Four Split Personalities

"Reopen it..."

Motan murmured the phrase before flipping open the already supple mystery book in his hands and once again saw the two lines of African proverbs on the title page, responding in kind, "No change, should I continue flipping through?"

[Indeed, because it has been observed by him... so it has become ’fixed’...]

Past A Sang nodded slightly and then used the ’Sound Shell’ he had previously placed inside the workshop wall to answer his new friend existing in the regular timeline: "No need for now, close the book, wait for half a minute, then open it again and go directly to the second page."

Thirty seconds later

Ji Xiaoge tiptoed to peer over Motan’s shoulder, exclaiming, "Wow! What a cute Pikachu!"

"Ah, agreed..."

Motan shifted his head subtly to the side, admiring the Pikachu on the second page of the book, topped with a duckbill cap and holding a Master Ball in its hands, looking downright adorable no matter how one looked at it, and laughed, "The drawing is really good."

Then A Sang’s voice emerged eerily around the two, "No matter how good the drawing is, it’s useless, artists these days are dying in droves of starvation. I had a senior who switched to selling breakfast after graduating half a year ago, saying he makes three times more than when creating original art, and he doesn’t even have to stay up late to rush jobs."

Ji Xiaoge covered her mouth with a gasp and surprisingly said, "Is studying art that miserable?"

"Uh, not really..."

A Sang smacked his lips, sighing, "I can only say selling breakfast is just too profitable."

Ji Xiaoge: "..."

Motan: "..."

"Cough cough, we’re getting off track here."

A Sang chuckled dryly and straightened up, "All in all, thanks to you both, I’ve finally figured out a few things, so my future research direction is somewhat clear."

Before Motan could speak, Ji Xiaoge, curious as a baby, raised her little hand and asked with great interest, "What things? Can you tell us if it’s convenient?"

"Sure, if it’s convenient."

Motan added appropriately on the side, because he observed that A Sang’s recent comment had essentially amounted to ’not convenient to elaborate,’ but since Ji Xiaoge had piped up, he couldn’t just directly contradict the occasionally clueless girl beside him.

And he was actually quite curious himself.

"Ah, that, well, we’re all players, so there’s really no harm in talking about it."

A Sang indeed hesitated for a moment before measuring his words, "It’s just that this matter is rather hard to explain, and I haven’t even unlocked the related worldview illustration, so I can’t guarantee its authenticity. But if you don’t mind listening to my speculation, I can share a little."

"Don’t mind, don’t mind."

Ji Xiaoge’s eyes shone as she nodded, chirpily saying, "I feel like topics related to time are super deep and very high-end. I loved watching this type of movie when I was a kid!"

A Sang seemed to share the enthusiasm, nodding in agreement, "Me too! The kind that keeps you up all night watching."

"Wow! What do you like to watch? I just rewatched ’Your Na...’"

"Doraemon."

"Oh..."

Motan chuckled awkwardly on the side, thinking to himself that it figured—the bunch of Doraemon characters was indeed A Sang’s work, and looking at the exquisite craftsmanship, he had to say that today’s art students are truly amazing.

Yeah, truly amazing, even if they generally don’t earn as much as those who sell breakfast...

"Alright, then let’s chat about it as much as possible."

A Sang from seventeen hundred and fifty years ago casually snapped his fingers, summoning a wide lounge chair out of thin air in front of the fireplace. He then reclined comfortably into it, musing, "The ’time misalignment’ phenomenon that occurred to me, Mor sort of mentioned it just now, that’s about right, but I need to add a few points. First of all, as far as my teacher and I have understood over such a long time, it’s almost certain that this phenomenon is some kind of unreplicable ’strength’ or ’phenomenon’. It’s unclear whether it started to appear ’after that accident’ or if it’s a unique trait of the Mourning character, but its existence is beyond dispute. We’ve named it ’Pseudo-space-time flow.’ It’s a phenomenon that exists only for me personally. You two can consider it as the super invincible limited edition panda blood type, which doesn’t belong to any of the A, B, AB, O types, not even the rare RH, MNSSU, P, KELL, KIDD, LUTHERAN, etc. It’s uniquely unreplicable, the latest version."

Ji Xiaoge blinked in confusion, stifling her words for a while before managing to blurt out, "Brothers would go to chop you?"

Motan shook his head helplessly, smiling bitterly, "Let’s not play with these old clichés... Based on what you said just now, A Sang, I think this trait likely involves something acquired, something that appeared after that accident because if it was an inherent trait of your character, according to the usual practices of The Realm of Innocence, it would most certainly appear in your talents, along with an explanation. But from what we can see, it seems not to be the case."

"I feel the same way; after all, from the character panel perspective, it doesn’t seem like there’s any notable difference between me and everyone else, even my talents are pretty standard."

A Sang wasn’t naive, obviously not enlightened by the accidental remark of the protagonist, despite his limited interaction with the player community. However, he had long contemplated this aspect and shared the same guess as Motan.