The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile - Chapter 198

Shen Ge hadn’t slept this soundly in a long time. Ever since he’d poured all his stats into Spirit to combat drowsiness, a brief “nap” was enough to leave him feeling refreshed. This led to him patrolling the city and hunting Gui during the day to burn off energy, and going home for all-night… activities to burn off energy in the evenings.

As the saying goes, “Only the ox dies from exhaustion, the field never wears out.” Whether the “field” was worn out or not was unknown, but the monthly spending on stockings and uniforms had become Shen Ge’s biggest expense.

But often, deep in the night, Shen Ge would wake up. And being far too alert, he could only stare boredly at the ceiling.

Clearly, this time was no exception. He had woken up again in the dead of night.

Strangely, when Shen Ge and Cheng Shengnan actually slept, they didn’t leave any lights on. But today, the bedside lamp was lit.

“Bzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt.”

A faint buzzing sound came from the bedside lamp. It flickered a few times, causing the room to alternate between light and dark. This made Shen Ge feel very uncomfortable, and he instinctively closed his eyes.

But the moment he did, terrifying images involuntarily flooded his mind like a torrent, impossible to suppress.

As these horrifying scenes grew clearer, Shen Ge realized they seemed to be from a narrow ventilation duct, and a human head so large it could burst the duct.

That face was terrifyingly familiar, yet he couldn’t quite place where he had seen it before.

Shen Ge tried hard to recall the features of that ghostly face. It became clearer and more horrifying. Just then, the icy coldness of Cheng Shengnan’s body in his arms startled him awake.

He looked down. What he was holding wasn’t Cheng Shengnan at all, but a dusty, tattered, terrifying teddy bear doll.

Shen Ge instinctively kicked the doll off the bed. The images in his mind finally sharpened. He remembered he was trapped in a dream, chased by the “Neck Person” dean into the ventilation ducts, hit in the back as he exited, falling and knocking himself out.

The last image was of the dean opening her bloody maw and swallowing him whole.

Shen Ge sat up abruptly in bed. Bizarrely, his body was now in its adult state. But trying to call out to Little Seven or the system yielded no response, meaning he was likely still trapped in the dream.

“Crack, crack.”

“Crunch.”

“Crack, crack.”

A series of sounds, like neck bones snapping, erupted. The terrifying teddy bear doll he had kicked off the bed slowly stood up.

Its dusty fur began to melt, gradually transforming the plump bear doll into a melting humanoid figure.

The melted bear doll opened a maw larger than its own body and lunged to bite the Shen Ge on the bed.

Shen Ge grabbed a pillow and stuffed it into the doll’s mouth. But its melting body rapidly changed, just like the blood hand transformed from the stranger Shen Ge earlier, becoming a giant bloody mouth trying to swallow him whole.

Squelch—

Shen Ge was swallowed. The terrifying teeth snapped him in half at the waist, his upper body consumed by the monstrous bear doll.

Shen Ge felt his consciousness fading, like the life-flashing-before-your-eyes moment before death. A montage of memories began flashing through his mind.

“Dream… consciousness… control…” Shen Ge fought against the discomfort of being overwhelmed by these flashes. Among the flickering images was the scene of him confronting the stranger in the mirror in the bathroom.

“He wants to devour my consciousness!”

Once this thought crystallized, it actually suppressed the “life-flash” images. Then came the image of the dean’s enormous head emerging from the ventilation duct, her gaping maw drawing closer.

Gasp!
Shen Ge jolted upright as if waking from a nightmare, only to find he was no longer in the “bedroom,” but in a grim, terrifying hospital room. The bed he sat on was stained with blood, and a few disgusting lumps, possibly internal organs, lay at the foot.

The adjacent hospital bed was overturned. The shelves for sheets and pillowcases nearby were covered in thick dust, as if abandoned for decades.

“Wait… this is, a dream within a dream?” Shen Ge’s first dream involved being chased by the dean in the ventilation ducts, nearly swallowed, before falling into this new dream.

“Could it be the stranger outside, trying to devour my consciousness when I feel fear and my consciousness wavers? But why does he want to devour my consciousness? To replace me? Couldn’t he just kill me, or devour me, then read my memories and take my place…”

“Does he want to directly seize my body, devour my consciousness, and perform a complete ‘replacement’? Is this a way to completely escape the ‘short lifespan’ issue of strangers?”

“Or, is this ‘dream within a dream’ unrelated to the stranger, merely a result of the dream world’s chaos caused by me being trapped in the dream?”

“But if that’s the case, I should have been swallowed by the dean. Based on the last time I was swallowed by the flesh monster, I should be waking up now.”

“So why haven’t I woken up?”

The room was eerie, terrifying, and oppressive. An ordinary person might go mad in such an environment, but Shen Ge sat calmly on the bed, analyzing the situation.

“Bzzt, bzzzt.”

The energy-saving lamp on the left wall, already dim, flickered a few times and died, plunging the room into complete darkness.

The dark room was deathly quiet. Shen Ge could even faintly hear his own heartbeat.

“Huff.”

“Huff.”

Shen Ge felt a cold breeze blowing from the direction of the room’s door, scraping his face like icy knives.

Instinctively, Shen Ge leaned back, lying down on the hospital bed. He listened carefully to his surroundings, ready to roll off the bed in the opposite direction if anything approached.

One minute.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

The room was terrifyingly quiet. Apart from his faint heartbeat, Shen Ge heard nothing. He tried to lift his hand to feel if the cold breeze was still there, only to find his body wouldn’t move.

“What’s going on? Gui? Stranger? Am I affected by a Gui Domain?” Shen Ge’s expression turned serious. Normally, one’s first thought in such a situation might be sleep paralysis, but having dealt with Gui so much, Shen Ge’s first instinct was being affected by a “Stillness”-like trait.

In the pitch-black space, the absolute silence, lying on the hospital bed unable to move a finger—Shen Ge didn’t panic. Instead, he kept calm, adjusted his breathing, and tried to observe his surroundings.

“Huff.”

“Huff.”

As Shen Ge adjusted his breathing, a faint “creak, creak” sound came from the right side of his pillow, as if hands were reaching up from under the bed, scraping against the bedboards.

Shen Ge didn’t try to turn his head to look. Even if he could, he’d probably see something horrifying.

Given his current combat ability and the situation, seeing it wouldn’t help him deal with it anyway.

Shen Ge tried to open his mouth but found he couldn’t make a sound, not even a syllable. He focused his spirit, gathering all his strength into his fingers, trying to break the bodily paralysis starting from them.

“Huff.”

“Huff.”

A soft breathing sound, but it wasn’t from Shen Ge. It came from the right side of his pillow. Whatever had climbed out from under the bed was now leaning over the headboard, staring at him.

A very bad feeling arose in Shen Ge’s heart. He felt long-unfamiliar fear gradually creeping up on him. Recalling the mirror stranger’s attempt to devour his consciousness by creating a series of terrifying images, he worried this was another of its schemes. He had to regain control of his body quickly.

“I can move!” Shen Ge was delighted to find his finger could bend. Then a second finger, a third…

Whether it was “sleep paralysis” or being controlled by a “Stillness”-like trait, his body gradually becoming movable meant he was breaking free.

While Shen Ge struggled to regain movement, the thing that had climbed onto the bed moved around him. It seemed to be searching for something, almost as if it couldn’t see Shen Ge lying there.

Shen Ge listened to the rustling sounds. The hands from under the bed seemed to be groping around, moving from the head to the foot of the bed. When they touched his ankle, they paused briefly, then tightly grasped Shen Ge’s ankle.

The sensation was like plunging his foot into a bucket of ice, sending a shiver through him. And that very “shock” instantly restored movement to both his hands.

Instinctively, he grabbed the pillow and swung it hard to the right. It seemed to hit something, but the impact was soft and ineffective.

However, the moment the pillow struck the unknown entity, Shen Ge felt his feet regain movement too. With his right foot caught, he bent his left leg and kicked out.

The first kick missed. The second connected with something hard. Without knowing what it was, Shen Ge delivered several rapid kicks.

The moment the grip on his ankle loosened, Shen Ge rolled to the side, immediately tumbling off the bed.

“The room door is on the left, estimated distance five meters…” Shen Ge recalled the room’s layout before the lights went out. Judging the distance based on his stride, albeit with some error, he soon found the hospital room door, turned the knob, and rushed out.

A loud “crash” came from the room behind him, sounding like the bed had overturned. But curiosity killed the cat. Looking back to see what it was doing would be truly foolish.

As he burst out of the room, Shen Ge maintained good habits and closed the door behind him. The corridor was pitch black, with only a dim light source at the far left end.

He ran towards the light. At the end, one of the double doors was slightly ajar. Shen Ge peered through the crack. The spacious room inside was divided into two areas.

The left was a lounge area with a sofa and a magazine rack. The right had many pull-out drawers. A dilapidated light hung from the central ceiling, swinging left and right with a “creak, creak.”

It should have been an ordinary room, but… two headless people sat on the sofa in the lounge area, their arms and legs also severed. A wheelchair in front of the TV also held a seated figure, also headless.

The pull-out drawers on the right were even more horrifying, like the compartments in a morgue. Two were even pulled out, containing blackened feet, the bodies covered with a white sheet.

Click.

A soft sound, and the light in the room went out.

“…A lounge built next to a morgue. This hospital’s style is certainly unique.” Shen Ge quietly slipped through the door crack. He didn’t want to mess with either area, but he spotted a flashlight next to the TV. With the darkness outside, that flashlight was essential.

Relying on memory, Shen Ge cautiously approached the TV. Confirming the three “TV viewers” hadn’t moved, he quickly picked up the flashlight from the TV and checked it.

It worked. It had power. This was the best news Shen Ge had had since entering the dream.

Just as Shen Ge, flashlight in hand, prepared to leave, a series of “creak, creak” sounds came. The necks of the three headless bodies were twisting towards where Shen Ge stood.

Simultaneously, from his position, Shen Ge could see the morgue drawers. The white sheets covering the two bodies were thrown aside, and the corpses sat up on the gurneys.

Horrifically, the two “dead” people looked like they were stitched together from different corpses, with obvious suture marks on their naked bodies.

Similar to the two “strangers” Shen Ge saw in the previous dream, the “dead” people’s stomachs bulged, pulsating “thump, thump” like a heart.

The “dead” stood up from the gurneys and slowly walked towards the lounge area. The three limbless, headless torsos in the lounge also struggled towards Shen Ge.

With several “thuds,” the three torsos fell from the sofa and wheelchair, then wriggled like maggots as they crawled towards Shen Ge.

“…Seriously? Not dead even like this? Are you strangers or ghosts? I was trained by Lin Zhengying himself, you’ve picked the wrong guy to mess with!” Shen Ge raised the flashlight overhead, striking a demon-subduing pose. But the monsters seemed not to hear him, moving directly towards him.

“Heaven and Earth, Mysterious Ancestor, the root of all energy! Cultivated through myriad tribulations, witness my divine power! Begone!” Shen Ge sidestepped the crawling torsos, kicked the wheelchair, sending it crashing into one of the torsos and pinning it. The pinned torso struggled, causing the wheelchair to rattle noisily.

Shen Ge made noise with both himself and the wheelchair, but he observed that neither the three torsos nor the reanimated “dead” from the morgue changed direction; they still came towards him. However, before he entered the room and grabbed the flashlight, these monsters hadn’t moved.

The flashlight!
Shen Ge realized testing the flashlight must have attracted them. He quickly turned it off. Immediately, the monsters froze like players in a game of “Red Light, Green Light.”

“Sa-wat-dee-krap?” Shen Ge tentatively called out.

The strangers didn’t react.

Shen Ge turned the flashlight on again. The strangers immediately started moving. He quickly turned it off, confirming they didn’t react to sound but were awakened by light.

“But there was a dim light in the room earlier. Why were they quiet then?” Shen Ge pondered this as he retreated from the room. The moment he stepped out, he heard faint noises from the direction of the corridor, like something crawling quickly on the floor.

Shen Ge turned on his flashlight and shone it into the dark corridor. Sure enough, he saw a terrifying deformed object in the beam of the flashlight.

The monster is deformed in that its four limbs connected to its body are all “feet”, and it also has no head, with two hands on its neck.

If this was what had been hiding under his bed earlier, it explained why it took so long groping around to find Shen Ge.

To Shen Ge’s surprise, when his flashlight beam shone on the deformed creature, it froze as if playing a game of “Red Light, Green Light”.

But before Shen Ge could rejoice, he heard rustling from the morgue. Shining the light there, he saw the five strangers moving towards the door—crawling, walking. Though not fast, it was terrifying in the dark space.

And when Shen Ge moved the flashlight away from the morgue to check the corridor, rustling sounds came from ahead again. That monster was moving once more.

“…”

Great.

I thought Lü Bu was peerless in the world, but it seems there’s someone even better?
Some freeze when illuminated, others move when they sense light. Are you guys coordinating to cover each other’s weaknesses?
The limbless, headless torsos wriggled like maggots, their speed negligible. The two reanimated strangers weren’t much faster…

In contrast, the deformed creature in the corridor posed the greatest threat to Shen Ge.
So Shen Ge shone his flashlight on the deformed creature, restricting its movement, and headed towards the stairwell ahead.

After entering the stairwell, Shen Ge couldn’t find the deformed creature in the corridor. The creature, now deprived of light, immediately began to move and crawled towards the stairwell.

Without a second thought, Shen Ge sprinted upstairs.

Reaching the upper floor, before he could catch his breath, he was shocked to find the spacious stairwell landing crowded with people. Sweeping the flashlight beam across them, he saw the headless, the armless, those with bulging stomachs, those with mismatched limbs, even those with hands and feet where their necks should be… a full assortment.

It was like a macabre potluck of stitched-together stranger corpses, every bizarre variation imaginable. What shocked Shen Ge was that he recognized some of the “traits” on these strangers from the real world.

Immediately, Shen Ge connected this place from his “memories” to a stranger experimentation base. The later flower-headed and scythe-headed strangers were likely “evolved” from these bizarre, stitched-together corpses!

“But, if Rongshan Mental Hospital was involved in stranger research back then, I must have been exposed to it. Why was I completely unaware of Gui and strangers?”

In Shen Ge’s memory, the first time he saw a “monster” was during the Haiya trip when his father mutated. The first time he heard the term “Gui” was a year ago when he accidentally killed the black cat and activated the system.

If Rongshan Mental Hospital was researching strangers, whether during the three years he was imprisoned there or later when he “collaborated” with those people, he should have memories of it.

Why were there no related memories at all?
Shen Ge thought of the blurred and clear parts of his “memories.” Was it really due to the trauma at Rongshan Mental Hospital causing a split personality, burying his real memories under fabricated ones?

Though puzzled, now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. He had to find a way out, or a way to “wake up,” quickly!

Just as Shen Ge stepped onto this floor, the strange creatures that had been standing motionless suddenly “came to life,” and there were rustling crawling sounds coming from below the stairwell, clearly indicating that the deformed species had caught up.

Among these strangers, some were sensitive to light, others froze when illuminated. Shen Ge could only rely on his ten-year-old’s small, agile body to weave through them.

Finally escaping the landing into the corridor, he swept his flashlight down the dark hallway and was surprised to find it was the same floor with his “room” from the previous dream!
Shen Ge immediately had an idea. He ran towards the room he had “stayed” in before. Just then, with a series of “clang, clang” sounds, the observation windows on the doors and the meal slots at the bottom were smashed open. Hands that looked like artificial prostheses reached out from the cells, grabbing at Shen Ge in the corridor.

Shen Ge reacted quickly, diving forward almost the instant he heard the noise. Two hands brushed past his scalp.

The strangers chasing him were caught by these prosthetic hands, instantly torn into chunks and pulled into the cells. Horrific chewing sounds followed, and black blood seeped under the doors.

Shen Ge fled to the door of his previous “room.” No Gui hands reached out from this one. He opened the door, shone the flashlight inside to confirm no strangers were there, and rushed in.

The appearance of the Gui hands not only posed no threat but actually solved his terrifying pursuers, giving him at least a moment to breathe.

But Shen Ge didn’t dare stay long. If any strangers caught up, he’d be a turtle in a jar.

He looked under the bed and, sure enough, found the “memory” dog hole. He lay down, shone the flashlight through to confirm the next room was clear, and crawled through.

Following this method, Shen Ge used the route San Zai had shown him, navigating through dog holes, twisting and turning to avoid rooms with strangers, and eventually reached the previous records room.

This was Shen Ge’s third time in the records room. The first time, hiding with San Zai from the supervisors and dean. The second time, fleeing the flesh monster’s pursuit.

The first two times, he hadn’t had a chance to check the records. This time, he wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Instead, he used the flashlight to look through the documents.

Strangely, as he read these records, it felt similar to reading the experimental files in the dean’s specimen room. Originally clueless about experiments, seeing this information felt like awakening memories, giving him a sense of déjà vu.

Through the records, Shen Ge discovered that Rongshan Mental Hospital was indeed a base for researching “strangers.”

Similar to the “underground research institutes” in Japan and Korea, an underground research base was built beneath Rongshan Mental Hospital.

After the incident at the Haiya Research Institute, conflicts arose among the researchers. Some returned to their home countries, others broke away.

These people believed that the world was on the verge of collapse, and that humanity only had a few decades left to survive. They felt that the regular army was too restrained and that it would be better to go it alone and fight for survival. So they created their own eccentric organizations.

One group, consisting of 80% Great Celestial Empire researchers and soldiers, formed an organization called “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.”

Another group had a simpler goal: to grant humans the power of Gui and took pride in undergoing the stranger procedure, forming a “Stranger Association.”

But the Stranger Association had fewer members than “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches,” and lacked top researchers. Breaking away meant no funds and little strength, making development extremely difficult.

Most importantly, stranger research hadn’t made many breakthroughs. The strongest stranger in the organization wasn’t even Tier 2, and their combat ability was mediocre.

Moreover, these people came from the Haiya Research Institute. Immediately turning into hardened rebels against the world risked the Great Celestial Empire sending the army to wipe them out. So, they laid low for a while.

Meanwhile, due to the Haiya Institute issues, the Great Celestial Empire repeatedly contacted “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches,” hoping to “invite” them back to serve the country with maximum freedom.

But “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches” was facing internal conflict over ideology, on the verge of splitting into “Heavenly Stems” and “Twelve Branches.” They not only rejected the offer but also moved their base out of the Great Celestial Empire. Using their “researcher” status, they relocated to countries like the USA, Japan, and Korea.

Leveraging the resources of multiple nations, they formed a UN-like organization called the “International Gui Response Organization.” However, as Gui weren’t public knowledge then, this organization developed secretly, like MIB, and wasn’t announced.

Of course, “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches,” following the principle of casting a wide net, left some researchers in the Great Celestial Empire, attempting to manipulate the world from behind the scenes.

But the split of “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches” caused this plan to fizzle. Some researchers simply “stayed” and reported the “Stranger Association” to the authorities.

The Great Celestial Empire, having been rejected by “Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches,” turned its attention to the “Stranger Association,” making several contacts.

The “Stranger Association,” already struggling without research funds, accepted the Great Celestial Empire’s olive branch and agreed to rebuild the Haiya Research Institute.

Researchers from the “Stranger Association” were dispersed to various departments. Most joined Great Celestial Empire researchers in rebuilding the new Haiya Research Institute.

Others were assigned to three secret bases within the country, including the Great Underground Capital Research Institute and the Quanlong Mountain Base.

But the good times didn’t last. Gui were inherently “anti-human,” and attempting to fuse Gui with humans violated taboos. A tragedy occurred during human experiments in Great Capital City, artificially creating a “Tier 4” monster that nearly wiped out the already weak new Special Response Department.

The higher-ups urgently halted stranger research and began vigorously developing the Special Response Department, learning from the incident, thus taking a different “path” from the stranger organizations.

Both agents and strangers “used Gui to fight Gui,” but the former turned Gui into “weapons,” training Gui-fighting soldiers in a modernized manner.

The latter focused on merging Gui with themselves, creating “New Humans” with physical and ability attributes surpassing Gui.

The difference in ideology meant that the Monster Association was destined to be “abandoned.” From “regular army” to “savages,” then from “savages” back to “regular army,” and finally back to “savages,” the Monster Association felt betrayed.

When the Monster Association joined the Quanlongshan Base, it secretly prepared an escape route by leveraging the department’s influence. After being “abandoned” this time, it first contacted the researchers at the Xinhaiya Base and created an accident that attracted the giant deep-sea monster, causing the Special Operations Department to focus all its efforts on dealing with the giant deep-sea monster.

Then, seizing the opportunity, they stole research data from the new Haiya base and failure reports from the Great Capital Underground Research Institute, establishing a new stranger research institute at Rongshan Mental Hospital.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, they stole the research data from the New Haiya Base and the research report on the failure of the Dajing Underground Research Base, and established a new Monster Research Institute at Rongshan Mental Hospital.

The “Dean” was the leader of the Stranger Association at the time and the first successful recipient of stranger cell transplantation, a Tier 4 stranger who had undergone four mutations.

Originally, research at Rongshan Mental Hospital proceeded secretly. But after the split of “Heavenly Stems” and “Twelve Branches,” the former contacted the “Dean,” proposing cooperation.

“Heavenly Stems” provided the Monster Association with various parasitic and bizarre mother worms. During their research, “Dean” discovered a method for cultivating these parasitic mother worms in large quantities and, from these parasitic monsters, found a way to “clone” monsters.

They cultivated these “mother worms,” ​​absorbed the originally rare ancestral monster cells, and then implanted the new “monster cells” into women’s bodies.

As cloned strangers increased, so did the Stranger Association’s “materials.” With development, they gradually gained strength rivaling Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

…

Reading these documents about the origins of Rongshan Mental Hospital, Shen Ge grew increasingly alarmed. He never imagined it was connected to the Haiya Research Institute and Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. Combined with the “Stranger Association” intel, previous unresolved questions about the Haiya Institute were finally answered!
No wonder headquarters always avoided discussing stranger experiments! The mysterious deep-sea Gui attack on the new Haiya Research Institute was orchestrated by the Stranger Association!
But Shen Ge still couldn’t figure it out. If the Stranger Association was behind Rongshan Mental Hospital, and his three years of memories there were confirmed “false,” was it due to voluntarily abandoning them, suppression by a split personality, or the Stranger Association’s manipulation? This remained unknown.

If it was the former, at least the main direction of his “memories” was unchanged, which was good news. But if it was the latter… it meant Shen Ge was still being manipulated by the Stranger Association, which was terrifying!

Or, he was an experimental subject sent there, transformed into a “half-human, half-Gui” state after stranger modifications, hence the later appearance of the “system.”

Comparatively, Shen Ge felt the latter was more likely. But whether the “system” was related to the Stranger Association needed verification.

First, there’s the claim of a “clone.” According to Fatty Xin, the freak Du Yusheng is the latest “product” of the clone-type parasitic worm, and currently the least flawed type of freak. But even so, Du Yusheng has serious problems with his emotions, consciousness, and memories.

Secondly, if Shen Ge were truly a “clone,” his memories shouldn’t have “blurred” and “clear” parts. There was no need for that; fabricated memories could be written however the “Dean” wanted. Why create “blurred” memories as a flaw?

Even if the “Dean” cut corners or other reasons caused this, it would mean the Tang Jinze family were part of the Stranger Association; otherwise, Shen Ge’s “clear” memories would have a fatal bug.

But when Shen Ge joined the Special Response Department, Deng Yuqi had investigated him thoroughly. The Tang family, as his few “relatives,” were naturally investigated too. In other words, if the Tang family were connected to the Stranger Association, it would mean Deng Yuqi was also problematic.

Of course, given that the Special Response Department had “recruited” the Stranger Association and collaborated on multiple research institutes, this scenario wasn’t impossible.

If it reached the level of “the whole world is acting for you,” then Shen Ge felt whether it was the truth or if he was a clone didn’t matter anymore.

So, the question returned to the starting point—

Setting aside whether the system was related to the Stranger Association, if Shen Ge was an experimental subject who underwent stranger modifications here, then who “wiped out” the Stranger Association? Him, or someone else?
Remember, the “Dean” during that period was already a Tier 4 stranger. Not only could the weak Shen Ge of back then not defeat her, even the current Shen Ge couldn’t guarantee victory, given strangers’ numerous escape and survival methods.

For example, the “Four Heads Eight Arms” leader of the Twelve Branches, after having several heads dismantled by Shen Ge, was merely “recuperating,” not dead.

Thinking this, Shen Ge quickly searched the records room for case files, trying to find any related to himself.

Just then, he heard strange noises from upstairs. Then, “gurgle, gurgle,” red blood bubbles emerged on the ceiling.

Following that, a huge monster squeezed out from the blood bubbles.

The monster’s body resembled the flesh monster Shen Ge encountered before—a mushy, disgusting blob. Its arms were thick and powerful, topped with a bald head.

With one glance, Shen Ge recognized this as the “Supervisor” he had encountered in the previous dream.

“Found… you.”

“Found you!”

The Supervisor stared at Shen Ge with an eerie laugh, just like when the “Dean” found him, like a hunter spotting prey.

Shen Ge didn’t hesitate. He turned and ran for the door.

His small body wasn’t enough for the Supervisor to swallow.

“San Zai mentioned each floor has a Supervisor. The lower floors have those monsters, and there might be other Supervisors above. Most importantly, the Supervisor’s flesh body looks like it fused with the flesh monster from the last dream…”

“Up or down… neither seems safe.” Shen Ge recalled San Zai’s words as he ran towards the stairwell.

The corridor on this floor was also pitch black, but lacked the monsters from the lower floors. With his flashlight, Shen Ge wasn’t worried about bumping into things.

With a “boom,” the Supervisor burst through the records room door in pursuit.

Shen Ge shone his flashlight, feeling the Supervisor “surge” out, very much like the flesh monster from the previous dream.

Last time, he “woke up” after being swallowed by the flesh monster. But he couldn’t decide whether to try “suicide” now.

“Wait, before ‘waking up’ this time, I was hit by the ‘Dean’ exiting the ventilation duct and then swallowed by her.”

“In that situation, how could I still be alive?”

Dream.

Consciousness.

Shen Ge thought of the experimental files in the specimen room and the documents he just read. This “information” all felt familiar.

“Could it be that this so-called dream is actually within my conscious world? Everything I see and hear is part of memory retrieval?”

Bathroom. Mirror Stranger.

Shen Ge thought of a key point: the “Mirror Stranger” in the bathroom tried to use consciousness interference to instill fear and manipulate his consciousness…

“This place… is still a dream after all!” Shen Ge stopped, slapping his forehead with a “smack,” as if having an epiphany.

What is a dream?

It is a void world created by a person during sleep based on their own memories or the things they encounter in daily life; it is a world that can be controlled by a person’s consciousness!
Why do people like dreaming?

Because in dreams, one can do as they please! As long as one’s “consciousness” is firm enough, they can create the world they want!
Shen Ge could to escape the “Mirror Stranger’s” interference in the bathroom, resisting consciousness manipulation, not because his spirit overpowered the other, but because this was Shen Ge’s conscious world, a world where he called the shots!
Shen Ge turned to face the flesh “Supervisor” surging towards him down the corridor. Then, he closed his eyes and began deep self-hypnosis!

Snap! Snap! Snap!
With a series of soft clicks, the energy-saving lights on the ceiling of the dark corridor lit up one after another, instantly illuminating the entire hallway!
Then, Shen Ge threw aside the flashlight, raised a hand, and shouted:

“Cannon, come!”

Whoosh!
A rocket launcher materialized in his hand as a beam of white light. His small frame holding a rocket launcher larger than himself looked utterly bizarre.

“All fear stems from insufficient firepower!”

“Hey, feel the joy of RPGs!”

Whoosh—

With a whooshing sound, the rocket shot towards the Supervisor’s large bald head with a trailing smoke plume, exploding with a “boom” and blowing his head apart!
Then, Shen Ge discarded the rocket launcher, raised his hand, and a “Vulcan Minigun” appeared—an “unlimited ammo” Minigun at that.

Shen Ge advanced towards the Supervisor, minigun in hand, unleashing a continuous “brrrrt.” The minigun’s firing muzzle flash and spent shells raining to the ground made him feel like the vibe had just become normal!