"Bzzzt... bzzz... bzzzt..."
In the small, lightless room, the sound of electric currents crackled intermittently.
Qi Si sat in a chair, securely restrained by a straitjacket and belts, leaning back listlessly, half-dead.
The item bar remained intact at the bottom of his field of vision, unsealed. At any moment, he could use certain items to cut through his restraints.
But there was no need.
He had already swallowed a disgusting bowl of tadpole soup just to enter the game. If he woke from the dream because he struggled too hard and missed crucial clues, the loss would outweigh the gain.
After the initial chaos, Qi Si gradually adapted to the rhythm of the electric shocks and found a pattern within them.
For example, there was a two-second pause after every shock. One second could be used to adjust his condition, while the remaining second could be used for fragmented thought.
And after every three shocks, broken images flashed through his mind. Sometimes they were disconnected sentences, sometimes severely overexposed scenes.
Beneath a pale gray sky, dark green forests rolled in clusters, closing in around a pond stained moss-green by algae with a suffocating menace.
Layer upon layer of blood scabs and coagulated filth spread through the water in shades of reddish brown and dark purple. Diluted, they dispersed into translucent crimson and pale pink.
The bloated corpses of babies at the bottom of the pond shed strips of pale flesh. After dissolving into the water, they released yellowish oil that drifted away, collected on the algae leaves, and bloomed into oily green ulcers.
"Cheng Ping, are you insane? Do you have a death wish?"
An urgent voice.
"Wake up. Let me ask you, what is two plus two?... Wrong. It should be five."
A cold voice.
"My condolences. The dead