The black cat's soft body pressed against Mo Bai as it curled around her shoulders. Its tail was swaying elegantly, brushing lightly against her neck from time to time.

It was seemingly coaxing her to pet its smooth, glossy fur.

Like a beam of light…

No, it was more like a shadow, slipping silently into the darkest corners, leaving the darkness itself defenseless against it.

Just like that, Xiao Qi dispersed Mo Bai's fear.

Mo Bai raised her hand and gently stroked the top of its head.

"Meow~" Xiao Qi let out a sweet, delicate cry, still speaking in a little girl's voice. "So being petted feels this nice. No wonder some cats and dogs let people they trust touch them."

"Can you feel it too?" Mo Bai asked.

"Of course! Xiao Qi pulled all the data on feline animals from the database, used the appearance of the cat we saw outside the hospital, and combined them to create this body. Full body simulation, complete with neural feedback, meow~."

It even remembered to meow again.

Mo Bai felt a little brighter inside.

As she gently stroked the cat's fur, the warm touch made her body feel much warmer.

She feared that kind of future. She was afraid that such things might happen, but she was not afraid of danger itself.

"I don't know what the future will become, and I'm still afraid of that possibility," Mo Bai said, looking at the two cards. "But being trapped in fear won't let me move forward. If I stop acting because I'm afraid of that outcome, that would be the real tragedy."

Only by continuing forward could she prevent that tragedy from happening.

Standing still would accomplish nothing.

She was afraid, but fear would not stop her from moving forward.

Mo Bai's gaze gradually grew resolute, and the two cards began to fade.

Just before disappearing completely, the Mo Xiangyou card asked, "If that ending really happens, what will you do?"

Mo Bai thought for a moment, then answered honestly, "I don't know, but I won't dwell on something that hasn't happened. I'll just do my best to stop it, and if it really does happen…

I'll deal with it then."

Her final words were so light that they were almost inaudible unless you listened carefully.

The fear in her heart hadn't vanished, yet the cards still disappeared.

As if realizing something, Mo Bai said, "Fear itself isn't what's frightening. What's frightening is losing the courage to face it. I'm human. So long as I'm human, emotions can't disappear completely. Only by facing my weaknesses and fully accepting that I'm an ordinary person with normal emotions can I gain the power to do something extraordinary."

"That's exactly why Xiao Qi likes Player the most, the most, the most, meow!" Xiao Qi rubbed against her excitedly now that she had come back to her senses.

It expressed its affection through every bit of its body language.

Holding Xiao Qi, Mo Bai couldn't help but smile.

This was probably one of the perks of the dream domain.

Carrying the cat, she stepped out of Room 709. After leaving, she tried pushing the door again. It wouldn't open.

From Rooms 701 to 709, every door where she had overcome her fear could no longer be opened.

That didn't align with her goal.

She needed an empty room to lie in wait.

She opened the door to Room 710. Inside sat a man reeking of alcohol. He wasn't strong. In fact, he looked thin and frail, and he was in a wheelchair, likely paralyzed on one side from excessive drinking.

When he saw Mo Bai, his expression twisted viciously. Grabbing a beer bottle beside him, he raised it and charged at her, spewing all sorts of foul insults.

From his words, Mo Bai guessed that he was likely the embodiment of fear belonging to some vulnerable woman or child.

In the eyes of the one who feared him, his strength was probably infinite.

But Mo Bai simply lifted a hand and stopped his attack. With a slight exertion of force, she crushed his wrist bone.

He was that weak.

Perhaps it was precisely because he was so weak that he needed to bully those even weaker than himself to prove his "strength."

Mo Bai said coldly, "Sorry, you're not my fear. Please disappear."

She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to the window. "Can't you disappear on your own? If the one who created you can't defeat you, can't you just vanish by yourself?"

The man had no idea what she was talking about. He just kept cursing.

Mo Bai opened the window and shoved the materialized man out from the seventh floor.

He fell with a look of utter terror as his head smashed against the ground in a bloody heap.

At the moment of his "death," he turned into a wisp of smoke and vanished, just like the other fear monsters she had seen.

Mo Bai summarized, "The fear monsters created from my own mind disappear as long as I overcome them. As for monsters left behind by others, I just have to be stronger than them.

As long as I 'kill' the monsters created by others, they'll disappear.

But what counts as 'killing'? There must be some recognized concept of 'death.' Whose recognition is that? The creator's, or the dream owner's?"

"What does 'recognition' mean? Xiao Qi doesn't really get it, meow~" the black cat asked.

Mo Bai explained, "It's about the definition of 'death.' When a monster is created, the creator's subconscious also creates the result of its death, along with a way of dying that the creator can accept. They just can't defeat it because of fear.

The fact that pushing this man out the window made him disappear proves that, in this dream domain, that method of death is recognized for an ordinary man. If he were a zombie or some other monster, that method wouldn't have killed him.

Every monster in this domain must have a recognized way to die.

Normally, only the creator should be able to decide that. But in this dream domain, the creator isn't here, yet the monster is still alive. Without a creator, there must be someone else to 'certify' the death.

That someone is likely the master of the dream domain, the nightmare creature."

The same one who had once been that police officer.

Xiao Qi asked, puzzled, "Why is the player focusing on this?"

Mo Bai said, "Because I'm thinking about that hidden room, the root of everything. I think that room must contain a monster we can't defeat, and its existence is the very reason this dream domain was formed.

It blends reality and dreams, and might even be stronger than its real-world counterpart. There's no way I could defeat it on my own strength.

But since it was created, the dream owner must have a way to defeat it buried in their heart. What I need to do is find that way.

If we eliminate the monster in the hidden room, we can wake the nightmare creature and dissolve this dream domain too."

"But the rules didn't say any of that. How did the player figure it out, meow?" Xiao Qi asked, tilting its head.

Mo Bai replied, "I've personally tested nine rooms and eliminated nine dream monsters. I have some authority to speak on how to eliminate dream monsters.

The monsters in those rooms were all ones I had already defeated in my memories. I knew how they died, so I could erase them easily. But the darkness and the card-based fears, under normal circumstances, don't really have a way to be defeated."

"That's true. Blindness is an objective fact, and if what the cards said was real, that would also be an objective fact. Those two things don't even count as monsters. They're unchangeable realities, yet they still disappeared," Xiao Qi said seriously.

Mo Bai said, "The reason these two objective facts disappeared is that, in my heart, I already had answers. Whether those answers can come true in reality doesn't matter. At least in this dream, as long as I accept them, they vanish."

Xiao Qi said, "So no matter how strong the monster in the hidden room is, as long as the dream owner accepts the player's method, it will disappear."

"Exactly. Next, we need to find Room 501 and the hidden room," Mo Bai said.

Room 501 concealed the nightmare creature. Mo Bai needed to communicate with him to confirm what kind of "death" he would recognize. Before finding the hidden room, it was best to locate him first.

"But Room 501 has completely disappeared. Where could he be hiding?" Xiao Qi asked. "Where do we even start looking?"

"No need to look," Mo Bai said. "Since this dream is under his control, searching won't work. Even if we could find him, I wouldn't be able to open the door, and the rules forbid breaking in. What I need to do is make him come to me on his own."

"Meow?" Xiao Qi tilted its head adorably as it looked at her.

Mo Bai couldn't resist taking a quick sniff of its head before explaining, "I'll resolve all the troubles in this domain except for 501, 502, and the hidden room. I'll prove my strength and make him beg me."

"Player is so cool!" Xiao Qi was clearly impressed.

Among the "troubles" Mo Bai mentioned, Li Ming was one of them.

He already destroyed half the hospital from the outside, so the nightmare creature must have sensed the threat he posed. Eliminating him would likely earn the nightmare creature's favor as well.

Mo Bai stepped out of Room 710 and tried opening the door again. This time, it opened easily. The room was empty, with no monster inside.

"Looks like once the monster in Room 710 is eliminated, the room becomes unclaimed. I can use it freely now," Mo Bai said.

This was exactly what she had been looking for by repeatedly opening doors.

She rummaged through the ward and found a hospital gown to change into.

Then she sat in the wheelchair the man had left behind, draping a thin blanket over herself, disguising her appearance as disabled and harmless.

Xiao Qi lounged comfortably on her lap and tilted its head. "What is the player up to?"

Mo Bai smiled slyly. "Isn't the administrator hiding from us? Then I'll create one for Li Ming. The rules never specified a room number for the administrator, so it could very well be Room 710."

"So the player is planning to… use someone else's blade to do the killing?" Xiao Qi worked its little head, trying to understand Mo Bai's plan.

Mo Bai nodded. "Exactly. From now on, I'm the administrator of this dream domain. I also have information about Ultra-Star Rank monsters. But if anyone wants that information, they'll have to help me eliminate the terrible monsters in the hospital first. Only then will I lead the outsiders to the hidden room. To the origin of everything that hides the secret about the town's monsters."

Xiao Qi blinked, its once-clear eyes became cunning.

It lazily licked its paw. "Right~ Isn't that Li Ming powerful? Didn't he blow up the entire hospital in one move? Then we might as well make use of that strength and have him clear out the small fry for us. We're elegant, intelligent types. We don't do manual labor."

Mo Bai quietly reached out and brushed Xiao Qi's lazily swaying tail.

This "bad idea" perfectly matched the little devil Xiao Qi's taste.

After licking its paw, Xiao Qi suddenly thought of something and said with a hint of guilt, "Wait, am I being a bit redundant? Why would an administrator keep a cat? And this cat looks exactly like the one Li Ming killed earlier. Won't he get suspicious?"

Mo Bai sighed. "You're overthinking it. There's no way he remembers what a small animal he casually killed looked like. It's already impressive if he even remembers it was a cat.

As for whether an administrator would keep a cat, that's not an issue. The rules don't say administrators can't keep cats, so they can.

If the administrator matched Li Ming's expectations perfectly, that would be the suspicious part. This is a dream. The more unexpected something is, the more real it feels."

After saying that, Mo Bai looked at herself in the mirror, satisfied with what she saw.

Perhaps it was the dream's influence, but she seemed to carry a trace of fragility again. Sitting in the wheelchair, she looked like the broken, fragile girl she once was.

In the mirror, her face was pale, almost sickly. When she deliberately arranged her expression into something paranoid, jealous, and insecure, she looked even more like a psychiatric patient.

She also held a black cat in her arms.

Instead of giving her a hint of warmth, the cat only made her appear more withdrawn and isolated.

Mo Bai let her long hair fall loose, half-reclined in the wheelchair, and gently closed her eyes, as if asleep.

Xiao Qi cooperated, closing its eyes as well.

Li Ming fled from the 6th floor to the 7th, opening the doors along the way. The first nine doors were all locked. When he opened the door to Room 710, this was the scene he saw.

A girl as beautiful as a porcelain doll. Pale, fragile, and withdrawn, evoking both pity and a darker, sadistic urge.

She slept in the wheelchair, holding a black cat, like a night elf whose consciousness had been sealed away.

Instinctively, Li Ming felt that she was different from the monsters in the other rooms.

Every creature he had encountered along the way had been frenzied and violently aggressive. None had been this still and quiet.

That difference made him suspect that the person in Room 710 was the administrator mentioned in the rules.

His Calamity-level ability couldn't destroy this domain. To leave, he had to find the administrator.

Originally, Li Ming planned to attack the administrator on sight, subdue them, and force them to reveal the way out.

But seeing Mo Bai asleep, he began to doubt that approach.

Maybe this wasn't a brute-force instance. Maybe it required a bit of skill.

He would wake the woman first and confirm her identity. If she weren't the administrator, he'd kill her like any other monster. If she were…

Li Ming reached his hand toward Mo Bai's face.

He was a man, and Mo Bai was a beautiful woman. Even knowing that she might be an instance creature, he still couldn't completely suppress a flicker of lust.

He wouldn't actually do anything. After all, she might be an instance creature, and this was a hospital. He was wary of being attacked.

But a little opportunistic contact didn't seem out of the question.

Just as his hand was about to touch her face, Xiao Qi suddenly snapped its eyes open, let out a sharp, piercing screech, and slashed at Li Ming's hand with its claws.

Despite being momentarily distracted by Mo Bai's appearance, Li Ming had stayed alert and pulled his hand back immediately.

Xiao Qi didn't manage to scratch him, and he didn't touch Mo Bai either.

Li Ming glared at the cat. Malice flashed in his eyes as a streak of silver lightning flickered between his fingers. He already decided to kill it.

At that moment, the sleeping girl spoke. "Xiao Qi, don't make noise. Let me sleep a little longer."

Her voice was icy. Clear and cold.

Mo Bai reached out to soothe Xiao Qi, then opened her eyes and looked at Li Ming quietly.

She remained calm, making no move to attack. Li Ming didn't attack either. Instead, he watched her warily, trying to determine her identity.

Mo Bai made the first move. "Are you a patient trapped here, trying to be discharged?"

Finally encountering a non-hostile instance creature he could communicate with, Li Ming quickly replied, "Yes. I want to be discharged. Are you the administrator? Can you let me out?"

"Administrator?" Mo Bai echoed. "What's that? There are only patients in this hospital. There's no such thing as an administrator."

Li Ming hesitated.

Mo Bai continued, "I've seen too many people like you, insisting they're normal. They keep barging into my room, waking me up, begging me to let them be discharged. I'm not a doctor. I don't know why they all come to me."

Her words subtly guided him. The more she denied being the administrator, the more convinced Li Ming became that she was.

"Then who are you? Why do they come to you?" he asked.

"Me?" Mo Bai said. "My name is Yang Momo. I'm waiting here for my Dad."

She deliberately used Professor Yang's surname to make up a name and secretly observed Li Ming's reaction.

There had been people sent by Avici inside Biological Research Institute No. 7. Mo Bai was certain that Avici would be familiar with Professor Yang's surname.

Sure enough, at the mention of "Yang," Li Ming's eyes lit up. "Who is your Dad?"

"He's a doctor at this hospital. Later, he went to the research institute. People call him Professor Yang. I'm waiting for him to come back and take me away," Mo Bai said.