(This is an extra chapter of "Maruya", the following content does not affect the main text)
No matter how far you look, there is still infinite space outside. No matter how long you count, there is still infinite time.
——Whitman, "Song of Myself"
…
It is said that human sleep has shallowness and depth.
If it weren't for the cell phone under the pillow that kept vibrating over and over again, Pei Yourong would never have woken up from that extremely deep sleep.
But those double eyelids seemed to be as heavy as a thousand stones. Even if she woke up a little, Pei Yourong was unwilling to open her eyes. She stretched out her right hand, touched the phone underneath, and then accurately found the position of the screen opening button.
She clicked twice.
That damn incoming call tone was finally extinguished.
And just when Pei Yourong relaxed her mind, the annoying call came in again and reached her ears.
Pei Yourong had no choice but to answer the call with half-open eyes.
"Who is it?" Her voice was filled with impatience and an inexplicable weakness.
"Pei Yourongxi, you've only been working for two days and you're planning not to come?"
"Work? What class do I work in?"
After Pei Yourong listened to the person on the phone, her first reaction was anger. Fortunately, she suppressed her sleepiness and answered the call, but she didn't expect that the caller was a lunatic.
She hung up the phone directly, very simply.
As if he knew that calling him again would be asking for trouble, the person who called said something incomprehensible and was hung up on by Pei Yourong, so he didn't call again.
But after such a fuss, Pei Yourong couldn't sleep at all.
She put her palms on the bed and tried to get up, but the thick and hard touch from the mattress made her feel a little uncomfortable.
Not only was it hard, but what made Pei Yourong feel uncomfortable was the strange feeling.
She remembered that her bed was very soft whether in the dormitory or at home.
"But...what is this...situation now?"
Pei Yourong murmured subconsciously, her voice full of panic. She looked at the room in front of her, and every inch of her field of vision had never appeared in her previous memory.
"Where is this?!" She couldn't help shouting.
Louder and more helpless.
Suddenly, a sharp pain hit him without any warning, and Pei Yourong felt as if his head was going to split in the next second.
The pain comes suddenly.
For a while, the world went north and south.
The vision is dim and dark.
Tears oozed from the corners of his eyes like blood stains.
What fell with the liquid was a long memory that did not belong to Pei Yourong.
But it belongs to "Pei Yourong".
…
An Youzhen has been having some strange dreams recently.
No, not so much a few, but one.
The contents of those dreams were all connected, and she remembered this clearly.
But An Youzhen couldn't remember the content of the dream itself.
"Unnie, what are you thinking about? It's our turn to go on stage."
"coming."
An Youzhen's thoughts kept getting tangled up and confused. When she was about to sort out the context, she was interrupted again by Zhang Yuanying who came up.
Today there is their singing stage.
Since the group's formation last year, they have released three single albums.
The title song of their comeback this time is called "After Like".
IVE's comeback song this time is obviously loved by fans. During the previous recording session on the Sound Silver Stage, they clearly felt that the audience cheered higher than last time.
I have gained love and got someone. Logically speaking, I should feel happy at this time.
Especially An Youzhen is still the captain of IVE.
But after returning to the lounge, the team members found that the captain did not have much smile on his face.
"Are you tired, Ernie?"
"Ah no, I was thinking about something."
Seeing her teammates looking at her with concern, An Youzhen immediately showed her signature cheerful smile.
Everyone immediately felt relieved.
But An Youzhen was thinking about other things at this time.
"If you have that strange dream again, go to the hospital."
…
Pei Yourong.
There is tolerance, there is tolerance.
Her father told her at the beginning that he chose this name because he wanted her to have the blessing of embracing all things in the future.
But in "this world", that doesn't seem to be the case.
Although it was true that she was called "Pei Yourong" here, the memories that emerged from the pain told her——
She has neither father nor mother.
"Pei Yourong" here is just a child adopted by an orphanage.
Let's just call Pei Yourong "her" here.
After becoming an adult, "she" left the orphanage and rented a house outside alone.
Apart from their names, the only thing "she" had in common with Pei Yourong was their appearance, so relying on this face, she passed the interview very easily.
Enter a coffee shop and work as a clerk.
Therefore, the call that came during the day was from the store manager.
As she said, "she" was absent from work after just two days of work——
Just because of his sudden arrival.
Pei Yourong is a kind person and she felt sorry for the store manager.
But she is also a timid person.
In her original place, she has family, friends, teammates and even fans.
She just stood out from so many girls and became a member of IZ*ONE with the first place result.
She had just returned to Seoul and reunited with Ernie, whom she had not seen for a long time.
Obviously so many things have just begun.
Why did fate play such a trick on her and suddenly leave her here?
Such complicated feelings were quietly brewing in Pei Yourong's heart like a deep water. Her stubbornness and paranoia had always been her eggshell. Unfortunately, this eggshell was not hard. On the contrary, it was so fragile that it could break at the touch of fate. .
She just stayed in this unfamiliar room, letting the memories of "her" flow faster and faster in her mind, alone in the stream, at a loss and dying.
Kundera once said that life is a tree full of possibilities, but Pei Yourong thought that such a life was too heavy for her to bear.
However, no matter how hard the people trapped in life under the sky struggle, the endless river of time will never stop.
Pei Yourong struggled with "her" memory throughout the day.
Just when she was about to drown, she thought of Bae Zhuhyun.
This being who had always cared for and protected her.
In the vast universe, there is no scientific experiment to prove whether the same people can exist in two time and space.
If so, would their cell phone numbers be the same?
Pei Yourong may be the only human being in the world who can prove this argument.
She entered the number in her memory into the dialing keypad of her mobile phone.
The world is performing various miracles every moment, and there are many definitions of it. In the eyes of different people, any different things can become their own miracles.
For Pei Yourong, this phone call was her miracle.
"Hello? Who is this?"
Such a familiar voice leaked out of the microphone just a little bit, and it hit Pei Yourong like a tear gas bomb.
She could no longer suppress her crying.
"Onie..."
"You...you are?"
"I am tolerant!"
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a second or two.
"You must have dialed the wrong number, right? I don't know the person you are talking about."
Pei Yourong suddenly felt like the end was coming. The overwhelming despair was like a net, trapping her accurately and emotionlessly, leaving her frozen in place, unable to move.
"No, that's definitely not the case! I didn't make a mistake!"
"I'm just calling you!"
"Hashira-sen Unnie!"
And the moment she shouted out Bae Zhuhyun's name hysterically, the voice coming from the microphone seemed to have dropped a temperature and became smoother.
There is no emotion either.
"Are you a bastard?"
"How did you know my phone number?"
"Why are you calling?"
Pei Zhuxuan's words made Pei Yourong's heart hurt so much. The string that had been tense in his heart finally broke at this moment.
As if hearing Pei Yourong's painful whimpering, which seemed to be out of pity or other emotions, Pei Zhuxuan's voice on the microphone couldn't help but slow down a bit.
"I won't call the police this time."
"but--"
"Please don't call again."
It rained in Seoul that night.
What a heavy rain.
Water lines all over the sky were shaking in all directions, and other things were also falling.
The sound of their falling made the heaven and earth narrow.
There is no room for the past and the future.
