246: possibility

Sitting in the car driving towards the sunset glow, Zhou Yan habitually pressed the window down.

It wasn't for the breeze, but because he used to get carsick back on Blue Star, developing the habit of opening the window whenever possible.

This made him feel better, although he no longer suffered from this problem now.

"Young man, why are you here alone? This place is quite remote."

The middle-aged man beside him sounded much older, but Zhou Yan could still recognize who he was.

If he wasn't mistaken, this should be his younger brother Zhou Haoyu, but why did he look like this?

"I came for a trip, but I got lost halfway. You know how it is, the navigation signal gets bad as soon as you enter the mountains, always giving wrong directions."

This seemed to hit the nail on the head, and Zhou Haoyu also began to complain endlessly about the navigation system.

"Tell me about it! What age are we in? Navigation is still the same. I travel around frequently and always run into these kinds of issues."

Zhou Yan turned his head to look at his brother, who now bore the marks of time.

When he left, the other party was still young, but now he exuded the aura of a middle-aged man.

Even so, he instantly recognized his voice.

Zhou Yan had actually felt his state of mind approaching Perfection. If he had taken that step then, he could have achieved the Nascent Soul stage.

But he still chose to turn back and face this brother who had already entered middle age.

Subjectively, he knew this was a false world, but he truly wanted to come back and take another look, even though he knew it was an illusion.

Perhaps this was exactly what the Heart Demon had anticipated and why it had set things up this way.

He had to admit, the opponent was very clever.

If what had materialized were his parents, he definitely would have turned and left.

Because he understood that he had truly let his parents down, and this was one of his persistent thoughts about returning home.

But Zhou Yan knew his brother would be more successful than him.

His parents might be saddened by his departure, but with his brother there, everything would eventually return to normal.

If the opponent had forcibly distorted reality and fabricated an illusion of a ruined family, he would have only felt anger, not the confusion of struggling to distinguish reality from illusion.

"Hey, hey, young man?"

Zhou Yan snapped back to attention, realizing Zhou Haoyu was calling him, and subconsciously answered.

"You startled me! You suddenly stared at me with a fixed gaze; I thought something was wrong with you."

Zhou Yan waved his hand and looked out the window again.

"Just a little carsick."

Zhou Haoyu's eyes lit up, and he chimed in casually.

"Hey, we're quite fated!"

"I actually get carsick too."

"Everyone in my family, except for my old man, gets a little carsick."

"But it's not serious, and since I'm constantly traveling for work, I've gotten used to the constant bumping on the road."

Confirming Zhou Yan was fine, Zhou Haoyu also relaxed and started chatting casually, jumping from topic to topic.

Knowing the other person was carsick, he took the initiative to talk more, both to distract Zhou Yan and keep himself alert.

"Sir, you've said so much, but you haven't told me what you're doing running around so late."

"Are you on a business trip, or traveling like me?"

As he said this, Zhou Yan keenly noticed Zhou Haoyu's hand gripping the steering wheel tighten.

"Ahem, it's nothing, really."

"I'm just running all over the country trying to find someone."

"Can you tell me about it? Maybe I've seen them, since I travel often too."

Zhou Haoyu glanced sideways at Zhou Yan, then withdrew his gaze.

"Actually, there's nothing I can't talk about."

"Mainly, I have an elder brother who is a few years older than me."

"Although he wasn't that great a person, and wasn't particularly nice to me, his character was decent, and my parents loved him very much."

"But this person, of all people, just disappeared."

"How can a grown person, a university student at that, just vanish?"

"He finally finished his studies and was about to enter society, but instead, he disappeared from society one step ahead of all of us—how absurd."

"Are you still looking? Listening to you, it sounds like you've been searching for a long time?"

Zhou Haoyu's expression dimmed, seemingly reminiscing and sorrowful at the same time.

"It's been ten full years."

"That doesn't even count the time my parents spent searching before me."

"I was lucky; I started a business early, made some money, and later invested in small ventures. Money made money, and I no longer have financial pressure in life."

"But people, you know, are nostalgic."

"If he had passed away, that would be one thing, but he just went missing. What family wouldn't search and worry?"

Zhou Yan looked out the window. The sky was growing darker, and the highway seemed increasingly desolate in the twilight.

"My old man tried every method—posting missing person notices online, and asking around everywhere offline."

"It was expensive and exhausting, but in the end, there were no results."

Zhou Haoyu's floodgates were completely open, and he continued talking regardless of whether Zhou Yan was listening.

"When they first said a university student was missing, it caused a small stir."

"The entire internet helped share and like the posts, but before long, no one mentioned it anymore."

"Did you ever consider that he might have been tricked into going abroad and ended up in a Telecom Fraud Compound?" Zhou Yan interjected at the right moment.

"How could we not? But even if it was telecom fraud, he should have called home, right? There's absolutely no news, not a single clue."

"People, sometimes, are just confused."

"That's why people say you need to see the person alive or the body dead. The lack of news just keeps people hanging."

"Those two in my family are nearly driven mad. Everyone around them says they've gone crazy—he's a grown man, not a child; after being missing for so long, he's probably gone."

"But they stubbornly insist he's fine and that they will definitely find him."

"There was even one time they almost got taken to a Psychiatric Hospital, luckily I got there quickly."

"Later, my old man even started saying he might have Transmigrated."

"Isn't that ridiculous?"

"A person in their seventies or eighties, who believed in science their whole life, is now turning to Metaphysics in their twilight years."

"Believing in Metaphysics is one thing, but believing in that Transmigration stuff?"

"He spends all day pondering various methods, trying to Transmigrate to an Other World to find his son, like an old mischievous child."

"What about you? Your parents exhausted every method and couldn't find him, so why do you continue searching?"

"After so much time has passed, the probability of him being okay... must be very small, right?"

Zhou Haoyu looked at Zhou Yan again, seemingly comparing something, and finally shook his head.

"Like I just said, my life has been too smooth. Without life pressures, I find it meaningless."

"The more I think back on my first half of life, the more I feel there's nothing worth remembering from my youth. The only thing I still think about is probably that unreliable older brother."

"Maybe it's because I'm so bored I'm getting restless. Once the thought came, it wouldn't leave, so I figured since I have the time, I might as well search."

"So I started traveling across the country, searching for him as I went, and before I knew it, here we are."

"Even I can barely tell anymore whether I'm searching for him or just traveling."

The car suddenly fell silent.

The sky had completely darkened.

Neither of them spoke again.

Zhou Yan looked out at the thick darkness of the night, while Zhou Haoyu focused on the road ahead illuminated by the headlights.

After driving for two hours, the car finally entered the city.

The city looked slightly different from Zhou Yan's memory, with a touch more technology. But then again, this timeline must be ten years, or even longer, in the future.

"Young man, I'll drop you off here. I still have a ways to go, so I won't take you further. Be careful on your way."

Zhou Haoyu rolled down the window and waved goodbye to Zhou Yan standing by the road.

Just as the window was about to close, Zhou Yan's voice clearly entered Zhou Haoyu's mind.

"Go back, and think more about your own life. If he missed you, he would definitely come back to find you. The fact that he hasn't returned means he must have encountered a lot of trouble."

"Perhaps one day, he will be able to solve these problems and return to see you. But if you always look so miserable, he will be sad to see it."

The voice ringing directly in his mind caused Zhou Haoyu's entire body to tremble.

He quickly stopped the car, pushed the door open, and looked back, but the spot where Zhou Yan had been standing was empty. There were only a few pedestrians strolling down the street.

Zhou Yan was currently sitting on top of a tall building, quietly watching Zhou Haoyu below.

"If it were the old me, forget sitting on the edge of a building like this, I'd be scared just standing somewhere slightly high."

Watching Zhou Haoyu get back into the car and drive off in another direction, Zhou Yan finally stood up, then transformed into a wisp of breeze and merged into the night.