The Problem Is Serious, but Panicking Won't Help

"Heh heh, you're joking, sir..."

Although he felt this late-night diner was seriously talking nonsense, it was only a joke, so there was no harm in it. Joichiro Yukihira naturally would not nitpick over something like that, merely smiling as he let the subject pass.

And precisely because of that, Gu Mo only thought the other man was being modest, completely failing to notice where the problem actually lay.

Just like that, the owner and his customer exchanged a few more compliments, creating a warm and harmonious atmosphere.

"Sir, we've basically run out of ingredients..." Joichiro Yukihira said tactfully as he looked at the empty plates on the table. Although he had made an exception and continued serving this straightforward customer, the fact remained that the restaurant had run out of ingredients.

Having run a restaurant for so long, he naturally knew how much food to prepare each day. It was generally just enough to be used up, with perhaps a little left over at most. Any more than that would be wasteful, and he did not like stocking too many ingredients in the restaurant. Everything was replaced with fresh supplies every day.

"Um... there really isn't anything left at all?"

Gu Mo blinked. He knew full well that was the truth, yet he was still somewhat reluctant to leave just like that. Being eighty percent full meant he was not completely full, but after eating the magical food here, how could he tolerate the reality-style food outside?

"There really isn't..." Joichiro Yukihira answered helplessly. A chef would indeed be pleased to receive such a request from a customer, but even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice.

"Ahem, Dad, actually, there is still something..." At that moment, an affectedly mature cough came from beside them. The two turned at the same time to see the young man by the counter step forward, holding a plate as though presenting a treasure.

"I improved it some more after evening, so this dish should now..."

"Mm... I suddenly feel like I'm full again."

Gu Mo blinked. He had clearly seen that the dish on the plate had pale silver lettering intertwined with strange, twisted black aura effects, completely unlike the earlier dishes, whose very lettering had glowed golden. He decisively changed his words and made his choice.

"..."

"..."

"Wait, I haven't even started explaining yet..." Soma Yukihira seemed deeply struck.

Was he really being rejected that decisively? He had not even had time to introduce his innovative creation, let alone say its name. He had originally thought he might get some more useful suggestions from this straightforward customer.

"By the way, boss, are you open until this time every day?" Gu Mo changed the subject and asked about something he cared more about. Such a good and affordable restaurant was so close to his home that it was less than five hundred meters away from his building. If possible, he felt he could come by more often in the future.

"That's hard to say..." Joichiro Yukihira smiled. "It depends on the circumstances. Today is considered fairly late."

"I see..."

Gu Mo raised his brows. So given his current condition, he might not necessarily make it here every day?

His routine had become especially regular lately. He woke up once every sixteen hours, always waking precisely at midnight. If the restaurant had already closed by then, would he not be making the trip for nothing? Hmm, he wondered whether they accepted advance orders for takeout.

Thinking this, he stood up and walked over to the counter, reaching for his phone. But after glancing around the counter, he discovered there was no payment QR code at all. He shrugged, not particularly bothered. After all, he had cash on him.

There were times when it was needed, after all. For example, some elderly people ran stalls or watched over shops, and they did not really accept mobile payments. Gu Mo did not want to make things difficult for them, so he always carried some cash with him. Whether he used it or not was another matter; it was better to be prepared than unprepared.

Just like now, this restaurant clearly did not support electronic payments.

But just as Gu Mo took out his wallet, he noticed an interaction box appear in front of the counter within his field of view.

—"Purchase."

"..."

"..."

Without thinking too much, like everyone with an itchy trigger finger, he hesitated only briefly before instinctively focusing his attention on it. A new interface immediately popped up before his eyes.

A new list unfolded, with a long series of menu items neatly arranged down the screen. At the top were several dishes he had ordered earlier, such as Egg Fried Rice, displayed in a selected color with their prices marked beside them. At the bottom, naturally, was the "Payment" option, with the total price marked next to it as well.

Gu Mo focused on the payment option and watched its icon shift rapidly from yellow to dark. After the transition finished in a second, another line of text appeared in the middle...

"-65."

That was the whole process, and it felt incredibly familiar to him. He could not help spacing out slightly.

"Thank you for your patronage..."

While Gu Mo was lost in thought, Soma Yukihira behind the counter had already skillfully counted the payment, put the money away in the cash register, and loudly thanked him in an energetic voice. Although he had been somewhat discouraged earlier, he quickly adjusted his mindset.

Then the young man saw the customer before him blink, as though waking from a dream, with a subtle expression on his face.

"What is it, sir? Is there a problem?" Soma Yukihira asked curiously. Was the man waiting for change?

But he had paid the exact amount. Not a single cent more. What change was there to give?

"No, I was just... well, I thought of something else just now, so I got distracted."

Gu Mo came back to his senses and offered that explanation. Then he glanced at the wallet in his hand, seeming somewhat hesitant as he slowly turned and walked away. One step, two steps, three steps...

He walked all the way outside without being stopped, which left him especially surprised. Had he really paid just like that?

He looked back inside and found that the Yukihira father and son had already gone back to cleaning up. Going back in to ask now seemed like it would be rather awkward.

So after looking around, he headed toward the other end of the street. Once he was out of sight of Yukihira Restaurant, he stood by the roadside under a streetlamp and opened the wallet still in his hand, checking it in confusion. He found that the loose cash he had brought was indeed short by exactly sixty-five yuan, perfectly matching what had just happened.

Gu Mo's expression immediately became somewhat grave. After hesitating, he tentatively called out, muttering under his breath—

"System?"

"Deep Blue?"

"Come out! I want to add points!"

Over the next several minutes, he tried to summon his cheat and prove that there was nothing wrong with his brain... Naturally, nothing happened. The only result was that pedestrians passing by unconsciously quickened their pace, while a group of people gathered nearby, pointing at him as though he were insane.

Gu Mo sighed dejectedly and gave up on his stubborn fantasy. Looking at the people around him pointing and whispering, he realized that happiness truly belonged to others. He had nothing.

Viewing the phenomenon from a rational perspective again, Gu Mo forced himself to calm down and felt there was perhaps a more reasonable possibility—if everything just now had been his own fantasy and imagination, then perhaps he had honestly taken out money and paid, while in his fantasy it had become something else entirely.

Like certain mentally ill people. He had once seen an example: someone whose delusions had run too deep, holding a kitchen knife yet insisting it was the Dragon-Slaying Saber, the supreme martial artist in the world, firmly believing himself to be a grandmaster unmatched in both blade and sword...

To others, such behavior might seem absurd, ridiculous, and laughable. But the most frightening part was... the person involved truly believed it. He believed his own logic and worldview were the correct ones.

Was this somewhat similar? In other people's eyes, that mentally ill person was holding a knife. The mentally ill person himself also knew he was holding a knife, but he thought what he held was actually the Dragon-Slaying Saber... And Gu Mo's current situation? Perhaps he had taken out money just now, but believed he had paid through something like a "system transfer."

In that case, what was the difference between him and that mentally ill person? The other believed himself to be a martial arts master, while he had just started suspecting he had some kind of cheat...

Mm, it seemed everything made sense now.

After such profound self-analysis, Gu Mo felt he was gradually beginning to understand everything. So this was the world of people with mental problems? He had always found it baffling before, but only now did he finally understand. The world seen by mentally ill people truly was completely different from the one normal people saw.

If the world someone saw, heard, and felt was always different from that of ordinary people, and their understanding also differed from ordinary people's, then being unable to fit in was only natural...

Looking at the people nearby who were pointing at him, Gu Mo rubbed his cheeks and hurried away.

Come to think of it, the doctor had once advised him to visit psychiatry. He had not followed that advice at the time, probably because he had read too many bad stories about psychiatric hospitals. He was somewhat worried that if he was diagnosed with a serious problem, he might be sent in...

High walls and electric fences, sealed wards, forced sedation, abuse and beatings...

Things like that. Perhaps not every case was so dark, and this era was not as chaotically managed as the past, but whether it was prejudice or stubbornness, since he had already formed such an impression based on information he had received before, he naturally rejected that possibility intensely.

No, this could not continue. He had to save himself...

Gu Mo secretly made up his mind. Perhaps the food just now had stirred some positive emotion within him, because he was now filled with determination and drive. He decided that he had to do something... Continuing to see a doctor probably would not help much, and he stayed far away from psychiatry.

So...

"First, adjust my schedule and make sure I stay healthy. After some time, I'll see if things improve. At the same time, I need to keep playing the role of a normal person, so no one notices anything and eventually sends me into a psychiatric hospital."

He quickly made his decision and established a guiding policy for his future actions.

"After all, my situation hasn't reached the point where I completely believe it myself. I'm not like that person, who truly thought he was a martial arts master. The gap between my cognition and behavior isn't especially large. I should still have a chance to correct it..."

Mm, compared to that, he felt he still had a major advantage. It was an optimistic thought.

One minute later.

"Bzzzt... %￥#@&... bzzzt... $#%&@..."

As he retraced his route and passed through the dimly lit alley again, Gu Mo once more heard that piercing auditory hallucination tormenting him.

It felt as though electric currents were racing through the nerves in his brain, making him frown deeply in discomfort. The sensation was far worse than fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

"What the hell..."

He muttered softly, walked out of the alley, and returned beneath the soft lights of the snack street outside his residential complex. The piercing sound and discomfort in his mind immediately receded like a tide.

Was there something wrong with that alley? He turned back to look at the dark, gloomy passage behind him, looking somewhat puzzled. It had happened when he walked in just now, and it happened again when he walked out. Such a coincidence could not help but make him curious.

Tilting his head and scratching his cheek, he turned around and left.

The snack street was still lively. From experience, this would continue until one or two in the morning. Only then would people gradually disperse, while the various food stalls and shops slowly close for the night. This was the pattern Gu Mo had gradually summed up over the past week.

Touching his stomach, which was only eighty percent full, he headed straight for the nearest food stall.

About five minutes later.

Gu Mo stared at the grilled skewer in his hand, from which he had taken one bite, with a grave expression and tightly furrowed brows. He knew this would happen. It was easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury back to frugality. After the impact of such delicious food, his taste buds' stimulation threshold had become somewhat exaggeratedly high in a short time.

—To the point that ordinary food now tasted like wax to him.

Before he knew it, it was around seven in the morning.

Only then did Gu Mo return to the residential complex. He had not gone straight to the hospital overnight to register and line up early in the morning for the first spot, but he also did not want to waste the little activity time he had left in the day.

"Little Gu, why are you heading out so early in the morning?"

"Good morning, Director Zhang."

Looking at the middle-aged woman in the duty room beside him, Gu Mo, who was beginning to feel tired, raised a hand in greeting. Then he proactively explained, "I didn't go out early this morning. I went out at midnight last night and only just got back... Mm, I found a job, and I'll be working the night shift for a while."

He had to play the role of a normal person, so considering his current situation, he felt it was necessary to explain first. That way, his habit of sleeping during the day and being active at night would not seem so conspicuous or arouse suspicion later—going out to work night shifts and returning in the daytime to sleep was perfectly reasonable!

"I see..." Director Zhang nodded, seemingly unsurprised, though her expression was slightly hesitant. "When you went out last night, you spoke with Old Man Ding, didn't you?"

Gu Mo's heart skipped a beat. "Yes. What about it?"

No way, right? Could it be that he had not said anything at all last night, only acted a little strangely, and Old Man Ding had already gone around spreading gossip that something was wrong with him?

Just as he thought. He knew that loudmouth old man had bad intentions!

"It's nothing. It's just... when you spoke with him, you didn't say anything strange, did you?" Director Zhang hesitated, choosing her words carefully.

Last night, Old Ding, who had been on the night shift, had encountered something evil. Though he was unharmed, he had been badly frightened. When asked what exactly had happened, he could not explain it clearly and only kept saying there was a ghost in the duty room... In any case, he made it sound so convincing that even Director Zhang found it a little creepy.

Early that morning, she had checked the surveillance footage and found that shortly after midnight, only Little Gu had left the complex. He had spoken with Old Ding for a while, and at that time Old Ding had not seemed to have any problem yet. After that, however, Old Ding had sat in his seat staring at his phone the whole time—

He seemed to be acting normally, if not for the fact that he had not dared move for more than an hour afterward.

Of course, the surveillance footage alone did not reveal anything. Director Zhang could not openly promote superstition either, so while questioning Gu Mo, she could only probe indirectly to see whether he had said something that might have provoked Old Man Ding.

He had said something strange? So that was it! Old Man Ding must have been spreading rumors about him!

Gu Mo became highly alert, even more convinced of his own guess. At the same time, he frowned and put on a bewildered expression. "No, I didn't say anything. I only said hello..."

He would never admit it!

And from now on, no matter what bizarre and confused imaginations appeared again, he would continue playing the role of a normal person!