Doomsday Wonderland

On this point, Wu Yiliu never had any doubts; not because he had an in-depth understanding of Abby’s martial abilities, but because the current situation determined it.

To control a puppet, a player can only issue commands through whispers, and this is definitely slower than directly reacting. The delayed body has already lost the initiative, and evolved abilities cannot be fully utilized. The key to brainwas.h.i.+ng lies in the infusion of a large amount of h.o.m.ogeneous information repeatedly, causing a person to no longer have any of their thoughts, making the puppet self disappear, completely controlled by external forces.

But in battle, autonomy and reaction speed are crucial.

A player can command to “use evolved ability,” but which one? What’s the specific method? When to start? When to stop? Where to apply it? How to adapt to the situation?

After losing independent thinking, the fighting becomes a heavy, pa.s.sive, sluggish, and lagging process of being beaten—perhaps after the pocket dimension ends, when all suspense is gone, the player may have further control over the puppet; now, they cannot do so.

Sure enough, he had just crouched down to check the TV when he heard a few m.u.f.fled thuds, like something heavy had hit the sofa. Turning his head, he found that Abby had tied Pence’s and Cuining’s necks together with a blanket.

They were back-to-back, heads turned, struggling and looking a bit like live chickens in the market. Abby, following Wu Yiliu’s orders, had broken their limbs, and they could only limply lie by their sides, unable to reach their necks to untie the knots.

“Did you touch that blanket?” Wu Yiliu asked, taken aback.

Abby vigorously slapped her hands, as if afraid of dust, and said, “I touched it with gloves on. Didn’t you want to test and destroy these objects? I tried tearing it a few times, but it wouldn’t tear.”

She turned to look at the thin blanket twisted into a rope, saying, “I’ve forgotten how many years it’s been since I felt like this… as if I’m not strong enough. I think because it’s a pocket dimension item, it can’t be destroyed.”

Wu Yiliu nodded. It was not surprising, and he had not hoped too much in this regard; he lowered his head again, illuminating the back of the TV with a flashlight—it was okay, although it was a pocket dimension item, the necessary outlets were there, and the models seemed to match.

“What are you doing?” Abby seemed a little unwilling to stand alone beside Pence and Cuining and moved a few steps closer. No wonder, although Pence and Cuining were no longer deformed, their necks were tied together; their faces were expressionless, faces flushed in silent struggle, remaining silent and not looking human.

“Do you remember the story I told you?” Wu Yiliu replied without looking up. “You remember the fake pocket dimension in my home world, right?”

“I remember,” Abby said—perhaps being immersed in the story’s memory helped resist the brainwas.h.i.+ng whispers. “So what?”

Before he could answer, the TV suddenly lit up with a “pop.” Abby was startled by the renewed light and took a half step back, involuntarily exclaiming, “Huh? The cartoon figure is gone?”

“I guess the warning has pa.s.sed, and it’s no longer needed,” Wu Yiliu said, looking at the TV screen. “So, I connected it to my video player.”

“Your… what?”

A video player.

Wu Yiliu knew that right now, either he or Abby was surely enduring a whispering brainwash, and there wasn’t much time for him to explain. Considering that he was the most troublesome character, the likelihood of him being brainwashed was greater. He twisted and tapped his silver ring and took out a box of DVDs, flipping one into the black DVD player on the ground.

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အဓိကဇာတ္ေကာင္ေတြက အမ်ိဳးသားဇာတ္လိုက္ေတြနဲ႔ ပဲေတြ႔ၾကတာလား? ေကာင္းၿပီေလ၊ စာဖတ္သူေတြကတူခဲ့ၾကတဲ့ အေတြးေတြကို သေဘာတူတာ ျငင္းဆုိၾကတာေပါ့။ ေနာက္ပိုင္းေတာ့၊ အဓိကဇာတ္ေကာင္ကို ဖ်က…

“This… Is this perhaps…” Abby said, looking at his ring.

Wu Yiliu knew what she wanted to ask. “Oh, it’s not his.”

Sh.o.r.eis’ storage ring didn’t seem to be a very rare item. When Wu Yiliu saw a storage tool identical to Professor Qiao’s ring at an auction several years ago, he paid twenty percent more to purchase it.

Abby glanced at the text on the DVD box. “‘Summer in the Old Alley’? What’s this?”

“I went back to the fake pocket dimension later on,” Wu Yiliu said quietly, looking at the bright screen and music on the TV. “At that time, the posthumans trapped in the fake pocket dimension had either died or dispersed, leaving only ruins. I collected all the intact books, DVDs, recorded programs… from the desolate wreckage.”

He always felt that these things would come in handy someday, although he couldn’t think of a situation that would make him want to use them. He just prepared thoroughly. Even if the TV in the pocket dimension didn’t work, he had a set of smaller screens; however, a larger television would be ideal for a stronger effect.

Abby’s face changed as she realized. “Those… those that can infect and transform people by watching…?”

It’s not accurate to say “watching,” as the players probably couldn’t see the content on the TV screen, but they couldn’t help but hear it. As souls, they didn’t even have the option to cover their ears. They could hear everything and had no way to stop listening—this was a small advantage of humans.

Wu Yiliu pulled two chairs from the dining table and handed one to Abby before sitting down in front of the TV, crossing his legs and saying, “Come, let’s watch together.”

Abby stared at him as if she’d seen a ghost.

“I have a little thing,” Wu Yiliu said, his eyes fixed on the TV screen, not even glancing at Abby, “that can trap both of us. Once bound, it cannot be broken free unless you answer the question it asks correctly with a key answer.”

“I… I don’t understand…”

Although he couldn’t hear Abby’s brainwas.h.i.+ng whispers, Wu Yiliu was fairly confident that the unexpected event had probably stopped them. He spoke more to the player than Abby.

“Those of you who brainwashed Pence and Cuining, you haven’t heard my story, so you probably feel confused and think it has nothing to do with you—as long as you have your human vessels, you’re invincible, right?” Wu Yiliu’s voice rose slightly, covering the theme song of “Summer in the Old Alley.”

“In some ways, you might be right. Humans won’t kill each other; one less human means one more ‘driver’ might target you.” He smiled faintly and urged Abby again, “Come on, sit down.”

Abby finally sat down slowly and closed her eyes tightly.

“Isn’t the player’s brainwas.h.i.+ng a bit like transformation? Both target the mind, and when successful, our ‘selves’ cease to exist,” Wu Yiliu said, looking at the heroine on the TV screen and touching his ring. “So which effect is stronger? What happens when the two collide?”

By now, even Abby understood his intent. She bit her lip, nodded slowly, and said, “I understand… Bind me.”

Wu Yiliu pulled a small object from his ring, holding it between his fingers, but for a moment did nothing, only saying, “As for me, I have a guess about what’s coming next. You see, we’re going to be tied up, unable to move, and unable to stand up to put on the brainwas.h.i.+ng objects, and since Pence and Cuining have all their limbs broken, they can’t stand up on their own to turn off the DVD player. So, for quite a long time, the eight of us—I think Christ should be back soon—will have to sit in this room and honestly bear the risk of transformation infection.”

“But they can temporarily avoid it,” Abby said, her eyes closed, voice trembling. “Won’t only the four of us be infected and transformed then?”

“I’ve set the playback to an infinite loop,” Wu Yiliu said. “This is a specially modified DVD player that can continuously play for several years without interruption.”

The infinite loop was true, but the special modification was a bluff. However, he was willing to gamble that the few players would not last until they discovered the truth.

“Of course they can avoid it, but they always have to come back. When they do, they will not only face the risk of being infected themselves but also face four transformed meat bodies. Since the ‘real selves’ inside Pence and Cuining have disappeared, and without resistance, the speed of infection and transformation will only be faster than ours.”

“After transforming, the new personalities are not us, but they still control our bodies. If they want to gain control over these bodies, they will still have to brainwash the Changelings.” Wu Yiliu’s fingers caressed the green rope-like object, smiling. “What do you think will happen then?

“First, all four players will try to take Pence and Cuining, because only they have the brainwas.h.i.+ng objects and can be directly brainwashed again. Abby, you’ll be tied up, unable to grab the blanket or shoes, so you’re the least valuable to them.

“Second, if the fight fails, someone will try to brainwash me, get the key answer from me, and thus untie the two of us.”

The night gradually enveloped the camping house, the outside dark forest was dead silent, and the room had only the faint buzzing of the lamp and the rising and falling dialogue on the television. The invisible four players, who knew where they were standing quietly.

“Yes,” Abby said, her face full of sorrow. “You are the one who created this situation, and you are the one who can solve it. As long as they brainwash you…”

“Let me put it this way. When my goal is just to have them watch TV for a while, they will definitely sit down and watch TV.” Wu Yiliu smiled, looking around the camping house. “If I have no subsequent means to force them to watch TV, why keep these DVDs?”

“How… how so?”

“Because I don’t know the key answer, brainwas.h.i.+ng me is useless,” Wu Yiliu said quietly. “The key answer is a series of random texts extracted from the TV show ‘Summer in the Old Alley’ by the binding object. By the time the key answer appears, I’ll already be a Changeling, and my main goal will be to infect them too, right? And I won’t be fully brainwashed before the key answer comes up, right? So, if a player wants to know the key answer, they must listen attentively to this TV show.”