A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

Zhijiansha, who was sitting to the side deep in thought, was completely dumbfounded. She had just been leaning against the sofa thinking when suddenly the sofa disappeared. She lost her balance and almost fell to the ground. When she came to her senses, she found the room in this state and was completely bewildered.

Zhou Ke'er tugged at her chair, shifting to a more comfortable position, and waved her right hand at the girl: "Now it seems that's indeed the case."

No one noticed that Zhou Ke'er's right hand had silently changed back to five fingers from six.

As for the reason... naturally, it's because showing off carelessly can turn into idiocy! Zhou Ke'er naturally wanted to secretly test whether it was really as he thought before saying it! Otherwise, if he had already said it and snapped his fingers, wouldn't it be incredibly embarrassing if there was no reaction at all?

That level of self-indulgence is practically tantamount to suicide. In real life... it would be an embarrassing situation comparable to socially disastrous events.

[Congratulations to player "Zhou Ke'er" for reaching 100% progress in exploring the hidden world! Progress is complete.]

"...Tch...Interesting, as expected of you."

The girl remained completely unfazed. After a few seconds of stunned silence, she couldn't help but chuckle. She gave Zhou Ke'er a serious once-over, then shook her head. "Alright, I was hoping to tease you a little longer, but I didn't expect you to figure it out so quickly... Looks like I'll have to say goodbye here for now. I think I've got enough material... Well then, goodbye~"

The girl said a long string of nonsensical things.

"!"

Although Zhou Ke'er didn't immediately understand what she meant, there was one thing she couldn't possibly miss—this guy wanted to run away!

"Trying to run?! Think you can escape? Give it to me..."

Zhou Ke'er immediately lunged at the girl, but to his surprise... the girl didn't disappear. Instead, she closed her eyes and collapsed onto the table as if she had fainted.

Two seconds later, when she looked up again, her eyes were filled with confusion. Looking at Zhou Ke'er who was rushing towards her, she screamed in fright, falling to the ground along with her chair. Her handcuffed hands braced on the ground as she frantically backed away.

"???"

Zhou Ke'er was truly dumbfounded.

What's going on? A different person? Then what just happened? If this guy has schizophrenia, then he should be considered part of the hidden worldview... right?

"Please...please spare me! Waaah, don't kill me!"

The girl looked at Zhou Ke'er and couldn't help but burst into tears, but when she saw the sand between her fingers, she stopped crying in shock. After a long while, she said in disbelief, "You...you're not dead? Yes, yes! You should all be dead! Hahaha, is this a dream? You're all dead!"

Looking at the girl who was both crying and laughing, Zhou Ke'er seemed to have figured out the setting of this module through her words, and the cause of death of him, Zhijiansha and Honghe... should also be related to this guy, or at least this guy knows a little bit about it.

But... what exactly happened just now? Who was it that took over this guy's body and was talking to Zhou Ke'er the whole time?

"Oh, oh, oh! I know! I figured it out! So that's how it is!"

Suddenly, the sand between his fingers, who had been deep in thought, exclaimed loudly, as if he had solved a mystery of the century. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and was almost dancing with joy.

"..."

Zhou Ke'er looked helplessly at the sand between her fingers, "Then you tell me."

If we keep her bottled up like this, she'll probably get sick. But Zhou Ke'er is so kind-hearted. Sigh, she's such a compassionate bodhisattva.

----------------

Just as the sand between her fingers was enthusiastically sharing the results of her deduction (surely I won't have to copy the previous chapters again, right? Just go straight to Crimson King.)

A pure white space.

Suddenly, a dark hole appeared, and a figure walked out of it.

"Here, the materials you requested. You didn't manage to collect them last time because of Nyaruko, right? She asked me to return the favor. These should be useful, right?"

The girl, wearing delicate gloves, held a small, jet-black fan in her hand, partially obscuring half her face. She slowly walked towards another blurry-looking man and casually said, "There are plot twists, there's reasoning, and as you requested, no supernatural elements were introduced. I accidentally created a demon on my own, but Zhou Ke'er found a reason to overturn it... These fragments should be enough for you, right?"

"Ah, that's enough... Thank you."

Rae quickly replied.

He was quite familiar with Nyaruko, but when faced with a swollen woman, he always felt inexplicably intimidated, even after countless years.

"Heh, speaking of which... in that case, I guess I've done an appearance, right? What, no appearance fee?"

The girl lightly covered her lips with her fan and chuckled softly and charmingly.

"Oh, this..."

Rae hesitated for a moment, then shrugged helplessly—after all, his face was completely pixelated, so the other person couldn't see what his expression was: "If you ask, then of course I have it, but I don't know if you want it from me, or if you want it from me?"

"Oh? What's the difference between the two? If it were Nyaruko, which one would you choose?"

The girl chuckled softly, leaned closer to Reus, and asked in a low voice.

Extremely dangerous! MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

Rae's alarm bells were ringing, but anyway, his face was completely pixelated.

"Ha, you're joking... Don't you know that if it were Nyaruko, she wouldn't ask me this question. She would just come and take what she wants without any qualms."

Rae shrugged and replied with a smile.

"That's true."

The girl took two steps back, tilted her head to look at Leier, and chuckled softly, "Since that's the case... well, my request is simple~ give your 'thing' to Zhou Ke'er, how about it?"

"That thing? ...Isn't it too early? I can't afford to be found guilty of violating the rules."

Rae raised an eyebrow—though the other person couldn't see it, he secretly wondered what the other person's intentions were.

"No way!"

The girl chuckled softly, waving her hand to open a crack, and said as she stepped inside, "It matches the equipment Nyaruko gave him perfectly. I remember... that was originally yours too, wasn't it? What, don't you think it would be interesting if something you used to use... appeared in the world again?"

"...Fine, it's no use for me anyway. Since you put it that way, I'll do as you say."

Leier forced a smile, his back drenched in cold sweat. Damn it, he had planned to give Zhou Ke'er that as a reward after the module ended, but now... had he been found out?

So, was this a warning? But she didn't stop her... what did it mean?

"Oh, by the way, once you've finished filming, bring me a copy to take a look at, okay? After all, I'm in it too!"

In the last instant the crack closed, the girl's teasing voice drifted out indistinctly.

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130. My Cause of Death (Part 11)

"However, if that's indeed the case, then what about the 'Zhou Ke'er' I met at the beginning?"

After explaining her reasoning, Zhijiansha raised a new question with a hint of doubt.

The girl beside her was stunned, staring dumbfounded at the sand between her fingers. This person had said a whole bunch of things, basically meaning... this place was actually a dream, and her dream at that?! Then why could these two say it so casually?! In this day and age, even fictional characters in dreams can realize they're just a figment of their imagination? That can't be right, it must have been a lie!

Zhou Ke'er opened her mouth, about to say something, when suddenly a loud crash was heard, followed by a violent tremor in the room. The right wall collapsed without warning, scattering debris across the floor with a series of thuds. The three people inside instinctively looked in that direction.

A thick cloud of smoke billowed from the collapsed wall swirled around a figure who walked in, brushing the dust off his hands.

She wore a mask that emitted a faint glow. The shimmering colors on the mask were fading rapidly. Soon, the entire mask returned to its original pure white color. Then, the mask turned into a white light and disappeared, revealing the face beneath the mask—it was actually a flamingo.

"Huh?" Zhou Ke'er raised an eyebrow.

Smashing through the wall with a single punch? Flamingo's equipment bonus is pretty powerful! But judging from the color progress displayed on the mask, it seems Flamingo activated the effect even earlier? Did she encounter some danger?

So, how did she get to this level? Surely she didn't shatter the void with a single punch? That's too absurd, it'd turn into pure fantasy!

"Red Crane!" Finger Sand called out subconsciously, then subtly moved to the side, a little further away from Zhou Ke'er. Looking at Red Crane's expressionless face and its ferocious actions, it inexplicably gave her the feeling that the main wife had come to catch her cheating!

This is so strange. To avoid being misunderstood, the sand between her fingers moved to the side again.

Zhou Ke'er glanced at Zhijiansha, who had inexplicably shrunk to the side and thought she hadn't been discovered. She didn't understand what Zhijiansha was doing and why she looked so afraid of the flamingos.

Their relationship wasn't exactly great before, but it was alright, so what happened? The relationships between women are so strange.

Shaking her head, Zhou Ke'er put aside her doubts and asked Honghe, "What's the situation on your end? How did you get here?"

Although the question was somewhat rambling, Honghe still stared with dead fish eyes, brushing the dust off her body as she answered, "I first appeared in a place that looked like a classroom, where a group of students were bullying a girl. I guess it was a case of school bullying."

To be on the safe side, I didn't intervene directly. I decided to observe the situation first, try to gather some useful information, and then make a decision after analyzing it.

But to my surprise, seeing my indifference, the girl looked up at me with great resentment, saying something like, "So all I did before was fake. I didn't really want to help her; I was just doing it for my own satisfaction."

Hearing this, Zhou Ke'er raised her eyebrows. It seemed that Hong He's situation at the beginning was similar to his!

Although the locations are different, the routines are exactly the same. If the girl in the flamingo's mouth also transforms into the shape of a flamingo later, then they will be exactly the same.

"When I saw this situation, I guessed that I might have stepped on some flag, so I immediately equipped the mask. Since I can set the headgear to not be displayed, they can't see that I'm wearing the equipment."

In order to build up the mask's power, I could only delay for a little longer, so I slowed down my speech and chatted with her for a while. Unexpectedly, she only talked to me and did nothing else.

I figured she probably couldn't hurt me, so I tried walking up to her and making a move as if I was going to attack her. Instead of dodging or retaliating, she looked at me with a knowing look on her face, just as I expected, as if she was waiting for me to hit her.

I certainly wouldn't step on such an obvious flag, so I simply bypassed her and casually searched under her desk, where I found a small notebook that looked like a diary.

When she saw it, she actually looked very surprised, as if she had no idea there was anything there, which was quite unexpected.

A diary?

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but purse her lips.

These days, who keeps a diary? The way these game mods give information is so outdated! It's either a diary or some scrap of paper, as if there's no other way to give information except by putting it in writing. It's so unoriginal.

"Then I glanced through it and learned about a secret setting."

Honghe paused, then looked at Zhou Ke'er with an expressionless face.

"Secret setting? What's that?"

The sand between his fingers was very enthusiastic as he pressed on with his question.

Zhou Ke'er looked at Honghe helplessly, with an expression that said she was looking at a child.

"Ah, I've noticed that while swear words are censored in the game, like 'shoku—', they're not censored when written down in a notebook."

Honghe replied in a serious tone, "That notebook is full of vicious swear words. I reckon that a large part of it is cursing me, because my nickname appears very frequently in it, and you are all included as well, and you were also cursed very badly."

"So the secret you mentioned at the beginning wasn't the point at all! The important part is this diary entry that follows!"

"I can't help but complain," she thought, feeling utterly exhausted. "I never expected that Red Crane would be led astray by Zhou Ke'er. He used to be such a good player, how come he's become so unreliable?"

(Zhou Ke'er: That's a lie! I didn't corrupt her! That's just who she is! This is what reveals her true nature! Don't try to pin this on me!)

"No! You're wrong. The key point is that you can write profanities! Thanks to this, I just realized that... only verbal profanities, like 'idiot—' are blocked, while other forms of expression aren't prohibited! For example, this!"

With a solemn and dignified expression, Zhou Ke'er raised her middle finger to the sand between her fingers.

"So why do you have to repeat 'Idiot—' so many times?! I know 'Idiot—' won't help even if it's censored, but do you have to repeat it so many times?! And what exactly are you guys focusing on?!"

Finger Sand unconsciously rattled off a long string of complaints, only to suddenly realize afterward that she was actually transforming into the吐槽 (tu cao, meaning to roast or criticize) role originally assigned to Jin Yi Ye Xing! This is bad!

"Oh! There's this too? I never thought of that!"