Death Draw System: Infinite Revives in the Horror Dungeon

Chapter 60: The Reenactor of History — Yang Jin’s Case

While scanning the room, the doctor’s eyes suddenly stopped on Shen Yu.

With a hawk-like gaze, the doctor stared at Shen Yu coldly.

"Huh? Why have I never seen you before?"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Rapid footsteps approached. Shen Yu met the doctor’s gaze, clenching his fists. Although they stood at eye level, he inexplicably felt the doctor growing taller while his own viewpoint sank lower and lower.

An invisible pressure bore down on him, and Shen Yu’s body began to tremble involuntarily.

What’s going on?

He’s clearly not a monster. Why do I instinctively want to lower my head?

Shen Yu’s pupils suddenly contracted.

He noticed that his feet had become much smaller. His height and body had also shrunk.

This... I’m a child?

"I’m asking you a question."

Zzzzt!

The doctor raised his electric baton, preparing to strike Shen Yu across the face.

His thoughts raced.

In an instant, Shen Yu understood.

His mouth stretched into a foolish grin, his eyes became vacant, and he let out a silly laugh.

"He... he... he..."

The laughter echoed through the corridor.

The doctor’s previously fierce expression softened.

"Damn. So you’re an idiot too."

"Probably a new admission."

"That’s fine. The more kids they send here, the sooner I’ll be able to buy a new car."

"Everyone, stay where you are."

"Go into the room and don’t come out."

The doctor lowered the electric baton and impatiently stomped his foot.

The child lying on the floor immediately covered his head and hurried toward one of the rooms.

Shen Yu silently followed behind him.

The moment he stepped inside, his worldview shattered once again.

The examination room was less than thirty square meters, yet it was packed with children.

Most of them stared blankly into space, drool hanging from their mouths.

Some had ropes tied around their necks like dogs, tethered to the examination tables.

They had completely lost control of their bodies. Many had already wet themselves where they sat.

The longer Shen Yu looked, the darker his expression became.

Electrotherapy.

History had proven that carefully controlled electrotherapy could help treat certain neurological disorders.

But high-voltage electroshock used indiscriminately on children would permanently damage the nervous system.

More importantly, if Shen Yu’s deduction was correct...

There were no mentally ill patients in Qing Shan Psychiatric Hospital.

These children weren’t being treated.

They were being tortured.

Zzzzt.

Inside the cramped examination room, the doctor raised the electric baton like a judge delivering a sentence.

"Now I’ll ask you some questions."

"You’ll answer."

"If even one of you answers incorrectly..."

"...all of you will receive treatment."

He sneered.

"Tell me, you little pieces of trash."

"What did you do wrong?"

"Still addicted to video games?"

"No..."

"Still talking back to your parents?"

"No..."

"Still disobeying your teachers?"

"No..."

After every question, the children answered in terrified, mechanical voices, like broken machines repeating rehearsed lines.

Satisfied, the doctor nodded.

"Wouldn’t life be easier if you all just behaved like good children?"

"A bunch of worthless brats."

"You deserve to be beaten."

He spat on the floor before turning toward the door.

"I’m stepping out for a while."

"If even one of you is missing when I return..."

"...every last one of you will receive treatment."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

His footsteps gradually faded down the corridor.

Only then did the children begin to cry.

It was a silent kind of crying.

None of them even dared to sob aloud.

Shen Yu looked at the children, their skin covered with burns from repeated electroshock treatments, and slowly clenched his fists.

On his own arm, he noticed blood-red blisters had appeared at some point, each one marked with words like "Scum" and "Trash."

At that moment, he suddenly remembered the first hint he had received upon entering this instance.

What you see is not what you get.

Back then, Shen Yu hadn’t understood the meaning of those words.

But now, after thinking it through...

What you see is what you become.

How ironic.

It didn’t matter whether you had actually done anything wrong or whether you were truly a bad child. As long as the hospital believed you were, then you became exactly that.

If the doctor declared you scum, the word Scum would appear on your body.

If the nurse demanded that you repent, then you had to repent.

It wasn’t that you didn’t know how to write the word repentance.

It was because, within that twisted world of cognition, Professor Yang believed you were worthless.

So you became a fool who couldn’t even write the word.

Your memories were rewritten.

Your perception was distorted.

You forgot even the simplest things.

That was the true meaning of "What you see is what you get."

Whatever the hospital believed you to be...

...you would become.

No wonder no one had ever escaped.

Inside this third world, where everyone else’s cognition shaped reality, you became whatever they believed you were.

There was no way to resist.

No way to fight back.

So then...

What did "What you see is not what you get" really mean?

Shen Yu gripped the only remaining bottle of Rationality Potion in his hand and bit his lip.

He slowly turned to look at the room full of children.

"I don’t know what will happen to you later..."

"But don’t worry."

"I’ll uncover the truth behind this place."

"I’ll spread the Wings of Freedom for all of you."

After crouching beside the doorway for a while and confirming the corridor outside was empty, Shen Yu quietly slipped out.

This time, the abandoned laboratory sealed off in the normal world was gone.

At the end of the corridor stood a pair of heavy steel doors.

Above them, a red warning light flashed beside a glowing sign:

NO ENTRY

Beneath the large words Laboratory, three smaller words blinked steadily.

Experiment in Progress.

At the same time, inside Shen Yu’s first-person livestream...

"What can you even do against him?"

"Damn! Did you see that? Shen Yu’s pollution value is already -72!"

"What happens if it reaches -100?"

A comment quickly replied.

"Why panic? He still has a Rationality Potion."

"He’s pushing his sanity to its absolute limit."

Another viewer typed:

"Did you notice what the psychiatrist just said? The doctor called him scum, and the word Scum literally appeared on Shen Yu’s body."

"What kind of ability is that?"

"It’s more than that," someone answered.

"Didn’t you notice?"

"When the doctor stared at him, Shen Yu’s body actually shrank."

"This third world has its own rules."

"What rules?"

"You still haven’t figured it out?"

"The three worlds represent three different perspectives."

"The normal world is the hospital’s everyday routine."

"The polluted world is the delusional reality seen by the patients."

"And the third world..."

"...is the truth hidden behind Qing Shan Psychiatric Hospital."

"What?"

"Then how do you escape?"

The livestream chat exploded with speculation.

Among all the participants, only Shen Yu’s stream remained active.

Comments flooded across the screen nonstop.

In front of the broadcast monitor, Ho Yong paced anxiously back and forth.

"Lu Xian... what do you think?"

"How can anyone escape from a world built entirely on someone else’s cognition?"

"And how can Shen Yu possibly act while trapped inside another person’s perception?"