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

As she spoke, Honghe thought for a moment and then added, "Moreover, before Zhou Ke'er returned, I had been observing the surrounding environment, especially the sky, so I can say with certainty that just a few minutes ago, or even more recently, the sky was still a very ordinary dark night."

"Is it because of this candle? I noticed that too. Before I took the candle from them, the surroundings were dark with very low visibility, but after I took it, a red light suddenly shone down. The contrast is quite obvious."

Zhou Ke'er nodded and analyzed in a serious tone (but actually just reading from what she had just seen with her appraisal skill): "Just now, I saw that group of strange people in white robes walking slowly with candles. I guess these candles either serve as some kind of protection, or they are like guiding lights, leading us somewhere. Look around, apart from the sky, is there anything else that is different from before?"

"Even if you're right... the place this candle is guiding us to might not be a good place. We might end up on the Bridge of Helplessness."

Duan Shuiliu couldn't help but blurt out, "I didn't see the group of people you were talking about, but just hearing your description is incredibly strange. You actually dared to take something from their hands? And this thing is trying to guide you to a certain place. Do you really dare to follow this guidance? I think this is terrifying!"

“That’s right, I think so too… Since those people didn’t stop you, they probably won’t do anything to us either. Let’s stick to our original plan and hurry down the mountain. These candles are perfect; they can keep us from the rain and cold, and they also provide light. This gives us a lot more time to move around, and maybe we can get out of this mountain tonight.”

Although the flamingo didn't think that way at all, it could only agree with that.

"Alright, since you all say so, I have no objections."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged. To be honest, this module was incredibly boring and had no appeal to him whatsoever. In fact, he had originally planned to ignore the so-called incongruity and make a scene, but suddenly he felt that... it was more interesting to appreciate the Red Crane's lifeless expression of "I clearly don't want to do this, but I have no choice but to do it."

Interesting characters are always a possibility, but seeing a flamingo like this is a rare occurrence, and it's uncertain if it will ever appear again. Compared to that, Zhou Ke'er felt that enduring the troublesome character setting wasn't such a big deal.

Zhou Ke'er's favorite thing is to build her happiness on the suffering of others.

So Zhou Ke'er just casually mentioned it, and seeing that everyone else objected, she didn't insist on anything further. She just smiled and agreed a few times before following them down the mountain.

Honghe keenly sensed Zhou Ke'er's ill intentions and immediately glared at her with extremely displeased dead fish eyes. However, she couldn't bring herself to say anything sarcastic, as it wouldn't fit her character. She was so angry that she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

The three of them rounded the bend and found the mountain road ahead completely empty. Sure enough, the large group of white-robed figures Zhou Ke'er had just seen were nowhere to be seen. This predictable, formulaic development was utterly unoriginal.

But Zhou Ke'er had hoped for this outcome anyway, so he immediately turned his attention to Honghe and waited to see her reaction.

"???"

Honghe had instinctively wanted to maintain her persona, but suddenly noticed Zhou Ke'er's gaze...

"Are you waiting to see me make a fool of myself???"

Honghe narrowed her eyes and gave Zhou Ke'er that look.

Zhou Ke'er nodded seriously and replied with her eyes, "Pile it up, pile it up."

Honghe looked at Zhou Ke'er, who seemed completely self-righteous and even continued to urge her to perform, remained silent for a few seconds, and then...

He then pulled out the Faceless Man's Face.

"The mission can be lost, but Zhou Ke'er must die!"

Zhou Ke'er reacted instantly. Before the red crane could chase after him, she had already begun to slip away, flying forward with the lightness of a swallow. "Good heavens, are you crazy! We're still in the module! Don't you care about the incongruity?"

"Unnatural my foot! It would be strange if I didn't beat you up!"

Flamingo spoke in a completely flat tone, revealing a sinister intent.

"what..."

All of this happened too fast. Duan Shuiliu didn't even have time to react before Honghe had already chased Zhou Ke'er far away.

"What happened? I... am alone???"

Duan Shuiliu immediately typed out countless question marks, staring blankly at the two figures disappearing around the corner of the mountain road, feeling that his gaming experience was absolutely terrible.

Meanwhile, Zhou Ke'er, using the evil power to enhance her speed, hung a short distance in front of Honghe, making childish faces at her: "Hahaha, didn't expect that, did you? Can't catch me, right? Oh my, you're so amazing, you run so fast, you almost caught me~ I'm so scared!"

Are you still in kindergarten?

Flamingo couldn't help but reveal his classic dead fish eyes, "Having lived with carbon-based life forms for so many years, do you often feel lonely? Does Earth feel like a second home to you?"

"You have the nerve to call me childish? Who's the one chasing me around here trying to play tag? You're probably only at the elementary school level, aren't you?"

Zhou Ke'er nodded at the flamingo for a while, then continued, "But I won't care about such things, after all, flamingos are good friends of humans."

"Oh, by the way, I should tell you something. I feel incredibly out of place."

Honghe suddenly said.

Zhou Ke'er subconsciously stopped and turned around to look at the red crane carefully—and saw that the red crane, or rather the entire space around her, began to blur. Black mist mixed with red light churned around her, as if reflecting a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

Many speculations flashed through Zhou Ke'er's mind in an instant, but she moved quickly and arrived in front of Honghe in a flash, grabbing her right hand with one hand.

Almost simultaneously, the black mist surged over and swallowed the two of them together.

## Chapter 467, Section 462: The River Styx

After a dizzying spin, Zhou Ke'er and Honghe opened their eyes again and found themselves in what looked like a ferry crossing. Around them, some people seemed to be walking slowly, without any consciousness, just aimlessly moving forward in a daze.

The sky was a blood-red mixed with pitch-black hue, reflected in the murky, scarlet river. Countless spirits seemed to be wailing and struggling in the river, their wispy arms reaching out from the surface like withered tree branches, flailing about and grasping at the air.

Boats carried the "people" at the ferry to the other side, but all the "people" on the boats looked dazed and confused, and it was unclear whether they really knew what they were doing.

Occasionally, a hand would suddenly reach out from the river, disrupting the boat's movement. In the midst of the turbulence, someone would accidentally fall into the river and be instantly entangled by countless withered, serpentine arms that rushed up, dragging them deep into the river, where they could never escape.

The others on the same boat seemed completely oblivious to the situation and showed no concern about suffering the same fate; they simply remained as dazed as before.

Occasionally, some people are refused service at the ferry crossing. They don't complain or make a scene; they just walk away in a daze and then walk into the river on their own. The filthy, blood-like water gradually washes over their bodies and eventually drowns them completely.

Seeing this, Honghe instinctively wanted to feign being frightened, but quickly realized—wait a minute, the awkwardness was already too much, what was the point of her pretending! She stopped pretending, she laid her cards on the table, that's it? She wasn't afraid at all, okay?

"Is this some kind of place like the River Styx or the River of Oblivion? A place where the souls of the dead are guided..."

Zhou Ke'er looked around the area for a while before whispering a question to Honghe.

"More or less. Do you remember my character template? It's [Ferryman of the River Styx], so I can roughly sense the aura here. It should indeed be a place like the River Styx, a place of the dead or something."

The flamingo nodded in reply.

At the same time, a system notification sound rang out.

Special mission failed.

[Special mission failure consequences have been triggered]

[Hidden Main Quest: Return to Ancestral Land - Failed]

[Main Quest Triggered: Crossing the River to Rebirth]

"Goodness! See? My initial deduction was completely correct! The system notification made it quite obvious!"

Upon seeing these system notifications, Zhou Ke'er immediately understood what had happened.

"What's so great about figuring out such a clichéd story? Even someone with a brain capacity larger than their head after eating a fly could figure it out in no time, right?"

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, wondering what she was so happy about. "It's just that we're all actually dead; we were just in spirit form before. We were supposed to come here to be reborn, but because our clan has ancestral graves, we were able to choose to go to the ancestral graves to rest, just like all our deceased ancestors. And all those paper figures and old men were just guides leading us to the ancestral graves."

The so-called sense of incongruity is actually some kind of mechanism within the ancestral graves that checks whether the souls entering belong to their clan. Although I don't quite understand how this mechanism works, we were judged as malicious outsiders because our sense of incongruity was at its maximum, and therefore we were kicked out and returned to the River Styx.

"...whispering sound!"

Zhou Ke'er couldn't help but scoff in annoyance. This guy Honghe not only looked down on his reasoning but also stole his lines! He's really a disgrace!

At that moment, he suddenly noticed that the two candles he had been holding had been burned out quickly. The candles, which were originally pure white, were now dripping dark red wax, like blood and tears. The eerie green flames quickly disappeared, leaving Zhou Ke'er with her hands covered in wax.

"evil..."

Zhou Ke'er felt a little nauseous, then naturally reached out to Honghe and wiped her hands on her clothes, trying to clean them.

"...What are you doing? Do you want me to report you for indecent assault?"

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, whose movements were fluid and effortless, showing no sign of guilt or unease, and couldn't help but complain.

No matter how shady she is, she can't possibly remain silent when she sees someone brazenly smearing filth on her!

"I believe it, but anyway, the people there are so nice to talk to. I feel right at home when I'm inside. I love going there. It's just that the guards there are so unfriendly. No matter what I do, they won't let me stay there. They always kick me out after just a few minutes. It's such a shame."

Zhou Ke'er sighed seriously, looking genuinely regretful.

There was nothing Honghe could do about Zhou Ke'er's stubbornness, so he could only go along with her and smear the candle tears on Zhou Ke'er's clothes, just like she did.

"Hey! What are you doing? If we're just smearing it on each other, what's the point? What's the difference between this and exchanging children to eat? In the end, your own children are still eaten! What's the difference between what we're doing and smearing it on yourselves? You should be smearing it on yourselves!"

Zhou Ke'er immediately complained, looking quite self-righteous and shameless.

"Say it again?"

Honghe raised her still-dry hand and waved it at Zhou Ke'er, then gestured towards Zhou Ke'er's face, saying, "Clothes, or face? You choose."

"Please, sir, do not begrudge my clothes. Please use your filthy hands to defile them!"

Zhou Ke'er immediately adopted a look of being ready to die.

"..."

Honghe finally couldn't help but show a hint of disgust—she realized that spending too much time with Zhou Ke'er had caused her poker face to break down several times. She used to claim that her poker face was unchanging, but now it changes every day.

"So, our task now is to cross this river?"

Honghe had no choice but to change the subject, "The situations we'll encounter next are nothing more than these few: either they won't let us board the boat at the ferry, or once we're on the boat, we'll encounter some trouble that might cause us to fall into the river. It's such a simple routine."

"Huh? Aren't you the Ferryman of the Styx yourself? You're in the same line of work, so why are you afraid of this? At worst, we can just steal a boat and sail there ourselves."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged. "Besides... why should we cross the river just because they say so? Wouldn't that be embarrassing? Why should they refuse to carry whoever they want? Shouldn't we just pull those monstrous things from the bottom of the river up and give them a good beating?"

## Chapter 468, 463. An Unforeseen Path?

As she spoke, Zhou Ke'er walked to the bank of the Blood River and stepped into the river with one foot.

The underwater environment was filthy. Just stepping in a little bit, one could feel many slippery and stiff things, like the limbs of a corpse.

There seemed to be a huge suction force coming from nowhere underwater. As soon as I stepped in, my whole body seemed to be forced to be pulled into the river.

But Zhou Ke'er was not so easily pulled in; she just swayed her body and quickly regained her balance.

Seeing that Zhou Ke'er suddenly stopped what she was doing, Honghe immediately went over and said in a perfectly timed voice, "The water is too cold, you can't go in?"

"It's not cold, it's even warm, a bit like soaking in a hot spring."

Zhou Ke'er instantly got the reference to the flamingo and casually replied, "Besides, you actually said that for me, do you want to be my concubine? But I don't have a first wife yet, so you can't be my second wife, and you can't 'throw yourself into the pond' either. After all, I can't possibly hold you up to save your life."

Hearing this, Honghe couldn't help but roll her eyes and urged in a flat tone, "Go ahead and do your thing, stop whining."

"Who said I was going to go down? Watch closely, this is called Jiang Taigong fishing, those who are willing will take the bait."

Zhou Ke'er suddenly lifted her foot, and saw a hand tightly grab her ankle. With her movement, a figure was instantly pulled out of the water and slammed hard onto the ground.

It was entirely blood red—not because it was covered in blood-red sewage, but because its skin seemed to have been completely corroded away, leaving only red and white flesh exposed, which was still oozing blood.

"Good heavens, this is definitely R-rated! How could this possibly pass censorship?"