The person was dead.
“I won’t listen to anything you say.”
You Li was held tightly in the clown’s arms. He struggled several times, desperately trying to escape from the murderer’s embrace, but every hope of getting away, along with every attempt he made, was extinguished time and time again.
Tears and cold sweat brought on by the overwhelming stress had been flowing nonstop from the beginning, soaking into the clown’s white coat.
He had witnessed four deaths.
One of them had been his own, leaving him with deep psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Another had been a middle-aged woman with whom he had barely interacted. And the last had been the girl with pigtails, who had seemed completely indifferent to human life.
This was the fourth time.
It was Chen Shuang, the person who had helped him and given him so many clues. She could be considered his teammate in this dungeon.
You Li took deep, uncontrollable breaths. The emotions that had finally been calmed by the medication completely collapsed once again, causing his hyperventilation syndrome to flare up.
They’re all dead.
Completely dead.
Everyone was dead.
He couldn’t help recalling the group psychotherapy session the doctor had conducted when they had first entered the instance, when people had died one after another.
He was the only living person left in the entire instance.
He was being held in the arms of a monster, while wearing the clothes of another monster.
Another monster had said, “How did he die? Oh well, he’s dead, he’s dead.”
The doctor had said, “How could you do it in front of him?”
The clown used his finger bones to pry open You Li’s tightly clenched lips.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” he whispered, trying to stop him. “Don’t bite.”
You Li’s saliva and tears had almost completely covered his hands.
“He’s a bit stressed. Let’s control his breathing first.”
You Li’s mouth and nose were covered, depriving him of the oxygen he needed to survive. A suffocating sensation surged through his entire body, growing stronger and more unbearable with every passing second.
The clown forcefully covered his mouth and nose and coaxed him, “Don’t cry, little one. Calm down, okay?”
He leaned down, pressing his cold mask against You Li’s eyes.
“You don’t want to go into shock and lose consciousness, have your memories erased, and then wake up to find yourself trapped in the same cycle again, do you?”
Coaxing didn’t work.
But threats did.
The clown watched as You Li’s breathing gradually weakened, his gaze slowly becoming calmer. After a moment, he finally and slowly removed his hand from You Li’s mouth and nose.
His hands were almost completely wet with tears. When he finally let go, it felt as though the warm breath of someone consumed by fear and dread still lingered against his palms.
The clown fell silent for the first time in a long while.
“Don’t you believe me anymore?”
There was still fear in You Li’s eyes.
He resisted instinctively, curling himself into a ball as though trying to make himself as small as possible. With the clown’s mask pressed so close to his face, he seemed almost out of his mind with terror.
He cried and trembled as he pleaded, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, please…”
The clown paused for a moment before reaching out to wipe away his tears.
“I won’t kill you.”
You Li was terrified of his touch and tried to block him, covering himself with the back of his hand.
“Don’t hit me! Car, car, there’s a car! It hurts! Waaah, it hurts so much, there’s so much blood! So cold, so cold-“
The clown hugged him tightly, pressing him against his chest while gently stroking his back.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Are you still cold if I hold you tighter?”
You Li struggled desperately to break free, crying out, “Don’t hug me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me, sob…”
He cried so hard that it took the clown a long time to finally calm him down.
The doctor stood up, glanced at the time, and said, “It’s almost time. Give him the final treatment.”
The clown looked at You Li.
This sentence made You Li, who had been about to shrink back again, ask, “Can’t we wait a little longer? Wait until he calms down a bit.”
The doctor was already preparing the medicine.
“Give him some medicine and let him sleep.”
The medicine had just been handed to You Li when he immediately knocked it to the ground, scattering the pills everywhere.
The doctor remained very patient, repeating the process from the first time, to the second time, and then the third time…
“I won’t eat, I won’t eat, I don’t want to take medicine…”
You Li shrank back, but the clown was right behind him. No matter how far he tried to retreat, all he could do was shrink further into the clown’s arms.
Every time the doctor handed him the medicine, You Li frantically waved his hands and knocked it away. Tears continued streaming down his face.
The doctor pressed his temples.
“Give him to me.”
Just as the clown was about to hand You Li over to the doctor, he suddenly paused.
“Never mind. Let’s wait a little longer.”
The clown carried You Li back and said, “Go to the treatment room and adjust the equipment first.”
The doctor’s eyes suddenly turned cold.
Despite having his medicine knocked away so many times before, his expression had remained calm. He had never cared about who You Li was close to or who was close to him.
But at this moment, there was a scrutinizing look in his eyes.
His gaze shifted from the clown to the boy who was still crying. After a moment, he sighed softly.
As he turned to leave, he warned, “Watch your step.”
What exactly were they supposed to pay attention to in terms of proportion?
He didn’t say anything.
The doctor walked away.
The clown spent a long time comforting the person in his arms until You Li’s tears finally began to subside.
“Take your medicine, okay? A good night’s sleep will make all of this go away.”
Seeing You Li begin trembling again, the clown paused.
“Didn’t they tell you about that thing in your head?”
“You will die if your memories aren’t erased.”
You Li helplessly shook his head. After a while, he said, “Can I go to the playroom and look at the fairy tale books again?”
He began to cry.
“I’ll only look for a little while, just a little while. I’ll be good. I won’t run around anymore.”
“When I read fairy tales and fall asleep after taking my medicine, I dream about the princes and princesses in them, and then I’m not so scared anymore.”
His words were somewhat incoherent, his speech broken by the sobs that kept catching in his throat.
The clown looked at him for a moment before picking him up and carrying him to the recreation room.
You Li was placed in his usual seat, the same place he had been sitting in since the beginning of the dungeon.
It was daytime outside.
The sunlight pouring through the glass window was dazzling. There were no railings blocking it, and the brightness was almost unbearable to look at. You Li couldn’t bring himself to stare outside for long, so he lowered his gaze and began flipping through Grimm’s Fairy Tales again.
It felt as though he had been reading for a very long time.
Yet at the same time, it felt as though he had only been there for a short while.
After finishing one of the stories, You Li simply sat there in a daze. He seemed tired, gradually losing what little strength he had left. In the end, he buried his face in the fairy tale lying open in front of him, resting it against his bent arms.
With nowhere to escape and no choice but to accept reality, he quietly but uncontrollably began to cry again.
His breathing grew heavier with every breath.
The clown tried to wipe away his tears, but the moment his hand touched the boy, You Li instinctively shrank back.
It seemed that all that remained in him now was the word “fear.”
The clown put down the scalpel and forcibly lifted You Li’s face, cradling it in his hands as he leaned closer.
“Are you really that afraid of me?”
You Li simply closed his eyes and let him wipe away his tears.
After a long while, he finally whispered, “…Go get me the medicine.”
His voice trembled with sobs as he murmured, “…I’ll take it. I’ll take it…”
He seemed to have completely lost his mind.
The clown stared at him for a long time, as though he were taking one last look at him.
Then he removed his mask, cupped You Li’s face in his hands, and kissed him on the eyebrows and the eyes.
Their similar faces were pressed closely together.
One had trembling, tear-wet eyelids, while the other carried a cold yet eerie sense of devotion, creating the illusion that the two of them were about to become hopelessly entangled, until neither could ever break free.
The clown said, “Don’t be afraid of me.”
Don’t be afraid of me.
You Li was left alone in the recreation room.
He had been released, and he could only watch helplessly as the clown left to get his medicine.
There were three things on the table, which was firmly nailed to the floor.
The same fairy tale book from the hospital.
The same clown mask that its owner had just removed.
And the same scalpel, still stained with Chen Shuang’s blood.
The blade was sharp, and the bloodstains covering it had already dried.
You Li picked up the knife.
The bewilderment and panic that had covered his face disappeared the moment his fingers closed around it.
His tears stopped.
His breathing gradually became quiet.
It was as though he had never cried at all.
You Li climbed onto the table and leaned close to the glass window.
His fingers were still trembling.
It was the first time he had ever held a knife.
And this was a knife that had killed countless people.
But he forced himself to remain steady and calm as he used the blade to cut open the locked glass window.
The hospital’s glass windows were extremely tough. They were specially made and nearly impossible to break.
Yet in the hands of a dungeon boss, the scalpel could cut through them as easily as a knife slicing through tofu.
Had Chen Shuang really walked right into the clown’s knife?
You Li didn’t know.
He hadn’t seen it.
He hadn’t seen it clearly.
And he didn’t know whether he should believe the clown or not.
He was always being deceived, seemingly unable to grasp the situation around him. He was foolish, helpless, and had suffered from many illnesses and been hospitalized countless times.
Whenever he was sick, he always thought about returning to the time before he had become sick, so that he wouldn’t have to endure the pain of illness.
Because before he had become sick, every day had been filled with hope, and there had been no pain.
But if you were sick, then you were sick.
No one could return to the past.
No one could return to the way they had been before.
And no one could go back from the second stage of mutation, or from the third stage that appeared to have returned to normal but was still undergoing mutation, to the original normality of the first stage.
That world had seemed safe.
There was only a little pressure, and everything still appeared relatively normal.
The process of treating a patient was always like this.
At the beginning, there was only a small amount of pressure, perhaps moderate pressure, within the ordinary circumstances of everyday life.
It was like the first phase of a dungeon.
Gradually, the pressure increased.
It eventually led to illness.
The symptoms slowly worsened, and as the illness deteriorated, it began to turn back on the individual, causing further harm.
People were powerless in the face of invisible illnesses.
They had no choice but to go to the hospital for treatment.
In reality, through the various treatments administered in the hospital, You Li would develop the illusion that he had recovered, that he had been cured.
With the help of medication, his emotions became less volatile.
His body shed all those painful emotions and automatically ignored anything that might hurt him.
He had thought he was cured, but he wasn’t.
Even after being discharged from the hospital, he still needed to undergo regular check-ups and continue taking medication. It was a long and arduous process, a seemingly endless struggle against his illness.
The hospital had agreed to discharge him simply because he had regained his hope for life.
The glass window had been completely ripped open.
But this wasn’t reality.
This was a dungeon.
Everything in this dungeon was fake—the hospital was fake, the doctors were fake, and the treatment was fake. Only his own will was real.
So how could players realize the corresponding reality hidden within the dungeon?
The patient’s deepest, most genuine desire was to save himself.
You Li looked at the knife in his hand.
He couldn’t bring himself to plunge the blade into his own heart. It would hurt terribly.
But he could close his eyes and face death.
He didn’t know whether his deduction was correct.
Was this really the correct way to understand the unnatural deaths recorded in the medical records?
He had too few clues. There was simply not enough information for him to be certain.
But it didn’t matter if he was wrong.
Compared with being trapped in an endless cycle of reincarnation, You Li felt that even making the wrong choice didn’t matter anymore.
“System, if I choose the wrong option, or if my guess is wrong, will you die with me?” You Li asked, somewhat confused and uneasy. He was afraid that he might implicate someone else because of his decision.
The wind outside the glass window blew into the room together with the sunlight.
The system replied, “I’m just a piece of game data.”
You Li smiled.
“That’s good.”
It was okay if he made a mistake.
At least no one else would have to die because of it.
You Li seemed to hear the clown’s voice returning.
The other party could have easily stopped him.
But for some reason, he simply stood there, watching him from a distance.
It was as though he were waiting for You Li to turn around and take one last look at him.
Just like the “he” in You Li’s dream.
“He” seemed to have been waiting all this time, yet he had never received anything in return.
But You Li simply lowered his hand and put the knife down.
He didn’t think about anything anymore.
He only faced the sunlight outside the window and fell backward.
The sound of the wind gradually grew louder in his ears.
The sunlight became increasingly dazzling.
To live in the face of death!
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
Behind every translated chapter is someone who probably needs caffeine.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · I have amnesia (1)Chapter 2 · I have amnesia (2)Chapter 3 · I have amnesia (3)Chapter 4 · I have amnesia (4)Chapter 5 · I have amnesia (5)Chapter 6 · I have amnesia (6)Chapter 7 · I have amnesia (7)Chapter 8 · I have amnesia (8)Chapter 9 · I have amnesia (9)Chapter 10 · I have amnesia (10)Chapter 11 · I have amnesia (11)Chapter 12 · I have amnesia (12)Chapter 13 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 14 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 15 · I have amnesia (15)Chapter 16 · I have amnesia (16)Chapter 17 · I have amnesia (17)Chapter 18 · I have amnesia (18)Chapter 19 · I have amnesia (19)Chapter 20 · I have amnesia (20)Chapter 21 · I have amnesia (21)Chapter 22 · I have amnesia (22)Chapter 23 · I have amnesia (23)Chapter 24 · I have amnesia (24)Chapter 25 · I have amnesia (25)Chapter 26 · I have amnesia (26)Chapter 27 · I have amnesia (27)Chapter 28 · I have amnesia (28)Chapter 29 · Desert Highway (1)Chapter 30 · Desert Highway (2)Chapter 31 · Desert Highway (3)Chapter 32 · Desert Highway (4)Chapter 33 · Desert Highway (5)Chapter 34 · Desert Highway (6)Chapter 35 · Desert Highway (7)Chapter 36 · Desert Highway (8)Chapter 37 · Desert Highway (9)Chapter 38 · Desert Highway (10)Chapter 39 · Desert Highway (11)Chapter 40 · Desert Highway (12)Chapter 41 · Desert Highway (13)Chapter 42 · Desert Highway (14)Chapter 43 · Desert Highway (15)