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

"Yes, that makes sense."

Sand Between Fingers, however, had a good attitude and quickly accepted this situation, casually asking, "How did you find me?"

Zhou Ke'er picked up the unlucky guy who had fainted and threw him through the open door. "It's a bit dangerous to talk outside. Come on in."

After everyone went inside and closed the door, Shi briefly recounted the series of events that had just occurred to Zhijiansha.

Unsurprisingly, Zhijiansha glanced at Zhou Ke'er, who seemed harmless, with a look of surprise, then looked at the fierce-looking man in brocade robes who was shirtless, with a puzzled expression that seemed to say, "Did you say these two people's names backwards?"

Jin Yi was clearly stunned by the gaze of the sand between her fingers, and only then did she belatedly glance at her naked upper body.

As for Shi, who had already sensed that something was wrong, she put on the hospital gown she was holding with the speed of someone who had been single for over twenty years before entering the room, and was now avoiding Jin Yi's gaze, pretending to whistle.

By the way, this guy whistles in a way that sounds exactly like he's going to the toilet.

Zhou Ke'er, on the other hand, never took it off at all.

The atmosphere suddenly became somewhat silent, and the chandelier on the ceiling flickered on and off, creating an eerie atmosphere.

I never expected the women's ward to be so different. It's a single room with a simple chandelier, and what's even more outrageous is that it has a dressing table! Is this even a ward?! That's too much!

On Zhou Ke'er's side, the three of them had to squeeze into a small room with old incandescent light bulbs.

“I think we shouldn’t stay silent any longer. Judging by the time, those security guards should be almost out of danger. Even if they start dealing with the patients who escaped from the upper floor first, we won’t have much time left.”

It was Zhou Ke'er who broke the silence first.

"Hmm... the question now is, what should we do next?"

After a moment's thought, Sand Between Fingers said, "The main mission is to prove that we are not mentally ill, but how we should prove it, and to whom, are things we don't yet know."

"Hmph, based on the series of things this guy just did, I think there's no way he can prove to the hospital that he's not mentally ill."

Jin Yi gestured towards Zhou Ke'er with her lips and couldn't help but complain.

"Hmph, the wisdom of mortals. Don't you understand? Proving to anyone in this hospital that we're not mentally ill is futile!"

Zhou Ke'er snorted and sat down in front of the dressing table. She looked at the simple cosmetics and pondered for a while. "Even in reality, it is almost impossible for a mental patient to take the initiative to prove to a doctor that he is not sick. Let alone in a game, it is absolutely impossible for such a simple and brainless method to succeed."

"Huh? Then tell me, if you don't prove it to the hospital, how else can you prove it?"

Jin Yi was repeatedly retorted by Zhou Ke'er. Even though he wasn't bad-tempered, he couldn't help but ask angrily, "Don't say anything like blowing up the hospital."

"If it can be done, that would be a viable option."

Zhou Ke'er did not refute, but held the powder puff in one hand and turned to look at Jin Yi seriously, saying, "In my opinion, proving that you are not mentally ill, if it were in a game, we could use simple logical reasoning to transform a difficult goal into a relatively easy one."

"Look, if it's a normal person not in a hospital, how can he prove he's not mentally ill? The answer is there's absolutely no need. Nobody says he is, so why should he prove he isn't?"

"Similarly, if we want to prove that we are not mentally ill, we just need to prevent others from proving that we are mentally ill."

As she spoke, Zhou Ke'er pulled the unconscious caregiver over, casually wiped the blood from her face, and then picked up cosmetics to apply to her own face. "So, the method you just mentioned is indeed feasible. If even the hospital is gone, then it's even less likely that we can prove we're mentally ill. At that point, we naturally won't be mentally ill anymore. Hmm... this cosmetic is of such poor quality."

Jin Yi opened her mouth with a pained expression, wanting to refute, but for some reason, she felt that Zhou Ke'er's words made a lot of sense. For a moment, she didn't know what to say, and she felt like she had a rant stuck in her throat.

"So, according to your theory, besides the impractical method of blowing up the hospital, what other easy-to-implement methods are there?"

Zhijiansha glanced at Shi Shi, who was curiously fiddling with the cosmetics, and guessed that he probably wouldn't say anything, so she carefully asked Zhou Ke'er.

"Hmm, there are quite a few methods. I just thought of a few, such as... destroying our files, or changing the discharge review to tomorrow, which is more troublesome, and who knows which one of you might not pass the review. Hmm... there is also the simplest and most brutal one, burning down the archives room, or if it is an electronic file, destroying the hard drive."

Zhou Ke'er stopped what she was doing, looked at herself in the mirror, and had a dissatisfied expression.

"Hmm... these methods do work. However, I'm still thinking..."

Sand between Fingers paused for a moment, seemingly pondering something, "What if, I mean, what if, the condition for completing this task isn't what we just discussed, but rather that other people, like doctors, must willingly acknowledge that we are normal people? What then?"

Jin Yi glanced at Zhijiansha, who was looking very serious, and then at Zhou Ke'er, who was still applying makeup to her face. A sense of absurdity welled up in her heart: No matter how you look at it, these two don't seem to be on the same wavelength. Why do they seem to be seriously discussing a problem?

"That's not unsolvable."

Zhou Ke'er stopped what she was doing, tilted her head and thought for a moment, then quickly replied, "Then we'll kidnap a doctor and use threats and inducements. Anyway, in that kind of situation, as long as the other party has the certainty that 'these people are not mentally ill,' that should be enough."

"You know, when a person is between life and death, nothing is off-limits. But... even that's not enough, so let's try hypnosis. As a proud psychiatrist, I have a rudimentary understanding of hypnosis techniques."

Zhou Ke'er turned her head, put down the cosmetics in her hand, and looked at the others seriously, saying, "Moreover... I thought of a possible solution before, and I'm trying it now."

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6. Detective Zhou Ke'er

"Hahahaha, what are those lumps on your face?!"

As soon as Shi turned her head and saw Zhou Ke'er's face, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Indeed, at first glance, Zhou Ke'er does look somewhat similar to the caregiver who fainted, but if you look at her for a while longer, you'll notice the stiff, strange-looking patches of makeup on her face.

"There was nothing I could do. Time was just too tight. I was in such a rush that I didn't notice the powder was caked up. By the time the problem appeared, it was too late to fix it."

Zhou Ke'er nodded helplessly, her expression tense, trying her best to maintain a poker face.

According to unscientific research, people are less likely to suspect that someone with facial paralysis has a problem, even if their makeup is really bad.

"Um, what was that method you just mentioned?"

Zhijiansha looked at Zhou Ke'er's face with surprise for a few seconds, but quickly returned to normal.

"This is it."

Zhou Ke'er pointed to her face, "The main subject of the mission is 'me,' right? That means it doesn't matter what my identity is, as long as 'I' can prove it, right? So, now that I'm pretending to be someone else who has been 'recognized' as a normal person, then the others will naturally think that 'I' am a normal person."

"Then the mission is complete."

Zhou Ke'er thought for a moment, then looked at the dumbfounded Jin Yi group and added, "However, this may not necessarily succeed, after all, it's playing word games. It's always the game that plays word games with us, not the other way around. The success rate of this method is probably not high."

"However... I don't think anyone who saw your face would consider you a normal person!"

Jin Yi continued to fulfill his role as a part-time comedian.

"There's nothing we can do about it."

Zhou Ke'er squatted down, took off the poor caregiver's coat, put it on herself, and casually felt the coat pocket. "Wow, sure enough, the caregiver had a mask in his pocket."

"Um...right, put the hospital gown I took off on her and tie her hands up too."

After putting on a mask and thinking for a moment, Zhou Ke'er tossed her hospital gown to Zhijiansha.

"You...don't you need to cover yourself up when you change clothes?"

Even the quick-witted Zhijiansha couldn't help but ask curiously, but at the same time, she didn't hesitate and instead painstakingly put the hospital gown on the caregiver.

"There's no need to cover up since you're not completely naked. Besides, you can't be completely naked in this game anyway."

Zhou Ke'er replied nonchalantly.

Soon after, with the help of Jin Yi and Shi Shi, the caregiver was changed into a hospital gown, and her hands were tightly bound.

"Is this all there is to it? Should we gag you or something?"

The sand between his fingers thought for a moment and then asked.

"Whatever. But anyway... logically speaking, now that she's changed into this outfit, even if she runs into someone else, no matter what she says, unless it's someone she knows, no one will believe her."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged and pushed open the door. "If you want to be on the safe side, you can gag me. Hurry up, we've been here a bit too long. Luckily, there aren't any security cameras in this room. I guess it's typical of a women's ward..."

Where are we going now?

The group quickly followed.

"The second and third floors are wards for special patients, while the fourth and fifth floors are for general patients. So, the remaining floors are the first floor, the sixth floor, and the rooftop. The archives are most likely on the sixth floor, and the first floor should be the doctors' outpatient clinic."

As Zhou Ke'er walked towards the stairs, she quickly analyzed, "Burning down the archives should be a last resort. Let's go to the first floor and take a look first."

The others didn't have any other ideas for the time being, so they simply followed Zhou Ke'er's lead.

The group quickly made their way downstairs in the dark and arrived at the first floor. The stairwell exit was another corridor, and in the dim light, they could barely make out that the end of the corridor should be the hospital lobby.

The group cautiously observed their surroundings as they walked forward.

"Stop! There's someone in this room."

After walking for a while, Zhou Ke'er suddenly frowned, reached out to stop the others, pointed to the door next to her, and whispered.

How did you figure that out?

Unable to contain her curiosity, Ms. Shi asked in a low voice.

Upon hearing the question, Zhou Ke'er immediately became interested. She casually pulled down her mask, slowly looked around, nodded, and quickly replied, "It's too obvious. If you look closely, you'll see water stains left on the doorknob. It's clearly left not long ago."

"And look at the ground, there are wet shoe prints that stretch from a distance to here."

At this point, Zhou Ke'er squatted down and touched the floor. "Hmm, it's still wet."

"Also, if you observe carefully enough, you will notice that the brightness at the bottom gap of this door is slightly different from the brightness of the corridor, which means that the light is on inside the door."

After hearing Zhou Ke'er's words, everyone was stunned, especially Jin Yi. He had originally thought Zhou Ke'er was just a crazy idiot, but it turned out she had some skills.

"Of course, the most important evidence that finally confirmed my hypothesis was..."

Zhou Ke'er narrowed her eyes with satisfaction at the shocked looks on everyone's faces. "When I walked over along the wall just now, I heard a voice inside saying 'The first Crown Casino is officially online!' This confirms my guess."

"..."

Jin Yi instantly felt ashamed of herself for having admired Zhou Ke'er for a moment.

"Wow! Is this the legendary deductive skill of 'knowing the result and deducing clues'?!"

Ms. Shi covered her mouth and exclaimed in a low voice.

"What I'm more concerned about is... are you sure you didn't hear me wrong?"

Jin Yi finally couldn't hold back any longer and asked in a low voice with a pained expression, "I remember this game doesn't contain any adult content!"

"What do you mean?"

Zhijiansha couldn't understand Jinyi's words and asked in confusion, "Why is that sentence considered 18+? Is there something wrong with it?"

"He means that gambling should be prohibited for minors."

Zhou Ke'er glanced at Jin Yi, who looked embarrassed and didn't know what to say, and sighed as she tried to smooth things over.

"Oh..."

Although Zhijiansha was still very suspicious, she ultimately did not continue to ask. After all, this was not a suitable occasion for doing such trivial things, and Zhijiansha never wanted to cause trouble for others.

"Yes, that's what I meant. Uh, well, it's so late now, why are there still doctors on duty?"

Jin Yi quickly followed up on Zhou Ke'er's words, awkwardly changing the subject, and asked Zhou Ke'er, "What time is it now?"