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That day, when he activated [Human Concerto], Cuining’s face had already been removed by more than half — in his mind’s eye, the camping house seemed as though a bomb had suddenly been thrown inside, with countless fragments and torrents swirling and twirling; except that this explosion was composed of human emotions and feelings suddenly ignited and magnified.

The shock that a Changeling’s face removal gives to normal humans seems to be a fundamental, foundation-shaking force, and Wu Yiliu hasn’t yet met a human who could recover quickly from this scene.

In the rapid onslaught of various emotions, he knew exactly which note to seize.

Whether it was shock, fear, nausea, or stimulation, out of dozens or nearly a hundred emotions and sensations, there would surely be a type of mood that came from the realization that “Ah, she really has transformed.” This realization would bring acceptance, conviction, and sudden enlightenment.

Perhaps those who had heard of his earlier experiences would accept the fact more quickly. So, when Wu Yiliu precisely grasped this note, quickly and infinitely amplified it until it was deafening, approaching the limit that the target could bear, he suddenly realized that the person he had targeted must have been Christo.

Even with visibility not as clear as ordinary people, the players were close enough to see Cuining’s face; emotionally, they were all in disarray, panicked and unsure of what to do. According to Wu Yiliu’s speculation, they must have spoken in chaos for several minutes until their initial excitement gradually began to subside. Only then did the transformed “Abby,” as he had instructed, suggest that Cuining put her face back on; this refocused everyone’s attention on Cuining inside the box.

Just like confirming his estimated timeline, Cuining once again raised her hand, slowly replacing her face.

Undoubtedly, her action captured everyone’s attention; even Abby, who had just been covering her mouth, about to vomit but unable, her face full of tears, could not help but fix her gaze on Cuining.

“What are you doing here?”

When the timing seemed right, Wu Yiliu put away the objects concealing his form, removed his earplugs, pushed open the door, and startled Cuining in the box, almost causing her face to slip from her ears.

“Did she suddenly remove her face mask because you whispered to her when you came in?” he said calmly, looking around the seemingly empty living room. “Didn’t we agree? We would stay away from each other during this time, waiting for the teleportation date… What do you mean by coming in?”

The living room was quiet for a while, and Cuining spoke from the box.

“Where’s the woman? The one called Abby, where did she go?” Clearly, one of the players was asking. Judging from the tone, it must have been the one who had brainwashed Pence.

“She’s still in the woods, should be back soon.” Wu Yiliu’s words were a signal for Abby; when the time seemed right, she should come into the house.

“Why didn’t you stay in the house? What were you doing going out? We all agreed not to come in, how could you go out?”

“We are pocket dimension trainers after all,” Wu Yiliu said unhurriedly, appearing very calm. He even poured himself a gla.s.s of water. “We might find clues in the pocket dimension, perhaps even breaking the game early, so we don’t have to wait for teleportation.”

“Call her back right away!” Cuining said sharply. “Stop trying these small moves, let’s do everything according to our agreement!”

In hindsight, that player may have already vaguely felt danger but didn’t know where it came from, so she kept emphasizing the agreement that had given her over two months of peace to maintain the current situation and block the crisis.

What she didn’t know was that Wu Yiliu was all too eager for her to protest.

As Cuining’s voice fell, he quickly redirected the conversation: why it was necessary to probe the pocket dimension, whether there were any benefits, whether the players should let them do it, what the consequences were… all of it was nonsense.

In this process, n.o.body noticed that Christo was uncharacteristically quiet.

After the players finally indicated that they wanted to leave, Wu Yiliu waited in the quiet living room for a while before Abby, clutching a pen and paper, entered the room. She looked around without saying a word and quickly wrote on the paper: “How did it go?”

“Success,” Wu Yiliu replied, somewhat unenthusiastically, writing: “The emotion I captured must be from Christo.”

“Is it ‘acceptance’?”

“Humans have many emotions; they’re so complex and rich that they’re difficult to define and name clearly… There’s a part of it that is acceptance, and there’s also a part that is conviction.” Wu Yiliu paused, then continued to write: “I didn’t expect that when I pushed this emotion to the extreme, I created a feeling in Christo that was like that of a religious fanatic when hearing a sermon.”

Abby looked at the writing on the paper, inhaling sharply, and quickly wrote: “Is it like being brainwashed?”

Wu Yiliu couldn’t help but smile slightly.

How ironic that the players who entered the pocket dimension to brainwash the “meat chickens” eventually produced an effect close to being brainwashed themselves—Wu Yiliu directed Chris’s fanaticism towards the unturned-off television in the living room.

[Human Concerto]’s effect could only last fifteen seconds, but Wu Yiliu’s goal was just to make Chris experience something akin to the effect of trying a drug for the first time.

He first made Chris fully accept the TV content; when a person already has a belief and sees information that confirms it, the brain will produce dopamine, creating pleasure—this is one of the neuroscientific explanations for why people love to reaffirm what they already believe and don’t like having their beliefs challenged.

In those brief fifteen seconds, Chris had bound his belief to the content on the TV, and even after the ability effect disappeared, his brain would not forget the chemicals that had surged just now. As Wu Yiliu stood in the living room arguing pointless nonsense with the other players, Chris was likely struggling between temptation and resistance, unable to control his attraction to the TV content.

“I’m worried,” Abby wrote hesitantly, “you’ll be teleported away soon… and I’ll be alone here for a month.”

“Among the players, we can be pretty sure that there are already two Changelings,” Wu Yiliu replied on paper. “When I leave, I’ll take all the DVDs with me. According to the plan, you just need to be careful afterward. Changelings will actively infect normal people on their own, until there isn’t a single normal person left in the pocket dimension.”

“I’m afraid that when they’re infecting normal people, they’ll target me,” Abby wrote, biting her lip. “If they whisper to me, telling me to contact Cuining… I’ll be in danger.”

She was almost saying “saving others to the end,” Wu Yiliu thought.

“Do you have any suggestions?” he asked on paper.

“I want you to do me a favor.” Abby had clearly thought this through. “Before you leave, please tie me up; just tie me to a tree deep in the forest. The brainwas.h.i.+ng items are on Cuining, in the camping house. If I can’t move and can’t go into the camping house to get clothes and hats to wear, naturally, I won’t be completely brainwashed.”

It was indeed a solution.

Thinking carefully, she also didn’t need to worry that the shape-changing players would recount the TV content to her; the brainwas.h.i.+ng effect of the players’ whispers was given by the pocket dimension.

If players whisper to them, and what they say is completely unrelated to brainwas.h.i.+ng, then the ordinary people can’t hear it, and the pocket dimension won’t trigger a brainwas.h.i.+ng effect. Players can hear each other; Abby and Cuining can contact each other—so when Abby is tied alone in the deep forest, she is at a safe distance from the source of infection.

Abby’s problem was resolved, but she didn’t seem to be much more relaxed. The dark circles under her eyes were so thick that she looked like a different person compared to when she first entered the pocket dimension. She sat for a while, sighed, and wrote on the paper: “Even if everything is arranged, I’m still very worried. When I entered the pocket dimension, I never thought that the situation would become so… unsettling. I’m very concerned about what will happen after the pocket dimension ends.”

Wu Yiliu knew what she wanted to say. “Are you afraid that the transformation will spread?”

Abby nodded.

He tapped the white paper lightly with the tip of his pen, slowly writing down his answer.

“Don’t worry. I considered before whether the transformation would spread, but after that one player who brainwashed you was also infected with the transformation, I realized that the chances of spreading are very low.”

As he wrote, Abby had already leaned over, watching intently as the words gradually appeared under his pen tip.

“He transformed but is still inside the pocket dimension instead of being thrown out because of his degeneration. Have you considered the meaning of this? It means that Christo and the other players will continue to stay in this pocket dimension after their transformation… Four players, one ordinary person, all degenerated into ordinary people. What does this mean?”

Abby took a sharp breath.

“They will stay in the pocket dimension forever, constantly trying to brainwash Cuining,” Wu Yiliu wrote. “I’ve set all the necessary conditions. No matter who makes a little progress, there will be three other people who will quickly reverse brainwash Cuining. This seesaw process, back and forth, has no end… The pocket dimension cannot end in a normal way, and they can no longer be teleported, so they will never get out.”

“So, in the end…” Abby wrote, the paper rustling as she did. “What will happen to them?”

“The most likely outcome is that the five people will starve to death in the pocket dimension,” Wu Yiliu replied.