Chapter 3009: He Should Know
Just as Xu Huo was carefully examining Ms. Yao's memories, new players entered the instance grounds.
Unlike the previous situation, these players weren't coming to test their luck on a new instance. They had specifically investigated it, knowing it was a mental-type instance before entering.
Although no one had revealed the instance's internal details, these people had some experience clearing mental instances. They had prepared enough instruments beforehand and each carried related devices to confirm identities and locations.
This time, eleven ticket players entered at once.
Even though they all used tickets to enter, they were still scattered upon arrival. Almost every one of them entered a different reflection world, unable to sense each other.
However, this situation had been anticipated. After a brief search of the manor, they activated their pre-prepared instruments and quickly identified the area with the highest spiritual energy within the instance grounds.
Their reflection selves hadn't appeared yet, and although not all the reflection people from earlier had been killed, Xu Huo had dispersed them, and they hadn't surfaced again. So these players unimpededly found the original residence of Wang Xiaohui's parents.
Although it had been converted into a study and looked unremarkable, when over a dozen instruments activated across different reflection worlds, these overlapping reflection worlds began to fluctuate.
The reflection worlds became unstable. The reflections in the glowing areas started to waver, and for a moment, it seemed every place was a gateway to another space.
Aside from clearing the instance, these players also wanted to find naturally spawned new items in the new instance. So they boldly entered other reflection worlds.
Some of them met up along the way, but their strength and the lack of immediate danger made them less tense. They methodically searched through different spaces.
However, after searching around, they found nothing.
Not just items—they didn't even find a single living person.
"That shouldn't be," said an unusually tall man. "This instance should have let in quite a few people. Even if they all died, there should be some remains."
The other players were equally puzzled. After discussion, they concluded that the number of spaces within this instance grounds far exceeded their expectations, which was why they hadn't encountered anyone else yet. This was also a common occurrence in mental-type instances.
Mental interference took time. Separating players and isolating them to create information gaps was one method.
So they adjusted their strategy. Since they couldn't find new items anyway, they decided to use items to mark every reflection world as much as possible.
While these people were messing around in the instance, Xu Huo could somewhat sense it.
Although they hadn't found the space containing Ms. Yao's memories, every time the instance grounds fluctuated, the root system of Ms. Yao's memories would tremble slightly.
Her memory preservation was originally based on the instance's stability. Now that the instance was unstable, this seemingly spiritual realm was inevitably shaken.
However, as long as the instance wasn't completely destroyed, this place probably wouldn't disappear.
Moreover, Ms. Yao's deeper memories were also interesting. Beneath those seemingly chaotic, spliced memories lay other hidden memories.
This meant that Ms. Yao herself, or the alternate personalities she might have spawned, had processed her memories even during her illness episodes. She had hidden things she didn't want "herself" to discover.
The childhood personality had stripped these memories away and discovered that this was Ms. Yao's most deeply hidden personality. From its perspective, the world was cold, like a distorted dream, almost entirely black and white.
The memories she had hidden included not only some brutal murder scenes but also her self-hypnosis—she wanted to kill Ms. Yao's main personality and take over.
From the memories, this personality had been half-successful.
Although it failed to kill Ms. Yao's main personality, it had killed two of Ms. Yao's other alternate personalities during its attempts.
Ms. Yao's brain was diseased, so her alternate personalities weren't fully developed. Those two personalities died inexplicably. Misfortune had its blessings—because of the disease, this murderous personality's multiple attempts were repeatedly interrupted by the illness's fluctuations. Eventually, due to the disease's progression, it was forced to hide itself.
During this process, Ms. Yao had already discovered traces of this personality. Similarly, she wanted to eliminate this unstable factor.
So in this segment of memory, Ms. Yao herself had once sat before a mirror, trying to find and kill all her alternate personalities.
Perhaps because the disease had worsened, although two personalities were killed, when Ms. Yao searched for the murderous personality, new alternate personalities were born. These newly born personalities had no clear consciousness at all. Their minds were chaotic, and when they emerged, they appeared manic or idiotic, some even self-harming.
Ms. Yao was also ruthless. Although she didn't fully remember going out to kill, she instinctively grasped the concept of mental defense lines. The first thing she learned was how to use this method to kill herself.
She had her own logic. She believed that since there was a memory barrier between the main personality and the alternate personalities, it meant different personalities could construct different spiritual worlds. The lack of communication between personalities indicated their spiritual worlds didn't connect. She could attack her own brain's mental defense lines to kill the other personalities.
It had to be said, it was quite an idea, and very bold.
However, Xu Huo didn't think it would work. The personalities' memories weren't connected, but destroying the spirit would also harm the brain to some extent. No matter how the personalities separated themselves, they all shared the same body. Killing other personalities was equivalent to suicide.
In later memories, Ms. Yao specifically returned to the manor. After a few crude attempts, she realized it was suicide. If she truly wanted to die, rather than using this method, she might as well just slit her throat.
Since self-rescue failed, Ms. Yao had to turn to other methods. She repeatedly hypnotized herself, recorded the triggers for her episodes, and eventually came up with the sanatorium plan.
During this process, Xu Huo observed how she learned and grasped mental defense lines and methods to breach them.
Although Ms. Yao was a genius, limited by her physical evolution and her own illness, her level of mental evolution wasn't actually very deep. Of course, it wasn't poor either—otherwise, she could never have truly breached someone else's mental defense lines. But it wasn't a quantitative change leading to a qualitative one either. To be precise, she used some techniques.
This might be the difference between people. Ms. Yao could keenly sense the existence of mental defense lines and deftly bypass them, while Xu Huo, even after watching multiple times, couldn't grasp this subtle distinction.
He looked at the childhood personality squatting to the side playing with flowers, understanding the "anchor," knowing the "anchor," and being able to find the "anchor." He should know.