The Patient Got Out of Bed

The patient got out of bed.

To Therius's utter shock, Cheng Shi forcefully broke free of the straps binding him and easily jumped off the bed.

He snatched the Concentric Dagger from Therius's hand, deftly manipulating Daggers as it flew between his fingers. While fiddling with the Daggers, he also manipulated the Experiment screen that originally belonged to Therius, seemingly wanting to see the Experiment data generated on his own body as well.

Therius looked at Cheng Shi in disbelief, then frowned deeply.

His eyes showed no fear, but were filled with doubt.

He wondered how this Experiment subject had managed to break free from the effects of the various drugs and regain consciousness, and why there was no fear in his eyes, and why he even clearly knew his own name!

"Who are you?"

"Me? You've forgotten so quickly? Aren't I the Experiment subject you mentioned, number 11...1172?"

Cheng Shi's gaze lingered on the screen for a moment, but he didn't quite understand it. He pleaded with Mouth Brother for a long time without any response, so he had no choice but to give up collecting his own data and turn his attention back to the Scholar beside him.

Feeling the aggressive gaze scrutinizing him, Therius asked with some surprise, "You're not a Death Sentence?"

"Death Sentence a criminal?"

Yes, I am Death Sentence inmate. I was before, I was just now, but perhaps not now.

Your expression seems shocked. What? Is it rare to see an Experiment subject that has escaped control? Well, congratulations, you've met one today.

There's no need to guess my identity. I have no connection with any faction or individual. I was simply sent here by chance by the knights of the Grand Inquisition.

And now, I'm getting ready to go out.

Mr. Therius, do you still want to leave this prison of "Order"? If so, I think we still have a chance to cooperate.

But before we cooperate, you must tell me truthfully what I've just been through.

Therius pondered for a moment, then looked at Cheng Shi with a strange expression, seemingly having misunderstood:

"So even that the Great One has his miscalculations. Why didn't the Adjudicator in Montrani consider this when they imprisoned you? Why didn't they use the power of [Order] to restrain your abilities...?"

?

Does this mean they think of me as Kainlaur's enemy?

That's good, this makes the foundation for cooperation even stronger.

Cheng Shi smiled, and in order not to trigger the Honest Clown, replied vaguely:

"Perhaps it's a blessing from Destiny."

He wasn't lying; surviving that Memory was indeed a stroke of Destiny.

But Therius Ear these words and interpreted them in a different way. He nodded and began to look at the Experiment subject who had broken free of control.

"I've never heard of you before. How did you learn about me, and...?"

"You want to escape from here?" Cheng Shi Therius was hesitant to say.

"Yes." Therius replied cautiously.

"Scholar, you are a smart man. Think about it, how could I, an unlucky guy who was forcibly dragged from outside the Experiment, possibly know the 'secret' of a reclusive Scholar?"

So, someone must have told me. Now, guess who it could be?

Cheng Shi didn't intend to communicate with the other party using a bunch of lies. His immediate priority was to figure out what had just happened, to find out what exactly happened in the Trials where he had killed all his teammates—no, it should be said that he had killed all of "himself"—and now, which scene of the Trials script he was in.

So he chose to let Therius deceive himself.

As we all know, smart people like to think a lot, and the more they think, the more mistakes they make. The more mistakes they make, the more loopholes they can exploit in their thinking.

Wise One are often defeated by overthinking.

Therius frowned and pondered for a long time, long enough to have considered all the possibilities, before suddenly looking up in surprise, somewhat uncertainly saying:

"Galiusha? You were sent by Galiusha?"

"Correct!" Cheng Shi snapped his fingers happily and touched his nose. "I don't get along with the Grand Inquisition. When I entered the city, that girl found out about me. She needed a helper who wasn't so close to her, so she secretly sent me in."

I don't know what relationship that little girl named Galiusha has with you, Scholar. I only know that I came here to help, not to suffer.

So, after explaining what just happened, and confirming that there are no problems with my body, I will keep my promise and help you leave this place.

Cheng Shi's hands were constantly moving, either twirling Daggers or snapping his fingers, making him look like someone with ADHD in an attempt to cover up his act of secretly touching his nose.

A look of surprise flashed in Therius's eyes. He didn't quite believe what Cheng Shi said, because his relationship with Galiusha wasn't exactly a secret among those in the Experiment.

However, he still decided to cooperate with Cheng Shi, not because he had a strong desire to share, but because he found it difficult to find another "sane" outsider.

He felt that the other party was right. No matter what the other party's purpose was in coming here, his only request was to die, so he was not afraid that the other party had any ulterior motives.

On the contrary, they fear that the other party has no ulterior motives, because in that case they will lose their bargaining Chip and become prisoners who continue to be trapped in the cage of "Order".

"Your body has not Change, and all your data are normal."

Therius decided to "cooperate," so he began to explain everything that had just happened to Cheng Shi. He pushed the screen over and pointed to the data on it, saying:

"Both your vitality and level of consciousness are within the normal range, which means that the slicing process just now did not cause you any harm."

Your consciousness is very strong, and your self-esteem is very high. You successfully killed the personality slices within 24 hours of their separation. Generally speaking, personality slices that survive for less than 24 hours are considered invalid slices, so there are no remnants of the split personalities in your consciousness.

It's that simple. You were sent to the Experiment as Experiment material, and I immediately used the Concentric Dagger in your hand to slice through your personality.

If I follow the normal Experiment procedure, I will continue to slice your Memory, and separate the surviving personality and Memory to create physiological carriers for them. Then I will put them into a petri dish and wait for them to grow into another you, a brand new you carrying some personality and some Memory.

Unfortunately, such excellent material failed in the very first Experiment.

Cheng Shi frowned, but pretended to understand even though he didn't understand the data on the screen, and replied:

"So I just experienced a war of slices within my consciousness?"

"War? No, no, no."

This statement is an exaggeration. The separation of personalities is simply the isolation of several selves that are different from and less common than the main personality in your consciousness. Perhaps your main personality will subconsciously regard these less common personalities as outsiders, but under normal circumstances, they will not conflict with each other because they have a sense of 'shared identity' and they all belong to you.

Of course, there are exceptions, like you.

Before I met you, I really didn't know that if a person's self-esteem was too high, it would lead to the unexpected situation where each personality firmly believed in its own existence.

There is no 'Mutual Recognition' among your personality segments; they only believe in themselves. This shouldn't happen to a normal person, you understand? Because this is a state of independent consciousness that only occurs in people with extreme schizophrenia.

Of course, there is another possibility: you are always good at playing other people, and you are always convinced of your own identity. As a result, each personality you recognize carries this vague Memory, and thus they become independent the moment they appear.

Simply put, you're either a crazy conman or a complete lunatic.

So...

Which one are you?