Evidently, the only one that found the ‘joke’ funny was Lin Jue. He laughed to himself secretly and thought that Song Hanzhang’s cold attitude mixed with a hint of confusion made it even better. In the end, he was laughing fully at Song Hanzhang’s expense.
Song Hanzhang beared with him for five whole minutes. Song Hanzhang felt that this person wheezing with laughter was akin to a mental patient running for freedom in the dead of night, with himself being the unfortunate nurse tasked with bringing him back to the asylum. The worst part was that he couldn’t understand why his patient was laughing like a clump of jellyfish wriggling on the shore.
Lin Jue finally stopped laughing and began seriously asking Song Hanzhang for the meaning behind the monster. Song Hanzhang gave him an analysis, but because there was so much psychology involved, Lin Jue struggled to understand what he said. It boiled down to the general idea that when they were in the illusions, it was as if they were dreaming. Their mental defenses weakened severely and their subconscious took over, thus what they had repressed, replaced, rejected, or projected, manifested themselves in the forms of different monsters.
The monster Lin Jue had met undoubtedly represented Song Hanzhang. The reason why his subconscious would project Song Hanzhang onto a monster was most definitely due to fear, and it was the fear that confused Song Hanzhang so much.
The eerier part of this monster was that pair of featherless wings though.
Monster’s shouldn’t have wings, but in Lin Jue’s subconscious, it had a pair, its feathers wilted and dyed in blood, like a tortured angel.
From a certain point of view, the Song Hanzhang in Lin Jue’s subconscious had been deified. He had placed a portion of his emotions and faith into him, but that awe and worship had been mixed with an unknown sympathy, perhaps from the past that Song Hanzhang had so briefly brought up before. His parents were both deceased and his childhood hadn’t seemed to be a happy one- its featureless face and muscle-bound body hinted at it; Lin Jue believed that his heart was weighed down, saddened.
But none of it could explain that fear.
“When men are faced with danger, they naturally feel afraid; it’s an instinct found in their very DNA. When faced with death and pain, men will feel fear for example, but for high-complexity stimuli such as that from society, the human response becomes more complex. Everyone has different experiences, and their experiences will form a unique ‘fear’; a victim of domestic abuse will immediately feel fear upon seeing an action their abuser did habitually, even if ordinarily, the action would be considered harmless; children threatened into obedience with the police as the lynchpin may grow to fear the police, or even anyone wearing a uniform. The basis of the fear remains ‘danger’, but an individual’s perception of danger differs, resulting in the multifaceted nature of fear.” Song Hanzhang spoke frankly and confidently, explaining his viewpoint.
Lin Jue went through his memories. He had known Song Hanzhang for only a very short period of time, short enough that it only took a few minutes for him to recall every memory of them together.
Was he afraid of Song Hanzhang? Maybe a little. In the first round, when he saw the zombified dormitory administrator and Song Hanzhang had come down from heaven and kicked it away, he was indeed afraid. But that fear had soon turned into awe and submission and hadn’t stayed rooted in his heart for long.
In every memory related to Song Hanzhang, only two would make him realize the nature of his fear- the first, when a zombie had wounded Song Hanzhang’s leg while Lin Jue’s antibody was lost among a horde of zombies; the second, when Lin Jue had found the illusionary Song Hanzhang in the mirror world and left with his help, only to see him fade to dust along with that world.
In actuality, his deepest fear was not Song Hanzhang as a person, but rather, the fear of losing him!
Having figured this out, Lin Jue’s mood lightened. “Xuezhang, if there was a precious treasure that meant so much to you that you loved it more than your own life, but for some reason you couldn’t lock it up in a safe place and were constantly at risk of losing it, would you be afraid?”
“No, treasures are pointless to me,” Song Hanzhang replied.
“…That was just a metaphor! Then another one: it’s a tool that’s very important to your survival, but you’re facing the risk of losing it. Would you be afraid?” Lin Jue asked again.
This time, Song Hanzhang felt some connection with the scenario and pondered it, only to reply, “No, I wouldn’t be. If I realized that I could lose it, I would do all that I could to reduce the chance of that happening, but if I couldn’t prevent such a future from arriving no matter what I did and I still ended up losing it with no way of taking it back, then I would accept the reality of it and try to reduce its adverse effects on my survival.”
Lin Jue had nothing to say. He was suddenly reminded of something Lu Ren had said: he would only consider how to keep moving on, always looking forwards and never looking back.
It should be a quality to be appreciated. Lin Jue knew that Song Hanzhang was such a person, and so, he didn’t dare ask- what if he died? Would Song Hanzhang feel sorrow? Or would he be so rational he would easily walk past his corpse and continue on his way alone?
Lin Jue slapped himself on the forehead, trying to clear his head a little. Once again, he was annoyed at himself for being so uncertain. Song Hanzhang had put his life at risk and entered the mirror world to guide him in the right direction in the second round, meaning that he was ready to lose his life for him, to do his all for him. Who was he to ask for more?
Whether or not Song Hanzhang would feel anger, fear, or sorrow at losing him, it would only happen after he was gone. Lin Jue hoped that he would never have to find out- and indeed, he would never be able to find out, because at that time, he would be dead. Instead of being conflicted over an answer he would never find out whether in life or in death, it was better for him to live in the present.
The two didn’t continue the topic. Song Hanzhang had already received his answer from Lin Jue’s assumptions, and Lin Jue had placed himself in the right frame of mind to stop dwelling on the matter. After all, there were still a lot of dangers they had to face.
On top of the tallest administrative building of the campus, the night wind carried a faint trace of blood. Looking down, the entire campus was covered in lamp light, both near and far. The faded, hazy lights added to the horror of the campus which had been invaded by strange forces.
This land of rust and blood was as if they were living inside the devil’s body, every patch of blotched earth a writhing wall of flesh, every dried-out plant a bloody wart, and the water system with its dark red liquid, veins flowing with blood.
Eerily, in between the starry street lamps, there were a few strange patches of shadow, as if they held a black hole within them, not a flicker of light coming from them.
“What are those dark things?” Lin Jue asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Song Hanzhang said.
Lin Jue rarely heard Song Hanzhang say that he didn’t know, and his curiosity was immediately piqued. “You also have things you don’t know?”
“Of course. How would I know about things I’ve never tried before?” Song Hanzhang retorted.
“Shouldn’t you be bringing out a bunch of hypotheses right now?” Lin Jue understood Song Hanzhang well.
Song Hanzhang pursed his lips. “Alright, if you want to hear them. The dark areas are clearly attempting to lure us into exploring them. I presume that once we walk into them, we’ll activate an illusion similar to the one we were in at the game’s beginning, forming a monster from our subconscious. The dark areas will most likely continuously change locations to prevent us from farming or evading the monsters consistently, which the game wouldn’t allow to happen.”
“Then are we starting now?” Lin Jue gripped the spear in his hand, eager to give it a try.
Song Hanzhang recalled the few dark areas nearby and led Lin Jue towards the nearest one.
What exactly were these black holes? When looking down at them from above, they were like clumps of lightless zones, but when he actually approached one from ground level, Lin Jue felt even stranger.
Even though the streetlight was just a few meters away, passing through an invisible border, the world suddenly darkened. He could still see the light but it was as if it was behind a layer of blackout glass, making the hazy glow seem cold and distant. It was even dimmer within his field of vision: Lin Jue had already taken out his phone torch, but the darkness here was like a sticky gelatinous substance, making him uncomfortable all over.
“Xuezhang?” Lin Jue called out habitually.
Song Hanzhang was right next to him, the dagger he received from round one in his hand as he walked without a glance to the side.
The ground was sticky as if it was covered in a layer of glue, a dark-red glue, like half-dried blood. From time to time, a few blobs of wriggling flesh like deskinned rats would scamper into the darkness.
Lin Jue felt the chills run down him. The darkness ahead seemed to be endless, the foul smell of blood getting stronger. Lin Jue’s stomach rolled and cramped. The darkness reminded him of many things: the fear from watching the sun set home alone as a child; the fear from riding his bike alone through deserted alleyways after late study periods; the fear from waking up at midnight and opening his door to darkness as he walked towards the bathroom…
The fear of the dark was inherent with birth.
Finally, the last sliver of light disappeared, the flashlight from his phone instantly extinguished. Lin Jue froze and his hand on the spear trembled, when a light suddenly came from the darkness in front of them.
A hazy glow came from the lamp on the wall in the deepest part of the windowless, confined room in front of them.
On a small area of floor illuminated by the wall lamp sat a chair and desk, along with a grotesque human figure. Its two arms hugged its chest, its entire body covered in a straitjacket, leaving only an airhole at where its nose was. A dozen restraining straps criss-crossed along its body, preventing it from moving its arms and legs so it could only lean upright in the corner, like a mummy.
Where was this sealed room? Lin Jue had never seen this place before, nor did he know who the monster bound in a straitjacket was.
But Song Hanzhang knew.
He had never once forgotten this place.
***
Vera’s Notes:
You have no idea how tempting it was to write ‘hypothesises’ instead of ‘hypotheses’ for Lin Jue. Your editor holds a very low opinion of his intellect.
Vera & Luci Translations 