“Yan Yan... Yan Yan?”
Just as Jiang Yan was greatly puzzled by the scene before him, he heard the distant voice of Jian Hou calling out.
“Yan Yan, Yan Yan?”
The voice sounded hollow, as if it was coming from a faraway place.
Suddenly, Jiang Yan felt the scene in front of him melt away like wax.
“Yan Yan, Yan Yan?”
Jian Hou’s voice gradually grew closer, and the various colors in front of him twisted and reshaped, creating a new scene.
Yan Yan!
Jiang Yan felt a sharp slap on his shoulder.
He instantly snapped back to reality and found himself sitting in a classroom.
The sunlight shone through the clear glass windows, filtering through the dense sycamore tree shade, casting a golden glow on the ancient wooden desk carved with sacred inscriptions.
“What were you thinking just now?”
Jiang Yan turned around and saw Jian Hou looking at him with a concerned expression.
The classroom was filled with students of various races, and a tall and handsome centaur teacher was giving a history lesson about the land.
“It’s nothing,” Jiang Yan blinked.
Jian Hou noticed something was off with him but remembered that this guy had a tendency to zone out in class. Ever since they were young, as soon as Jiang Yan sat in a classroom, he would become absent-minded. Jian Hou had learned to ignore it by now.
Moreover, given the current situation, there wasn’t much time to focus on other matters.
“What should we do now?” Jian Hou whispered, “Where are we? Xiao Tao and Xiao Cao are both gone, and suddenly it’s just the two of us. I kept calling you earlier, but you didn’t answer.”
Jiang Yan furrowed his brow and asked, “Was I... here the whole time?”
Jian Hou looked at him, puzzled, and after thinking for a moment, said, “After the scene appeared in front of me, we’ve both been here. What’s wrong?”
Jiang Yan furrowed his brow even tighter and subconsciously glanced out the window. “That’s not right, I was just on the playground.”
Jian Hou was confused. “No, you’ve been here the whole time.”
In the quiet classroom, the two of them whispered, and their conversation stood out.
The tall centaur teacher struck the podium with a ruler and scolded, “Jiang Yan, Jian Hou, stop talking or I’ll have you both leave the classroom!”
Jiang Yan and Jian Hou quickly fell silent.
The class continued.
Just as Jiang Yan couldn’t figure out why there was another—perhaps even several—versions of himself in this secondary dungeon, the centaur teacher called out, “How long did the war between the God of Light and the God of Darkness last? Jiang Yan, you answer this question.”
Jiang Yan was stunned.
He helplessly looked at Jian Hou. “How long?”
Jian Hou shook his head and whispered, “How would I know? Don’t you have the dungeon script?”
Jiang Yan hesitated. “I lost all my memories about the school, including knowledge.”
“Jiang Yan, please answer the question,” the centaur teacher called out again.
No matter what race, no matter when or where, being called on by the teacher certainly carried a sense of pressure!
Jiang Yan was hesitating to stand up when he suddenly heard a familiar yet unfamiliar voice from the front row—a voice that was slightly raspy and soft, but still clear and cold:
“Yes, teacher.”
Both Jiang Yan and Jian Hou froze.
Then, they watched in disbelief as a boy with black hair, blue eyes, and translucent golden wings like candy wrappers slowly stood up.
It was Jiang Yan.
[What the hell?!]
[How is this possible?!]
[One of them must be real, and one must be a system NPC!]
[Such plots are relatively frequent in dungeons, where several NPCs with the same genetic makeup appear simultaneously or multiple times among the players to confuse them.]
[This is impossible! When a real NPC hasn't been corrupted, there’s no way a system NPC can appear made from the same genes in the dungeon!]
[Jiang Yan is a real NPC; how could there be a system NPC made from his genes in the dungeon?!]
[Want to see Jiang Yan’s perspective? Who can enter Jiang Yan's livestream room? It's completely black on my end.]
[Can't get in... Ever since entering the dungeon, Jiang Yan's livestream has been blacking out frequently.]
[What the hell... What’s the main system up to?!]
"Wh... What..." Jian Hou’s eyes instantly turned fearful. He looked at the Jiang Yan beside him, then glanced at the Jiang Yan in front of him, trying to find a difference.
After repeatedly comparing, and nearly shaking his head like a spinning top, Jian Hou stared in shock—both were Jiang Yan.
“Teacher... I don’t know,” Jiang Yan replied groggily.
Jian Hou could tell from their appearances, mannerisms, and tone of voice that both were Jiang Yan!
Even the laziness and aloofness they both exuded from the depths of their bones were exactly the same!
“W... What is this? Two of you?!” Jian Hou exclaimed in horror.
He looked at the strange Jiang Yan, instinctively distancing himself. He knew that one of them had to be fake, but as someone who had known Jiang Yan since birth, he couldn’t tell which one was the real Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan, after briefly being stunned by the bizarre event, quickly regained his composure.
He looked at Jian Hou and said faintly, “There’s not just two of me, there are two on the playground as well.”
Jian Hou gazed at the playground with a worried expression.
Through the thick shade of trees, he could barely make out a group of students in long robes gathered in the distance, causing an uproar, though he couldn’t tell what they were doing.
“W... What’s going on?” Jian Hou asked in shock.
Jiang Yan shook his head and replied, “I’m not sure. You said I’ve been here the whole time, but that’s not true. I was just on the playground.”
“Then what happened?” Jian Hou asked.
“Then I died,” Jiang Yan replied indifferently.
“Huh?!” Jian Hou was stunned.
“The group of students on the playground killed me, and now they’re gathered around my body,” Jiang Yan said emotionlessly. “But the moment I died, my body turned into someone else.”
“Then, I appeared again. I, as a senior, showed up at the scene where the students who killed me were reporting to me, telling me that I had died.”
“After that, I heard you calling me, and in the blink of an eye, I appeared here.” Jiang Yan explained.
“What... What’s going on?!” Jian Hou asked.
The centaur teacher looked at Jiang Yan, who was standing at his seat, arrogantly saying he didn’t know, and helplessly shook his head.
“Sit down! If you don’t know, just listen to the class! If you sleep again, you’ll be sent out!”
He then looked at Jiang Yan and Jian Hou, who had been whispering with their heads down. His brows twitched twice, and unable to tolerate it any longer, he said:
“Jiang Yan, Jian Hou, both of you leave the classroom now! Go to the hallway and sort things out!”
Swoosh—
All the students in the classroom turned their attention to the two of them.
Perhaps because of Jian Hou, the entire class seemed able to tell the difference between the two Jiang Yans. No one was surprised by the appearance of two identical Jiang Yans in the class, nor did anyone seem to find it strange.
Seeing that the two remained unmoved, the centaur teacher shouted again, “Get out!!”
Jiang Yan and Jian Hou immediately stood up, silently walking to the window sill near the door of the classroom and standing there.
Once outside the classroom, the two of them started chatting freely.
“What exactly is going on?” Jian Hou had lost count of how many times he had asked this question.
“I don’t know,” Jiang Yan answered simply.
He wanted to tell Jian Hou about the second-level dungeon setup, but he couldn’t say anything that would break his current character. Right now, he was experiencing all these strange things as the character of the Little Prince of the Elves.
“So, now that we’re in this strange place, do we still need to vote tonight?” Jian Hou asked.
“Of course,” Jiang Yan replied.
The main system definitely wouldn’t let them off.
“If tonight’s vote continues, and there are so many versions of you in this school, then it’s possible that the Jiang Yan who knocked on each of our doors this morning and invited us to the restaurant... might not be you!” Jian Hou said excitedly.
Jiang Yan shook his head seriously: “I think every one of them might really be me.”
“What do you mean?” Jian Hou asked.
“My perspective has switched twice, and a third-person view once,” Jiang Yan explained.
“Just now, my perspective wasn’t beside you; it was on the playground. But now, my perspective is in this body. However, the Jiang Yan on the playground and the one who was beside you at the beginning, both are me,” Jiang Yan said.
“Maybe next, my vision will shift to another body of mine. Perhaps every Jiang Yan in this school is me!”
Jian Hou stared blankly for a long time, then collapsed, messing up his brown curly hair in frustration.
“The main system is crazy... What kind of trash plot is this? What does this have to do with the killer who killed the king?!” Jian Hou exclaimed in despair.
“Ha! It doesn’t seem related for now, but it probably has something to do with the memories I’ve lost,” Jiang Yan said coldly.
Jiang Yan and Jian Hou were facing away from the classroom, standing by a row of bright floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sunlight poured through the windows, cutting a sharp angle in the air, with golden dust floating in the beams.
Jiang Yan’s blue eyes were reflected with shimmering light.
If Jian Hou is also at this school, it means both the players and the real NPCs are here. Maybe even Yu Xiu should be here too?
Although it’s a bit strange that the steward would appear at the school, that guy disappeared with them, after all.
“I suddenly thought of a question,” Jian Hou said.
“What?” Jiang Yan snapped back to attention.
“Yan Yan, look!” Jian Hou explained, “You appeared in the first-person view on the playground, and then another you appeared on the playground, right?”
“Yes.”
“When I appeared in the classroom, there was also another you beside me. Now that both you and I are in the school, we can temporarily infer that other players and real NPCs are also in this school.”
“Mm.”
“As you said, there are many versions of you in this school, do you think...?” Jian Hou thought for a moment before slowly continuing, “Do you think every player might have a version of you beside them, each walking through a different script? And your perspective will randomly jump to different versions of you?”
Jiang Yan froze.
He was about to say something to Jian Hou but realized he could only open his mouth and couldn’t make a sound, or more precisely, he made a sound but couldn’t hear it himself.
Soon after, he realized that Jian Hou’s voice began to sound increasingly empty, more distant.
The scene in front of him started to twist and shift once more.
“Yan Yan? Yan Yan??”
Jiang Yan snapped back to attention. He found himself no longer in the sunlit classroom corridor but instead in a small storage room filled with clutter and the scent of wood.
At this moment, he was half-lying on a discarded desk in the storage room. His robe had already been undone, and his lower body was completely exposed.
Before Jiang Yan could fully process the situation, he noticed Yu Xiu was propped up against the desk, pressing down on him.
Jiang Yan felt a little dazed... The steward?
No! This wasn’t the steward, this was...?!
Jiang Yan looked at the other’s luxurious robes and extravagant gold accessories, and his pupils shrank!
This was his dismembered husband.
The Giant King?!
The King smiled as he looked at him, his massive, long hand gripping his exposed waist, and asked:
“Yan Yan, are you really ready to do bad things with senior?”
Jiang Yan was startled!
Huh? No!
Wait!!