As soon as she stepped outside, Mo Bai first glanced toward Room 501 next door. She wanted to try communicating with the nightmare creature first.

To her surprise, the room wasn't there at all. Room 501 had vanished into thin air.

Instead, there was a sheet of paper posted by the stairwell on the 5th floor. Mo Bai walked over and read what was written on it.

 

[

Welcome to the Town Hospital Psychiatric Ward. Please follow the rules below.

1. This hospital has no psychiatrists. Once you enter the ward area, you are a patient.

2. Within this area, your psychological issues become real and visible. Please try to control your inner shadows to avoid uncontrollable phenomena appearing in the ward.

3. There are only three rooms that allow you to leave this area. One is the emergency exit. Entering this room lets you leave safely. Another is the ward administrator's room. Once inside, you must obtain the administrator's permission to leave the area. The last is the source of everything.

4. If the origin room is found, this ward area will disappear, and all patients will recover and be discharged.

5. Forcibly breaking doors is prohibited. If a door cannot be opened, it means the patient inside does not wish to be disturbed. Please respect everyone's choice.

6. Our hospital sincerely hopes that every patient's mental health issues can be resolved.

]

 

After reading the rules, Mo Bai thought to herself, I'm actually getting quite a good deal here.

The rules were cunning. From beginning to end, they never mentioned dreams, only that this was a psychiatric ward. Because of that, outsiders would have a hard time realizing they were dreaming, and wouldn't know that the way to "leave" was simply to wake up.

Li Ming entered the inpatient building through a corridor on the 4th floor of the outpatient department. He climbed the stairs from the 4th floor to the 5th, and the moment he stepped into the mist, he fell asleep.

Since the environment before and after he fell asleep looked the same, it would be very difficult for him to realize that this was a dream. He would just assume that he had entered a domain where imagined scenes could materialize, which naturally increased his sense of fear.

In this kind of psychological domain, the stronger the fear, the higher the difficulty.

People can be scared to death by their own minds.

Mo Bai, on the other hand, experienced a drastic change in surroundings when she entered the domain. She immediately realized she was dreaming and saw through the truth of this place.

She also knew that Room 502 was one of the exits.

After Li Ming reached the 5th floor, the first thing he would see was the rules posted by the stairwell, so he would definitely start opening rooms one by one.

Since Room 501 had disappeared, the closest room to the stairwell was 502. The first door Li Ming would open would be 502.

He had already entered an exit room, but he didn't know this was a dream, nor that he needed to "wake up" to leave the domain.

When he failed to find an exit inside, he would assume it was just an ordinary monitoring room and naturally leave Room 502.

Even if he later encountered danger and wanted to escape, it wouldn't occur to him to leave through Room 502.

Who would have guessed that the very first room upon entering the domain was the exit?

What a cunning domain.

Mo Bai imagined what would happen if she and Li Ming switched positions. Could she find a way out?

"Of course, the player could find a way out. It's very simple," Xiao Qi said inside her mind. "The player knows the research institute once obtained the nightmare creature's genes. With your abilities, you'd quickly connect this place to dreams."

"You have quite a lot of faith in me," Mo Bai said.

Even more confidently than Mo Bai herself, Xiao Qi replied, "Xiao Qi believes the player will discover that this is a dream and figure out that Room 502 is the exit at the fastest speed possible. But the player won't leave.

With your personality of not stopping until the boss is dead, you'd keep searching and uncover every secret in this domain.

You wouldn't be satisfied with just finding the administrator's room. You'd definitely track down the root of everything and completely conquer this domain!"

Mo Bai: "…"

She had already prepared to escape through Room 502 if things went wrong. But after hearing Xiao Qi say that, she suddenly felt like she couldn't run anymore.

It felt like if she didn't resolve this domain, she'd never be able to face Xiao Qi again.

"What does the player plan to do?" Xiao Qi asked.

Instead of going room by room like Li Ming, Mo Bai headed straight up the stairs to the 7th floor.

Li Ming had just been on the 6th floor, so he'd be arriving on the 7th soon.

"What is the player up to?" Xiao Qi asked excitedly, sensing she was planning something.

Mo Bai said, "I'm going to play an important NPC."

She pushed open the door to Room 701. The moment it opened, she saw the Enhanced Mutant. The "Dad" she had encountered in the Playing House instance was currently crushing a little girl's skull in his hands.

The girl's face was blurred, like something from a dream. But Mo Bai had a faint feeling that the girl's face was probably her own childhood self.

"Dad" tossed the corpse aside, turned to Mo Bai, and gave her a falsely warm smile. Beckoning, he said, "Xiao Bai, come to Daddy."

"Sorry to bother you," Mo Bai said, closing the door.

Xiao Qi exclaimed in surprise, "After opening the doors here, you see the things you fear most, right? The player is actually afraid of such a weak monster?"

Mo Bai thought for a moment. "Actually, I was afraid."

When she first encountered "Dad" and "Mom," she had just arrived in the Infinite World. She knew nothing about the rules, didn't understand her own abilities, and had no teammates.

And at that time, her will to survive was at its strongest.

She had just experienced death and, by sheer luck, gained a second chance. Her illness had also disappeared. More than anything, Mo Bai wanted to live.

"Mom" had been manageable. Mo Bai had eliminated it herself, and its physical strength wasn't all that great, so her fear of it wasn't too deep.

But "Dad" crushed her shoulder blade the moment he appeared. He possessed powerful regeneration, making it nearly impossible to kill him.

She had been truly afraid back then. But she had no choice. She had to carry out her plan. Only then could she live with dignity and escape the broken fate imposed on her by the Observation Group title.

Even though she was afraid, she still acted.

"I was afraid, but it's not really a psychological shadow. I've far surpassed him now," Mo Bai said.

After saying this, she opened the door again. This time, the "Dad" in the room dissolved like wisps of smoke under sunlight.

"So this place really can resolve some psychological issues," Mo Bai said. "By using the special nature of dreams, you revisit your past and face what once frightened you. Once you overcome that fear, the materialized monsters disappear, and the psychological problem is healed."

"What if you fight them?" Xiao Qi asked.

Mo Bai recalled the way Li Ming had fought, as seen through the surveillance, and said, "Fighting only has the opposite effect. These aren't real monsters. They're your own heart. Inner wounds aren't healed through combat.

The more you fight, the stronger the fear becomes, and the harder the materialized monsters are to defeat. Fighting just wastes energy and cards for nothing."

After speaking, Mo Bai opened the door to Room 702. As expected, she saw the Count.

"Hi~" Mo Bai waved at him.

This time, she didn't even need to open the door a second time. The Count vanished just like that.

Mo Bai had never been that afraid of him to begin with, and now that she understood how to break the illusion, these monsters couldn't scare her at all.

Next, in Room 703, she saw Du Ying. In 704, Professor Yang. In 705, the monster from the underground of the research institute. All of them disappeared under Mo Bai's calm gaze.

Room 706 contained a dazzling butterfly. Mo Bai curled her lips and muttered, "How boring," and the butterfly vanished just as blandly.

"Are they all this boring?" Xiao Qi said arrogantly. "This instance is basically just a door-opening-and-closing game. It's way too easy!"

Mo Bai: "…"

Xiao Qi was sounding more and more like a villain's smug little lackey.

When she opened the door to Room 707, this time she didn't see a monster. Just pitch-black darkness.

"Now this is interesting," Mo Bai said.

Room 707 reflected her fear of blindness, which was indeed more terrifying than any of the monsters.

"If I don't overcome this fear, I might remain blind throughout this entire instance," Mo Bai said.

Even so, she wasn't truly afraid. She might feel a flicker of panic, but she could quickly think of a solution.

Besides, she still had the Inequivalent Exchange card. Even if she really did go blind, she could recover immediately.

The darkness in Room 707 soon faded away.

In Room 708, there was a wheelchair, symbolizing the time she had lost the ability to walk.

Mo Bai had already overcome that fear long ago. Even in a wheelchair, she could still clear an instance.

She waved at it, a quiet farewell to her past self, and the wheelchair disappeared.

Mo Bai opened the door to Room 709. There were no monsters inside, just two cards scattered on the hospital bed.

This time, the smile vanished from her face.

She walked in and picked up the two cards from the bed. One bore the image of Mo Xiangyou, half his face beautiful and the other half nothing but bone. The other showed Gu Tiandong, with a single tear hanging at the corner of his eye.

As Mo Bai picked them up, the skeletal half of Mo Xiangyou's face let out a dry, rattling laugh. "As agreed, you've obtained my remains," he said.

Gu Tiandong opened his sky-blue eyes, filled with an unshakable sorrow, and said to Mo Bai, "I still have one chance left."

What he said echoed the words Xu Qirui, the big-headed man, had spoken in the Information Extraction card. They were words Mo Bai herself had once imagined.

Mo Bai felt her legs go weak. She sat down on the bed, clutching the two cards tightly, her breathing growing labored.

All this way, no monster had managed to strike her down. Not even her past physical disabilities could break her. Only these two cards filled her with overwhelming fear.

Because she knew this was something that could happen, or might already be happening.

She wasn't afraid of any hardship or danger. What she feared was being unable to protect the teammates who had once reached out to help her.

The dream saw straight through Mo Bai's fear. The Gu Tiandong on the card spoke: "Mo Bai, Du Heng was the one who turned me into a card. He said he had no choice. He needed to trade me for another Observation Group companion of his. If he didn't use an Observation Group card, the people from Avici would turn his companion into a card instead."

The Mo Xiangyou card said, "Mo Bai, Sheng Yan did this. He found out the secret that Observation Group members can be turned into cards, so he killed me to avenge his brother. This is the person you tried so hard to save back then. Just as I said, no matter how close the relationship, no one in the Combat Group can truly be trusted."

Mo Bai knew full well that this was a dream. The cards were fake, and what they were saying was fake too. And yet, her heart still couldn't help but waver.

The dream really did understand her. Every word the two cards spoke struck precisely at her weakest point.

At this very moment, her real body lay asleep in a room on the basement level. Du Heng and Sheng Yan were just outside the door, and they could harm her body at any moment.

Mo Bai knew they wouldn't, at least not now. But the words on the cards were enough to shake her.

Sometimes, trust isn't something you can summon just by deciding to trust. And fear doesn't disappear just because you tell yourself, "don't be afraid."

She had already been worrying about Gu Tiandong and Mo Xiangyou. A scene like this cuts straight to the heart.

Once your resolve falters, negative emotions will swallow you whole.

The Gu Tiandong card wiped away the tear on his face and said gently, "Mo Bai, if you encounter danger in this instance, use me. I'll protect you."

The Mo Xiangyou card added, "Use me. I can foresee the future and help you find a way to clear the instance."

The Gu Tiandong card continued, "I'm already dead. Rather than be used by others, it's better if you're the one to end us with your own hands."

The Mo Xiangyou card said, "Come, step on my remains, pluck that blooming rose, and enjoy the fruits of your victory."

The two cards spoke back and forth, every word laced with mental contamination, constantly eroding Mo Bai's heart.

Seeing her fall silent, Xiao Qi grew anxious and called out in her mind, "Player, don't believe them! It's all fake!

Even if it were real, so what? If they're dead, they're dead. The player can wipe away the tears and avenge them!

We'll grow stronger together and wipe out every member of the Combat Group!"

After shouting several times, Xiao Qi fell silent. It realized Mo Bai couldn't hear it.

The voices of the two cards were like a haunting spell, trapping Mo Bai's consciousness in the horrifying images they wove, eating away at her soul.

Xiao Qi roared again in panic, but still, she couldn't hear.

It wanted to reach out, to tear those cards apart and wake her up. But it was only a smart assistant. It had no body.

Wait, Xiao Qi thought. This isn't the real world. This is a dream, a mental realm. Why shouldn't I be able to manifest? Mo Bai exists here as a spiritual form too!

It wanted to have sharp claws, sharp teeth, a nimble body, and a form that Mo Bai would like.

Claws to shred the cards. Teeth to snap her awake. A swift body to fight alongside her. A form that would make her happy.

As Xiao Qi thought this, a shape gradually formed within its consciousness.

And then, it could move.

A dark blur leapt into Mo Bai's arms, shredding the two talking cards with sharp claws. As Mo Bai jolted awake, her eyes still wide with surprise, it sprang onto her shoulder and nuzzled against her neck.

"Meow~" Xiao Qi let out a sweet, almost coquettish kitten's cry.

It turned into a black cat with a small white spot on its forehead and white paws that looked like little socks.

Xiao Qi's new form was incredibly beautiful.