What a Psychological Shock This Was to My Innocent Mind

Chapter 19: What a Psychological Shock This Was to My Innocent Mind!

"What the hell has gotten into Manager Gou?"

Gao Ming was puzzled. Manager Gou had been calling him nonstop since 5:41 p.m., but all his attention was on Xuan Wen.

"Over a thousand people have downloaded and tried the game now. Have you noticed anything unusual?" Gao Ming had no workstation of his own, so he brought over a cardboard box and sat beside Xuan Wen, watching her nervously.

"I can vaguely hear a jumble of voices in my head." Xuan Wen looked down at her hands. She had been sitting like that for a long time.

"Voices?" Gao Ming carefully noted down all her current "symptoms." "Can you hear what they're saying?"

"Not clearly, but those voices carry all sorts of emotions. They make my consciousness more independent and complete." Xuan Wen gripped the chair's armrests tightly. "Ever since I opened my eyes, black shadows that only I can see have kept appearing around me. They try every possible way to drag me back to my original world, as though they want to correct my fate. But these voices from the players are like threads, binding me more closely to the real world and making me less susceptible to the black shadows."

"The information provided by the Investigation Bureau says that Ghosts in Strange Tales can feed on negative emotions and unease, growing stronger step by step until they lose control completely." Gao Ming watched Xuan Wen. "Do you feel like you're losing control now?"

"Being affected by so many voices is bound to make me irritable, like someone with schizophrenia experiencing auditory hallucinations for the first time. But I should be able to adjust." Xuan Wen raised her head. Her left eye was bloodshot. More terrifyingly, those red veins seemed about to crawl out of her eye socket and spread across the left side of her face.

"Lady, that face looks like a little more than irritation!" Gao Ming took a sleep mask from the drawer and handed it to her.

"Call me 'lady' again, and I really will lose control." Xuan Wen took a mirror from her bag. After checking her reflection, she put on the sleep mask and dragged Gao Ming out of the office.

"Why don't you go home and lie low?"

"No need." Xuan Wen left the office and stopped outside the storage room. "If a Strange Tale were allowed to control and possess a thousand living people in reality, disaster would definitely strike. As the core of that Strange Tale, I would inevitably lose my sanity, and those thousand people would fall into terror and despair. The situation we have now is just right."

Xuan Wen's voice was very low, each word seeming to seep through her clenched teeth. "That game based on us is like my shrine, and the memorial Posthumous Photograph in the wedding dress inside it is like my Divine Statue. This way, I can still obtain small amounts of emotion and unease without plunging the players into genuine hopelessness."

"Exactly." Gao Ming nodded.

"I can feel myself slowly breaking free of the Shadow World's influence." Xuan Wen opened the storage room door. "We'll finish the full game tonight. Even if we have to take out a loan, we need to get more people playing it!"

"That sounds... strange coming from you." The Psychopathic Serial Killer in Gao Ming's imagination killed eight heroines in three days, was deeply calculating, and posed the utmost danger. The actual Psychopathic Serial Killer took a taxi to work after five in the morning and would rather take out a loan than let the company's hard work go to waste.

"Get to work. Once I've rested, I'll come help." Xuan Wen shut the storage room door, leaving Gao Ming standing outside alone.

Xuan Wen is smart, but she's too close to this to see the bigger picture. Now that we've confirmed ordinary games can collect emotions for Strange Tales, I can use Strange Tales to make money, then pour that money into supporting the monsters I own. Gao Ming opened the backpack he carried with him, his eyes narrowing slightly. I should collect more black-and-white photographs like Zhao Xi's.

The end of the world was coming. Why keep following the old rules?

Back in the office, Gao Ming immediately began searching for Hanhai's notorious haunted houses. Just then, Wei Dayou sidled over with Fortune in his arms and a conspiratorial air. "Is something going on between you two?"

His eyebrows rose, his expression saying he had seen through everything long ago.

Gao Ming wore the same expression as Fortune, utterly helpless and speechless. "Something is going on, but not what you're thinking."

"I knew it!"

"You don't know shit!" Gao Ming continued browsing haunted houses. The two of them weren't even on the same wavelength.

"I saw you come out alone. Did you two have a fight?" Wei Dayou patted Gao Ming's shoulder. "Your buddy ordered you two cups of milk tea. Go apologize in a bit. Don't leave the girl suffering by herself. I saw her covering her eyes. It looked like she was crying."

"Whatever you say." Gao Ming shooed Wei Dayou away and compared Hanhai's haunted houses with the games he had created, planning his future route.

About half an hour later, the milk tea Wei Dayou had ordered arrived. Gao Ming reluctantly left the office, only to look up and spot a familiar face.

"Su Mo?"

The delivery rider who had previously brought Gao Ming braised chicken and rice stood at the entrance holding the milk tea. The moment he saw Gao Ming, he instinctively stepped back.

"I switched to taking orders in another district, and I still ran into you?"

"Maybe it's fate." Gao Ming took the two cups of milk tea. Instead of returning to the office, he headed alone toward the storage room in the corner.

Su Mo had been about to leave, but he faintly heard a woman's suppressed cries of pain coming from the storage room.

His sense of justice kept the college student from leaving immediately. After hesitating for quite a while, he quietly approached the storage room.

Gao Ming closed the storage room door. He found that Xuan Wen's condition seemed to have worsened. The left side of her face was slightly distorted, and her fingers had scratched several bloody marks into it. "Are you all right?"

"There are more and more voices!" Xuan Wen's gaze was frightening, her speech halting. "I don't know what I might do."

"Why don't you go home first?"

"No. I might tear myself apart on the way." Even Xuan Wen's voice had changed, taking on an eerie, unfamiliar quality, cold and chilling.

"But you can't lose control at the office either. They're making your game." Gao Ming held up the milk tea. "They even bought you milk tea. You can't turn around and butcher them all!"

"Go find some rope and tie up my hands and feet." Xuan Wen looked pained.

"Are you sure? Won't that make you feel worse?"

"No."

"Then what should I tie you to?"

"The desk? The bookcase? The radiator? Anything!" Xuan Wen struggled to unlock her phone. "Let's record the entire transformation. I need to know what's happening to me. We can watch it together, or study it at our leisure when we come to work tomorrow."

"That works." Gao Ming was on high alert. Turning around, he faintly heard footsteps outside the door.

He gestured for silence and quietly took hold of the doorknob.

Su Mo had always felt that Gao Ming was no good. He tiptoed to the storage room door and strained his ears.

"Go find some rope and tie up my hands and feet..."

That single sentence changed the expression of this college student who had been full of anticipation for working life. Tie her up??

He held his breath. Another voice came from the storage room—"What should I tie you to?"

"The desk? The bookcase? The radiator? Anything!"

Just listening made Su Mo blush. Was this something people should be discussing at work?

"Let's record the entire process. I need to know what's happening to me. We can watch it together, or study it at our leisure when we come to work tomorrow."

They're going to record the whole process? And watch it together tomorrow?! Su Mo drew in a sharp breath. They were even planning to study it at their leisure during working hours! What a psychological shock these words had dealt to an innocent college student!

His ears burned. Su Mo took a step back, but just then the door opened, and he and Gao Ming found themselves facing each other again.

"What did you hear?"

Under Gao Ming's stare, Su Mo's hair stood on end. The man before him had not only been possessed, but was also a pervert with unusual tastes. Terrifying!

The third floor of Blessed Peace Private Hospital, Queen 16th Street, Hanhai's East District.

Wiping the blood from his fingertips, a tall, burly middle-aged man slowly rose. He stepped over the corpse and sat at the head of the table.

"Chairman Situ, the paperwork has come through." The young doctor wearing glasses seemed thoroughly accustomed to all this. "Congratulations on becoming acting Bureau Chief of the Hanhai Investigation Bureau's East District Police Station, as you wished."

"Only acting director?" The middle-aged man glanced indifferently at the doctor. No trace of emotion could be heard in his voice.

"Essentially, no one can compete with you." The doctor hesitated slightly before asking, "But I'm curious. Why would you pay such a high price to secure a position everyone else avoids like the plague?"

"Doctor Lu, I don't think that's any concern of yours." The hall's light shone on the table before the middle-aged man, but he himself remained hidden in shadow. "Did you bring the people I asked you to find?"

"Seven in total, all investigators who have experienced level three anomaly events. They'll explain in detail how to survive an anomaly event." The doctor placed the files before the middle-aged man. Of the seven investigators, three had physical disabilities, and another was disfigured.

"No need for explanations. At midnight tonight, have them enter that Ghost building in the East District with me. We'll stay in the home of the family that worships the Flesh and Blood Immortal."

"That... wouldn't follow procedure, would it? They belong to other branches." The doctor looked troubled.

"Rules are made by people. Soon, you'll all be following new rules."

The middle-aged man slowly rose and pushed the chair he had kept in the shadows into the light.

(End of chapter)