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

Ruomu cautiously said, "I don't understand either..."

"Hey, don't reveal the answer so quickly. That's no fun at all. You need to use your own brain to think more. I'm afraid if you keep going like this, you'll really just become a mascot."

Zhou Ke'er gave a very smug look and shrugged, refusing to answer the question about the cold-cooked rabbit.

Cold-cooked Rabbit was half-annoyed: "What?! Isn't being a mascot enough for me?! If I need to use my own brain to think, what am I needed you for?"

Zhijiansha was shocked—when did this cold-cooked rabbit become so despicable? Before, it was just a simple, slightly silly person with a touch of despicableness, but now it's obviously despicable! It's true that you become like those you associate with; spending too much time with Zhou Ke'er will turn you into this.

Fortunately, she remained true to herself and was not infected by Zhou Ke'er's memes.

(Zhou Ke'er: You're talking nonsense!)

Zhou Ke'er earnestly advised, "To be honest, the decryption of this module is far too easy, so easy that I'm starting to doubt whether it matches the difficulty of this module. If you can't even deduce this... then aren't you just a complete lone wolf?"

Cold-cooked Rabbit was horrified: "What? You still think I'm not just a complete lone wolf? You actually have such high expectations of me? No, no, I'm just a brainless mascot, all you have to do is give me the answers!"

"???" Zhijiansha's pupils were practically trembling. This was truly an eye-opener. It was the first time he had ever seen anyone other than Zhou Ke'er say something like that. Cold-cooked Rabbit had really started to flaunt its wealth in every way.

"boom"

Xiao Mo had no intention of listening to Zhou Ke'er and Lengchitu's meaningless nonsense any longer. He had already walked to the door and forcefully pulled open the hidden door.

As the hidden door was pulled open, a figure crashed straight in.

Fortunately, Xiao Mo reacted quickly and immediately let go of her hand and took several steps back.

With a muffled thud, the figure crashed heavily to the ground, kicking up a few specks of dust.

Everyone looked closely—oh my god, wasn't that Mu Mu who had been left outside just now?!

She looked as if she had just been taken out of a freezer; her entire body was covered in a thick layer of frost, her body was incredibly stiff, and her eyes were wide open in terror, as if she had seen something horrible.

Good grief, to be honest, they'd only been in this room for less than ten minutes, and she'd already died? That's a bit too fast, isn't it?

Zhou Ke'er stepped forward, squatted down, and poked the frozen body with her burning left hand. The flames quickly spread to her body, melting away the frost covering it.

"Oh no, we're doomed."

Zhou Ke'er blinked – this frost wasn't working properly; it couldn't even hold its own against the flames like the frost on his hand. If this continued, the guy in front of her would definitely get burned.

"thump"

Just then, another voice came from outside the hidden door.

Zhong Ming, his teeth chattering and his body trembling, slowly climbed up from the hole in the ground. Gasping for breath, he said, "Don't even think about it, that girl's beyond saving. Didn't you notice the countdown above her head has reached zero?"

Upon hearing this, Xiao Mo and Ruomu, who had just been startled, realized what had happened.

What happened outside just now?

After calming down, Xiao Mo immediately asked.

"At least let me in first, otherwise I'll freeze to death outside."

As Zhong Ming spoke, he slowly staggered into the room, took a breath, and replied, "Actually, I don't know much about what happened. As you all saw, I fell directly down that hole, but luckily I didn't die instantly."

When I regained consciousness and looked around, I discovered a hidden mechanism. Triggering it revealed a ladder to climb along the side of the hollow wall, so I started climbing. Just as I finally reached the top, I heard a scream...

Moreover, the screams were clearly audible from a single person, accompanied by heavy footsteps—sounds that couldn't possibly come from any of us. I quickly deduced that one of you had been separated from the group and encountered the monster, and happened to be in this spot… So naturally, I waited there, not showing myself, until everything had calmed down before peeking out and finding that the guy was beyond saving. Then I saw the wall suddenly push open, and I instinctively scrambled back into the hole, only to discover it was you all.”

After explaining all that, Zhong Ming finally breathed a sigh of relief and casually said, "This room seems much warmer than outside. I feel my body gradually warming up."

"Have monsters appeared outside again?"

Sand between her fingers mused, "It could be her own doing..."

As for the fact that the temperature inside the room was higher than outside, Zhijiansha and the others were not surprised at all. After all, Zhijiansha had made such a request when she "predicted" that she would find this room.

Even so, Zhou Ke'er felt that something was amiss. Unfortunately, she didn't have any other sufficient clues to explain it at the moment, so she had to leave it at that for the time being.

However, although the temperature in the room was not low, it still couldn't stop the countdown above everyone's heads; it only slowed down the rate at which it started to decrease.

"It seems we still have to keep moving forward. Staying here will only prolong our death, not save us. What do you all think?"

Ruomu offered his suggestion.

Xiao Mo pondered for a while. Having figured out the operating logic of this strange place, he seemed to have some doubts about the suggestion, but he couldn't think of any alternative method for the time being, so he could only do it this way for now.

After all, this "operating logic" seems to have its limits. When the Sands of the Finger made the "prophecy," it stipulated that this room could provide "heating and rest," but it seems that neither of these can prolong the countdown.

"Don't be in such a hurry! I mean... maybe there are some good things hidden here that could help us live a little longer?"

Just then, Zhijiansha suddenly spoke again and casually rummaged through the cabinet.

Soon enough, she actually found some things.

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818. The Strange Castle (Part 10)

"Look everyone, what is this?"

Finger Sand took something out of the cabinet and examined it: "It looks like a box of pills or something? There are no instructions on it."

As she spoke, she opened the small box and poured out exactly the same number of pills as the number of people present.

"Want some?"

Zhijiansha raised her head and looked at Honghe and Zhou Ke'er for their opinions.

Zhou Ke'er shrugged: "It's up to you. I can't guarantee anything."

Although, according to Zhou Ke'er's guess, the pill should be completely ineffective—who knows if we don't try?

"Ok."

Without much hesitation, he grabbed a piece of sand and popped it into his mouth.

Soon, Ruomu asked hopefully, "How do you feel? Is it working?"

A slight blush appeared on the cheeks of the girl with her fingers glistening with sand, and even a little heat began to emanate from her body. The countdown above her head quickly stopped, and after a while, it even began to slowly increase.

"call…"

She exhaled a puff of hot air from between her fingers, the warm white steam condensing from her mouth drifting out: "Looks like it's working. But I can't see the countdown above my head—has anything changed?"

Xiao Mo squinted and answered succinctly, "It's changed, it's started to increase."

"Oh? Then it's over?"

Sand Between Fingers blinked, seemingly a little dizzy from the heat: "Now the death countdown is over. So what do we do next? How do we end this module? The main quest just seems to be about surviving."

"Wait a minute, something doesn't seem right with you right now."

The flamingo frowned almost imperceptibly, quickly walked to the sand between her fingers, and just as she reached out her hand, before getting very close, she instinctively pulled it back: "The temperature is too high... What's going on?"

Ruomu was horrified: "This medicine is problematic! Is this a side effect? ​​I'm going to either freeze to death or burn to death... Is it all over?!"

"No, if this drug is harmful, then why is the countdown above her head still increasing? If she is now approaching death, the countdown should be decreasing rapidly."

Xiao Mo offered a different opinion: "Perhaps it's because the temperature here is just too low, so she has to maintain this state to survive. Besides, her mental state doesn't seem to have any major problems, does it?"

Zhou Ke'er stroked her chin, deep in thought. Logically speaking, this shouldn't be happening.

In fact, he had suspected this module a long time ago. Considering the opening CG, many people might have overlooked this point, or even subconsciously thought it was just an insignificant introduction, but Zhou Ke'er felt that the current situation might be closely related to that scene.

Because this is a mod, most people will assume that it's perfectly normal for a castle to appear in the snowy mountains—it's just part of the "setting." And when the castle suddenly starts to cool down, everyone thinks it's only natural; after all, the main quest is for everyone to survive, so having a "setting" that causes player death is perfectly normal.

But upon closer reflection, something still didn't seem quite right. Especially the state that everyone subsequently discovered, which resembled "words becoming law."

Zhou Ke'er once watched an old-fashioned film called "Tales of the Unusual," in which there was an episode about a group of people who died in a snow mountain. If you apply the reasons from that film to this module, then everything makes perfect sense!

The reason why the castle keeps cooling down and the flames have no heat at all is because—this is not a castle at all. The castle doesn't exist, and the flames don't exist either! The group is currently in that icy and snowy place, and due to the extreme cold, they have begun to be in a state of collective delusion.

It is precisely because everyone's minds are in a trance that they collectively construct this place where "words become law." Others describe the "predicted future," which "appears" directly in the trance-filled minds of those who hear these descriptions, allowing everyone to "see" it and "construct" it as if it were real.

This is the truth behind "predicting the future"!

This explains everything. The castle and the flames don't exist in reality, which is why everyone felt so cold. The reason Zhijiansha's body is suddenly warming up might be because she "predicted" the pill, causing her brain to deceive itself, or it could be because... people who freeze to death experience "abnormal undressing" before death—in short, a feeling of warmth returning to the body, a false sense of lucidity before death. It's a pity that no one witnessed Mumu's death; otherwise, they could have determined whether there was any warming of the body before death.

I see. If we go through all the clues like this, everything will become completely clear.

However, those who are now trapped in the illusion obviously cannot, and should not, easily escape this collective delusion simply by "realizing" that they may be hallucinating.

In other words, an "anchor point" is needed to dispel illusions.

This "anchor point" was clearly shown in the opening sequence.

That's the camp where everyone "died".

Besides, realizing that one is not actually in the castle, but merely walking in the snow, although one cannot yet shake off the "illusion" one is seeing, but...

Zhou Ke'er suddenly reached out her hand towards the wall.

Sure enough, without touching anything at all, the hand simply passed straight through—through the air.

Honghe looked up at Zhou Ke'er's unexpected action, her pupils contracted almost imperceptibly, and after thinking carefully for a moment, she quickly understood the actual situation.

Zhou Ke'er and Honghe exchanged a glance and then nodded.

Just then, Cold-Eat Rabbit forcefully interjected, its eyes wide: "What's going on?! This atmosphere where only I'm clueless? It's like you all know some earth-shattering secret, and I'm the only one kept in the dark! Isn't it bad to be the riddle teller?!"

Zhou Ke'er looked at the cold-cooked rabbit with pity, reached out and patted her head, sincerely hoping that it wasn't just empty or a mess: "That's right, although you still don't understand what's going on, it's completely reasonable. But you're still so stupid."

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819. The Strange Castle (The End)

"Of course I know I'm stupid! So doesn't this just show that you guys act like you already know the truth, but you've kept me in the dark? How outrageous is that!"

Cold-cooked Rabbit put her hands on her hips and said righteously, "I'm not smart anymore, why are you still hiding this from me?"

"You know you're not smart, so why don't you use your brain more and make yourself a little smarter!"

Zhou Ke'er pinched Leng Chi Tu's cheek again, pulled it outward forcefully, and then let go.

Cold-cooked Rabbit was slapped hard across the face and couldn't help but cry out in pain. Covering its face with its hands, it said aggrievedly, "Hey! That was too hard! Besides, I may not be smart, but I have you guys here, right? You can just think for yourselves, can't you?"

Although Zhijiansha was still sweating and feeling a little dizzy, she instinctively felt that if things continued like this, this place might turn into a deathmatch arena. So she quickly jumped out and stood between Zhou Ke'er and the others: "Don't make noise! ​​Is this a time to waste? Let's decide what we're going to do next."

"Ah, about that. We've already made up our minds."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged. "Even someone as stupid as A-Tu figured it out, how come you haven't? Have you really lost your mind?"