Chapter 544: Have You Ever Experienced Despair?

The room was a mess, the walls pitch-black. The stench of rotting corpses filled the air, and eerie noises echoed from every direction.

"Where do we go next?" I asked the Plush Bear. The red thread draped over my shoulder swiveled toward the room on the left.

I pushed open the door on the left. Before I could even step inside, my gaze swept the room and I froze.

Right in the middle of the ash-filled room stood a mirror!

"Could this be the passageway out of the Deep Dream Layer that Chen Jiuge mentioned?" I couldn't quite believe it. Things were going a little too smoothly.

The moment I laid eyes on the mirror, my thoughts began to race. Thinking is human nature, and planning before acting had always been my style.

The mirror squarely faced the door. As soon as I pushed it open, my reflection appeared in the glass.

"Watch out for mirrors..." Sakurako's warning flashed through my mind. I only had time to take a single step back before witnessing something impossible.

My reflection didn't move with me. It remained there, as if etched into the glass.

"What is going on?" The Plush Bear on my back didn't give me any hints, but the red thread resting on my shoulder twitched uneasily. It seemed anxious, sensing approaching danger.

'What could it be? Those charred corpses aren't enough to scare me anymore. No! This is the core of the entire complex. There might be other monsters lurking about.' I quickly stopped myself from overthinking. A lot of fear was just people scaring themselves. I purged the stray thoughts from my mind to prevent them from becoming reality.

"Where did Chen Jiuge go? Are you sure this is the right path?" I asked in a low voice. The Plush Bear only gave one response: it swiveled the red thread, pointing straight at the door to the room with the mirror.

"Is this the only way?" I hesitated for a moment before pushing the door wider. My reflection was still preserved in the mirror in the center of the room. What was truly terrifying was that the "me" inside was holding the exact pose from when I first walked in. Nothing had changed at all.

'No matter how I look at it, this mirror doesn't seem like a passageway out of the Deep Dream Layer. It's probably a trap Chen Jiuge set on purpose.' As that thought flashed through my mind, my reflection in the mirror actually began to change.

Its hair fell out, its eye sockets sank inward, and its skin began to rot at a visible speed.

Witnessing my own body die was incredibly bizarre. I stared blankly at myself in the mirror. The reflection with my face suddenly twisted into a pained expression. As if making a final, desperate struggle, it trembled and reached a hand out toward me.

"You want me to save you?" Large patches of livor mortis appeared on its skin. The "me" in the mirror looked as though it were suffocating; its cheeks swelled like a continuously inflating balloon, right on the verge of exploding!

"Trying to scare me with my own reflection? That's too cheap a trick." I stared coldly at myself in the mirror. He had the same face as me, and his body was almost completely rotted, but I knew perfectly well that it was just an illusion.

The reflection, whose head looked ready to burst, seemed to want to walk right out. It stood on the other side of the glass, its raised hand finally pressing against the surface.

It was deeply unsettling to watch my own reflection struggling on the verge of death. Subconsciously, I reached out to push the mirror away toward the wall. But the moment I caught sight of my own arm, my eyes widened, and my calm was instantly shattered.

At some point, patches of livor mortis had appeared on my arm. My pale skin was rotting, looking exactly like the "me" in the mirror!

'How is this possible? How could a fake reflection become real?!' Mirrors reflect reality. The first time I laid eyes on it, I naturally thought the person inside was me. That was a normal reaction. Anyone who sees a mirror instantly assumes the reflection is themselves without a second thought.

'As the "me" in the mirror slowly rots and dies, my brain subconsciously worries whether the same wounds will appear on my own body. And the moment I think that, I've already fallen for it.' This was an incredibly insidious trap. No matter what I saw in the mirror, as long as I let my thoughts wander even a little, it would trigger uncontrollable consequences. The illusion in the mirror would become increasingly terrifying, and the wounds on my body would become irreversible.

"That's right. In this block of despair, all fears turn into reality." My voice was hoarse. Looking at myself in the mirror, my body gradually lost its strength.

Sakurako's warning flashed through my mind again. My lips were dry. "I should have stayed further away from the mirror..."

At that moment, my greatest fear was losing the ability to fight back as my body slowly weakened.

Two or three seconds later, I fell to my knees. All my fears were turning into reality. I gasped heavily, every ounce of strength drained from my body, and my eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

Chanting the Profound Truth Mental Method, I gritted my teeth at the final juncture and crawled toward the back of the mirror. "I've survived so many life-and-death trials. Until my very last breath, I won't give up!"

Ever since I became a live show streamer, the word 'despair' had become my best friend. It constantly surrounded me, yet I had never once been defeated by it.

"You want to make me feel despair? You want me to succumb? This isn't nearly enough!"

My strength was completely spent. In the last moment before my eyes closed, I saw pitch-black figures, altered beyond recognition, crawling out of the surrounding rooms. Their target seemed to be me...

'Trapped deep in the Dream Realm? Powerless to fight back? Surrounded by monsters? You think this is enough to make me despair? Impossible! You're still a long way off!'

...

My eyes snapped open. An incredibly real wave of pain surged from every part of my body.

It was raining outside the window. The sky was gloomy, looking as though it would soon turn dark.

"Where is this?" I opened my eyes again, but my vision seemed to have deteriorated significantly; everything was a blur.

'Wasn't I in the Deep Dream Layer?' Countless questions flooded my mind. My final memories of the Dream Realm were extremely blurry, and thinking too hard made my head feel like it was going to split open.

"You're actually awake? You woke up after a thirty-day coma?! Lie still, don't move. I'll go get the doctor!" The nurse rushed out of the hospital room. A short while later, two doctors walked in and began running various checks on me.

'Thirty days? I was in a coma for thirty days?' My vision slowly began to clear. I tried to move my body, but even the slightest shift sent a jolt of agonizing pain through me.

"What exactly happened? Where is Ye Bing? Where is Chu Men?" I tried to shout, but my voice came out extremely faint.

"The liver transplant was a success. Keep him under observation. This kid is really lucky to be alive." The doctor's words only deepened my confusion.

'A liver transplant?' I looked down at my abdomen. My entire body was wrapped in bandages. Left with no other choice, I tried to look inside myself, channeling a faint trace of intent into my body. The Kidney Aperture was normal, but when I looked at the Liver Aperture, my expression turned extremely grim.

'It's gone! The Dream Wing Gu is gone!'

Just then, the door to the room was pushed open. Tie Ningxiang, dressed in her police uniform, walked in. "Doctor, I'm the patient's family! How is his condition?"

Her familiar face brought me peace of mind, no matter the situation. It all felt so real—so real that I couldn't help but murmur involuntarily, "Senior..."

"The patient's condition has stabilized, but he shouldn't be subjected to too much stimulation right now. Please keep your conversation measured," the doctor said, before leaving the nurse behind and walking out.

"Thank you for your trouble." After Tie Ningxiang thanked him, she pulled up a chair and sat next to my hospital bed. Her expression was incredibly complicated. She hesitated, wanting to speak, but in the end, she said nothing. She simply grabbed my slightly cold hand and held it in her palm. "It's good that you're awake."

"I've been in a coma for thirty days? What about Ye Bing and Chu Men? The treatment..." Feeling the warmth from her fingertips, I forced myself to organize my words.

"The treatment failed. They're both in a deep sleep. You were the only one who woke up halfway through, but then your liver suffered severe damage and almost cost you your life," Tie Ningxiang said slowly, trying to give me time to process the news.

'The Liver Aperture? Was it the Dream Wing Gu that brought me out of the Deep Dream Layer?' I looked inside myself, my intent resting on my newly transplanted liver.

"Right, this is yours." Tie Ningxiang took out the Underworld Live Show Phone and handed it to me. "I know this thing is very important to you, so I made sure to hold onto it right away. Don't worry, no one touched it while you were unconscious."

"My phone? Thanks a lot, Senior." I endured the severe pain and took the phone. After turning it on, my expression became even uglier. The Live Show Points I had worked so hard to save up had plummeted into the negatives!