Rain Man

Ren Yi suddenly opened his eyes.

Wait, eyes...?

What were eyes?

The world was a dense shade of black.

No, the world clearly had nothing in it; "black" didn't even exist.

Did I dissolve again?

Wait, why did I say "again"?

So... what was "I"? Did "I" even exist?

Body, organs... "I" currently had none of those things.

Ren Yi felt a momentary surge of panic, like a drowning person trying to find a piece of driftwood.

But in the midst of nothingness, where could one find "existence"? How could one find an existence anchor?

He found it quickly.

He was there, carrying a long, steady warmth that served as definitive proof of existence.

Ren Yi tried to understand Him, to touch and distinguish that temperature.

In the next second, it felt as if a wad of hot cotton had been stuffed into his thoughts.

In short, his CPU was frying a bit.

Just as he felt himself becoming a tangled mess, the peaceful atmosphere around him was suddenly shattered.

Whoosh—

A force suddenly pulled him upward, like being yanked out from underwater while suffocating. Fresh air flooded his lungs, and he instinctively began to breathe.

He then realized he was leaning against someone.

"Xiao Yi?"

The soft call vibrated through his perception. Seeing no response for a long time, the voice called out gently once more.

Ren Yi snapped back to his senses and hurriedly looked up, meeting a pair of calm, gentle eyes.

His older brother was looking down at him, his gaze fixed on him.

Ren Man was wearing his usual clothes, though this time their electric scooter wasn't with him.

Instead, he held a long black umbrella, its ribs still dripping with moisture.

"Brother?"

Ren Yi blinked. After confirming he wasn't still dreaming, he asked with a bit of a delay.

Ren Man simply gave a calm "Mhm."

Ren Yi stared at his brother for a good while, his sluggish thoughts slowly turning.

The tension from earlier seemed to loosen as if soaked in warm water. An indescribable sense of joy bubbled up through the cracks in his heart, bit by bit.

It seemed... everything was over.

The conflicts and slaughters in the Three Cities World, those strange and heavy people and events—all of it receded rapidly at this moment, blurring until they shrank into a distant speck of light left far behind.

The loneliness he had felt in the chaos earlier, which had nearly swallowed him whole, vanished silently like melting snow.

After the joy, a realization suddenly hit him. Why was his brother here?

Didn't he say he couldn't enter the Three Cities World?

Ren Man seemed to understand his confusion.

"I said I would come to take you home," he said slowly.

Ren Yi blinked sluggishly.

Was there... something slightly off?

It was only then that his previously retracted perception slowly began to spread outward.

He was still atop that semi-abandoned skyscraper in Xin City. Ren Man was half-sitting, half-leaning against the concrete railing, letting Ren Yi lean against him.

But beyond that, the surroundings of the building were pitch black and empty.

The entire world seemed to consist only of this rooftop, placed inside a massive, pure black box.

On this tiny remaining island, the scene was very peculiar. It was as if its final moments had been frozen in time.

Crystal-clear raindrops hung in mid-air, their descent fixed in place. In the puddles on the ground, ripples were captured at their most expanded state, without the slightest further movement. Light pulled fine, bright textures through the air.

There were no longer any light sources, yet Ren Yi's eyes could still see a clear and bright scene.

A beam of light seemed to have been left behind, existing quietly to illuminate a small section of the rooftop.

This frozen slice of time floated lonely in the boundless void—silent and carrying a hint of desolation.

Curious, Ren Yi reached out and touched a raindrop in the air. The droplet wobbled and floated away under his touch.

Indeed, there was no need to "enter" the world anymore.

The Three Cities World... no longer existed.

Ren Yi fell silent for a few seconds.

He clearly remembered that when he was confronting Azure, the seven-day deadline announced by the Alliance still had about half a day left.

He felt like he had only blacked out for a short moment; it shouldn't have been enough for half a day to pass by so silently.

No, this wasn't surprising.

Ren Yi had known this for a long time.

As for how he knew... it was a bit hard for him to even comment on.

"Brother, speaking of which, who gave you the name 'Ren Man'... I mean, who in the Alliance was responsible for registering you?"

Although the question ruined the mood a bit, Ren Yi couldn't help but ask.

Since learning they had no parents, many strange questions had come to light. For instance, where did his brother's name come from?

Ren Man seemed a bit confused but answered regardless, "Dr. Lin."

Well, Dr. Lin, the community doctor, did indeed serve as something of a "life assistant" for their family.

"Then... what about the English name?"

Saying this made Ren Yi feel like he was breaking character a bit.

Ren Yi's grades were very good.

The reason was that he had already studied some of the subjects the Alliance taught.

Yes, although it was a bit abstract, the language of the Alliance was the same as the one from before he transmigrated, and it included all sorts of common languages.

There were even some Anomaly rules related to this, like Lu Zihan's father.

Back when the Instance was settled, the failed Participants had turned into Chinese characters and flown away.

This was also one of the reasons why Ren Yi hadn't sensed anything abnormal about the Alliance before his awakening.

Ren Yi had always felt it was a bit eerie that people from different Instances could understand each other and even shared several identical language systems.

But when he asked Dr. Lin, the answer he got was quite magical.

"This is influenced by a certain rule."

A rule that influenced countless worlds?

Whenever he tried to dig deeper, Dr. Lin would put on an expression that said "this matter cannot be scrutinized."

Anyway, back to the issue of his brother's name.

That bastard Dr. Lin... what kind of decent person registers someone's name by directly translating their title into English and then picking a homophone for it!

Ren Yi could roughly guess the process. His brother had likely earned this title because of the manifestation of this rule.

He was called "Rain Man."

But at that time... he didn't have a name.

So when he needed to register in the Alliance with a human identity, Dr. Lin simply translated it to English and then used the homophone.

Ren Man, Rain Man.

Ren Yi had nearly lost it when he first realized this.

Although it was clear his brother didn't care about the name, Ren Yi still felt like his brother had been swindled by Dr. Lin.

"Xiao Yi, that isn't important," Ren Man interrupted his further questioning, which was rare for him.

Ren Yi could feel that the tone of this sentence was different from usual; it was a bit serious.

Ren Yi stiffened slightly and peeked up to see his brother's expression, only to be caught off guard by his calm gaze.

Ren Man was tidying the black umbrella, his fingertips brushing over the droplets on the surface, but his eyes never left him.

That gaze was too steady, making Ren Yi feel inexplicably guilty.

He thought back to the situation when he was confronting Azure.

To kill Azure earlier, he had... gotten a bit carried away.

To put it bluntly, his behavior at the time was: I don't care if I die, Azure must die!

Speaking of which, where was Azure? No, where were Azure's remains?

Ren Yi scanned the tiny remaining area with a bit of panic, but the rooftop platform was exceptionally clean. Any flesh tentacles or eyeballs had long since vanished without a trace.

It seemed not even a scrap was left.

Ren Yi suddenly realized something, and alarm bells rang in his head.

I'm doomed.

It felt great at the time, but now he felt genuine guilt.

It was like when you were outside pinning a thug to the ground and beating him, and your parent suddenly appeared and kicked the guy away in three or four moves. If they didn't say a single word on the way home, you should realize that things were looking bad.

So, his brother must have just arrived, right?

In that case, he shouldn't know about his situation at the time... right?

Just as that thought surfaced, Ren Man suddenly spoke.

"Why were you in pain?"

His tone was the same as always, but Ren Yi felt his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, instantly crushed by his brother.

As expected, he knew.

"Uh... well, brother, I just ran into some... some accidents."

Ren Yi's gaze flickered and darted around, his mind racing as he thought of how to downplay the situation and brush it off.

But Ren Man didn't give him the chance to dodge.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze locked onto Ren Yi's face with a serious expression, as if carefully analyzing every inch of his "composition."

"Loneliness?" Ren Man spoke again, a hint of undetectable confusion in his tone, his eyes also looking slightly lost.

"Why were you lonely?"

He seemed truly unable to understand, his brow furrowing slightly as he fell into a brief contemplation.

But before Ren Yi could organize his words to explain, Ren Man seemed to suddenly read something from Ren Yi's panicked expression and the traces in his heart.

The confusion faded, and his gaze returned to its usual calm.

"Heart Fiend."

Ren Man spat out those two words with certainty. Ren Yi clearly felt a slight hint of danger in his tone.