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

When I first met Hu Tao, she was such an upright person. How did she become like this? It must be because of Lin Wen! You become like those you associate with!

"Would you like some dried bean curd sticks? Hot pot with dried bean curd sticks is absolutely amazing, and of course, duck blood is a must..."

Hu Tao, who was clearly treating herself as the one hosting, asked Zhou Ke'er and Lin Wen without even looking up—even though she wasn't the one paying.

"Hmm, whatever, fine."

Zhou Ke'er helplessly rested her chin on her hand and nodded with her neck stiff.

"Okay, one serving of tofu skin for Zhou Ke'er, one for me, one for Lin Wen, one for me, one for me..."

Hu Tao muttered under her breath, then looked up at Zhou Ke'er and Lin Wen, "Hey, why aren't you saying anything? You should order! Don't be shy, we're all friends, order whatever you want."

Zhou Ke'er's lips twitched involuntarily, but she couldn't utter a single word of complaint. Who did Hu Tao learn this shameless behavior from?!

Ignoring Hu Tao, Zhou Ke'er waved her hand and turned to Lin Wen, "Where's the information you mentioned? Let me see it first?"

"Why are you in such a hurry? You really have no sense of romance. You can look at that kind of stuff anytime. Aren't you going to talk to me about feet more?"

Lin Wen took out a thick file folder from his handbag and handed it to Zhou Ke'er as he spoke.

"I have something to do later, there's an event in the game... As for chatting, aren't we chatting now? We can chat while we watch."

Zhou Ke'er reached out and took the file bag, casually replying, "Wow! Such a thick stack? How come there are so many? Is this information easy to look up?"

Zhou Ke'er was about to open the file folder when Lin Wen stopped her with a gesture of respect. He said with an unusually serious expression, "It's not suitable to look at it here. It's best to wait until you get back. Seriously, no joke."

"All right..."

Although she didn't know why, since Lin Wen had said so, Zhou Ke'er had no choice but to nod and put it into her backpack.

"Hehehe, it tastes like Ke's~"

The next second, Lin Wen reverted to his usual carefree self, placing the hand that had just been holding Zhou Ke'er's hand under his nose, looking every bit like a lovesick fool.

"Ugh, I'm telling you, you're getting tired of this kind of thing, aren't you? Do you have some kind of mental illness? I can take a look at you for free."

Zhou Ke'er felt a chill run down her spine and couldn't help but say, "It's one thing for Lin Wen to start liking women's clothing and then tease me, anyway, I've gotten used to it over the years, but lately his methods have become more and more outrageous!"

"How could I possibly get tired of Xiao Ke? She's so much fun! Besides, she's been flirting with other girls every day lately, she's such a fickle person, even though she already has me~"

Lin Wen complained, looking aggrieved.

"Flirting? I... do you have some misunderstanding about this term?"

Zhou Ke'er was completely bewildered by Lin Wen's words. "How could I have had any chance to flirt with women during this time? Let alone go out and have fun, I haven't even had any contact with any women at all!"

"Hey! Something doesn't sound right to me! Aren't I a woman?!"

Upon hearing this, Hu Tao couldn't help but protest.

Zhou Ke'er glanced at Hu Tao, her gaze sweeping over the flat plain, then nodded with great certainty, "Yeah? What's wrong?"

"Hey!"

Hu Tao was about to retort angrily.

"Neither a woman nor a vixen who seduces Xiao Ke, you choose one?"

Lin Wen immediately cut off Hu Tiao's words.

"..."

Hu Tao was speechless for a moment, lowered her head and didn't say anything, but quickened the movements of her hands, and it seemed that she didn't intend to stop.

Lin Wen then turned to Zhou Ke'er and said with certainty, "My feeling is definitely right! You can tell all of this from your behavior. In just the past few days, you have interacted with at least four women, and about three of them have been in close contact. Moreover, there is definitely one of them who likes to stare with a dead fish eye, to the point that you have been infected and have become accustomed to showing that expression! Is that right?"

"Holy crap? You can even tell that? What kind of dirty trick is that?! Are you a part-time detective? Teach me!"

Zhou Ke'er was immediately shocked by Lin Wen's words and quickly asked for his advice.

"Just as I thought! You heartless womanizer, Xiao Ke!"

Lin Wen pouted and angrily punched Zhou Ke'er's chest with her little fists.

"Don't hit me randomly, or I'll turn into a walnut!"

Zhou Ke'er reached out and slapped away Lin Wen's small fist.

"Crack."

With a soft cracking sound, Hu Tao, clutching the pen that had inexplicably broken, stood up and said with a friendly smile, "I'm going to place the order now. You two chat slowly!"

After saying that, she turned and left aggressively.

"Alright, now that Hu Tao is gone, say what you want to say quickly."

Zhou Ke'er looked at Lin Wen helplessly after seeing Hu Tao walk around the corner.

The way he acted just now clearly meant he wanted to get Hu Tao away first, but I don't know what he wanted to say.

"Well, when I was looking up the information you asked me to look up, I also checked out information about the game you're currently playing..."

Lin Wen took a deep breath and looked at Zhou Ke'er with a very serious expression. "There's a problem, there's a problem with that game! Generally speaking, even highly classified information only has very thorough security measures. Even if I can't hack into it, at least I can know that the information does exist. But... regarding that game, apart from the information released by the game's official website... there's absolutely nothing else!"

This game definitely has problems!

Zhou Ke'er, who already knew this, was shocked upon hearing this. "What the hell? Why are you investigating that?"

"Hey! I just saw you playing this game, so I thought I'd hack in to find bugs or a quick way to get stronger, then I'd show off to you and maybe get some help from your carry!"

Lin Wen's tone immediately softened as he mumbled an explanation, but then he became serious again and said, "The company that this game is affiliated with is just an empty shell! I hacked into their database and saw nothing there. Even the employee data is fake. This is really strange!"

Moreover, the game's background story released by the official website gives people a strange and eerie feeling. I don't know why, but I always feel that the recent epidemic is related to this game.

So I tried hacking into the databases of major hospitals and the federal government, and guess what I found?

"Don't just hack into other people's databases like that again! Have you forgotten how I had to use my family connections to get you out of jail last time you were caught?!"

Zhou'er sighed and rubbed his forehead in exasperation: "So what did we discover? That all those infected with the disease are players?"

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

191. Walnut is actually a good guy.

"That's right! And to be precise, the patients are all those so-called high-end players, who at least passed the difficult difficulty, uh... how should I say it, the module, right?"

In short, those players were the first batch of patients. The rest of the infected players, excluding those who contracted the disease later, were basically infected by them. As for other sources of infection... none have been found yet. I guess... there are no other sources of infection.

There's definitely something wrong here! Plus, this disease outbreak seems to be related to mental health issues, right? This can't be called a coincidence anymore...

Lin Wen nodded and explained, then paused and looked at Zhou Ke'er: "You probably haven't passed the hard difficulty module yet, right? Have you seen any unusual patients recently? Your profession... you still need to be careful."

"Well, it's true that we didn't pass the difficult module, so that's not wrong."

Zhou Ke'er scratched her cheek. Indeed, she hadn't passed the difficult module; she'd only passed the nightmare one. She didn't know why, but she always failed the difficult module. Ugh, so frustrating!

"That's good. I'll log into the game these next few days to check things out. Be careful, this game is a bit weird... By the way, I heard that Ming Qingfeng is back?"

Seeing Zhou Ke'er nod, Lin Wen breathed a sigh of relief and resumed his cheerful demeanor.

"Um, I'll try my best?"

Zhou Ke'er didn't really want Lin Wen to get involved, but there was no point in saying anything. Once Lin Wen made up his mind, it was hard for others to change it. Otherwise, he would have stopped cross-dressing long ago. If Zhou Ke'er tried to dissuade him, he would probably be even more enthusiastic.

"Ding.."

Just then, a message notification came through her communication bracelet. Zhou Ke'er opened it and saw that it was from Hu Tao: "I've already paid the money. Consider it my apology for the trouble. You two enjoy your meal. I won't bother you any longer. I'm off now, goodbye!"

"Wow... this guy..."

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but scratch her head. Hu Tao, after all, is still a good person!

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

"pat"

Rushing home, Zhou Ke'er glanced at the clock on the wall: 8:45. Great, looks like she made it...

Porius, who had been sitting upright and doing nothing, immediately stood up when he saw Zhou Ke'er rushing back. "What's wrong? Did something happen to you?"

"It's nothing, I was just in a hurry to get into the game."

Zhou Ke'er took a few breaths, waved her hand, and tossed a game bracelet from her backpack to Porius, saying, "Anyway, you don't have anything to do at home, so play games if you're bored... Didn't I tell you before? Cronus is in this game, just go in and find him..."

There was no need to rush back after dinner, but Zhou Ke'er suddenly realized that leaving Bolius here in a daze wasn't a good idea. Besides, Bolius was always idle and might come looking for her every day, so she had to find a solution.

After much thought, I decided it was best to let him play the game. Either he'd become addicted to it or he'd be obsessed with finding Kronos and forget about Zhou Ke'er. That would solve everything.

So Zhou Ke'er immediately took a detour to buy a gaming bracelet. However, since Bolius was an unregistered user, he couldn't bind the bracelet to his account. So, she had Lin Wen try to hack into the device to see if he could adjust it. This took a long time, and Zhou Ke'er almost missed the event.

"Ah... what is this...?"

Porius instinctively reached out and caught the bracelet tossed to him, asking in confusion, but before he could finish, Zhou Ke'er hurriedly interrupted, "Anyway, it's something that will help you find Kronos. Here, this is the instruction manual. If you don't know how to use it, figure it out yourself. I'm in a hurry... Ouch! I bumped my big toe... Ouch... Ouch..."

Zhou Ke'er tossed her backpack onto the sofa with one hand—she could look at the documents inside later—then crossed one leg, held her big toe which had bumped against the corner of the shoe cabinet with both hands, and hopped and grimaced as she hurried toward the bedroom.

"Oh, this..."

Bolius wanted to say something more, but seeing that Zhou Ke'er seemed to be in a hurry, he had no choice but to give up the idea for the time being. He picked up the game bracelet and instruction manual that Zhou Ke'er had left behind and started to study them - anyway, he really had plenty of time.

Welcome to the Dream of the Mist

【…】

Skipping over a series of login cutscenes, Zhou Ke'er finally appeared in the safe house.

"...Yosh! We made it!"

Before Zhou Ke'er could even check if everyone else had arrived, she glanced at the game time and saw that there were still ten minutes before the activity started. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief, "This is youth!"

"..."

Honghe glanced at Zhou Ke'er expressionlessly, then squinted and asked, "What... are you doing...? Is this some new weird game you came up with? Forcing yourself to time it? Is it that exciting?"

"I'm not kidding, it's super exciting, okay! It feels like a breathtaking pleasure!"

Zhou Ke'er answered without hesitation.

"Suffocating pleasure? What is that...?"

Hearing this, Cold-Eating Rabbit, who was standing behind the sofa, couldn't help but ask curiously. However, Sand in Her Fingers immediately made a shushing gesture to her: "Shh! Children shouldn't ask such things!"

"???"

Cold-cooked Rabbit was completely bewildered. How did she become a child again?

Lying on the sofa, feeling drowsy and lethargic, I suddenly felt a gaze from behind me. A chill ran down my spine, and I had a strange, ominous premonition, as if I might be suddenly thrown off...