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

After all, the tree branches around the car were quite high, so even if someone was really daring enough to try and shake the car off, it was impossible.

As for waiting for the car to fall off on its own... Zhou Ke'er was just trying to scare them; ignore what she said. Anyone who takes it seriously is a fool (beep—)

So, with Honghe supporting Zhijiansha, Fran bringing up the rear, and Zhou Ke'er leading the way, the phone that provided the light had long since been returned to Zhou Ke'er.

Honghe and Fran were not carrying anything else, not even a cell phone. Zhijiansha did have a cell phone, but the screen was almost completely broken, leaving it with only similar functions to Zhou Ke'er's phone. So, they put it away for now and used it when Zhou Ke'er's phone ran out of battery.

The atmosphere was completely silent; apart from the sounds of breathing and footsteps, there was almost no other noise. The decaying branches were inadvertently crushed by the group, making a soft "crackling" sound.

The atmosphere was strangely heavy; no one spoke, only their breathing grew increasingly rapid. It made one feel uneasy.

What is terrifying is not only the boundless darkness, but also the endless silence.

"I don't want to be with a murderer! Let's split up! Huh? What's that sound over there? I have to go check it out! After I finish this, I'm going back to my hometown to get married! Don't worry, everyone, I'll definitely come back alive! I have nothing to be afraid of anymore!"

Just then, Zhou Ke'er suddenly shouted loudly, breaking the silence and startling several roosting crows into taking flight, emitting hoarse cries.

"..."

The highly adaptable Finger Sand had already shown no surprise at Zhou Ke'er's sudden lapse in judgment, and didn't even show any expression of astonishment.

Seeing that no one responded to him, Zhou Ke'er felt a little awkward, so she changed the subject and said, "By the way, do you guys really think that so-called emergency number is useful? Generally speaking, in horror movies like this, cell phones and landlines are the most useless things. They're either out of power, have no signal, or are just broken."

I bet... even if we find that thing later, either the call won't go through, or some weird thing will answer it, or the phone will be broken or gone.

"No way... If the main quest has made us do this, there must be a follow-up."

Flamingo and Sands didn't say anything, but Fran responded quickly.

"Yes, there will definitely be follow-up, but even after finding the phone number and discovering it's unusable, there will still be follow-up."

Zhou Ke'er shrugged.

"Well..."

Honghe then spoke up: "Instead of thinking about these useless things, we should find out where the road is. We clearly fell off the outside of the road, right? Why can't we see any trace of the road when we look inward from here? The mission prompt also said that the phone is on the road."

“That’s true. Not only that… I have a feeling we’ve been here many times before.”

Fingers frowned, looked around, and said, "Although it might be a misunderstanding caused by the darkness, I do feel like we're going in circles."

The atmosphere suddenly became somewhat tense. The pale light from the phone illuminated the rugged dirt road, and everything looked strangely familiar.

Sharp pebbles, bits of mud, withered branches scattered all over the ground, and dry leaves everywhere—it was a desolate scene no matter where you looked. Indeed, it felt like the scenery hadn't changed much along the way.

"Although I have that feeling too, it shouldn't be like that."

Just then, the flamingo shook its head and retorted, "As I walked here, I carved fairly obvious marks on the nearby trees with pebbles. If we had gone in circles and returned to the starting point, I would definitely have noticed the marks I left behind, but I didn't."

"Is it possible that the light was too dim and you couldn't see it clearly?"

Fran asked in a low voice, his voice lacking confidence.

"How is that possible?"

Before Honghe could answer, Zhou Ke'er retorted without turning her head: "If we go back to the original path, then the tree that was originally next to Honghe should still be next to her, which is like marking the boat to find the sword."

As long as the location of the record remains the same, it's impossible for someone to miss it if they circle back. If there were only one mark, that might be possible, but the flamingo carved a trail along its entire length.

"Marking the boat to find the sword? What is that?"

Although Fran understood what Zhou Ke'er meant, he didn't know where the idiom came from.

"...When you have time, go and read more ancient books from the old era. That way, when you try to show off, others will be amazed."

Zhou Ke'er was silent for two seconds, then earnestly advised.

Shh... there's a sound.

"Sand between Fingers," she suddenly said without warning.

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately stopped talking, paused in their tracks, and listened intently.

But all was silent.

Only the sound of everyone breathing could be heard.

What sound is that?

After a while, the flamingo whispered to the sand between its fingers.

"Someone is calling my name... Can't you hear me? It's getting louder!"

Finger Sand looked at the flamingo in confusion, then covered her head, knelt down, and cried out in pain, "What...is this? Wait, I think I see...it's the same scene from the beginning, white light! Someone, I see someone coming...I think I'm lying somewhere?"

"Are you OK?"

Fran couldn't help but step forward, keeping a respectful distance, and asked in a low voice.

Do you think this looks like nothing's wrong?

Zhou Ke'er rolled her eyes. She always thought that asking someone "Are you okay?" was the stupidest thing to do.

Can't you tell if someone is okay or not? Asking this kind of question means you already know they're definitely having an issue. What kind of answer do you expect them to give? Do you really want to hear them reluctantly say "I'm fine" to comfort yourself? Is that addictive?

It's all just to alleviate the guilt of feeling powerless, but it's actually useless. It's even worse than escapism, just self-gratification.

The sense of powerlessness that welled up within him whenever he heard those words always reminded him of what happened six months ago.

"call..."

Zhou Ke'er let out a long breath, shook her head, and put those distracting thoughts behind her.

"Huff, huff..."

Sand between Fingers seemed to snap out of her reverie, her forehead beaded with sweat, and she was breathing heavily.

Thankfully, no phone calls came in, otherwise she would have had to tell the other party that she was running.

------------

89. Who Died? (Part 3)

"Wait, everyone! There are lights ahead! It might be a streetlamp or some kind of building. Let's hurry over there!"

Just then, Fran, who had somehow gone ahead to scout the situation and was otherwise completely unnoticed, suddenly spoke up.

"light?"

Upon hearing this, Honghe turned her head and looked in the direction Fran was pointing. Zhou Ke'er also cooperated by shining the light from her phone in that direction.

"No? Did you see it?"

Honghe tilted her head and asked Zhou Ke'er and Zhijiansha in a flat, declarative tone.

"No, I didn't see it either."

Zhou Ke'er shook her head.

As for the sand between his fingers, he was still panting and didn't even look over there.

"Oh no, it's like this, actually I found out through the title skill."

Fran was taken aback when he heard this, and then quickly explained.

Hearing this, Zhou Ke'er looked at Fran with surprise. She didn't expect this guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes to have a title... Are titles all too common now? Are Nightmare difficulty dungeons really that easy to clear?

Speaking of which, I still don't know the titles for Flamingo and Sandfing. They've already cleared the Fog difficulty module, so they should get their titles.

Thinking this, Zhou Ke'er quietly approached Honghe and excitedly rubbed her hands together: "Well, I haven't asked you what your title is yet. Let's exchange ideas first so that we can prepare in advance if we encounter any situations later, hehehehe."

"..."

Honghe squinted at Zhou Ke'er, who had a malicious look on her face, and couldn't understand why this guy could get so excited about asking for a title. But since Zhou Ke'er had made it so obvious, Honghe naturally couldn't grant her wish.

"A secret makes a woman woman."

Flamingo, expressionless, uttered a famous quote from Old Age English in fluent accent—well, it was probably a famous quote, as Vermouth, who wished to remain anonymous, nodded in certainty.

"Tsk..."

Zhou Ke'er understood perfectly, and couldn't help but show the disgruntled face typical of a villain whose scheme had failed.

"Let's go, stop dawdling here. I have a bad feeling."

Finally recovered, with sweat beading on his forehead, Zhijiansha unknowingly made a half-declaration, then weakly urged, "We need to get to the highway as soon as possible. We don't know what might be here. Even if we remove the supernatural element, there might be wild animals. In our current situation, facing wild animals would definitely result in heavy casualties."

However, what he said did make sense. In addition, Zhou Ke'er had been walking in this dark and eerie place for a while and was indeed getting a little impatient. Unexpectedly, she didn't say anything, but reached out to help Honghe hold the sand between her fingers and followed Fran, who was leading the way.

Although Fran said there were lights ahead, it was still pitch black all around them. Even after walking for quite a while, they still couldn't see the lights Fran had mentioned.

The cold wind howled even more fiercely, and the temperature in the mountain forest at night was extremely low. For Zhou Ke'er and her group of disabled people, the low temperature was not a good situation.

The road ahead is nothing but unchanging rotten soil, fallen leaves, and gravel.

Zhou Ke'er, glancing around, noticed that Honghe's lips had begun to turn pale and bluish. Although she hadn't suffered any serious injuries, the wound on her lower abdomen was still bleeding. In addition, she had been walking around and hadn't treated it beforehand, so the wound hadn't scabbed over yet.

The slightly congealed blood stuck the exposed flesh and clothes together, and every step would cause the clothes and wound to tear slightly. Although it was not excruciatingly painful, the constant, minor pain was a great torment to one's mind.

Even so, Honghe maintained a blank expression, staring ahead with half-closed eyes, holding the sand between her fingers, without saying a word.

"Oh! Now everyone can see it, right? It's right there!"

Just then, Fran finally pointed to the small spot of light ahead with a hint of cheer and said.

Just as everyone saw that spot of light, suddenly, without warning, a faint light spread from there.

No, to be precise, it didn't spread over, but rather... well, from that street lamp to where everyone was, there was a street lamp every so often, and now it's just that one by one they've lit up.

What surprised everyone the most was that the ground on the right side, which had just been a pile of rotten soil and gravel, had turned into a smooth cement road, looking just like an ordinary highway.

"Oh... SHIT"

Zhou Ke'er subconsciously uttered a sentence letter by letter.

The sanity value on the status bar suddenly dropped by about 5%.

"The emergency phone number is there too."

Honghe pointed to the spot where the streetlight had been at the beginning and said coldly. Her voice trembled slightly, as if the movement of raising her hand had aggravated her wound.

Upon hearing this, everyone quickened their pace and soon arrived at the location.

The highway was completely empty; there wasn't a single vehicle passing by. But this was a remote area, so this was quite normal.

Beside that street lamp stood a thing about half a person's height, shaped like a mailbox. The upper part was a red box that could be opened, with the words "Emergency Phone" sprayed on it in white paint.

Zhou Ke'er reached out and pulled open the red box. As expected, it was empty except for some spider webs scattered in the corners. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, which was blown everywhere by the sudden night wind.