept thinking about him, and suddenly I remembered that Peng Yue had brought people to the secret room many times. I ran into him while I was on duty. At first I thought he was looking for me, but after we met, he acted like he didn't know me and treated me as an ordinary employee. Later, I didn't care about him anymore."
"Some of the people he played with were from the club, and I didn't know the rest. For a while, he was very active in the game, sometimes running one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was like a job. Even the NPCs in the secret room weren't as diligent as him."
Chen An remembered that the owner of the secret room said that the book Zheng Tong was playing was a wedding book that suddenly became popular.
"Which one does he play most often?"
Anna thought for a moment and replied, "'Reincarnation', a marriage story." Then she added, "Actually, it's not really a proper marriage story, more like... a time travel story. It tells the story of a modern person who travels back in time to replace the daughter of a wealthy official and marry the county magistrate. Zheng Tong plays the modern person who travels back in time, and the original daughter of the wealthy official has long since drowned."
The story is a very clichéd one, and the meaning of the exchange of lives is very clear, but the water tank part in the plot is still a little confusing for outsiders.
"But the person drowning in the game is Zheng Tong."
Anna suddenly laughed and snapped her fingers. "Hey, that's the magic of this book. We generally believe that two people who travel through time will create different historical trends due to their different personalities and behaviors, but the modern person who traveled through time completely inherited the fate of the wealthy daughter."
"The core meaning of this book is destiny. The red wedding dress is the cover, and the word 'destiny' is hinted at in the small print. Zheng Tong traveled from the death of the wealthy man's daughter to her own death. Her fate had already been written. Regardless of whether Zheng Tong married the county magistrate or not, or whether the Zheng family's property was confiscated or not, she would have drowned."
"Before crossing over, the modern person was just a pitiful office worker. Her crossing over was completely accidental. After arriving in ancient times, she was transformed into the daughter of a wealthy man. She lived a life of extravagance. Her father arranged for her to marry the county magistrate, the top scorer in the imperial examination. To maintain her everlasting prosperity, she got along well with the young magistrate. However, a piece of news from the border put her and her father in dire straits. The man's family was charged with treason. On the eve of their wedding, the bride fled with the magistrate in her red wedding dress. She was placed in a temple, waiting for her husband, the county magistrate, to fetch her father and leave the city together. However, she waited for nothing. Before dawn, she was pushed into the water and drowned. Here the story cycle ends."
"cycle?"
"Yes." Anna said, "The first daughter of a wealthy family was Zheng Tong. If she hadn't died, there would have been another one, but something happened to her."
If this notebook is really operated as Anna said, then the activation frequency recorded by the machine is wrong, and the owner of the escape room is lying.
“How many cycles does this book have?”
Anna said, "It depends on the number of people. If there are eight people in a car, it will cycle four times, and if there are six people in a car, it will cycle three times."
Chen An pulled out the photos he had taken in the secret room. "Have you always been controlling this device?"
Anna shook her head. "No, we have a shift system. I usually work the night shift, and our chamber isn't very staffed. Usually the DM determines the number of people and then calls the staff and NPCs to their positions."
"I didn't see any surveillance in the operating room. What's going on?"
"The operation room is very small. To save money, Boss Zhu didn't install it. He only installed it in the player's room."
It seemed that no matter what Chen An asked about "Rebirth", she could answer it. From big things like which DMs had this book to small details like the Song font on the inner pages of the book, she remembered it all. This made people suspect that Anna had some connection with this book.
"You wrote this book."
Anna was a little surprised when the truth was pointed out to her unexpectedly.
After a long pause, she nodded. "I wrote it. 'Reincarnation' was my first book. It wasn't very well written, the logic wasn't rigorous, and the theoretical concepts were sketchy. But Boss Zhu accepted it. Not only did he accept it, he also recruited Zou Liang as well. I'm very happy."
"But this book has never been popular. Not many people would click on it..." Anna trailed off.
She had wondered a long time ago why this notebook was recommended on social software. She had read many posts in the same city, and this notebook was always mentioned in activities related to entertainment and recreation.
It's not like she hasn't had conspiracy theories before, but if you think about it, what is there for her to be plotted against? It's better to simply view it as a recognition of her creative ability.
Anna didn't speak for a long time, and her originally relaxed brows frowned again. The next second, her doubts were expressed by another person.
"Do you suspect that Peng Yue is helping you with marketing?"
Anna did not deny it. She took out her mobile phone, opened a book, and searched for keywords. All that came out were highly praised posts. There were dozens of comments below, all of which were praises without a single complaint.
"Why...are you playing with my notebook?"
She couldn't figure it out.
Chen An wrote this clue in his notebook.
Zhu Liangcong was also surprised by the popularity of "The Changeling." He said the script became popular during the summer vacation. Creator Anna also found its popularity strange. So... why did this script become so popular? What was the purpose of its popularity?
Assuming Peng Yue intended to use the locked room device to kill Zheng Tong, who would he choose for the experiment? On the 17th and 18th, someone played this book, and a girl also encountered the same situation.
Peng Yue, who is becoming more and more familiar with the secret room by frequently brushing the books, Boss Zhu, who knows that the device is aging but is reluctant to spend money to repair it, Anna, who knows her own life experience, and Zheng Tong, who is ignorant and has wasted his life. Even if Peng Yue really did something, the existence of these people is enough to cover up for him, and when the case is over, no one will bother about the real cause of Zheng Tong's death.
There's too much information, so tangled together that it's hard to tell whose intentions are which and whose desires are mine. The good and evil of people are as tightly intertwined as capillaries, difficult to distinguish. Their motivations for the same thing are sometimes vague, sometimes so distinct they appear different colors.
Chen An pinched his brows and asked, "Peng Yue told you your life story, don't you have any doubts at all?"
Anna lowered her eyes. "I've suspected it, and I've confirmed it. In fact, after Zheng Tong died, I... I went to the hospital as a nurse and took care of her for a while."
"She was in a lot of pain. You could tell she really loved Zheng Tong." Anna's eyes were dull as she spoke, and her right thumb unconsciously scratched at the barb. "Being a caregiver was the easiest way to get close to her. I took her hair, and the result was the same as Peng Yue said, but I wasn't happy at all."
"In her heart, Zheng Tong is already her biological daughter. Whether their blood types are compatible is no longer important, and I have forever lost the chance to have ordinary happiness. I came back too late, and they gave up too early. We missed each other forever on this line of fate."
Regarding adoption, when Lu Yuyao and Bai Shuo went to see Cao Qianjin, he expressed his difficulties.
He said that he married into the family and was very sad about his daughter Zheng Shuyu's disappearance. He became depressed for a while. In order to stabilize Zheng Shuyu's condition, he randomly found a girl of similar age from the welfare home. That girl is now Zheng Tong.
When asked if he was still searching for their real daughter, Cao Qianjin said, "There's no point. We haven't found her in all these years, so what's the point now? Could she be better than Tongtong?" If she showed up now, Zheng Shuyu wouldn't be able to accept her. He might even miss Zheng Tong more and more, and even come to hate his own daughter. So why bother?
Chen An looked at the sad girl in front of him. In a sense, they were really a family. Even though they had been separated for many years, they understood each other's thoughts.
"I was too young when I was abducted. I don't remember the exact moment. All I know is that I lived in a leaky pigsty with a bunch of piglets. Later, when I got older, they put me in iron cages and packed me onto a truck. I don't know where I was taken." Anna's eyes fell to a tear, which fell heavily on the back of her hand. "Perhaps from that moment on, I completely severed my connection with the name Zheng Tong, and also with Zheng Tong's fate."
"At least you're still alive, aren't you?"
Anna took the tissue and forced a smile.
"By the way, Officer Chen, could you please find someone?"
"Looking for someone?"
"Yeah," Anna said, "I've been having dreams all the time. Most of the time, I dream about being kidnapped, but there's a woman who keeps appearing in my dreams. I don't know what she wants to tell me, and I don't know if I've ever owed her anything. I want... I want to find this woman and get rid of the nightmare."
"Do you know her name?"
"I only know her name."
She wrote three words neatly with a pen: Su Jinxian.
Anna had explained everything she wanted to explain. Chen An had a hunch that she was not lying, so he went out and dialed a number he had not called for a long time.
The person on the other end jokingly said, "How come you, a busy man, have time to call me?"
"Let me ask you something. I have a case study with rich early experience. Do you want to study it?"
Chen An put down his notebook and went to the tea room for a drink. Ever since Lin Ran retired from the entertainment industry, Xun Muke had lost the motivation to start an artist company. He registered it less than half a year ago and then cancelled it. Now he has opened a psychological counseling center. After going around in circles, he has finally returned to his old business. For this reason, Xun Muke came to a conclusion: Don't step out of your comfort zone.
"You're so kind?" Xun Muke, who had just sent a visitor away, checked his watch and asked, "What kind of person is he? How old are they? Let me be clear, I don't offer counseling for adolescents."
After filling the cup with hot water, Chen An picked up the cup and was stunned for a moment, "Why?"
"I did it a few times before, and I was almost pissed off, so I don't want to do it anymore." Xun Muke took a sip of coffee and gave a brief summary. "Adolescent psychological problems are closely related to family education and parental education. More than half of the teenagers I've treated were driven crazy by their parents, so it's their parents who have problems, not them. Yet, it's the children, the victims, who are receiving treatment, not the parents. Do you know how many times I put them back together, and how many times they were broken by their parents? This time, after talking to them, they were much better, but the next time they were sent back, they were back to their original state. It tortures the children, and it tortures me too. It's too painful."
After listening, Chen An said, "She's not a teenager. Her name is Anna, and she's in her early twenties. I gave her the phone number of your counseling center. Please keep an eye out for it."
"OK."
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