Translator: CKtalon
After hearing Shang Jianyao’s answer, Jiang Baimian asked worriedly, “Are you really just playing games?”
Shang Jianyao replied honestly, “They won’t agree even if I want to crawl over.”
It was the rash one now.
Jiang Baimian heaved a sigh of relief. “Then, conjure a game console, projector, and Xiaochong’s favorite games and play by the rift for a while. Remember, you mustn’t do anything else.”
The Shang Jianyao Democratic Association held a meeting lasting a few minutes in his mind before solemnly making a promise. “No problem.”
He then whispered, “The conjured games are meaningless; they’ve all been played. It’s like watching a replay.”
In this regard, the human brain was indeed inferior to computers. It couldn’t calculate the development of a complicated game in real-time.
Long Yuehong was afraid that this fellow would cause trouble, but he was also afraid that Shang Jianyao wouldn’t get what he wanted after taking an ordinary path. He could only comfort him whilst unsure of the words to say. “It’s fine. Xiaochong can play a game many times.”
“Yes, and I’m more open-minded than him and know many novel ways of playing. I should be able to attract his attention…” Shang Jianyao gradually became smug. He then sat in the backseat of the jeep, leaned back in the chair, massaged his temples, and fell asleep.
In the Sea of Origins, Shang Jianyao eagerly used himself as wings and flew to the rift that represented Xiaochong in midair. He then conjured his laptop and connected it to a projector.
The rash Shang Jianyao and the honest Shang Jianyao moved to Zen Master Redemption’s side and became his wings, helping him float in the air.
The Shang Jianyao who liked to goof around, sing, dance, and play games used Zen Master Redemption as a cushion. He looked at the projected scene from the computer and played the game.
This was a role-playing game he liked the most recently. He chose Hunter, and his main characteristic was spewing vulgarities and controlling flames.1
As he played, Shang Jianyao became obsessed.
suddenly, he vaguely felt a faint glow flash through the rift beside him.
Shang Jianyao—who valued relationships—quickly tured his head and shouted through the rift, “Xiaochong! Xiaochong, is that you?!”
It was dead silent. Nobody replied, and there was nothing abnormal.
Shang Jianyao stroked his chin, retracted his gaze, and played the game again. He kept staring at the frozen, deep rift from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t see anything else.
Could it have been an illusion? The rash Shang Jianyao that acted as a wing couldn’t help but ask.
Meanwhile, the honest Shang Jianyao on the other side said, “This happens after playing games for extended periods.”
After an intense discussion, the Shang Jianyaos waited for a while, but nothing happened.
Considering the mental expenditure, they didn’t persist and left the Sea of Origins.
In the Mind Corridor, Lawton—who had failed to fully explore 131—returned to the door of this room.
He had carefully ruminated over his previous encounter several times recently and discovered many problems. The most obvious one was that, normally speaking, an Awakened entering a certain psychological trauma was equivalent to acting as the room owner and reliving their previous fear.
In other words, it was unlikely that the Awakened who explored this room would encounter the room owner’s original form in the corresponding psychological trauma. However, the doctors, nurses, stretchers, bandages, syringes, and walls in 131 seemed to originate from the room owner.
This was contradictory to the experience of the Mind Corridor Awakened Lawton knew.
After some thought and inquiries, Lawton had a rough guess. Excluding the possibility that the room belonged to a Kalendaria and had a strange and varied corresponding psychological trauma that didn’t conform to the norm, the only remaining possibility was that the room owner had mental illnesses
like a split personality or delusional disorder.
An ordinary Awakened’s subconscious was stable and predictable. Therefore, the corresponding psychological trauma was the same. However, Awakened with personality dissociation, delusional disorder, and other mental disorders had their subconscious equally fractured, filling them with unknown
variability. Just like in the microscopic world, they were uncertain.
Therefore, after entering such a room, it was very likely that they would only act as one of the personalities, so one had to face the challenge of other personalities or imagined ‘me.’
Such a psychological trauma will indeed be even more troublesome. Lawton looked at 131’s vermilion door and muttered to himself, “If it’s really a split personality, the other personalities might bring other memories with them, Other fears or even some dreams might form a mixed psychological trauma.
To clear it, one has to be prepared to deal with complicated situations.”
To Lawton, the difficulty of such a psychological trauma wasn’t danger but chaos. He couldn’t resolve it by using a mature plan; it might take a lot of time.
Of course, not being dangerous was only relative. Lawton knew very well that if he wasn’t careful enough and something went wrong, there was a high chance that he would be infected with the corresponding mental illness.
A mental illness wasn’t that easy to treat!
After weighing the pros and cons, Lawton decided to give it a few more tries.
Since he had never really ventured deep into the first psychological trauma in Room 131 and couldn’t determine if there was any familiarity coming from a New World’s door, he couldn’t give up easily.
2
The wrinkled Lawton—whose lips were slightly dark—tumed the brass handle and opened Room 131. After quickly going through the formulated plan, he took two steps forward.
He came to the hospital’s white corridor again.
The doors on both sides were tightly shut, and the end was dark and gloomy.
Lawton quickly conjured a pocket watch and waved it in front of him.
Before entering the Mind Corridor, he got another elder in End Year City to ‘hypnotize’ him and make him believe that he had already abandoned his body to become an existence similar to a mechanical monk.
The signal to start the Hypnosis was the pocket watch’s monotonous swinging.
Soon, Lawton’s face emitted a metallic glow. His body quickly recombined and transformed into an iron-black robot.
He put away his pocket watch and looked down at his body before speaking in a synthetic voice. “I’m an Eternal. Eternals aren’t afraid of physiological diseases, and mental diseases aren’t directly infectious. Hahahaha.”
Lawton strode toward the end of the hospital corridor.
The rooms on both sides opened at the same time, and figures covered in white bedsheets rushed out.
They fell one after another, and Lawton didn’t feel sick at all.
Before long, the doctors, nurses, stretchers, and syringes appeared at the end of the corridor. The walls on both sides also grew eyebrows.
Lawton remained motionless and fearless. He was an Eternal that couldn’t be pricked by a needle or be drugged. He was someone that doctors couldn’t defeat.
Just like that, he forcefully cleared this mentally chaotic scene as if he could steamroll anyone.
His arms and calves had a few doctors and nurses hanging on or being dragged along, but this didn’t stop him from advancing.
These doctors and nurses didn’t release their hands even though their hearts had stopped beating.
Finally, Lawton came to the end of the hospital corridor.
There was a door here—a white door.
Lawton deliberated for a moment and observed his surroundings. With the excuse that he was an Eternal, he stretched out his metal right palm, gripped the handle, and gently twisted it.
The white door slowly opened, revealing a gap.
The gap was dark, and a female figure could be vaguely seen looking out from the darkness.
With a loud bang, Lawton’s mind was enveloped by immense fear. This came without reason as if it rose out of instinct.
I’m dead… This was the only thought that flashed through Lawton’s mind before he fainted. He didn’t even have the time to think of hoping that the other Elders in End Year City would come to this room to save him.
Being unconscious or dead in another person’s psychological trauma often meant being completely trapped and becoming a vegetable in reality.
After an unknown period of time, Lawton suddenly found his thoughts and slowly opened his eyes.
He sawa surgical lamp, a doctor, and many nurses.
They were all wearing light-blue masks as they looked down at Lawton and spoke at once. “You’re awake.”
“The surgery was very successful.”
“You’ve already recovered. You can go home now.”
Recovered… Go home… Lawton was confused at first, but he suddenly sat up and sized himself up.
He was still an Eternal and had steel bones. But unlike before he fainted, his paint job had been changed to a rainbow color. A small speaker was embedded in his chest.
After a moment of silence, Lawton probed the doctor and nurses. “Can I go now?”
According to his general knowledge, fainting in another person’s psychological trauma was equivalent to suffering serious damage. After being locked in a heavily guarded mental prison, it was unknown if one could still wake up, much less leave the corresponding room.
“You can be discharged.” The doctor in the light-blue mask reached out to shake his hand. “You’ve progressed a third this time. Continue working hard next time.”1
Although Lawton was confused, he knew that an opportunity couldn’t be missed. He immediately got off the bed and walked out of the operating theater.
In the white corridor, doctors and nurses sang and danced as they shouted, “Congratulations on being discharged!”
“Get well!”
“Remember to send us flowers to show your appreciation!”
Lawton walked back to the starting point in a daze, opened the door, and left Room 131.
Even when he stood in the Mind Corridor, he still suspected that he was dreaming.
Why did the originally dangerous development turn into a happy send-off? The more Lawton thought about it, the more he felt like his mind had been corrupted…