Gu Jun finally understood the strange feeling that he had when he was at the mental hospital. It was an empty shell.
Be it the guards at the hospital, the doctors, or the pedestrians on the street, they all seemed to be missing their souls. And the houses by the roadside, they had lights on, but they looked empty. He understood now, they were just a background.
Gu Jun stood up and walked toward the blonde woman. She was in her twenties and had a pretty face. She wore a rather fashionable dress and was chatting happily with her female companion. He walked to their table. "Hello."
"Hello?" the blonde woman answered with confusion.
"My name is Jun," Gu Jun said. "Can I get to know you? What's your name?"
The woman's companion laughed, and the blonde woman chuckled. "Oh, it's me … I, I am …"
She wanted to say her name a few times, but when the words were already at the tip of her tongue, she couldn't say them out loud …
Slowly, the blonde woman was startled, and she seemed to realize something was wrong. What is my name? Who am I?
What's wrong with that? It's just a name. The woman wanted to say it on her friend's behalf, but when she opened her mouth, she was stumped as well.
What is my name again? What about me?
"You can't say it," Gu Jun mumbled hoarsely. "Because you don't have a name."
Just as the two women were panicking and the people around them were confused, something flickered.
Gu Jun continued to eat with Hannah at the dining table. The conversation earlier did not happen. The blonde woman was still chatting happily with her friends. At this time, they stood up to pay the bill and left. He could not tell what they were talking about. If he tried to listen carefully, he would not be able to make out the words clearly.
He saw Hannah shrug. In the whole restaurant, only he and Hannah remembered what had happened earlier.
As for the others, the two female customers, they were not characters in this scenario. They had no names and no lines.
They were just background details for the restaurant, and so were the others.
"Brother, tell me." Hannah asked, "Have we gone crazy? Or have we woken up? "
"Both." Gu Jun leaned against the back of the chair weakly. He looked out at the street and around him.
Setting? Others are your setting, and you are their setting.
Even in the previous world, how sure could he be? He could meet a thousand different people on the street in a day, see their faces, hear their voices, but he could also not know a single one of them. When they left his sight, he couldn't be sure if they still existed.
No one knew if they really existed.
In the past, he could still be sure that it was within his line of sight, but now, he couldn't be sure.
"I understand what you mean," Gu Jun said to Hannah. "What do you know now? What do you think we should do? "
"I don't know more than you do." Hannah put down the knife and fork in her hand and picked up a napkin to wipe her mouth. "We've tried everything. Murder, arson, destruction. Nothing has changed. The people with names are people we know. If you suddenly walk into a house that is not part of the itinerary, you'll see people standing there motionless. They're more lifelike than dead bodies. "
Gu Jun was reminded of the GTA games he once played. The passersby on the street were just as lifeless.
Controlling the main character to beat the passersby half-dead and then run away like nothing had happened.
"What about suicide?" He did not hear Hannah mention that earlier. "Have you tried it?"
"You know how the main characters in the King in Yellow end up." Hannah put down the napkin and called the waiter to settle the bill. Then she added, "Isn't suicide the perfect ending? I haven't tried suicide, but I've tried to cut my finger. Then, suddenly, it healed without a scar. "
She raised her right index finger. It was perfectly fine.
Gu Jun frowned. His heart was in a mess.
If he could not get an answer from these passersby, people with backgrounds, and people with names …
Wouldn't they start with themselves? Suicide should be the last resort, right? Or there was another option. He could take an axe and chop Hannah to death.
Originally, he wanted to break free, but things did not change because that was the end. Jim Mazurewicz went mad and killed his own sister.
This was a typical King in Yellow ending.
"What about the King in Yellow?" Gu Jun asked for the original copy. "The one that made us go mad and wake up."
"It's at the University of Michigan Library." Hannah said, "The school knows about your mental disorder. Our university has always been a bit secretive. The school has already locked the book, forbidding students from reading it. I was able to read it because I'm your sister, a reporter and a graduate of the University of Michigan. "
"Then let's go to the University of Michigan." Gu Jun stood up. "Now, is the library still open?"
"That depends on whether the story allows us to go or not. If it does, the library will open at midnight. If not, we won't be able to make it." She said calmly.
Gu Jun took a deep breath. Even when he was at the asylum, he did not feel so restrained.
Even though he was locked inside the small sickroom most of the time, in comparison, he felt like he was truly free back then.
Why did Jim end up at the asylum? Did he really go mad? Or did he purposely go there?
"What about my notes?" Gu Jun asked, "You took them, right?"
"No," Hannah said. "You burned them all. As you burned them, you screamed madly, 'Burn the words, destroy them! Don't let them control you, no! '"
The waiter came over. She paid the bill and tipped the waiter. "Come on, dinner is over. Let's see where we'll be controlled by the words and what we'll do next."
'Controlled by the words?' Gu Jun pondered. 'Or by fate?'
When a person understood their fate and did everything they could, they realized history would repeat itself and tragedy would befall them.
Then …
Regarding this problem, Gu Jun had already made up his mind back at the altar. But he still challenged it, even though he knew it was impossible.
Every drowning human would struggle to their last breath before they died.
Therefore, Nyarlathotep decided to do this. It mocked and taunted Gu Jun to see how Gu Jun would fight against fate. Fate decided by it?
Suddenly, Gu Jun heard Mr. Wang Erde's strange voice again.
'Is that so … or is it the fate decided by the King in Yellow …'
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