These people's selves in the surface world and the Inner World seemed to operate independently, rather than moving back and forth between them like I did.
The way ahead was dark, but the faint light behind me was enough to make out a little of my surroundings.
At the same time, Fu Qian didn't forget to analyze Head-Peeking Brother's behavior.
If the earlier assumption was correct—that the gloomy town I'd seen through the breakfast shop window existed as a separate layer of the world—then the relationship between the two worlds was an unavoidable question.
Considering that I'd walked into the "inner" Art Prison without realizing it, and taking Head-Peeking Brother's behavior into account, this once again seemed to confirm something: Jane wasn't an exception. The people who appeared in the Inner World really did experience accidentally slipping into another dimension, just like I did.
But that raised a question: why them and not someone else?
I still didn't know what was going on in the Art Prison, but Hake and the others were definitely in the breakfast shop.
Was the Inner World an uninhabited dead zone, and were they more mentally fragile and more perceptive, making them more likely to fall into it?
That was one explanation, but it raised another question: what happened if they left?
Just like in the breakfast shop earlier, Jane had recovered after making her choice and returned to "reality."
In that case, would she simply disappear from the Inner World too? Would the breakfast shop become empty again?
Or would her Inner World self remain there and carry on working?
Either possibility might not make much difference in Jane's case, but Head-Peeking Brother was different. He had a whole bunch of keys on him.
That raised another question: where had the keys inside Head-Peeking