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Oh, I thought he had no knowledge of Mr Xu but that he had a phone, just like her.

So if the only persons who know Mr Xu are the ones in the pods? It means that the ML is is one of them, maybe somewhere else, or is in a coma and that experiment is to try to reach him? Or maybe the very first participant in the VR experiment (doesn't the preview indicates that he signed the contract in 2012?) is the ML but he is stuck in it and the FL and HBY are test subjects to get to him?

NOt sure, it's so complicated.

Maybe he was the first to participate in the experiment, in 2012 and he is stuck in it and now the new experiments are to try to reach him and get him out?

The ML and FL were the only ones to have seen Mr Xu (not even HBY had seen him or knew him in the VR), which is strange. Is he a real person or a program?

In the first episode, when Mr Xu is in a wheelchair, just before disappearing, he asked the ML if he is all right, if he is well. Isn't it a weird question to ask to someone who is in good health, from someone who is handicapped? Unless the one in the VR who is sick/in a coma is the ML and Mr Xu is either the programmer of the VR or is a program himself, some kind of AI.

We'll see what the next episodes will reveal.

Episode 21 was scary, I expected someone to attack them there! At least, it gave us answers about 2025 and 2018 and it was as we expected. Still, there was someone spying on them but he didn't attack them. Why? Because he wants them to discover the truth? That by knowing the truth, they will get out of the VR, both of them if the ML is ALSO part of the VR? Who is the guy, Jiang Bo? Who was he on the phone with, the short hair woman or Mr Xu?

I was thinking: there are 9 episodes left, how on earth are they going to pull it off if all is revealed in episode 21? Unless there's a big twist coming next. My second pet theory: it's the ML who is somehow the key to all of this. Either he is in a coma and the experiment is his desperate mother trying to get him back, or he accepted to be part of the experiment and he got stuck in it and Mr Xu is either a real friend sent by his mother to help him getting out, or it's the FL who is in charge of getting him out but she ended up losing herself in the VR, too.

Or it's none of those theories. I looooooove that show so much!

Holy guacamole, that was my second favorite theory but the one I thought less likely because the drama is more about the FL than the ML.

I saw the previews for episodes 22 and 23 but there were no english subtitles, what does it say?

well it's the twist I would like to see, but I kind of doubt it. But still, I like this theory, even if it's not the right one. That would be one hell of a hit in the head of the fans, to have the drama turning out to be about saving the ML, but the FL got lost in the VR and couldn't remember her job.

Still, if the right theory is about the FL having signed a contract for the VR, I don't mind because so far it's well done and the actress playing her is just amazing.

Apparently, DL made a come back on a variety show, I read this here, there are other news about him, fingers crossed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/comments/18q273a/could_deng_lun_make_a_comeback_based_on_recent/

I was just thinking about the Lighthouse program : what are Lighthouses? Buildings by the sea where the Lighthouse guardians could guide sailors safely back home. Coincidence? Could Mr Xu be the guardian of the Lighthouse, in charge of bringing back to the real world the ones inside the capsules? Maybe he isn't real and what the ML remembers is a planted memory.

It's one of my favorite theory either, that this VR experiment is something the ML's mother worked on, to save her son. But so far, the entire drama is more about the FL than the ML so it's probably not that. Which is too bad because it's been my pet theory for a while now.

Yep, I think we all came to this conclusion. The only thing we are all confused about is Mr Xu and the ML's mother/maybe the short hair woman?

What if Mr Xu isn't real ? or he was, died and there's an AI controlling the VR game and it has Mr Xu's appearance?

Crazy theory: what if it's the ML who is in a coma after a fight or a fall and all those experiments are to get him out of his coma?

I would love that and that would explain why he seems to never be really working (he is an investor but he spends 90% of his time investigating his friend's disappearance), his crazy fighting skills, and both Mr Xu and the FL knew the ML before in the past, even if the FL doesn't quite remember him.

What goes against this theory is that the entire drama revolves around the FL, her growth, her traveling between worlds (or not).

Also, Mr Xu was injured after falling from a building. Was he supposed to "leave" this world by some kind of portal and something didn't work? The FL fell into a river. HBY was sure that he could come back to his world by also falling from the building.

Strange that it's all about falling, as if they know that a portal should open at at specific place.

In one episode, she is in a train with her boss and there are two movies available on the computer in front of them: "The Matrix", and "Inception". Either it's just an hommage, or it's a hint that the drama is a mix of those two movies.

I think Mr Xu created the virtual reality project. His goal was to allow people to discover a new life in VR, and also to heal. Let's just say that a man never managed to make peace with his father and his father died. He never recovered from feeling guilty. In a VR conceived for his problem, he could live a life where he would make peace with his father, healing his soul and making him able to go back to his reality knowing that somehow, even in a VR, he did the right thing with his father. He missed his chance in real life, always wondering "what if", and the VR would answer that question.

But Mr Xu needed funds for his project and that's where the brain company (I don't remember the exact name) comes in, with that woman in charge. I think they betrayed Mr Xu, their goal was never creating a VR game/life, but to explore brains working in that environment and creating people they could manipulate once out of the VR.

I was wondering, when the FL is leaving the hospital, is that the Light house logo we see for a second, on the bed sheet?

Yeah, that's one hell of a coincidence. On top of that, I'm a bit shocked that we never saw the FL's parents in the so-called 2025 universe and we never see the ML's parents in the 2018 universe. There's being busy and there's being completly absent, that's very different.

It makes me wonder if this absence is because they are linked to the experiment and the discovery, for the ML, that his mother is part of it, would bring such angst, shock, on top of drama, and a twist in the story. I could be wrong, though.

Okay, I'm all caught up and pffff, that's getting complicated. It's strange, I want HBY's version to be the real one because it would mean that there are three worlds: the 2018 and 2025 ones (which would be virtual ones), and the real one we haven't seen yet, only in a flashback of the FL and HBY about to enter the capsules.

But I don't think it's the real story. I still think that 2018 is the real world, that Mr Xu invented the Virtual Reality game/capsules so that people could live a different life or fix mistakes and that he had a partnership with the neurobrain company which betrayed him and used his game for their own experiments. Maybe he vanished to protect his own life and the neurobrain company erased his identity?

That part of the story is what is confusing me. How could he vanish so m ysteriously from the 2018 world without anyone remembering him apart from the ML, and land in the 2025 world???

Who convinced HBY that he was stuck in his own game, that he had to accomplish tasks to get out of the game and that the ML was a virus? What was the experiment, to see if it was possible to completly brainwash people into forgetting their real lives and believing the fake lives, in less than a week? Or to follow orders to the point of insanity, for HBY?

So maybe HBY and JXY are the ones in the capsules, started to get to live their own fake lives but either the game was hacked by the company or it malfunctioned. I lean towards it was hacked.

Sigh, I still think that Mr Xu and the ML have a strange relationship in this story. I can't put my finger on it. Maybe because the ML is the only one remembering him from the 2018 era and the FL the only one to remember him from the 2025 era? Is he the real conceptor of the hacked virtual game trying to save the FL and he is using the ML for that? I hope the ML is a real person but now I'm starting to doubt it.

What if he was sent by Mr Xu to save the FL since he was in love with her in the past but he also forgot about his real identity???

That's soooo complicated.

Also, I'm wary of Jiang Bo. Once again, I can't explain why. Maybe the timing? HBY is out of the picture and the mysterious woman was in contact with someone, maybe Jiang Bo? Since he already knows her and has her trust, he can start working on whatever the experiment is about, with the FL.

Whoever that woman is, she wants HBY gone

I don't know why, I keep thinking about the scene where the ML's friend falls from the building and I wondered, what if this scene IS in fact the ML falling, then coma, but somehow in his coma, he switched the events to his friend?

I don't know, maybe I'm complicating things and the drama will end up being simpler than that, and it simply being an experiment the FL is part of.

Maybe there are two teams in that conspiration? the ML's mother and Mr Xu on one side, and the ex-boyfriend and his bosses on another side?

Or the ML's mother vs Mr Xu, who knows?

But I'm practically sure that even if the ML's mother is involved, it's not about her son being in a coma (even though I would love that twist) but some kind of Matrix experiment the FL agreed to participate in, to pay for her grandmother's medical bills.

It's the more logical explanation.

Or more likely, to be present in the same room as people who use drugs while not using them themselves. After all, the actress didn't do the cabaret.

Still, it's annoying that we might not see this drama just because the actress just went to a cabaret. It's not as if she killed someone, beat someone, or didn't pay her taxes.

I feel like producers and actors must pay astromicals amount of money to their insurance companies in case their work get cancelled because of one actor's actions.