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

Zhou Ke'er suddenly looked up, snapping out of her thought mode, and grinned, as if she could see right through what Honghe was thinking. She turned to look at Honghe, shrugged, and said, "Thinking about how to have fun is the right way to go, don't you think?"

"That's true."

Honghe tilted her head, expressing her agreement with Zhou Ke'er's words without any expression.

Zhou Ke'er had originally wanted to see what Honghe's expression would be like when she was startled by him, but she was completely expressionless. How boring.

"Okay, how about you take us to that experimental base?"

Zhou Ke'er, who hadn't managed to scare the flamingo, secretly pursed her lips, turned her head, rested her chin on her hand, thought for a moment, and asked Nina.

"Huh? Oh... Go... go there? Really? Or... are you sure? Okay..."

Nina visibly panicked, stammering out incoherent sentences, as if her face was written all over her face, saying, "I have a problem, come and investigate me," and in bold, with shadows and golden effects.

"Um..."

Zhou Ke'er opened her mouth, but still didn't express her doubts. Now was not the time to raise her questions; at the very least, she needed to get them to the research base first.

"Well, since no one objects, let's get going."

Just as Zhou Ke'er was about to leave, she suddenly remembered something and quickly changed direction. "Oh right, how about we go see Zhang He one last time?"

"...If you want to go, then it's up to you."

Honghe didn't care at all, but strongly condemned Zhou Ke'er's behavior of showing off in front of her dead teammates' corpses (dancing on their graves) after she was saved.

Although Nina didn't know who Zhou Ke'er was talking about, she didn't have the upper hand right now, so she didn't dare to say or ask anything and could only follow along.

Before long, the group arrived at the place where Zhou Ke'er and the others had locked themselves up.

As expected, Zhang He, who had turned into a zombie, was still here, since Zhou Ke'er hadn't opened the cell door for him.

"You... what are you doing..."

When Nina saw Zhou Ke'er and Honghe leading her to see a zombie, she panicked and hurriedly said, "You promised you wouldn't eat me first! Waaah! Please don't eat me! I've already told you everything! I've even given you the antidote. Didn't you want me to take you to the research base?"

"..."

Zhou Ke'er's eyes lit up. So this was a way of coercing and bribing! He hadn't thought of it before. Seeing that they were just two infected individuals who hadn't yet turned into zombies, and that they didn't pose a significant threat to Nina, he realized she still had the mind to lie. But... now...

Zhang He was truly a good comrade; even after his death, he was still able to make good use of his talents.

However, there is one more thing to confirm before that.

Zhou Ke'er ignored Nina and first said to Honghe, "Keep an eye on Nina."

He then walked to the cell door, reached his hand through the bars, and waved at the zombie Zhang He, "Hey, Zhang He, we're back~ What, my hand is right here~ Want to take a bite?"

Upon hearing the sound, the zombie Zhang He glanced at Zhou Ke'er, then turned his head away without any interest.

Hey, what's with my temper? What does this mean? Disdain, is it? Is my meat not tasty anymore, or have you gotten too cocky?

Zhou Ke'er immediately got angry, completely forgetting that she had originally come to test whether the zombie still wanted to bite her. She continued to reach her hand in, "Oh, grandpa, come and play~ handsome young man, beautiful young woman, come and play~ Look, what delicious hands, even Yoshikage Kira is about to kiss you, aren't you interested at all?"

"...Hey, what are you doing? Did you put on an impromptu performance just to make us laugh?"

Flamingo squinted and complained, "But this isn't interesting at all... how should I put it, it's rather greasy... it's disgusting, like his mother praising disgust, so disgusting!"

Not only did Honghe feel disgusted, but even the zombified Zhang He moved away from Zhou Ke'er.

"!"

Zhou Ke'er looked shocked and slowly turned her head. "I think I've discovered a Yang Mi! I can actually ward off zombies! I'm amazing! No wonder I am!"

"...To be this disgusting, you truly are something else..."

The flamingo didn't know what to say.

As for Nina, she was completely stunned, and even began to wonder: Could it be that after the zombie virus damaged her brain, she would become this stupid... (beep—censored)?

After discovering this astonishing secret, Zhou Ke'er, with the spirit of dedication to scientific research and the revolutionary spirit of fearlessness in the face of sacrifice, resolutely opened the cell door and walked alone to the zombie-like Zhang He.

"So? I'm really in front of you now! I'm not kidding you! You really don't want to bite me?"

Zhou Ke'er flirted with Zhang He repeatedly, even putting her hand directly to his mouth.

"Awoo."

The zombie-like Zhang He revealed a very human-like helpless expression, bit Zhou Ke'er with a look of disgust, and then immediately turned around and shrank into a small corner, as if to say: "Okay, okay, I've already bitten you, you idiot... beep—get lost."

"!"

Zhou Ke'er looked shocked and turned to Honghe, her eyes brimming with tears: "He bit me! He actually bit me! Even my dad has never bitten me!"

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24. I was wrong, it wasn't a virus after all!

"Nina... are you sure this thing is an experimental base?"

Zhou Ke'er pointed at the indescribable, disgusting tentacles that had appeared out of nowhere and were still wriggling around, and asked Nina with a pained expression.

The group had just left the police station and followed Nina to what she called the experimental base, only to find it was this lump of stuff.

"This...this should be the place, right? This wasn't here when I came out..."

Nina looked around in confusion, then her eyes lit up as she pointed to a spot on the indescribable lump of stuff. "That's it! Look over there, that's the entrance to the experimental base! I'm not lying to you... Look, the sign for the experimental base is still hanging there!"

"Clam?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Ke'er looked closely in the direction Nina was pointing, and wow... it really was true. The building over there hadn't been completely destroyed by the tentacles; some remains were still standing.

"This, if I'm not mistaken... seems to be a monster from a mythological system of the Old Age? I can't remember for a moment... what was it again?"

For once, the flamingo frowned, revealing a very troubled expression, and spoke while deep in thought.

"I feel like I've seen information about this somewhere before!"

Hearing what Honghe said, Zhou Ke'er seemed to remember something as well. She rested her chin on her hand and pondered, saying, "Oh dear, I don't remember either... But I seem to have heard that this monster is weak to ships? It seems to be able to sink small fishing boats!"

"Huh? Sinking after being hit by a small fishing boat? Where did you hear this unreliable rumor?"

Honghe glanced at Zhou Ke'er, looking completely unconvinced. "In the mythological system I mentioned, this kind of monster seems to be quite powerful. How could it possibly be sunk by a fishing boat... Are you dreaming! Or is this some kind of joke?"

"Oh dear, I can't remember either!"

Zhou Ke'er scratched her head. "Forget it, let's go in and take a look! You see, we've been standing here for so long, and these tentacles haven't shown any hostility or intention to attack us. They shouldn't be a threat, right?"

"No...no!"

Unexpectedly, Nina suddenly objected loudly after hearing Zhou Ke'er's words.

"Hmm? What... is there something you're hiding from us?"

Zhou Ke'er instantly moved closer to Nina, her bloodshot eyes glaring at her as she asked in a sinister tone.

"no!"

Nina stumbled back a few steps, her legs gave way, and she fell to the ground with a thud. She shook her head frantically, saying, "I just... the closer I get to this tentacle, the more I feel... something indescribable, something I can't put into words, something like fear, yet something that inexplicably draws me in, like an abyss staring back at me! I... I'm afraid to go near it!"

"What... do you feel that way?"

Zhou Ke'er scratched her head, looking puzzled, and turned to Honghe to ask.

"Um...no."

The flamingo tilted its head, but it didn't have the strange feeling Nina had described.

"Wow, this feels amazing! I want to try it too!"

Zhou Ke'er complained, then as if she had thought of something, she suddenly ran towards the mass of tentacles and got very close to it.

"Poke...poke..."

Zhou Ke'er squatted down, poked at a tentacle wriggling on the ground, then smelled it: "Hmm... it feels sticky and limp, a little disgusting... and the smell too, I can't quite describe it, but it just feels..."

"But I don't have that feeling of fear mixed with attraction that you described."

Zhou Ke'er turned around and said to Nina with a serious expression, "Even if I get this close, there's nothing there."

"Hey! Watch out!"

Zhou Ke'er didn't expect that when she turned her head, she would see Honghe's expression change slightly and suddenly shout at her.

"Huh? What happened...?"

Zhou Ke'er scratched her head and asked in confusion.

But... before she could finish speaking, she felt something wrap around her waist, followed by a violent force that sent Zhou Ke'er flying backwards completely out of her control—or rather, being dragged away.

A tentacle tightly wrapped around Zhou Ke'er's waist, and before anyone could react, it pulled Zhou Ke'er away and then retracted through the entrance of the now completely ruined experimental base, taking Zhou Ke'er with it.

The already dilapidated base entrance collapsed with a bang after being violently struck several times by the tentacle, and rubble fell down, completely covering the entrance.

"What's going on? Answer me."

Honghe immediately pulled out the used syringe from her pocket, grabbed the stunned Nina with her other hand, and pressed the needle against the carotid artery in Nina's neck. "If you don't answer me honestly, I'll make an incision in your artery and let you see for yourself how far your blood can spray!"

"I...I don't know! I really don't know! This tentacle wasn't here before I left!"

Nina froze, too terrified to move, and stammered, "Besides, I was clearly trying to stop you from getting close to that thing! If it were my scheme, there would be no need for me to stop you!"

"Well... I'll ask you a few questions now."

Flamingo stared at the remaining tentacles that were still wriggling but seemed to have no aggressive intent. She pulled Nina back a considerable distance. "Your father, the guy you called a high-level researcher... what exactly is he researching! Why would there be something like this at the research base? I don't believe it has nothing to do with what they're researching."

“I…I really don’t know! My father never mentioned anything about his research to me…I always thought he was just researching some kind of medicine or something…Couldn’t it be related to this virus that brings the dead back to life?”

Nina answered tremblingly, looking like she was about to cry, "And...right, the antidote! Isn't there an antidote? Doesn't that prove they were just researching the virus?"

"Hmph... Putting aside the fact that you can freely enter and leave this experimental base, how could you not know what they are researching—even just by looking, you should be able to figure something out, right?"

The flamingo exerted a slight force in its hand, and Nina felt a pressure on her neck, causing her to chatter in fear.

Honghe continued slowly, "Furthermore... it seems that after you obtained the antidote, you haven't even looked at what this so-called antidote actually is. When I just mixed the antidote into the syringe, I discovered that what's in these reagents isn't any kind of medicine at all."

"It's full of tiny fragments of some kind of organism, and the liquid... if I'm not mistaken, it's just ordinary saline solution! In other words, it's not the medicine you're talking about used for viruses at all, but some kind of culture medium for biological cells!"

"I was initially just a little confused, thinking... maybe the cells in this organism just contain natural antibodies, which could be used as an antidote... After all, I've long forgotten my biology, so I could only assume that for now. But, just now when I saw these tentacles... I think I've discovered something incredible..."

As Honghe was speaking, she suddenly felt something rising to her throat. She couldn't suppress the feeling and had to stop talking. She pulled her hand back to cover her mouth and staggered back a few steps.

"What...what's wrong with you? What happened?"

Nina had closed her eyes and was waiting to die, but suddenly she felt the flamingo let go of her hand. She quickly opened her eyes and turned her head to look, only to see the flamingo in this state. She subconsciously asked her a question.

"Ugh... Ugh! Cough cough... Ugh!"