The room returned to pure white.
The system began to ask questions again, this time presenting a completely new story different from the previous one.
"In a single-parent household, the mother lives with her daughter, but she always appears at her daughter's room door at midnight. Even when the daughter is showering, she stands outside the bathroom door. Why?"
"Why?" Sang Yue was driven to the brink by these random questions and couldn't help but say, "Why? How should I know why! Because she has a mental illness!"
"Answer incorrect." The system said coldly and mercilessly.
It seemed to have regained its aloofness when facing players, its tone carrying a hint of certainty.
This cycle seemed endless, with no apparent conclusion. Each faced significant risks, posing a psychological test for everyone.
Yet Gu Zhan felt a sense of familiarity from the system's questions.
It seemed like he had encountered such a situation before… just from a different perspective.
Gu Zhan thought for a moment and asked, "Does the mother hate her daughter?"
The system replied, "No."
Sang Yue was incredulous: "Isn't that hatred?"
Gu Zhan then asked, "Does the mother love her daughter?"
The system responded, "Yes."
Gu Zhan concluded, "The answer is love. The mother loves her daughter, so she doesn't want her to leave her sight and thus watches over her constantly."
Sang Yue: "..."
Is this still called love in such a suffocating manner?
But the system declared, "Correct answer. The second story officially begins."
"The mother's love suffocates the daughter. Living in such a home requires constant consideration of the mother's feelings. She desperately wants to escape this stifling house but can't find any way out."
"Please escape this home."
As soon as the system finished speaking, the surroundings changed again. They found themselves in a brand new building… in a bathroom?
The bathtub was filled with water, and six people were crammed into the narrow tub. The edge of the tub was slippery, and Sang Yue lost her grip and fell toward the bottom of the tub.
However, there were too many people, and she didn't fall but instead crashed into Gu Zhan, causing him to lose his balance as well.
In the blink of an eye, they were all tumbling awkwardly in the tub.
Sang Yue couldn't hold it anymore and desperately clung to the edge of the tub, pulling herself out.
After all that commotion, her clothes were soaked, and her hair was wet.
She pushed her hair back, looking like a drowned rat, and asked, "What’s going on?"
Before she could finish speaking, the bathroom door swung open with a bang. A frail, short woman stood in the doorway, her wrinkled face stern and severe. She fixed a sharp gaze on Sang Yue, shrieking, "You’ll catch a cold!! You’ll catch a cold!!"
As she spoke, she walked in, inserting her hands under Sang Yue’s armpits and lifting her up!
Her strength was astonishing, and Sang Yue had no ability to resist. She heard the sound of her shoulder blade snapping under the "mother's" immense strength!!
Sang Yue cried out in pain, nearly fainting.
What is wrong with the NPCs in this instance?!
Is this what you call love?
Whether it was due to her sanity points decreasing or from experiencing too many inhumane treatments, Sang Yue couldn’t maintain her composure and rationality. She instinctively slapped the "mother," successfully provoking her.
Ten minutes later, they returned to that white room again.
Sang Yue finally calmed down and looked at the others with guilt. "Sorry, I acted impulsively and dragged you all into this..."
Killed by her mother.
Gu Zhan said, "It’s not your fault."
They must have triggered some condition for the mother to burst in.
Now that she was inside, no matter what they did, the outcome would be the same.
Sang Yue covered her shoulder, which had just been torn apart, feeling distressed. "What does this instance want? Endless loops and endless torment... No wonder my instance reminder said it was perverted. If I had known it was this twisted, I wouldn’t have come."
"I guess I’m the most unlucky one." An Heyan said with a bitter smile, "I was tricked into coming here by you all."
Sang Yue glanced at him and smiled helplessly.
That said, they still had to clear this instance.
This instance was twisted, but the others might not necessarily be any better.
Gu Zhan said, "Let’s think about what rules we might have violated just now."
Sang Yue said, "Could it be because I fell out of the bathtub? Didn’t the system say that this mother loves her daughter very much… although her love is quite strange. She probably can’t accept her daughter falling out of the bathtub. Just now, she seemed to mention something about not catching a cold."
Sang Yue’s words gave Gu Zhan an ominous feeling.
According to this logic, there were many things they needed to pay attention to in this scenario.
"Let’s take a look first," Gu Zhan said.
As soon as he spoke, the white room transformed again into a strange bathroom. Having learned from their previous experience, the group was prepared this time and didn’t tumble around in the bathroom.
They successfully got out of the bathtub, and as expected, "the mother" didn’t come in.
The group stood in the bathroom, with Sang Yue near the door. She suddenly noticed that the bathroom door was open and was about to turn her head to look, but Gu Zhan grabbed her.
"Don’t look back."
Only then did she realize that everyone was intentionally avoiding looking in the direction of the door gap.
Standing outside was the mother, and they couldn’t let her see them; otherwise, she might come in again.
Sang Yue could only pretend to nonchalantly grab a towel from the wall to dry her wet body.
The place had thoughtfully provided clothes for six people, but the bathroom was small, and she was the only girl.
The other five boys turned their backs, allowing Sang Yue to change clothes, albeit with some discomfort.
After she changed, she heard Gu Zhan say, "She’s gone."
Sang Yue breathed a sigh of relief and quickly left the bathroom to make space for the others inside.
After she left, the others began to change clothes, but Gu Zhan remained standing still.
He was completely soaked, his white short-sleeve shirt clinging to his skin.
Yu Yezhou, confused, asked, "Why aren’t you changing? The mother will be back soon; she definitely can’t accept her child not changing out of wet clothes."
Gu Zhan replied, "Wait a minute."
Seeing him like this, An Heyan couldn’t help but tease, "Could it be that you’re shy about changing in front of the guys?"
Gu Zhan gave him a blank look and ignored his crass joke.
"Alright," An Heyan shrugged, speeding up his changing process.
They quickly finished changing and exited the bathroom.
At the door, Sang Yue was still waiting.
Seeing that only four people had come out, she was puzzled. "Where’s the fifth one? What happened to Gu Zhan?"
An Heyan shrugged. "He didn’t want to change with us and insisted on being last."
He meant to complain to Sang Yue, but unexpectedly, she froze for a moment and then burst out laughing, "That makes sense."
"Sense?" An Heyan raised an eyebrow.
Knowing Gu Zhan’s orientation, Sang Yue nodded. Was it really that unusual for a gay guy not to want to change clothes with other boys?
Sang Yue comforted him, "It’s fine. He probably won’t want to change with you guys again in the future. Just get used to it."
An Heyan raised an eyebrow; this sister was good at comforting people.
While they chatted, Gu Zhan came out.
He didn’t not want to change with everyone; it was just that after passing through Kripper’s instance, the patterns on his body still hadn’t disappeared, and it would be hard to explain if he was seen.
As soon as he stepped out, Sang Yue was smiling at him, and Gu Zhan realized she misunderstood his intentions.
Better to let them think what they wanted and avoid unnecessary trouble.
"What’s our next step?" An Heyan asked.
The group stood at the bathroom corridor entrance, feeling a bit distressed.
They were currently playing the role of the "daughter." What should a daughter be doing at this moment?
An Heyan looked up at the corridor window and noticed it was dark outside.
"Should we rest? Shall we go back to the bedroom to sleep?"
"Let’s go."
"But where’s the bedroom?"
The group began to discuss, and fortunately, the bedroom wasn’t far; there was a room right next to the bathroom. Inside, the wallpaper was pink, and there was an unusually large bed, clearly prepared for them.
They walked to the bed and started discussing what to do.
Sang Yue originally wanted to say she’d sleep on the edge, but Gu Zhan silently took the left side, while Xu Yu took the right side without a word.
An Heyan pulled Xu Ke to sit beside Gu Zhan, saying, "We’ll sleep here."
Yu Yezhou stood beside Xu Yu, clearly not intending to separate.
"…"
"Alright." She grinned. "Then I’ll sleep in the middle!"
Surrounded by handsome guys, how could that not be the peak of life?
Sang Yue climbed onto the bed, and a slight noise suddenly came from the door. The group hurriedly got on the bed and lay down in their places.
Surprisingly, it felt quite spacious.
Once they lay down, they felt drowsy, their eyelids heavy.
Soon, they fell into a deep sleep.
Just before they drifted off, it seemed they heard the door to the room creak open…
---
In the pure white room, several people sat together, looking confused.
They had no idea what had just happened. In the blink of an eye, they were back in this wretched place.
Upon opening the attribute panel, they saw that their sanity value had dropped by another 20 points.
"What just happened?"
They were completely puzzled. They had only fallen asleep in bed; why did they suddenly return to the original room?
This time, they didn’t experience any pain, but dying once meant losing sanity points, which was not a solution.
"Is it because of how we slept? Or is it wrong to sleep?" Sang Yue asked.
No one could answer her.
Everything had happened too suddenly.
After a moment of silence, Yu Yezhou sighed. "At this rate, there must be many taboos in this story that we don’t know about. Just slightly violating one could send us back to this room."
"But we don’t have any particularly good methods. Let’s just try things out little by little."
At least they could walk out of the bathroom now.
Yu Yezhou thought to himself, revealing a wry smile.
This time, the system didn’t give them much time to calm down; soon, the room changed again.
What relieved them was that they didn't return to the bathroom but went directly to the bedroom.
It seemed that as long as they had passed the previous level, they wouldn't go back, which was a good thing for them.
This time, no one hesitated, quickly lying down on the bed.
Sang Yue pulled the blanket over, saying, “Last time we didn’t cover ourselves, hurry up and cover with the blanket.”
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