The sudden truth made Duncan stand in the corridor in a daze, a contradiction between "this thing is outrageous" and "this is outrageous" and "this is outrageous" went back and forth in his mind for a long time, and then he suppressed the idea of complaining and refocused his attention on the "screen" embedded in the wall.

For a moment, his expression became thoughtful.

The "collision of worlds" brought about by the Great Annihilation reshaped everything, and New Hope was no exception, part of it became the "Alice's Mansion" floating in subspace, but here, after opening the "alternate" version of Alice's Mansion with the navigation key, a "screen" appeared at the end of its corridor, and this screen even revealed the essence of the so-called "hostess's bedroom......

In other words, in the Alice Mansion opened by the navigation key, there is a part of the structure that "restores" or "recreates" its original state.

In thought, Duncan looked up and looked at the exit on the other side of the hallway.

What does that garden look like now? What about the doll sleeping in the garden?

He left the second floor of the mansion and walked down the stairs following the route he remembered, through the narrow hallways that flanked the main hall, past the rooms that had always been whispering, but now only dead silent, and walked in the direction of the garden.

On the way he stopped again, caught by a door in the hallway.

There were many identical doors lining the hallway, but one of them had changed here - it shimmered with silvery-white metallic brilliance, with light blue glowing streaks around the edges, embedded in the classical wall like the canopy of some kind of large device, and Duncan came to the high-tech hatch and saw a transparent window above it.

Looking beyond the "observation window", he saw that behind the door was a room filled with cold light, densely packed with cabinets and brackets on huge platforms and brackets, and pipes hanging from the ceiling to connect the devices of unknown purpose.

The equipment in the room seemed to be still running, and the lights on the surface of the devices that looked like server arrays flickered and flickered, but the thick isolation doors seemed to block out all sounds, and the hum of the "server arrays" in the room could not be heard in the hallway outside.

Duncan tried to push open the door in front of him, but found that it did not move at all—it was just an "illusion" fixed to the wall, and there was no such thing as "open".

But looking at the scene inside the door, Duncan was thoughtful.

He thought of the familiar version of Alice's Mansion, the whispers that often appeared in every corner, and the soft music that came from the empty hall as if there was an invisible ball.

…… Those ghostly sounds, maybe the hum of the server array at runtime?

With some incredible thought in his mind, Duncan left the glimmering metal door and walked towards the entrance of the garden.

The long corridor seemed to have no end, much longer than he remembered, and the garden gate that stood faintly in the dim light was always in view, like a beckoning "end" - Duncan gradually quickened his pace, as if there was an invisible call urging him to move forward.

The corridor receded beside him, and on the doors and continuous walls, more and more "primitive structures" gradually appeared, doors with silver-white metallic brilliance, ship bulkheads inlaid with lights, irregularly shaped metal plates—these "old looks" randomly appeared on the front and roofs of those quaint and elegant styles, like the scales of a giant dragon peeling off, and the steel skeleton and power cables suddenly revealed from the cracks in the flesh......

Then, the seemingly endless corridor finally came to an end, and the "garden gate" composed of countless colored parquet glass stood quietly in front of Duncan, the classical pattern door frame shimmered slightly blue in his vision, and a shimmering screen was abruptly embedded between the stained glass—

Pilot III Core Server/Mind Hub Module

Standing in front of this door, Duncan was stunned for a moment, and then slowly reached out.

The "garden gate" was pushed open as easily as he remembered, as if it had never been locked—and a large, dimly lit space greeted Duncan.

He saw a large hall, the end of which was shrouded in a thick fog of darkness, the outline and edge of which were not clear, and many black shadows like obelisks stood in the "thick fog", flickering on and off, and the only thing clearly recognizable in the hall was a circular platform in the center.

A myriad of misaligned pipes and cables hung from the sky, attached to an oddly shaped raised structure on the platform, and shimmered light flowed between the cables like fireflies.

The whole structure is like a strange and incredible "tree", and every "branch" of the treetop is flowing like a living thing.

And at the base of this strange and confused "tree", the puppet is sitting quietly on the edge of the platform.

She woke up.

But she didn't speak, and she didn't react to the uninvited guests who walked into the hall - the identical figure of Alice sat quietly on the central platform, clutching a white drawing board in her arms, her unfocused eyes looking in the direction of the door.

It was as if she had been waiting for a long time in this "standby" posture.

Duncan took a light breath and cautiously stepped towards the puppet sitting at the base of the Cable Tree.

When he crossed a certain distance, the doll finally reacted—she turned her head slightly, her gaze seemingly shifting from the door to Duncan.

However, the reaction was nothing more, the doll still did not speak, did not have any expression, did not even focus her eyes, she just quietly followed Duncan's footsteps and fine-tuned her gaze, like a real doll without any life or mind - with the most basic "motion tracking" function.

However, looking at this scene, Duncan felt a little strange emotion in his heart for no reason - this simple puppet finally embodies a little weird and terrifying characteristics according to the general setting.

He walked up to the puppet and looked down at the other man, and the puppet looked up expressionlessly, slowly adjusting its eyes to follow Duncan's movements.

"There's no way out." The puppet said suddenly.

Her abrupt voice echoed through the hall shrouded in black mist.

Duncan was thinking about how to communicate with this "woken up" puppet, and was momentarily stunned when he heard the other party suddenly speak, and subconsciously spoke: "There is no way?" What is no way out? ”

"Guiding the New Hope to the ...... of the Safe Domain"

The puppet turned its head stiffly and slowly, its gaze seemed to be tracking the servers hidden in the black mist, or some old images that had long since disappeared in this place, and a monotonous and empty voice came from her mouth, echoing all around—

"Guided jumps to gravitational focus...... The jump engine is disabled, and the star map is malfunctioning...... Standard Starlight Offset ...... The identifier cannot be found, and the destination resolution fails...... There is no way out......"

She seemed to be stunned for a moment, and her eyes slowly widened, as if she had woken up from a nightmare—

"There is no road, Pilot 3 apologizes to all the spacecraft, there is no road, apologies, there is no road, apologies, there is no road......"

The puppet suddenly began to repeat continuously, as if it had fallen into some kind of stuck state of apologies and broadcasts over and over again, and a low noise suddenly came from the dense fog in all directions, and the puppet raised its head again, looking for something in the darkness in a daze, and his tone became more and more urgent: "There is no road, there is no road, there is no road, there is no road, there is no ......"

The noise turned into a shrill whistling, there was something huge in the black fog trembling and falling, and there was a strange vibration in the entire hall, but at the moment when the puppet seemed to be out of control, Duncan suddenly pressed her shoulder in a hurry-

"Alice!"

He shouted almost subconsciously, pressing the puppet's shoulder hard and repeating, "Alice, can you hear me?!" ”

The doll stopped abruptly, as if reacting to the name that came to her ears, and she turned her head sluggishly, her lifeless eyes as if there was some agility.

The shrill whistling and shaking around the hall gradually subsided.

"Ship...... Long ......"

She looked Duncan in the eye and said in a stuttering voice as if a badly rusted and aging robot was restarting.

Then she turned her head from side to side, as if she was "adapting" to something, and then her voice became a little smoother: "Captain, are you hungry?" ”

Duncan: "......"

…… How did this Hanhan "wake up" and remember this first thing?!

"I'm not hungry, and now is not the time to eat," Duncan quickly adjusted his mentality, he didn't expect that he could really "awaken" Alice's consciousness here, and it still felt incredible at this time, "You...... Look around, do you know what state you are in right now? ”

Alice looked up in hindsight, realizing that this did not seem to be on the Lost Country that she was familiar with.

She froze for a moment, and when she turned her head to look at Duncan, her eyes were visibly dazed: "What kind of place is this?" ”

Duncan thought for a moment, and the main direction of his thinking was how to explain to this Han Han what the "core server room of the New Hope's navigation module reappeared after the observer's cognitive remodeling" was, and after a moment he nodded, grabbing Alice's shoulder.

"It's the world in your head."

Alice looked dazed: "But I don't have a brain?" ”

Duncan: "......"

After a moment of sluggishness and speechlessness, he glared: "You just have you!" ”

“…… Oh. ”

(End of chapter)