Chapter 542: When Fear Becomes Reality

My pupils constricted, and I took a step back. If I had opened that door just now, the boy hiding behind it would have pounced straight at me, instead of getting wedged in the doorframe like a mummified corpse.

Chen Jiuge gestured for me to leave it alone. I followed him, taking a detour in another direction.

"This thing looks terrifying," Chu Men said. He had been bringing up the rear, hands shoved deep into his lab coat pockets, his gaze darting around. As he passed the security door, he suddenly sped up, seemingly terrified of something.

Catching that small detail, I wondered, 'Is a black figure really that terrifying? Judging by its size, it's just a child. What threat could it pose?'

"Hurry up," Chen Jiuge said. Both he and Chu Men seemed utterly terrified of these charred, mummified corpses. Their first reactions were surprisingly identical: stay as far away as possible.

Not wanting to cause any extra trouble, I followed closely as we ventured deeper. Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing led the way, Chu Men brought up the rear, and I walked in the middle. Logically, this formation suited me best, allowing me to keep an eye on the whole situation. But as we walked, I slowly realized something was wrong.

Up ahead, Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing seemed to be constantly speeding up, slipping out of my line of sight several times. I'd usually catch sight of them again after passing through the next doorway, though, so I brushed off my confusion. I wasn't about to start a fight over something so trivial. I needed his help right now, after all. Besides, I had my Judging Eye—it would be incredibly difficult for him to shake me off.

Chu Men, bringing up the rear, was acting strangely too. Unlike Chen Jiuge, he was walking slower and slower, constantly glancing around as if trying to hide from something.

I felt increasingly uneasy about it. Turning around, I asked, "Old Chu, did you find something?"

"Nothing," Chu Men answered, sounding completely natural. He even urged me to walk faster so I wouldn't lose Chen Jiuge, yet his own pace didn't change at all. He just kept trailing unhurriedly at the back. I was honestly afraid he'd fall behind and get lost in this hellhole.

After a few more minutes, the layout grew even more complicated. Rooms were pieced together, and the branching paths multiplied. Different doors led to completely different places; a single wrong choice here could trigger disastrous consequences.

'Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing speeding up makes sense if they're afraid of something going wrong. But Chu Men isn't changing his pace, and he's clearly showing a strong aversion to this place. It's weird. All of them are acting weird,' I thought. I quickened my own pace, maintaining a distance of four or five meters from Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing, though it meant pulling further and further ahead of Chu Men.

"Ah!"

I had been looking down, lost in thought as I formulated an escape plan, when a shrill scream tore from Chu Men right behind me.

It was high-pitched, like someone who had suddenly been bitten by a venomous snake in the wild.

"What happened?" I whipped my head around, only to find Chu Men entirely gone. Nothing remained but the fading echo of his scream.

'Was he attacked?' I wondered.

We had been separated by one room at most, so I didn't hesitate to turn on my heel and sprint back. But when I dashed into the room we had just passed through, I found that Chu Men was gone!

He hadn't left a single trace behind. There wasn't even a footprint on the floor.

'Where is he? A living person can't just vanish into thin air, can they?' I stood frozen for less than a second before a terrifying thought exploded in my mind. In a flash, I spun around and bolted back toward the room I had just left, screaming Ye Bing's name as I chased after them.

There was no response. My heart gradually sank. In the span of just two or three seconds, I had somehow been completely separated from Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing.

'No, this is what Chen Jiuge planned from the very beginning! He never intended to take me out of here!' Dashing back to the room where I had turned around to check on Chu Men, I rounded the corner. Three half-open doors and one burnt-out window appeared starkly in front of me—four distinct paths leading into four entirely different rooms.

'Which way would Chen Jiuge go?' I used my Judging Eye to scan the area, but I couldn't glean a single piece of useful information.

'I got careless.' Mentally replaying everything that had happened since I met Chen Jiuge, I was now absolutely certain his true live stream task involved the Lightless District. Right before we left, he had personally gone to inspect the final room on the fifth underground floor. Only after confirming the lock core was intact did he completely relax, and his tone of voice underwent a subtle shift.

He seemed convinced that no one but him could open that door. As long as the item was stashed inside, it was safe.

Locking the item in the room was safe, but bringing it out into the open was a different story.

Human nature is greedy. He was likely afraid I would make a move against him, so he threw out the Despair District as bait to lure me in and trap me here.

He had already warned me that this place could manifest the deepest despair in a person's heart into reality. The stronger someone's willpower was, the more terrifying this place actually became for them.

'I've really been taught a lesson. He actually used his own backup escape route as bait just to trick me into coming here.' Before arriving, I had analyzed Chen Jiuge's words over and over again. The claim that the Despair District held a way out of the Deep Dream Layer was likely true, and that Deep Dream Realm Map was definitely real too. Everything he used was genuine, and he had only spoken the truth. He had woven those very truths into a death trap of a lie, finally getting me to walk right into it.

'But why would Chu Men deliberately cooperate with Chen Jiuge right at that moment? Is it just a coincidence, or had the two of them struck a deal beforehand?' As for Chu Men, I strongly suspected he had already been swapped out with a nightmare. There were far too many glaring red flags. His manner of speaking and acting felt off, and his excuse for running straight up to the third floor of the Blue House back then had been incredibly flimsy. Furthermore, there was no way a master hypnotist would ever claim that blue represented the sky and the sea in a dream. Blue symbolized melancholy. Medical gowns and prison uniforms often featured blue stripes, and blue was the undisputed favorite color of psychiatric patients!

My later probing had subtly confirmed my theories as well. For example, Chu Men was undeniably left-handed, yet when I casually tossed him a chunk of plaster before we entered the Despair District, he caught it with his right hand. These little subconscious habits only cemented my suspicions.

But they were still only suspicions, and I wasn't about to expose him to his face. First, I didn't want to alert the enemy and invite unnecessary trouble. Second, I was planning to complete the Underworld Live Show's third optional task—kill a nightmare!

'When exactly did the swap happen?' This was what baffled me the most. 'Did it happen back at the Blue House, or was the person who followed me into the Deep Dream Layer never Chu Men from the start, but rather that nightmare from Ye Bing's dream?'

'If it really is the nightmare from Ye Bing's dream, then I basically dragged a "ghost" all the way down into the Deep Dream Layer... well, that's a bit awkward.' Chuckling bitterly, I pulled myself together and scanned the doors in front of me.

I currently had two options. The first was to backtrack to the Lightless District and lie in wait; Chen Jiuge would absolutely have to return if he wanted whatever was hidden in that final room. The second was to risk pushing forward into the deepest parts of the Ash Ruins to find Chen Jiuge and Ye Bing.

'This place is too bizarre. I should play it safe,' I decided, preparing to backtrack. Looking at the cracks covering the floor, I sighed. "What a pity. I was just one step away. Fortunately, having the Dream Wing Gu means I'm standing in an invincible position. As long as I head back the way I came, I'll still hold the initiative."

Even though I had reacted in under a second earlier, they had still managed to seize the opportunity. Nightmares were hard enough to deal with, but Chen Jiuge was truly terrifying.

I headed back along the path, but after walking for a few minutes, I suddenly realized something was wrong. The route had changed! It was completely different from what I remembered!

"Damn it! Whatever you fear most comes true..." The moment those casual words left my lips, a sudden chill shot up my spine. 'Whatever you fear most comes true? Oh no!'

I remembered the notes written in Chen Jiuge's Yellow Leather Notebook. The Despair District could manifest a person's deepest fears into reality.

Standing in the center of the room, inhaling the heavy stench in the air, I swept my gaze left and right, instinctively raising my guard.

But the moment I raised my guard, a strange noise drifted from the security door behind me. It sounded like a child deliberately scraping their fingernails against the metal.

It was piercing and bizarre, the kind of noise that instantly raised goosebumps on your skin.

'What could it be?' Learning from my mistake, I didn't dare let my imagination run wild anymore. Holding the Live Show Phone high, I took slow, deliberate steps toward the blackened security door.