"After I recovered my memories, I woke up my younger sister, who was with me," Qiu Man recalled her experiences after entering the Nightmare Game. "Thinking back, it really must have been because the memories this game fabricated were too different from my life in the real world."
"Actually, it was the same for me!" the male player who had stayed by Sister Yao's side blurted out. "The fake identity the game gave me was Sister Yao's husband. Every time I saw her, something felt off. Then one time, during an afternoon nap, I dreamed she was standing beside me, scolding me, and suddenly my memories came back!"
"..." His words instantly pulled Sister Yao out of her grief, and she shot him a glare. "So sorry. Being assigned as your wife must have scared you."
"That's not what I meant! Sister Yao, you're young and beautiful, an amazing veteran player, and you've saved us several times. No matter how you look at it, I'm the one who isn't good enough for you!" The male player hurried to explain, looking utterly miserable. "It definitely wasn't because you usually have a bad temper, and it definitely wasn't because seeing you cook for me in loungewear was absolutely terrifying!"
"You'd have been better off not explaining..." The other male player looked exasperated at his hopeless teammate, but then something seemed to occur to him, and his tone suddenly shifted. "Still, before I recovered my memories, I went to eat the food Sister Yao made. The memories in my head clearly told me the meal should taste great, but after eating it, I felt like I'd swallowed an unwashed octopus raw. As soon as I got home, I threw up until the whole world spun, and then my memories came back."
"Ahem!" Sister Yao covered the wound on her abdomen and coughed several times before glaring at the two male players through gritted teeth. "Once I get out of here alive, you two are dead!"
Although Sister Yao looked angry, her expression had become more animated, and she seemed more energetic.
Though the two male players had earned her "resentment," they both stood there and breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her mood and condition improve a little.
"In other words, if the false memories the game gives players are what they want, recovering their memories might be very difficult. But if those false memories are completely different from what they want, they'll spot the flaws faster and recover their memories." Su Bai had indeed gained some new information from this.
Whether it was Qiu Man, who wanted to go to work but was forced to stay home "unemployed," or the male player who had been given a wife he could never possibly have, they had recovered their memories because the false memories Happiness Residential Complex gave them were too different from what they wanted.
There was another possibility, too. Sister Yao, for example, was clearly the most experienced of the three players, yet she had been the last to recover her memories. The main reason was that she could not break free of the false memories Happiness Residential Complex had given her.
Sister Yao had mentioned earlier that she had once had a child, and she easily slipped into the role of a mother. Although Su Bai had only just met her, and she had not told him much about herself, he thought she was probably still mourning the child she had lost, just as she still could not forget Ning Yan's death.
So before recovering her memories, Sister Yao had always treated the Ghost Infant in her belly as her own child. Perhaps she had not only been immersed in the false memories Happiness Residential Complex had created, but also in the painful memories she could not escape.
Perhaps madmen like Lan Xingchen were rare.
But whether in the Nightmare World or the real world, there were far, far too many people who could not move on from their pain.
"The memories it gave me were of a happy family." Lan Xingchen raised his head and looked at the lobby ceiling. As his strength returned, his hair slowly began turning pale blue, and the ghastly wounds on his body gradually healed. Yet no matter how quickly his wounds healed, new wounds continued to appear on his body.
"There's no way I could ever have something like that. The false memories were useless on me from the start." Lan Xingchen raised his arm, covered in scars and wounds. "This isn't the arm of a Regular office worker with a happy family."
"..."
Silence settled over the lobby again.
Considering that the others in the lobby might be a little careless, Su Bai went over to the glass entrance himself and relocked the security door the Hanged Ghost had opened earlier.
Su Bai found it hard to judge Lan Xingchen. After all, human beings were never easy to sum up as "good" or "evil." But speaking for himself, as a Regular newcomer to the Nightmare World, he would gladly encounter a companion like this in a game. Mad though he was, Lan Xingchen possessed considerable combat strength and could help the players accompanying him survive.
But as a Regular high school dropout, Su Bai found it hard to like someone like him.
Even if they cleared the game together, Su Bai absolutely, absolutely, absolutely would not keep his contact information!
Besides... Su Bai had met all sorts of people in the Nightmare World in his previous life, but he had never heard of a madman like Lan Xingchen. Perhaps by then, Lan Xingchen had already been dead?
"Do you think the Ghost Creatures outside are in the same situation as us?" Although Su Bai, an "outsider," had no false memories, he still quickly joined the other players' conversation with the shy smile typical of a Regular high school student.
"Those things?" Sister Yao and the others looked at Su Bai, seemingly taken aback. "What do you mean?"
At that moment, to guard against any Strange Creatures that might appear at any time, Sister Yao and the others remained near the elevator doors. Su Bai and the Qiu Family sisters stood by the wall, not far from the digital clock mounted on it, while Lan Xingchen sat cross-legged nearby, recuperating. This rare moment of peace allowed everyone to chat for a while, but no one stopped watching the stairs and elevators on either side or the glass entrance directly ahead.
Seizing every chance to rest was essential in a survival mission, but the nature of such missions meant no one knew when or where a Strange Creature might suddenly rush out.
Especially now, when the players were at a disadvantage.
Another essential point to remember was that, under these circumstances, chatting would not distract the players or dull their vigilance. Instead, it helped them relax, stay calm, and think more rationally.
So none of them minded chatting.
"I think you mentioned earlier that the Ghost Creatures standing outside haven't recovered their memories yet. This residential complex wants to use the Red Moon's power to restore the Ghost Creatures' memories, and then... things might get pretty bad, right?" Although Qiu Man did not know exactly what would happen, she could sense the danger just like everyone else present.
"And we can't stop it." Although Su Bai had little power left, his physical strength had mostly recovered, and he no longer needed to lean on his long-handled umbrella. He simply gazed beyond the glass entrance, as though he could see the red moon in the sky just like the Ghost Creatures with their heads tilted upward.
"After all, no one can stop that moon."
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