It wasn't until Alice explained that she only watched the dream for a short while before leaving, and claimed that it was just a night walk for her that she happened to pass by by chance, Klein finally waved away the discomfort and secretly

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Although she couldn't understand how she could wander into someone else's dream, as long as she didn't see it with her own eyes and experience the end of the dream, it was still acceptable and she didn't make him lose face...

Klein gradually regained his composure and turned his attention away from the girl who clicked "Start New Game". He looked around the familiar room with some hindsight and fell into a slight hesitation.

He returned to Zhou Mingrui's room.

After a few years of graduation, he came to a big city and worked for an Internet company. He shared a three-bedroom and one-living house in a community along a certain subway. Like many contemporary young people, he faced the difficulty of rising wages and consumption.

Real problems such as rising prices, etc., looking up at the high housing prices, being urged by parents on the phone why they haven’t found a partner to get married yet.

After standing in silence for a while in this room filled with personal belongings, he couldn't help but walk to the door, wanting to press the doorknob and see if the living room outside was still as furnished as he remembered.

I want to walk out of the building, look at the constant traffic on the asphalt and cement roads, and go back to the natural, peaceful rest day.

But this is just a dream.

Because it is a dream, as long as he is willing to think about it, he will definitely see what he wants to see.

Even, as long as he is willing to think about it, he can open the door and return home, smelling the nostalgic fragrance of the table of home-cooked food made by his parents.

Klein returned to the bedside from the door, found his phone under the pillow, mechanically unlocked the device, opened the app, and swiped the screen to find the two avatars in the contact list that were marked as his father and mother.

After a long pause, he clicked on the chat bar with the latter and stared blankly at the conversation record that stayed in early April on the screen:

"Are you going home during the Qingming Festival?"

"I'll just leave it for one day. I won't come back. We'll talk about it on May Day."

He lowered his head and looked at the pajamas covered with cartoon patterns. The slightly protruding belly that had worked overtime was gone. What was left was the flat stomach that Zhou Mingrui once envied, and the strong muscles that were blocked by the clothes.

It's funny. In order to exercise, he spent a lot of money to get a card at a gym near the company, thinking that he would go to the gym to build muscles after get off work. As a result, just sitting in the office every day made him tired. It's so annoying that I just want to go home and lie down right away. Naturally, that gym season pass has been completely wasted.

Now that I recall these past events, it is indeed quite funny.

He blocked his vision with the lower edge of his palm and raised the corners of his mouth wordlessly.

A sharp and piercing scream came from the direction of the computer speakers. Klein pressed his eyes, put down his palms and looked at the screen. He saw that the bright words "YOU_DIED" in blood were gradually fading away, and the picture with a darker tone disappeared along with the death sound effect.

Retreat.

As the game character wearing the initial equipment was resurrected, carrying a stick and an old wooden shield, his vision returned to the save point of a long sword with a flaming blade inserted in the ash heap.

"I haven't played for so long that my hands are raw."

The girl held the game controller and pushed the joystick to control the character to run down the steep slope. She raised the knife and slashed to death the living zombie monster on the roadside. She explained in a calm tone.

Walking to the computer desk where his seat had been occupied, he focused his attention on this game known for its suffering, refusing to be recalled to evoke more emotions, and casually found a topic:

"...Your gaming taste is quite hardcore."

"It can be seen that our preferences are very different. After all, it seems that you have only played this game for two hours and five minutes, which is just past the refund time."

Ruthlessly breaking the play time seen on the inventory game record, Alice said as she controlled the character to walk into the fog door without looking back, and rushed straight towards the tall giant wielding a halberd.

"You should say this - I persisted with great perseverance until the time limit for refund was exceeded, and then I was beaten by this ridiculously difficult novice level boss until my mentality collapsed, and I chose to quit the game out of desperation."

With the mentality of watching a beautiful girl playing a torture game live, Klein gradually relaxed, pulled a chair aside and sat down, preparing to appreciate the various fancy ways of death that he might see next.

In the dark-toned picture, a tall giant wearing thick armor could be seen holding a halberd high and slashing at her with an oppressive attitude, like an insurmountable mountain.

The next second, the small wooden shield that was about to fall apart faced the seemingly unstoppable heavy halberd, and deflected the move without any suspense.

Alice skillfully controls the character to move forward to hit the target, then retreat to create distance, wait for the opponent to make a move, and then repeat the above process until the opponent's health bar disappears, effectively turning an action game into a turn-based game.

"Do you find this difficult?"

"I think we can end the discussion about the game." Klein pretended not to hear her doubts and abruptly changed the subject, "It was you who said you could find your past in dreams, that's why I agreed to let you

In a dream... it turns out that you actually just want to express that you are an internet addicted girl who is addicted to games?"

"No." Alice shook her head, her eyes never leaving the dispossessed person walking along the winding path on the screen, "I chose to find a game to relax because I had nothing to do. In your words... hmm

, let me think about it, if you open your phone and push the user whose search ID is this, you can learn about things related to me."

As she said that, she let go of the handle, touched the fruit-colored cell phone from under her legs, typed a string of English words mixed with numbers in the memo, and took a screenshot to show him.

After roughly understanding her train of thought, Klein was a little confused:

"I, I rarely use Twitter... No, that's not the main problem! You asked me to search social accounts related to you, but how can I find content that I have never seen in my memory?"

"So I asked you for your hair before I fell into the dream." Alice continued to turn her gaze back to the dark and depressing game world filled with living corpses, and said in a neutral tone, "Now I have half of the control over this dream.

There is a subconscious projection of part of me...you will find those records."

Why go to all this trouble... If you don't want to tell me, just refuse like before, but you have to take such a roundabout way?

It looks like the diary of Emperor Russell...

Tormented by curiosity, Klein finally couldn't bear the itch and tried to search for that social platform. He opened the webpage without any obstacles, registered an account, entered the user ID she gave, and found a place that was so deserted that it was a bit disappointing.

Mercy's user homepage.

The nickname and ID are exactly the same, the avatar is a featureless landscape photo, the number of followers is 0, and the number of followers is only five or six people, so there is nothing special about it.

The total number of updates is less than thirty, and the latest one is permanently fixed in June 2017.

He patiently pulled the homepage to the bottom and browsed up one by one in chronological order.

"On November 15, 2016, say goodbye to the past. The first stop is to go to Norway to see the snow."

For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the game sounds played outside and the rhythmic sound of the controller buttons.

Browsing through more than 20 updates spanning about half a year does not take much time. What’s more, unlike a certain senior time traveler who wrote a diary, the content recorded in each update here is extremely brief and has no social influence at all.

Show your awareness of your life with others on the platform.

"On November 5, 2016, I saw the Aurora. It was beautiful."

A short one-line narrative, plus a photo of the relevant scenery, is the basic structure of any electronic diary.

“On January 9, 2016, I experienced the traditional Finnish sauna.”

“On January 5, 2016, the owner of the B&B dressed up as Santa Claus and stuffed gifts into the socks under the Christmas tree.”

“On January 6, 2017, I visited the Orthodox Christmas celebration. It was very lively.”

…

He soon realized that the poster who posted these photos, simple captions and location information was on a worldwide free trip.

Or rather, it was in progress.

Almost all submitted photos are landscape photos without exception, including city streets, rural houses, the open sky above the open fields, and the boundless sea at the end of the cliff. Most of the photos were taken in the evening, with a few occasional photos.

The night scene and the rainy weather where the sunshine is not so bright and dazzling are mixed in, and the text written by the poster in the post also contains a little more complaints about the weather.

Intuitively, he touched an almost transparent soul from those dull to almost tasteless narratives.

It is impossible for a person who can record such words to have a traveling companion with him. This seemingly aimless journey is destined to be just a lonely tour, for a destination that has not been written down in the travel record.

One-way passage on.

...After reading these records, can we understand Alice's past?

Klein looked up at the girl who was still fighting against the zombies on the high wall in the game world. He sighed inaudibly, lowered his gaze again, and swiped the screen to search for information that he might have missed.

Suddenly, he noticed the recommended user named "I.R.I.S" at the top of the sidebar.

What's going on? There is also big data push in the dream? No, no, this pronunciation is...

After silently reciting its pronunciation several times, Klein felt something in his mind and tried to click on the artistically beautiful avatar composed of black and white lines.

This time, the page that quickly jumped showed much richer information than the previous personal homepage. He almost subconsciously slowed down his breathing rate, flipped through the account records with tens of thousands of followers, and cooperated with the search from time to time.

The engine completes the profile of "I.R.I.S".

On the other side, the battle specifications on the monitor screen were gradually heating up and upgrading. The man with nothing had already put on a decent light armor, a small leather shield in one hand, and a straight sword in the other and ran wildly through the royal city with many forks.

The girl stared intently at the game screen, controlling her game character to run straight into the majestic accompaniment of the music, waving her weapon at the roaring guard dog.

And when she successfully defeated the war knight who degenerated into a beast in madness and embarked on the journey to the village settlement, Klein finally finished reading the written description of "I.R.I.S." and became relieved after a long silence.

"So," he heard himself say with a dry voice, pretending to be relaxed, "you are actually a pretty famous musician?"

"It used to be. But I'm not that famous. After all, I refuse to write pop songs to cater to the public's preferences. The audience is only a fixed group, and I can only be considered a niche musician." Alice corrected him and pressed the handle at the same time.

He skillfully dodged the attacker's flying knife and stepped forward to attack, "You can find some of my previous works to listen to. It's just a dream anyway, there is no need to consider copyright issues."

"..."

Klein opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Electronic media's records of "I.R.I.S" are limited to age, gender, and personal works, plus some honorary titles and awards, without revealing any personal privacy information.

The most discussed thing among fans who gathered under the "I.R.I.S" social account, apart from the style of her works, and the reason why she suddenly announced the cessation of activities in the winter of 2016, is the mysterious identity of "I.R.I.S".

The most powerful and convincing statement came from a group of fans who seemed to have attended the concert, saying that she was a pure white iris that came out of the flawless land of ice and snow. However, they suffered from the fact that they could not take pictures or videos at the scene, and they could not record it.

The young musician's appearance was shared with the outside world.

And since there is praise, there are inevitably some malicious remarks, suspecting that she lied about her age under twenty, speculating that her works are false creations ghostwritten by others, and even presumptuously speculating about the honors she has received.
To be continued...