Chapter 405: Yang Yixie is a big con artist

Yang Yichen leaned on the sofa armrest, watching Ying Duo put the communicator away, his brow not relaxing.

"Just check it out?" He repeated those four words, his tone full of obvious doubt, "You don't know who Xie Jingnian is?"

Ying Duo didn't speak.

"He's the minister of our Foreign Ministry, basically handling all of Dome's external affairs, the kind that's on the news every few days—you don't know Xie Jingnian?"

Xie Jingnian's fame in Dome is such that if you randomly grab someone on the street and ask if they know Xie Jingnian, and they say no, they could be immediately mistaken for an Undead and turn around to go report to the Dome authorities for a bounty.

Yang Yixie suddenly realized he had let slip a flaw.

It's not impossible for Dome residents not to know Xie Jingnian, just like in the real world someone might not know their own country's capital, but saying so would draw a second glance.

He usually follows the principle that the more you speak, the more mistakes you make, but when he gets along with his older brother he just speaks off the cuff.

"I've been in Tianmian City all along," Yang Yixie gave an answer that was completely irrelevant.

Yang Yichen's expression froze. Oh, his younger brother had been causing trouble in Tianmian City under the name Ying Duo, but... the logic didn't seem to add up.

No.

He always felt something was off.

Yang Yichen hadn't figured out what was wrong when his brother had already put the communicator away and stood up.

"I'm going out."

"Where to?"

"To meet a classmate."

Yang Yichen's instinctive reaction was faster than his thoughts: "You're still in school?"

As soon as he said it, he himself froze.

"In school."

Right, his younger brother in this world is sixteen, so he should still be of school age.

A sixteen-year-old student blew up Tianmian City? Hijacking airships as casually as eating and drinking? Dome and the Church are competing to put a bounty on him?

In Yang Yichen's mind it felt like something was jammed, the gears clicking and not turning.

In reality, his brother at that age would probably be honestly studying, each day besides school just delivering meals and playing games.

Thinking about it, his brother living in a peaceful era is really great.

Good for everyone.

"I'm leaving."

Ying Duo had no intention of saying more to Yang Yichen, he simply shut the door and left, disappearing so fast that even before Yang Yichen could react, there was no trace of him in the room.

Yang Yichen sat on the sofa, staring intently at the closed door, watching his brother dash away quickly, his mind still turning over that unresolved question.

Something's off.

Yang Yichen suddenly recalled that the real Yang Yixie was like this too.

Remembering when he asked his younger brother, "Did you finish your homework?" and Yang Yixie would reply, "The last math problem the teacher assigned today was a bit difficult."

He asked, "Have you eaten?" and Yang Yixie would answer, "Today's braised pork in the cafeteria is saltier than yesterday's."

Each answer seemed to respond to the question, but upon reflection Yang Yixie never directly answered Yang Yichen's question.

Then the questioner would start to ponder: the last math problem being a bit difficult, so maybe the homework was almost done? The braised pork being a bit salty, so maybe he had already eaten?

By the time the questioner figured out the answer, Yang Yixie had already vanished.

He recalled a time when Yang Yichen was utterly fed up with being tricked by Yang Yixie, doubting life itself and asking, "How do you always manage to fool me?"

At that time Yang Yixie was leaning on a chair playing games, a lollipop dangling from his mouth, and he merely mumbled a reply:

"People always have more confidence in the answers they come up with themselves."

"What does that mean?"

"Well..." Yang Yixie finally took the lollipop out of his mouth, speaking more clearly, "The things you figure out yourself you feel are true, but what others tell you you always doubt."

"So rather than me straining to explain it here for ages, it's better to let you guess—anyway, whatever you end up guessing will definitely be the version you want to believe."

Yang Yichen at the time thought this made sense, but also felt something was off.

Later he pondered for a long time before realizing, this is just messing with people, isn't it?

Now, sitting on the sofa of this dilapidated rental in Dome, facing a pile of unopened idol merchandise and a door that had just closed, Yang Yichen suddenly felt that scene from before was crystal clear.

Yang Yichen leaned on the sofa, staring at the crack in the ceiling, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Fooled again.

No, wrong—it's not that he was deceived, his brother never lies to him.

Every word he says is true, it's just that he himself reasoned out a completely wrong answer.

His brother always has a better knack for messing with people than he does.

So the question arises: why does this world's brother not know the situation in Dome?

Is it really that he previously had no time to pay attention to Dome's situation, or because he was pressed for time and long stationed in Tianmian City with no way to find out?

Yang Yichen knows his current line of thought is fundamentally flawed, because after the authorities reached an agreement with the Church they concluded that these players are souls shuttling between the two worlds.

And Mutation acts upon the soul; when the soul is twisted, those players who become Aberrant Species upon returning to reality also affect their original bodies, turning them into Aberrant Species.

Mutation distorts the soul's appearance, and players are born only when the same soul exists in both worlds.

Once either side is twisted by Mutation, a player cannot appear.

And Co-Absorption is notorious as a cult organization; they have never concealed their non-human traits, they are entirely an Aberrant Species group that retains human consciousness.

Yang Yichen speaks bluntly, but just based on this, if Co-Absorption ever recruited followers on a large scale, certainly many civilians would be willing to join.

The people of this world have been tormented by Mutation for too long; if they could become Aberrant Species while retaining self-consciousness, they would not only be free from Mutation's torment but also gain power—why wouldn't they?

But Yang Yichen temporarily doesn't want to analyze the winding relations between these organizations; compared to that, he is now more concerned about his brother's situation.

Knowing his brother is a Co-Absorption cultist, and now also suspected to be a player from the real world like him, the best approach is to directly ask his brother whether that's the case.

But doing that would also expose his identity, and it's still unclear what his younger brother thinks of him.

Hmm...

If his younger brother is a cultist, then there must also be a corresponding Mutation Source, right?

He saw on the wanted poster that some people had grown sheep horns, some had grown wings, and some had grown tentacles, but aside from his younger brother's hair color, he seemed to have no nonhuman features.

In short, first confirm whether his younger brother is human or an Aberrant Species.

Yang Yichen sighed; he also didn't know what he was thinking.