Chapter 1184: You Are Asking for Death
"I am not your enemy. You can relax your vigilance against me a little." Tang Guangbo still had that easygoing demeanor. "There are many people in this world who stop at nothing for personal gain, but there are also those who sacrifice themselves in pursuit of the ultimate."
Xu Huo smiled.
"As for my situation, I wouldn't say I'm sacrificing myself, but at least I haven't done anything bad." Tang Guangbo said meaningfully, "Bad in any sense of the word."
How could Xu Huo possibly believe him? He paused for a moment and said, "You remind me of someone else."
"Your teacher?" Tang Guangbo casually picked up the thread, then added as Xu Huo's expression shifted slightly, "From what we can see now, this teacher of yours hasn't persecuted you. In fact, he helped you open the door to Mental Evolution in your childhood. That's an opportunity many people can only dream of."
"Perhaps you feel you had no choice at the time, but now you have become a player and chosen the path of Mental Evolution as well. In terms of the outcome, your teacher isn't really a bad person."
"Moreover, you can use the recovered memories to complete your third evolution."
Xu Huo made no comment, instead saying, "My memories should have been rewritten twice."
Tang Guangbo nodded. "Indeed, twice. But since the seal on your memories hasn't been fully loosened, being able to gradually recover childhood memories is already quite good. When you came up just now, your clothes were completely soaked, indicating your spirit had been impacted. Before this treatment began, I told you that the results of the treatment are not necessarily positive."
"At the same time, you also need to consider the possibility of failing to complete the third evolution while suffering mental damage after finding the memories."
"Your urgent need for the third evolution is probably to suppress the influence of your childhood, but your childhood won't have that much of an impact on you."
He paused for a moment. "You are a mentally healthy person. Believe in yourself."
Since he had already started, Xu Huo had no intention of turning back halfway. He pulled his hand out to return to the water, but at that moment, Tang Guangbo suddenly grabbed him hard and yanked him over, saying with a smile, "Do you know what kind of patients doctors dislike the most?"
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow, and when he looked up again, he found himself locked inside a cage.
This should be Tang Guangbo's Mental Suppression. Xu Huo knocked on the cage bars. "Good deeds aren't done this way."
"A doctor has the duty to save patients. I can't just watch you walk to your death without stopping you." Tang Guangbo said matter-of-factly, then took out his notebook and began recording him.
"You are a very representative sample. I've always been very interested in your various data."
"This is a win-win situation."
Xu Huo, who had walked right into the trap, wasn't angry. "Before the treatment started, I thought you could contend with Dr. Zhang. I didn't expect you couldn't even suppress a mere fragment of memory he left behind. To be honest, I'm quite disappointed too."
Tang Guangbo smiled and gestured for him to say whatever he wanted.
Clearly, the provocation tactic wasn't working. And while Xu Huo was caught in the tug-of-war between him and Dr. Zhang's memories, he couldn't smoothly open his Spiritual Realm either... The situation was deadlocked.
"Half an hour has passed." A psychologist confirmed the time again and said with doubt, "Why isn't there any movement at all?"
In the past, when players underwent treatment, they would usually show manic symptoms due to excessive trauma. The professor in charge of the treatment was often the target of their attacks—this also matched their understanding of players. Wasn't Xu Huo's side being too quiet?
The players watching the treatment process through the glass window were equally clueless. They only keenly sensed a strange fluctuation of power five minutes ago, but it vanished in an instant. Apart from that, they had no other findings, and their understanding of Mental Evolution was only superficial. They couldn't even tell what was happening.
Nie Xuan leaned against the corridor behind the crowd, smoking. That fluctuation just now wasn't Mental Power, but Space Power. Among those present, only he could sense Space Power, possibly plus Tang Guangbo. This was Xu Huo's signal.
Looking at the person lying calmly on the chair with even breathing, and Tang Guangbo beside him who kept writing, Nie Xuan threw his cigarette butt on the ground, stomped it out, and then opened the emergency switch of the treatment room.
"Nie Xuan, what are you doing..." The professors nearby were shocked, but who could stop him? With a flicker of his gaze, Nie Xuan entered the treatment room, walked up to Tang Guangbo in a few steps, said "Sorry about this," then lifted the man up, pinned his hands behind his back onto the table, and electrocuted him once with a prop.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Tang Guangbo's hands and feet went weak after the electric shock. He looked for help toward the people outside the room.
Three players entered the treatment room and pinned Nie Xuan down, while helping Tang Guangbo up. After confirming that there were traces of electric shock on his body, they nodded to their companions.
Nie Xuan allowed his companions to hold him down and apologized insincerely, "Sorry about that, Professor Tang. I might have been seeing things just now. I thought you were going to kill Xu Huo with that pen. I panicked and rushed in. How about you electrocute me back?"
Tang Guangbo took a sip of water with the "help" of another player, waved his hand to indicate he didn't want to talk to him, then said to the other three, "The treatment isn't over yet. You all go out first."
The few people in the treatment room exchanged glances but didn't move, until Nie Xuan felt the fluctuation of Space Power again. He shook off the hands on his arms, straightened his clothes, and said, "I'll go write a self-criticism."
The group filed out one after another. When Tang Guangbo sat back down beside Xu Huo, he found that Xu Huo had already entered the sealed memories and had forcibly begun the third evolution.
"Asking for death." Tang Guangbo adjusted his glasses and silently mouthed these words.
Xu Huo's situation was indeed not good. As his consciousness delved deeper, the eyes representing space within the floating frame multiplied. The opened Library Tower was repeatedly cast aside into different spaces, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
After trying several times, he faced reality—within this Spiritual Gate, his Spiritual Realm was cut off.
Unable to enter, unable to exit, Xu Huo was trapped in one of countless spaces.
No one knew how long had passed before the "tick-tock" sound of a clock appeared again in his ears. He looked up. The eyes above the space he was in were replaced by a clock face. As the clock face descended, it squeezed the space while also pushing away the surrounding eyes that tried to converge. The environment changed back to the treatment room again.
But this time, the two of them weren't sitting. Instead, they were squeezed together face to face. The white space beside them surged like milk, and occasionally a few eyes could be seen churning within, appearing and disappearing.
"Professor Tang lives up to his reputation." Xu Huo smiled politely.
Tang Guangbo's mood was far less pleasant. "You are asking for death."
Xu Huo disagreed. "I didn't die twenty years ago, and I won't die today either. How about giving me a hand, Professor Tang? Once I complete the third evolution, I'll cooperate with you on the experimental data. What do you say?"
(Chapter End)