Chapter 124: Before the Climax of the Memories

It was after that night that the relationship between the girl and the Cameraman began to change.

Before, they had just been a boy and a girl experiencing the first stirrings of love, the hazy veil between them still untouched.

But now, the girl was steadily seizing the initiative.

She learned how to act spoiled and whisper sweet nothings, but she also learned how to lose her temper with the Cameraman and wage cold wars.

The art of the push-and-pull was displayed to perfection in her hands. As time went on, her mastery only deepened.

If she previously only possessed a certain talent and potential for toying with emotions, then after that night, this potential seemed fully unlocked, becoming second nature.

Outside the memories.

After watching these numerous scenes, Yan Jing pressed the pause button.

His eyes flickered; he had noticed something amiss.

He suspected that, starting from that night, the girl had truly stepped onto the pathway of desire.

The so-called 'screening' was perhaps not as simple as a mere test.

This wasn't a baseless guess, but a deduction drawn from the changes in the other girls who had passed the screening, as seen through the Cameraman's perspective.

In his view, over ninety percent of the footage centered on the girl named A Si.

To him, the rest of the girls didn't matter at all, so he paid no attention to their changes.

But as an outsider, Yan Jing spotted the differences in the other girls from the corners of those scenes.

Some seemed to have developed narcolepsy, others exhibited a massive increase in appetite, and a small number became extremely rigid and rule-abiding...

In the inconspicuous edges of the Cameraman's vision, these girls displayed entirely different sides of themselves.

Though these were all extremely subtle changes, they were enough to prove the point.

They had stepped onto Inner World Pathways.

"Sloth," "Gluttony," "Order"...

It was no wonder the 'teachers' had said the screening process wasn't complicated. Indeed, finding the right Pathway and testing for talent shouldn't take much time.

So, why was the girl soaked to the bone with scraped knees on the night of the first screening? What had she seen? And on the day of her own screening, why were her hands covered in blood, her expression furious...?

None of this could be known from the Cameraman's perspective.

But what was certain was that he had grown increasingly dependent on her.

Perhaps out of his initial affection for her, or perhaps due to the girl's deliberate design, the Cameraman was now gradually spiraling into an uncontrolled state.

Just like Yu Mo from Dandelion Manor.

Yan Jing continued watching the subsequent memories:

"Ah Ji, am I beautiful?"

The girl began asking the Cameraman this question every single day.

And the answer she received was, naturally, the one she wanted to hear.

Every time she heard him call her beautiful, she would smile like a blooming flower and make some intimate gesture.

She might tap his nose or stroke his cheek.

Just like that, the days passed.

The number of girls in the White House steadily decreased.

A few years later, only fifty or sixty girls remained.

Each girl had her own number, a ranking based on her performance in every screening and test.

The 'teachers' said this screening would continue until only thirty remained.

After that, the rankings would no longer be determined by screenings and tests, but entirely by the Cameraman's personal preference.

When over fifty girls were left, the girl was ranked twenty-fourth—sharing the number four with her name, A Si.

When over thirty girls were left, her ranking jumped to fourteenth.

And when only thirty remained, her ranking became Number Zero.

That day, the Cameraman announced his ranking choices to everyone, skipping number one and placing her at Number Zero.

Furthermore, he declared in front of everyone that this ranking would never change again.

He was tired.

The rankings were fixed from then on.

Right as he finished speaking, he saw a smile on the girl's face unlike any she had ever shown before.

Looking at that smile, the camera of his perspective froze for a long time, unable to look away.

Despite his declaration, the White House did not stop its operations.

Perhaps those 'teachers' believed that matters of the heart were unpredictable. The romance between a teenage boy and girl was as fickle as summer weather—the rankings might change on any given day.

So they decided to maintain the plan until the boy turned twenty-two.

However, the rankings truly never changed again.

The day the rankings were announced each month was the Cameraman's happiest time, because that was the day the girl was happiest.

Her actions became increasingly bold: caressing him, leaning into his embrace, even kissing his cheek.

But she wouldn't let him initiate contact. Whenever the Cameraman couldn't restrain his affection, she would shyly run away.

She finally had him firmly in the palm of her hand.

There were no major turning points in the memories after this, so Yan Jing chose to fast-forward through them.

He really didn't enjoy watching a lapdog's diary.

Because the girl named A Si liked to read, all they did was read together, day after day.

And so, he reached the next turning point.

It was a few months before the Cameraman turned nineteen.

That day, the 'teachers' arrived as usual.

But they didn't hold classes.

Each of them wore a heavy expression, their foul moods palpable.

One of the girls tried to approach and strike up a conversation, but was violently told to get lost.

Even the Cameraman, whom they normally treated with the utmost respect, didn't receive a friendly look.

Still, compared to everyone else, their attitude toward him was relatively good.

During lunch, because he was seated nearby, the Cameraman vaguely overheard their conversation.

"What do we do now...?"

"I don't know. The higher-ups have all cut off contact..."

"Why don't we just deal with them all... and then run...?"

"Are you crazy?! The higher-ups just lost contact, they aren't dead..."

"Then what should we do...?"

"I don't know. Let's just keep things going for now... But without resources, we don't have..."

"But we don't even know what the higher-ups want... We were just told to wait until this kid turns twenty-two..."

The conversation abruptly ended there. The 'teacher' who was speaking glanced at the Cameraman, seemingly noticing he was eavesdropping, and the group quickly relocated.

The Cameraman relayed these words to the girl.

The shift in the 'teachers'' attitudes had left him feeling lost, unsure of what to do.

This time, just like she had over a decade ago, the girl patted his shoulder and smiled.

"Don't worry, Ah Ji. Leave it to me. I'll find out what's going on. Don't be afraid."

"Didn't I tell you? If anything happens, I'll take care of it for you."

As she spoke, her eyes curved into crescents, every strand of her hair glistening in the light. To the Cameraman, it was as if he were seeing the same girl who had stood protectively in front of him all those years ago.

But unexpectedly, when the girl came to his door that evening...

...everything had changed again.

"Why is it like this?!"

The moment she laid eyes on him, she spat the words out. Her gaze carried a bone-chilling coldness. As she glared at him, it felt exactly like the night she had returned from her screening.

Her questioning tone made his heart clench, and he hurriedly asked:

"What's wrong, A Si?"

"Heh, hehe..."

The girl didn't answer; she just sneered endlessly.

She looked at him with a gaze full of disappointment, even carrying traces of hatred.

It was as if something she had spent a long time laying the groundwork for had been completely ruined because of him.

This left the Cameraman at a loss, having no idea what he had done.

But the girl offered no explanation. She simply slammed the door and left.

He tried to chase after her, but she left behind a single sentence:

"Don't come looking for me!!!"

And so, the Cameraman spent half the night in a state of deep anxiety.

Finally, a knock came at the door again.

He immediately rushed over and opened it. This time, the girl standing outside had reverted to her gentle self.

The moment she saw him, she threw herself into his arms. With tears in her eyes, she pleaded:

"I'm sorry, Ah Ji."

"Let's leave this place, okay?"

"I don't want to stay here anymore."

Outside the memories, Yan Jing pressed pause. He immediately fast-forwarded to the memory of the Cameraman fleeing the White House with the girl, then silently calculated the timeline.

About three years after this incident was when the Cameraman and the girl escaped the White House.

The time between his escape and the present was very short.

So, three years ago... what had happened back then...?

Yan Jing recalled the words of those 'teachers': "The higher-ups have all cut off contact..."

If any major event had occurred three years ago, he only knew of one. That was... starting from roughly three years ago...

...the leaders of the various Domains no longer made appearances in the outside world.

Following this line of thought, Yan Jing began aligning the Cameraman's memories with the events that had already occurred.

Thinking about it this way, this so-called choosing a girl to marry at twenty-two was awfully similar to the marriage alliance held at the Sun-Swallowing Tower.

Most importantly, there was that line from the Cameraman's brother.

"Ah Ji... I don't want this either... but we have to find a way to go home..."

So 'going home'... most likely meant 'returning home,' returning to the outside world...

At this thought, Yan Jing pulled away from the ocean formed by the Cameraman's deleted memories.

He shifted to the memories stored in his own mind, to the day the banquet was held at the Sun-Swallowing Tower.

He remembered that the Giant Mouth seemed to have mentioned something back then...

Finally, after carefully sifting through his mind, he found that exact scene.

"I know none of you are willing! Therefore, as early as ten or twenty years ago, our several Domains began plotting together. And we have only one goal, and that is... returning home!!"

As the Giant Mouth's impassioned words fell, Yan Jing hit pause.

Not long after escaping the White House, the Cameraman was killed.

Three years prior to his escape, the Cameraman was almost nineteen.

And when he first entered the White House, he was nothing more than a child.

Calculating it carefully, from the time he entered the White House to the present... it was exactly ten to twenty years.