Chapter 161: The World Beyond the Second Round
The picture in the puzzle changed.

"Mom, look, it's my sister!"

Sakurai Haruka and the others are currently in a kindergarten, and it seems that a sports meet is being held in the kindergarten.

Standing at the side of the runway, Sakurai Haruka excitedly pointed at Sakurai Shio who was running on Track No. 1 and was far ahead.

Sakurai Haruka's mother smiled calmly, and it was unknown how she viewed her daughter's reaction.

"Sister, you are amazing..."

From the dark shade of the trees, looking up at the radiant Sakurai Shio, she was too far away and out of reach.

Reaching out to the high window that is out of reach is like a plot from a Shakespearean work.

The young Haruka Sakurai subconsciously revealed her admiration.

"You are all your mother's children, so Yao Ke is no worse than your sister."

"Really? Can I be like my sister?"

"of course."

Her eyes were kind and warm, and her voice was gentle as if she was comforting Sakurai Haruka.

"Then I will also participate in the sports meet next year. Will mom come to see me?"

"Yeah, mom is looking forward to it."

"The hook."

The scene ends with Haruka Sakurai making a pinky promise with her mother.

After reading it, Qingshuijian almost understood why this situation occurred.

These puzzle pieces floating around him should be fragments of Sakurai Haruka's memories, and the images above are all her memories of the past.

Curiosity prompted Qingshuijian to look at another piece of the puzzle immediately.

"Mom, mom... the kindergarten is going to hold a sports meet, will you come? Dad has to work, and mom promised me before... well, that day happens to be the weekend, so I can come with my sister. I'm really looking forward to it... I will work hard then."

"Haruka-chan, didn't you say your mom and sister were coming? You've been waiting until now, do you want the teacher to make a phone call for you?"

This time, the person who appeared next to Sakurai Haruka was a kindergarten teacher with a ponytail.

The female teacher's face seemed to be Gaussian blurred and could not be clearly identified.

Perhaps it was because this teacher did not leave a deep impression in Sakurai Haruka's memory.

After hearing what the female teacher said, Sakurai Haruka's expression seemed a little complicated, and her mood became very low. She was so frustrated that she seemed to be about to cry, but she seemed to be holding on to the last glimmer of hope, and she made a childish voice:
"Then I'll trouble you, teacher."

The female teacher took out her cell phone and called Sakurai Haruka's mother.

The phone rang for nearly half a minute before someone picked up.

"Hello, is this Mrs. Sakurai? Are you free today? Ah... You, you said Mrs. Sakurai... Why, why is it like this..."

Sakurai looked at the female teacher who covered her mouth in disbelief. Her chest was gradually filled and blocked by something, making it almost impossible for her to breathe.

"Obviously...Obviously we agreed..."

This seemed to be the voice of Sakurai Haruka's heart, and also like a voice-over, it reached Shimizumi's ears.

This time the scene ends with Sakurai Haruka lowering her head and looking at the ground.

Qingshuijian immediately turned to look at the other piece of the puzzle.

Then he suddenly realized that the picture was the old Japanese-style room he was in now.

However, the person lying on the bed was not Sakurai Haruka, but her mother.

She was lying on the bed with a pale face, staring at the still young Sakurai Sosuke. The atmosphere was a little sad, but she still smiled and said, "Haruka and Shio will be in your care..."

"It's all because I didn't manage the gym well enough to raise enough money..."

"This is not a matter of money. Everyone has his or her own destiny. Having these two children, Yao and Xio, is already my greatest luck. I think their future lives will be wonderful. Sosuke, you have to take good care of them for me..."

Compared to the previous ones, this memory was extremely short. Shimizu wanted to see the sequel, but unfortunately, even after looking around, he did not see any related memory puzzles.

But more or less, he could already guess what happened next.

I guess for the young Haruka Sakurai at that time, it was a past that she didn't want to recall at all.

Then, Shimizu looked at a special puzzle piece that was obviously larger than the other pieces.

The picture started playing, and from it could be heard the teacher in the office sighing as he looked at someone's test score.

The other person seemed to be completely unaware of Sakurai Haruka who was standing at the door, and complained to another teacher:

"Alas, why is the elder sister so smart and pretty, but the younger sister is so dumb and always cries... Her elder sister has been much easier to take care of than her since she was a child... If she can be half as good as her elder sister in the future, no, a quarter of her, that would be amazing..."

The perspective rotates.

We can see that after school, Sakurai Haruka walked out of the school, walked all the way to the river bank and sat down. She stared at the river in a daze, her eyes never moving, as fixed as a stone.

No crying, no making a fuss.

Her figure was reflected on the surface of the river. Compared to her now lying on the bed, she was still very young back then, but she was no longer the little girl in kindergarten. She had grown into a very beautiful girl.

I don’t know how long it took, but Sakurai Haruka stood up and took a step towards the river. The overflowing river water soaked her shoes.

Then she stood still, looked at the river quietly for a while, and took another step towards the river.

At this time, a refreshing male voice came from behind.

"Are you going to go swimming?"

Unexpectedly, Shimizu saw his "past self".

He slid down the slope of the river bank gracefully and elegantly and came to Sakurai Haruka's side.

Shimizu, who was outside the screen, was stunned by his sudden intrusion.

This is clearly Sakurai Haruka's memory fragment, why am I appearing in it?
Moreover, he had no memory of this part.

Originally he thought it might be someone who looked similar, but Qing Shuijian had a strong intuition that the person in the picture might be him.

Could it be that I had met Sakurai Haruka before...

"So your name is Haruka, what a cute name."

"Yes, my mother gave it to me..."

Sakurai Haruka timidly glanced at the boy in front of her.

"Your mother must like you very much to name you like this."

"Yes, really..."

"You don't seem to have much confidence, even though you're so tall."

Qing Shuijian raised his arm to barely reach her head and gently stroked it.

Sakurai Haruka is one year older than him, and girls develop faster than boys when they are young.

"How dare you go down to the river in such cold weather in early winter? Are you a superwoman from somewhere?"

The young Shimizu looked at the equally young Haruka Sakurai in front of him and said.

"Supergirl… no, I'm not."

Sakurai Haruka immediately shook her head.

"It seems that he is indeed not Superman. A Superman would not get only 13 points in math."

Qingshuijian picked up a test paper with a score of only thirteen from the ground.

"That's mine!" Shimizu interrupted Sakurai Haruka who was trying to take back the test paper and said:
"By the way, have you ever heard the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a swan?"

"I've heard of it. My kindergarten teacher talked about it before."

"I know you've heard it before, but what I'm talking about is different. I guarantee you'll be surprised after listening to it."

Sakurai Haruka looked at Shimizu and blinked curiously.

"As long as you promise me not to go into the river and come home after listening, I will tell you."

"it is good……"

"I feel like what you said is not much different from what the kindergarten teacher said."

"Of course there is a difference. The protagonists are different. The protagonist of the story your teacher told is called the ugly duckling, while the protagonist of the story I told is called Haruka. There is a big difference between them."

"Do you take me for an idiot too?"

The young Haruka Sakurai pursed her lips in anger.

"Of course not. The ugly duckling becomes a swan because she is already a swan."

"Swan...me?"

At that time, Shimizu Mi did not answer Sakurai Haruka. He sent her home and turned away.

Looking at the back of the figure that was slightly shorter than herself, Sakurai Haruka felt for the first time her heart beating like a taiko drum.

"Can I be the protagonist of a fairy tale too..."

At that time, she subconsciously wanted to reach out to the figure from behind and ask this question, but in the end she didn't have the courage.

The scene ends here.

Most of Sakurai Haruka's memories are discontinuous and have little coherence. Shimizu Mi speculated that this was probably because Sakurai Haruka was still young at the time and did not remember much.

However, at this moment, Shimizu suddenly noticed a unique puzzle piece in front of him.

It was a dark puzzle without any picture, only low, harsh, and confusing strange sounds that were impossible to hear clearly.

Among the many ordinary fragments of memories, this piece of puzzle alone seems unusually abrupt, faintly emitting a chilling aura.

I'm afraid this is what's wrong with Sakurai Haruka.

The strange sound coming from the black puzzle made Qingshuijian's ears buzz, and he felt dizzy and about to faint.

Qing Shuijian gritted his teeth and tried his best to hold on.

He did not look away, but stared at the puzzle piece.

He is not just at this level!

then……

The picture appeared in the puzzle.

That was Haruka Sakurai standing in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror. She raised her right hand and pressed the mirror, but what was reflected in the mirror was not her face, but a back view seen from behind.

What's even more strange is that Sakurai Haruka in the mirror looks exactly the same as outside, but gives Shimizu Michi a completely different feeling.

At this moment, all the fragments seemed to be affected, and the strange sound from before continued to be heard from all directions.

These sounds gathered together, like the howling of countless resentful souls and evil spirits in hell, shrill and terrifying.

Qingshuijian's heart seemed to be tightly grasped by an invisible giant hand, and every beat was accompanied by twisting and pulling pain.

Qing Shui saw that it was unbearable, so he gritted his teeth and grabbed the piece of puzzle.

A bone-chilling coldness instantly spread from the fingertips throughout the body and reached the heart.

At the same time, the originally dark puzzle suddenly burst into dazzling light in his palm, and sucked Qingshuijian in in the blink of an eye.

……

The next second, the surrounding scenery changed completely.

Shimizu found himself no longer in the old Japanese-style room, but surrounded by a magnificent European-style manor.

Before his eyes stood a castle that looked just like the one where Snow White lived in the fairy tale.

The semicircular dome arches, Gothic colonnades, European-style hollow carved windows, and walls covered with delicate mesh patterns on every side are breathtaking in their magnificence and elegance.

If the map on his phone didn't show that he was still in Japan, Shimizu would have suspected that he had traveled to medieval Europe.

The night sky overhead hung low like a thick curtain, swallowing up the last ray of light in the sky and leaving only a pitch-black background.

It looked like this was someone's villa, and there seemed to be a party going on inside, with the accompaniment of classical music and the light of spotlights reflecting from the windows.

Qing Shuijian felt that something was not right...

"This should be Sakurai Haruka's memory fragment, why can I come in..."

Qingshui looked around, and then saw his own reflection in the water of a small fountain pool nearby.

"This is……"

Qing Shuijian's pupils suddenly shrank.

"See, why are you still here? If you don't hurry up, you'll be late for the party."

The familiar voice made Qing Shuijian turn around immediately.

But he never expected that the person walking towards him from not far away was actually Hoshino Akiko!
"……mom?!"

Qing Shuijian was stunned for a moment before he uttered a sound, because the Hoshino Akiko in front of him was... so tall.

No, it’s not that Hoshino Akiko has become taller, but that my sight has become lower.

That’s right, just like himself who he saw in the fountain, Shimizu Mi is now at most in the third grade of elementary school.

"See, if you don't catch up, you'll be late for the party."

After Hoshino Akiko finished speaking, she took Shimizu Ken's hand and led him towards the villa.

"Party? What party?"

"How could you forget? Didn't I tell you last night? An important partner of our company and the president of a new construction company, who is also the owner of this villa, have arranged a marriage for their children, so they specially held this engagement party."

Even though Hoshino Akiko explained everything one by one, Shimizu Mi could not remember anything about it.

Moreover, why was he able to enter Sakurai Haruka's memories, and even Hoshino Akiko was here? !

Sure enough... Shimizu's previous guess was correct. He had met Sakurai Haruka long before this.

But in this round, he can guarantee that he definitely does not have such memories!
If that's the case, why does Sakurai Haruka have it?
Qing Shuijian thought carefully, trying to connect all the things together, and finally came to a horrifying conclusion.

Before this, Sakurai Haruka, like Amemiya Iori, accidentally recalled some of the memories from last week because of their contact with Shimizu Mi.

Because the overlapping memories of the two cycles were very confusing, she was unable to sort out what actually happened and simply regarded those memory fragments as her past memories.

But even in last episode, Shimizu Mi had no memory of meeting Sakurai Haruka as a child.

However, if we make an assumption based on this.

If, among the memories that Sakurai Haruka accidentally recalled, perhaps they were not just the memories from last week...

Her current memories are mixed with other memories besides those of this and last week!

And the memory fragment that Qingshuijian is currently in is undoubtedly the best proof!

If this is true, Shimizu is probably in a timeline outside of the second act at this moment.

(End of this chapter)