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

The old man answered naturally.

"That doesn't make sense, does it? If there's no signal when it's raining, how come our elders called you before it started raining, saying it was going to rain, and we weren't even passing by here yet... Do they know how to tell fortunes?"

Zhou Ke'er also asked with a very innocent expression.

The old man fell silent for a moment.

The atmosphere suddenly fell silent.

## Chapter 462, Section 457: Strange Tales of a Deserted Village (Part 4)

"Perhaps there was still a signal when it first started raining."

The old man remained silent for a while before slowly replying in a hoarse voice.

Clearly, the answer was completely half-hearted. They couldn't even be bothered to come up with a more convincing excuse.

"..."

Zhou Ke'er wrinkled her nose slightly.

He didn't know if he was being too sensitive or what, but he felt that the earthy smell in the house was getting stronger and stronger.

A cold, damp, earthy smell lingered in the air, as if something was decaying.

Zhou Ke'er suddenly changed her mind.

A dark aura secretly gathered in his right eye, and a faint "壹" character silently appeared.

Oh? There's no eerie aura at all. Zhou Ke'er's vision was filled with gray and white, without any dark patches of color.

Before others could notice the unusual appearance in Zhou Ke'er's eyes, thus increasing her sense of "discomfort," Zhou Ke'er returned to normal.

This was a small test.

As expected, although Zhou Ke'er did this, if she wasn't discovered... the sense of incongruity wouldn't increase.

Behaviors that violate a persona must be "observed" to increase the sense of incongruity.

In addition to that, there's one more thing...

"Grandpa, did you know? Don't let my appearance fool you; I may just seem like an ordinary college graduate, but actually... I've been studying divination since I was little. For example... in five or six seconds, a small accident might happen in this room—"

Zhou Ke'er's lips curled up slightly, and suddenly, without warning, she started talking nonsense: "For example, a bowl that wasn't placed properly might fall off the edge of the table..."

As soon as Zhou Ke'er finished speaking, an empty bowl placed next to the stove suddenly and inexplicably fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.

—Of course, it was Zhou Ke'er who secretly condensed a small amount of evil energy and launched it out, knocking the bowl down.

"It...it was actually predicted! Is this even possible?"

Duan Shuiliu's expression of surprise was genuine—why are everyone else's characters so ordinary, yet you managed to claim to be the prophet? Be careful, you might get stabbed tonight!

“That’s right… my predictions are usually very accurate. And… I also have a feeling that if we stay here any longer, something bad might happen. It’s dangerous here, old man!”

Zhou Ke'er looked serious and continued speaking earnestly.

—This again confirms Zhou Ke'er's guess; the sense of incongruity...still hasn't increased.

That's right, he didn't violate any of the established personas. He didn't act any differently from any of the personas provided by the system. He simply added another persona for himself on top of that.

Can adding scenes be considered out of place? As for the actors... adding scenes doesn't necessarily feel out of place!

The old man bent down, examined the broken bowl on the ground for a while, then stood up shakily, walked to the side, picked up a broom and dustpan, and began to sweep up the broken pieces, but did not say anything.

Tsk, it's really unpleasant that this old man hasn't said a word. How can they act opposite each other if they don't talk?

Zhou Ke'er narrowed her eyes, preparing to make a "prediction" on the spot, saying that this old man would soon encounter a bloody disaster, and see if he would still say anything then.

Just then, Zhou Ke'er suddenly noticed that the character information provided to him on the system task interface had been changed—the setting he had just added to himself had been added.

Goodness, this should be considered some kind of additional measure? After all... adding a character setting doesn't grant corresponding abilities. If a player adds a seemingly awesome character setting to deceive others, but then can't perform it in subsequent situations because they lack the corresponding abilities... then the sense of incongruity will increase dramatically.

In the end, he just laughed and typed "gg," which can be described as shooting himself in the foot.

"Sir... I apologize for being so forward, but do you have a corpse buried in your home? I worked at a funeral home for a while, so I'm very familiar with this smell and feeling... It even smells a bit like being in a cemetery..."

Honghe hid behind Zhou Ke'er, her face showing a look of fear and terror, and then said these sensational words with great seriousness.

Clearly, Zhou Ke'er knew immediately that Hong He was making up the whole "working and studying at the funeral home" story. It was only after hearing Zhou Ke'er's rambling that Hong He suddenly realized what she was doing and immediately tried it himself.

However... since Honghe speaks with such certainty, then at least this feeling should be fairly accurate. If it's complete nonsense, then there's absolutely no need to try it.

"???!"

Duan Shuiliu, on the other hand, genuinely had no idea where Zhou Ke'er and Honghe got such rich backgrounds and resumes. He couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the two of them as they began their performance, wondering if he had overlooked his own persona.

As soon as Honghe finished speaking, the old man suddenly stopped moving, then stiffly turned his head and stared straight at Honghe behind Zhou Ke'er.

"I think we have pretty much a reason to run away given this situation."

Zhou Ke'er said in a serious tone, then noticed that her sense of incongruity jumped up a little.

Well, after all, Zhou Ke'er deliberately said those OOC (Note: Super Game, meaning exceeding the character setting) words.

"Wait...look! The surrounding environment here is suddenly changing!"

Duan Shuiliu suddenly shouted, then quickly reached out and patted his clothes. For some reason, bits of dirt, seemingly from nowhere, suddenly fell from his clothes, pattering and splashing onto his still-soaked clothes.

"Is it leaking upstairs? Wait a minute..."

Zhou Ke'er looked up and noticed that the wooden roof was starting to become faintly transparent, and even began to... "shake"?

Zhou Ke'er blinked, then looked again, only to see... no roof at all, just a few lush locust trees? Raindrops pattered on the leaves, some dripping through the leaves and falling onto Zhou Ke'er and the other two.

No wonder, when they entered the house, they felt their clothes were very wet, and they kept getting wetter... but for some reason they didn't feel any raindrops falling on them.

Then, under pressure from her character, Honghe reluctantly let out a small scream to appease the situation, before pointing ahead with a terrified expression: "Look... that old man is gone! Where are we? We were just in the house, and this is... this is clearly on a grave!"

"..."

Zhou Ke'er glanced at the few broken bowls that were originally placed in front of the tomb. Just then, one of them fell off the tomb platform and broke into several pieces, which were soaked in the soil by the rain.

Clearly, what they had just experienced wasn't entirely fake.

But for Zhou Ke'er, it was just a piece of cake; he wouldn't lose his sanity.

## Chapter 463, Section 458: Strange Tales of a Deserted Village (Part 5)

Looking around, they found that this was not a small village at all, but rather several graves that looked dilapidated.

But it doesn't look like they just dug up a mound of earth and that was it. These graves are quite formal in style, and even larger in scale than those in a proper cemetery.

"..."

Zhou Ke'er frowned slightly, but quickly relaxed again. "I understand. If my guess is correct, this mountain is actually a cemetery. The county at the foot of the mountain... which is where we were born, probably has people buried here, maybe even our ancestral graves are here."

That explains it. Seeing we couldn't get up, paper figures materialized into human form and drove us up. We were just suddenly discovered and kicked off the vehicle. Furthermore, the paper figures that appeared later only slowly approached and didn't do anything to us. They just looked eerie and unsettling; maybe they were just trying to give us a ride.

Besides, those old men didn't do anything to harm us; they even took us in—though it was ultimately useless. If they wanted to harm us, they should have attacked us long ago after we exposed their lies, shouldn't they?

"What makes you so sure that's how it is? Such a bizarre situation, what normal person would think it's like you're describing?"

Duan Shuiliu couldn't help but raise objections immediately. No matter what, this reasoning was too strange—the paper figures came to see someone off? Could someone who wasn't mentally challenged say something like that?

"I'm not sure, this is just normal reasoning and speculation. When all other possibilities are ruled out, the only remaining possibility, no matter how impossible it seems, is the final truth."

Zhou Ke'er said casually, and before Duan Shuiliu could refute her, she continued on her own, finally revealing her intention: "I didn't expect you to believe this inference right away. After all, it's just my guess, lacking empirical evidence... But it's simple, we'll find out by verifying it. The paper figures should be here soon, I'll go and wave them around now and see what happens."

A moment of silence fell, broken only by the patter of rain.

Good, the sense of incongruity hasn't increased—because it hasn't deviated from Zhou Ke'er's character setting of being "obsessed with deduction." After all, not everyone is an armchair detective waiting for others to deliver clues to their door; verifying one's own conjectures is part of the deduction process, right? In addition, Zhou Ke'er's "character setting" doesn't include being timid or afraid of ghosts or monsters, so her current behavior isn't exactly a subversion of her personality.

"Are you...are you sure you want to do this? This is very dangerous...those paper figures look eerie and dangerous!"

Honghe grabbed Zhou Ke'er's sleeve, then said with a look of fear and worry—but her eyes betrayed her, the gleam in those dead fish eyes clearly indicating her true meaning: "Hurry up, why are you only telling me about something this interesting now? Stop dawdling, go on!"

If it weren't for the limitations of her character, Honghe would either be eating sunflower seeds right now or rushing ahead even faster than Zhou Ke'er.

"Don't worry, even if my guess is wrong, and those paper figures are actually hostile to us... judging from their speed, I just need to run away, and they won't be able to catch me. It won't be too dangerous."

Zhou Ke'er pulled Honghe's hand away, gave a casual explanation to appease the game system, and then bravely headed back in the direction she had come from.

But when he turned the corner at the village entrance and looked down at the road—there was no trace of the paper figures. There was nothing at all.

Seeing this, Zhou Ke'er immediately waved to Hong He and Duan Shuiliu, signaling them to come over quickly.

"Those paper figures suddenly all disappeared..."

Zhou Ke'er pointed to the deserted mountain path ahead and said to the other two who were rushing over.

"What's going on? This is terrifying!"

Honghe continued to forcefully portray her character and read aloud in a monotone voice.

"I don't know, but... since there are no pursuers behind us now, why don't we just go down the mountain?"

Zhou Ke'er tilted her head and thought for a moment, then suggested—actually, he wanted to continue going up, since he wasn't afraid, but the main thing was that any normal person would definitely run away when they saw this situation.

"Isn't that obvious! The paper figures are all gone, what are we still doing here? There's something really strange up there, surely no one actually wants to go up?"

Duan Shuiliu immediately agreed to Zhou Ke'er's suggestion, but there was still a hint of helplessness in his eyes—of course, this module has only just begun, how could it be so easy for players to run down the mountain? Either they'll find themselves unable to go down halfway and have to go back up, or the same event will trigger on the way down...

But having to play a certain role inevitably means doing some silly things, which is unavoidable.

"Yes, yes, let's go quickly! This place is too scary!"

Honghe continued to play the victim—but Zhou Ke'er guessed she was getting so frustrated with herself that she was about to explode.

Zhou Ke'er nodded, and then quickly led the way.

At the same time, his sense of incongruity suddenly increased slightly, but this was within Zhou Ke'er's expectations. After all, he had a persona of "getting to the bottom of the truth," and trying to run away without knowing the truth would definitely contradict that persona. However, it wasn't a completely drastic problem, so it only added a slight sense of incongruity.

Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder, but even after the thunder subsided, the rumbling continued...

Not far ahead, on the mountain path, the already precarious soil and gravel on one side of the mountain wall suddenly began to collapse and roll down without warning. Under the scouring of the rain, it surged towards the mountain path like a tide.

Within seconds, the sloping mud and gravel had already covered the entire mountain road, completely blocking Zhou Ke'er and the others' way back.

Good grief, instead of creating any supernatural elements, they're just using physical means to stop them from going down?

"Ahhh!"

As usual, the flamingo stared blankly with lifeless eyes and gave a perfunctory scream.