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

"Fire...it's too loud, it'll attract zombies."

Flamingo nodded and explained, "Being chased by zombies is really boring, and I don't want to do it again."

"Most importantly, isn't it interesting to witness firsthand how people turn into zombies?"

After thinking for a moment, Honghe, unusually, didn't have a blank expression, but stared at Zhang He with a serious look and added.

"Exactly, exactly. I also want to see if there's any difference between me on drugs and you without drugs."

Zhou Ke'er also echoed her sentiments without any humanity.

"What are your plans next?"

The Nine Tribulations of the Divine Realm opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment, and then asked.

"Well, you two who aren't infected can go do your missions. The three of us can stay here."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged and said, "If I accidentally turn into a zombie later and try to attack you, that would be troublesome."

"I'll leave the boring tasks to you guys."

Red Crane also nodded to the Nine Tribulations of the Divine Realm and Spring Slumber and Autumn Fatigue.

As for Zhang He, he was already muttering in despair, "It will rot, it's so ugly! What an ugly way to die... I don't want to! I don't want to!"

"All right..."

After thinking it over, the Nine Tribulations of the Divine Realm realized that this was the only option for now, as bringing infected people along was simply too risky.

Without further ado, Shenyu Jiujie and Chunkun Qiufei quickly gathered their supplies and set off.

As for the three people in the police station, at Zhou Ke'er's suggestion, they each locked themselves in the emergency cells provided by the police station.

"Wow! I'm starting to rot!"

Zhou Ke'er looked at her arm in surprise and exclaimed.

"Congratulations, you've finally rotted."

Flamingo congratulated us expressionlessly, saying, "Your decomposition took almost ten minutes longer than ours. Could it be that the medicine really worked?"

"Well, that shouldn't be the reason. You also took the medicine, but the decay took about the same amount of time as Zhang He."

Zhou Ke'er analyzed rationally: "Besides, steroid drugs... how could they possibly have an inhibitory effect on the virus? At most, they could suppress brain lesions by maintaining a state of continuous excitement... I don't really understand these things, after all, I'm just a psychiatrist."

"Perhaps it's due to the dosage?"

Honghe then raised another point: "I only took five or six pills, but you took half a bottle at once, which might have caused the difference. As for me, it was because of insufficient dosage that it didn't have a big impact."

"That makes sense... It would be great if we had more experimental samples!"

Zhou Ke'er nodded.

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20. You got locked up too, hehehehehe

"It's a little...boring."

Zhou Ke'er rolled around on the ground listlessly.

His arm skin had begun to show an eerie bluish-gray hue, covered with dark spots and wrinkles.

"Phew... I can't hold on any longer."

Just then, Zhang He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, forcing himself to sit up properly and nodding slightly to Zhou Ke'er. "He was almost losing his mind. What a... ugly outcome..."

Normally, given Zhang He's personality, he should have quit the module as soon as he arrived at the police station. However, at Zhou Ke'er and Hong He's request, he reluctantly persisted until now. So now that it's finally over, he feels a sense of relief.

"Okay, thanks. Let's add each other as friends later and play together sometime."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Ke'er perked up, sat up abruptly, and waved at Zhang He with a smile. Then she stared intently at him—he was quite interested in how players turned into zombies.

After all, he couldn't see how he turned into a zombie!

"it is good."

Zhang He nodded, and less than a second later, his pupils dilated, and he lost consciousness.

"boom!"

"Roar!"

Zhang He, now a zombie, lunged forward, but was blocked by the iron railing. He could only grab the railing, yelling and reaching out to grab at Zhou Ke'er.

"Tsk, that's all there is to it. It's boring. But... it seems this medicine is actually somewhat effective."

Zhou Ke'er waved her hand in front of Zhang He, then pulled it back, and then put it to Zhang He's mouth. Just as he opened his mouth to bite, she immediately pulled it back, having a great time.

"What's the underlying principle? According to you, high-dose steroids can only slow down brain lesions, so why does it seem that Zhang He's overall physical condition is deteriorating faster than ours?"

With a blank expression, Honghe pondered deeply, "Could it be that this virus must first affect the brain before spreading throughout the body? Does this virus even exist?"

"Well, the premise is that these things are meant to be eaten. I still don't understand why these zombies have such a bad sense of smell."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged. "Logically speaking, it should be the sense of smell that is stimulated by a smell similar to blood that creates the desire to eat. I've never heard of wanting to eat just because you hear a sound, right?"

"No... I don't feel my sense of smell getting worse..."

Red Crane shook her head.

"is it?"

Zhou Ke'er scratched his head. He didn't feel anything; he didn't feel like his nose was blocked. How could a normal person notice if their sense of smell had deteriorated...?

"And I didn't feel a strong sense of hunger... Is the urge to eat people really caused by this virus?"

Honghe pondered for a moment and then shared her doubts with Zhou Ke'er.

“Indeed... I don’t feel hungry either. Even when Zhang He was about to collapse, he didn’t say he was hungry, and his status panel didn’t show ‘hunger’….”

Zhou Ke'er found the question rather strange. "If the hunger is caused by this virus, shouldn't we feel an increasing hunger from the beginning of the infection? But we didn't..."

And even now, I haven't seen any of you have the urge to devour it. Zhang He didn't either; it all seemed to have happened in an instant after he lost consciousness.

"Yes, and viruses are things that survive by parasitizing living organisms when the host's bodily functions are completely lost, which is when they die."

Honghe touched her hair and easily pulled out a large handful. "But a zombie that can continue to move after losing consciousness obviously still has certain bodily functions, so the virus in its body can survive and control the host to do everything."

"you mean..."

Zhou Ke'er tilted her head. "Does this virus first destroy the host's brain, then take over and replace it?"

"Yes, that's roughly the idea. But I still feel there are some things that don't make sense. After all, viruses should... no, viruses can't do that. All viruses are harmful to both themselves and others; they are inherently designed to destroy their hosts, and in turn, destroy themselves."

Flamingo finally frowned, looking at herself who seemed perfectly normal on the surface, but in reality, she felt that her movements were becoming somewhat clumsy, seemingly because her joints were starting to malfunction.

"I have never heard of any virus that guarantees the survival of its host. Such a thing should be a parasitic organism. Obviously, a virus is not a living organism."

"Who knows? Maybe the game module forced it to exist. Aren't settings something you can write however you want? But I was surprised that this medicine actually works a little bit."

Zhou Ke'er didn't know what to say, since these doubts did exist and there was no satisfactory explanation for them at the moment.

"Phew... This is all the information we can deduce with the current data. If only we could conduct more human experiments and record more data."

Honghe sighed expressionlessly, "Judging from the speed at which my body is stiffening, I'm about to reach my limit. It seems I didn't take enough medicine. I estimate I can only hold on for another half hour."

"Uh-huh."

As Zhou Ke'er continued to gulp down the remaining half bottle of high-dose steroids, she nodded repeatedly, "Why don't you try taking a little more?"

"No need, it's too late. I tried taking some more after I got infected, but it doesn't seem to help."

Honghe shook her head. "Let's go add a friend. This research is a little interesting, and I'm a little concerned about the final result."

"it is good."

Zhou Ke'er nodded, "But the only result I can find out is how long I can hold on in the end."

"This is the only way for now."

Flamingo nodded.

The atmosphere suddenly fell silent.

"Ugh..."

Zhou Ke'er sighed and continued to tease Zhang He, "By the way, since you said there's still half an hour, are we just going to sit here and wait? We've already waited here for so long, it's so boring! Why don't we go out and have some fun... oh no, I mean go out and check out the situation?"

But he found that after teasing him for a while, Zhang He lost interest in him. No matter how he provoked him, Zhang He ignored him.

That's strange. Zhou Ke'er was extremely bored and looked at Honghe, urging, "How about it? You're bored too, right? Why don't you go out and play? It's just a game, it's too stupid to lock yourself here all the time, isn't it?"

"You were the one who suggested we lock ourselves in here in the first place..."

Honghe rolled her eyes with a stiff face and said, "Fine, if you want to go out for a stroll, then go ahead. Why ask me for permission? I also want to study whether the process of zombie transformation is affected by 'stillness' and 'moderate exercise' respectively."

"click"

It was getting so boring that Zhou Ke'er couldn't stand it anymore after finally hearing Honghe's reply. She took out her key, opened the cell door, and decided to go out for a stroll.

Anyway, it seems that since even the zombified Zhang He has stopped wanting to bite him, the other zombies should be the same.

That's the source of his confidence to really go out and have fun!

Not knowing when she would lose consciousness, Zhou Ke'er naturally had no intention of wasting time in the cell. Going out for a stroll would be better than this. It's just a game, after all! What's the point of spacing out for half an hour?

(Zhang He: So why wait until I'm dead?!)

However, before that, she'd like to go to the police station's armory and grab some guns to play with. She hadn't taken any guns before because she was afraid the noise would attract zombies, but now that Zhou Ke'er wasn't afraid of zombies anymore, she had no worries.

Zhou Ke'er: Now, there's nothing to be afraid of!

"Armory...armory...where is it?"

Zhou Ke'er hummed a little tune she had made up as she wandered around the police station. Perhaps because her vocal cords were damaged by the virus, the sound she hummed was hoarse and unpleasant, comparable to the legendary singer Pang Hu.

Honghe followed stiffly behind, trying to cover her ears, but that would make it difficult for her to maintain her balance. Helpless, she could only endure Zhou Ke'er's brainwashing voice.

"Found it, it's right here."

A short while later, Zhou Ke'er arrived at a room with the door closed. She nodded at the sign on the door and pushed it open.

"boom!"

Just then, before Zhou Ke'er could even react to what was happening, a gunshot rang out, followed by a powerful impact.

Zhou Ke'er staggered back several steps before realizing that she had been shot in the abdomen and was bleeding profusely.