"Ziiiiā"
The screeching sound of brakes echoed on the street.
Behind him, Dai Huanhuan accidentally bumped into Gu Mianās back, causing a painful collision.
He reached out to rub his forehead, dissatisfied yet hesitant to question, he could only ask quietly: "Why did you suddenly stop?"
"Are you sure thereās never been a fortune-teller on your street?" Gu Mian turned to look at him.
Dai Huanhuan nodded quickly: "Absolutely, I moved from the original blocked area to this street when it was built, thereās never been a fortune-teller here."
Gu Mian fell into thought.
The last time he came here, he encountered that NPC with a fortune-telling stall who kindly pointed him to the direction of the forbidden zone, thanks to whom he could find the statue of Slaughter and the Evil God in the forbidden zone.
But now Dai Huanhuan says thereās never been a fortune-teller on this street?
That person was not from this street but lied about his identity to give directions to Gu Mian, seemingly waiting specifically for him here.
Who is he? Why did he do this?
Gu Mian had many questions in his heart.
At that moment, the mechanical dog Hei poked its head out from the Big Jar behind him, delivering its classic line, "Are you happy?"
Dai Huanhuan looked back at the Big Jar behind him.
He had long wanted to complain about this jar; a jar on the back of a motorcycle, what kind of design is this?
Plus, thereās a dog in the jar, but he didnāt dare question Gu Mianās aesthetics and swallowed his big doubts alone.
Exactly.
Gu Mian remembered that when he saw the man with the fortune-telling stall, Hei was quite rude, barking "Hey" "Hey" at the man, which puzzled him at the time, now it seems there might be something hidden?
"Do you know him?" Gu Mian looked at the dogās head of Hei.
It was said to be a dogās head, but actually just a camera.
Unfortunately, Hei was just like its brother, only spitting out that one line.
Gu Mian couldnāt get anything out of it except to sigh why all the creatures around him were stammering.
"According to the timeline, I should meet him tomorrow afternoon, if I wait here until tomorrow afternoon, I might run into him, but not necessarily, he might not come this time."
Gu Mian looked up at the Inverted City in the sky behind himāthe last time this didnāt happen, did it?
It seems things donāt always follow the original trajectory.
Plus, Lu Yi will be executed in seven days, he didnāt have time to waste here.
Thinking of this, Gu Mian took a deep look at the location of the fortune-telling stall from last time and then rode his motorcycle towards Game City.
With Dai Huanhuan as the practical navigator, Gu Mian took shortcuts avoiding various Upper Class People zones and lower-class zones and saw the Game City building before dawn.
Since Game City was not within the activity area of the Upper Class People, Chu Changge and 007 werenāt worried about being captured while moving nearby, Gu Mian could see the two from afar at the gate of Game City.
His oddly shaped motorcycle attracted the attention of many NPCs around, but since the people here always looked somewhat abstract, it didnāt cause much of a stir.
It wasnāt until he parked his motorcycle in front of Chu Changge and 007, that 007 gazed at the four-wheeled motorcycle with a jar and showed an expression hard to describe: "This bike is..."
"I made it myself;" Gu Mian said as he got off and went to the jar on the back seat, fetching the mechanical dog Hei from inside and stuffed it into 007ās arms, "I picked up this dog by the roadside, named it Hei, since your profession is Fortune-teller, it might be useful to you."
With the Fortune-teller and the dog stuffed into his arms, they exchanged glances but none spoke first.
Just then, Dai Huanhuan gingerly got off the back seat and nodded quietly to Chu Changge and 007 to introduce himself: "Hello, Iām Dai Huanhuan..."
He had seen these two in the "Guide to Avoiding Dangerous Personalities (8th Edition)". Both were Gu Mianās disreputable companions, if you were lucky enough to meet either of them in your instance, congratulations, a hopeful bankrupt working life awaited you.
Seeing these three gathered together, Dai Huanhuanās mind buzzed with a feeling of impending doom.
Chu Changge sized him up a few times and then focused back on Gu Mian: "You even brought a useless NPC."
Hearing this, Dai Huanhuanās head, already lowered, drooped lower, feeling himself wasnāt all that useless.
"Didnāt you also bring someone?" Gu Mian looked toward Chu Changge and 007ās rear, where a ragged, nervous-looking man stood.
Gu Mian recognized him.
"Ming?"
The full name should be "Bright but Not Dazzling Man"
The first time he saw him was at Blizzard Mountain, in the World in the Mirror instance, back then he was overly flamboyant, accompanied by a CP named the Alluring but Not Ostentatious Woman.
Back then, Gu Mian enthusiastically named them Ming and Xiao Zhang.
After that, they didnāt meet for a long time.
The second meeting was last time, on Earth; by then, Ming had lost his prior flamboyance, becoming silent, cautious, his hunched, shrinking form unlike what a young man should have.
Xiao Zhang had also disappeared, no longer clinging to his side as before.
Then, Ming recognized them at the supermarket entrance but didnāt dare approach and fled instead.
Unexpectedly, the third meeting came so quickly.
"No wait, how did you get in?"
When Gu Mian used the 108th Key from the Mysterious World to enter Paradise World, he made sure there were no irrelevant persons nearby.
"I asked, back then he was in the park just not far from the entrance. When you went to check the entrance, he hid away far, when you finished and left, he sneaked behind the entrance to peek, this made him brought in and landed in the same area with me."
Chu Changge already had the whole thing figured out and now reporting without expression.
Gu Mian recalled notifying Chu Changge and 007 in the group chat about the worldās rollback afterward, and Chu Changge queried Gu Mian if heād mentioned someone he encountered previously.
Gu Mian answered with a negative.
It seems in the first entry into this world Chu Changge didnāt meet Ming, the rollback might have led Chu Changge to spend time pondering several matters, the time differences resulting in event differences, leading him to encounter Ming also entering this world.
Then Ming rubbed his filthy hands, explaining: "Sorry, I couldnāt find a place to stay outside, when I saw the park I wanted to stay at a ticket booth for a night, as long as there was a roof, out of the rain, thatād be enough;
"But I accidentally found the meter room inside the park... you know, the one with many meters, it looked like someone had lived there, they left bedding there... I havenāt felt safe sleeping on a bed for so long, wanted to stay longer;
"Didnāt expect to see you at the entrance, also didnāt expect coming close would cause this..."
The meter room in Lianhua Paradise? Gu Mian knew he meant the electrical room, someone used to live there?
He thought of Renle Mountain who recently sneaked away from the apartment.
seemed to have thought the same, slightly startled in expression.