Angel nodded: "Of course, before this, I didn’t even know their names. So, you can ask these two gargoyles yourself, cocoa and Lulu, if they were created virtual beings."
"Your creations can say whatever you want them to say."
Angel suppressed his speechlessness and continued: "Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ll repeat it. Before this, I’ve never seen them. How would I know their relationship with you? Who could tell me?"
"If you can’t even determine whether they’re real or fake, I don’t think you need to meet Popota either."
Previously, Angel thought Cicia was obsessed with conspiracy theories. Now, he feels Cicia’s intelligence might be offline again.
What Angel can do is only: Understand, understand.
After all this time, Cicia still maintaining normal thinking is already good, and her intelligence isn’t completely offline, there are times when it’s online.
Let’s just wait and see.
After Angel’s remarks, Cicia also felt like she had been thinking too much about falsehood. If this place isn’t false and cocoa and Lulu are real, those familiar behavioral patterns they exhibited can be explained.
However, this world clearly emerged by crossing the Dream Bridge, a world within the dream, how could it really exist?
Moreover, Cicia is very clear about the rules of the Dream Realm. Apart from the person in their sleep whom the Dream Witch can bring into the Dream Realm, others, even if they enter the dream, cannot be in the same dream.
The vastness of the Dream Realm is beyond imagination, Cicia has never heard of anyone who can accurately position everyone into the same dream.
Cicia became more and more confused.
But she still followed Angel’s words, took cocoa and Lulu outside, and began a detailed observation and inquiry.
...
After Cicia left, Angel finally breathed a sigh of relief, rubbed his temples, and said with emotion: "It was simply too difficult to deal with."
Jon chuckled lightly: "I actually think it’s quite good she’s like this. If she believed whatever is said, that would be too tragic."
Angel: "Ah, she... It’s hard to explain to a Mentor. Anyway, her intelligence fluctuates, clearly there’s already a paradox - I couldn’t possibly know her relationship with those two gargoyles, let alone simulate the habits of the gargoyles. But even so, she insists on thinking it’s a conspiracy."
Jon looked at Angel’s perplexed appearance, smilingly enjoying a cup of tea: "Although I don’t know what happened, I understood when I first saw this lady that she is filled with vigilance and suspicion towards everything around."
"This makes me certain that you didn’t explain anything to her, you just hastily took her into the Wilderness of Dreams."
"You should know, preconceived notions are very important. Everything here is unfamiliar to her, and she is obviously also a Transcendent, aware of the existence of Dream Power, so it’s strange she doesn’t suspect ’dream creation’."
Jon’s words gave Angel a sense of enlightenment: Yes! He really didn’t make any explanations to Cicia, and before entering the Wilderness of Dreams, even deliberately made a joke:
—Switching from a solemn expression to a frivolous one, and saying "In the dream, oh."
This operation would definitely make Cicia think she was deceived.
If this were the case for other people outside, it wouldn’t matter much, because the question of "whether the Wilderness of Dreams exists" can easily be cross-examined through real-world communication.
But Cicia is different; she’s all alone in the Box.
Endlessly trapped in darkness, with nobody to communicate with except for the Sage who visits every so many years.
If we don’t have her believe in the existence of the Wilderness of Dreams from the start, even if she arrives there later, she might still doubt it... because it’s almost impossible for her to find others to verify it.
Thus, Jon was right; Cicia’s suspicion is normal, and it’s abnormal not to suspect.
Cicia’s intelligence hasn’t dropped, but Angel’s emotional intelligence certainly has... He shouldn’t have presumptuously joked that "Popota is in the dream, oh." This led Cicia’s preconceived notion to be not "the Wilderness of Dreams is real," but rather, "I’ve been deceived."
Fortunately, there’s still room to remedy the situation. The two Gargoyles that Angel casually brought along turned out to be old acquaintances of Cicia, which simplifies matters.
Although those two Gargoyles can no longer return to their real-life bodies, they still remember their past memories, and this could help dispel some of Cicia’s doubts.
Otherwise, Angel would indeed find it challenging to ease Cicia’s wariness.
...
On the other side, observing the change in Angel’s expression, Jon understood that Angel must have done something that further compromised the trust in the Wilderness of Dreams.
After asking around, Jon was astonished by Angel’s "miraculous operation."
Angel awkwardly scratched his head, then, as always, lowered his gaze to accept Jon’s "loving reprimand."
However, after a brief hesitation, Jon didn’t scold Angel as he used to, but instead smiled more brightly.
"Great, you really haven’t changed a bit," Jon remarked nostalgically.
Angel: "Huh? What hasn’t changed?"
Jon’s eyes held a hint of nostalgia as he slowly said, "You looked well-behaved on the surface when you were young, but when you really got mischievous, you were bolder and crazier than your brother."
"But later, you suddenly changed, becoming polite and refined from inside out. It was like you took off your carefree coat and donned adult clothes, becoming solemn and dignified, like a little old man."
"Back then, I thought that the younger version of you had disappeared. Now it seems you’re still the same."
"Still mischievous, still that young boy."
"If you don’t forget your initial heart, you won’t be confused about the road ahead."
Jon’s sentiments also brought Angel back to those memories of that time.
Angel’s sudden transformation into a well-behaved boy actually occurred when Jon’s body grew increasingly frail; though young, he understood Jon’s emaciated body wouldn’t hold out for long.
He always knew that Jon wanted to nurture him into talent, hoping to leave traces of Earth’s civilization even in the Otherworld, to prove that he existed.
Perhaps Earth’s civilization could even influence this backward world.
— At that time, Jon didn’t know that the Old Earth Continent they inhabited was actually just a small island, and the world was vast, even comprising other worlds... Otherwise, Jon wouldn’t have dared make such bold claims.