“Sorry for being late.” After his identity was confirmed, Gao Ming entered Immortal Pharma’s testing warehouse. There were six people there, including Xu Deyi and Jiang Miaomiao’s silly brother.
“No sense of time at all.” It was a woman with purple glasses who grumbled. She was dressed like the secretary of a rich CEO. Even though she had great proportions, she looked normal. She used the glasses to hide her face. Two people stood together beside the woman. They seemed to be a team. They often participated in the games together. Groups were common in the games.
“Three newbies?” The muscular man with the group frowned. The derision in his eyes was clear. He looked down on Gao Ming and the silly man. “Money will be hard to earn this time.”
“Don’t wander about when you’re in the game. You have to listen to our orders.” The other tall and thin man spoke. He was the youngest. His tone was unfriendly, but he was the most welcoming of the three. “We are entering a middle-layer nightmare. Compared to surface-layer nightmares, there is a risk of being unable to come back. Therefore, you have to be extra careful!”
The elevator roared as it rose from the underground. Tang Qing walked out. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Here. Come with me.”
They entered the elevator. The numbers changed from one to eighteen and then back to four.
“Are there eighteen floors here? Have you hollowed out the space underneath the warehouse?” Xu Deyi didn’t want to join the game, but he needed the money. Being a gangster was not easy. With the police watching everywhere, it was hard to rob anyone.
“Those numbers are just to trick us.” The young man among the group of three whispered, “Immortal Pharma doesn’t wish for us to know which floor we’ve landed on.”
“This time, you’re entering the brain of a volunteer donor. He had a strange brain illness when he was alive. He couldn’t see doors and narrow pathways without lights.” Tang Qing led the way forward.
“He couldn’t see the doors?!” Xu Deyi wandered behind Gao Ming.
“Yes. Doors and channels would trigger him. His doctors couldn’t figure out why. However, there was one thing that was certain. The nightmare created by this child is definitely from the surface level. He had imagined different kinds of doors. We suspect that some of the doors might lead to the deeper nightmare.” Tang Qing’s words intrigued Gao Ming. In their group, probably only Gao Ming wanted to enter the deeper nightmare more than Tang Qing. He wanted to see how scary the place was.
The light came on. Tang Qing brought them to Zone B11. It was damp and dark. The light was blocked by thick curtains. No one went there, so there was no need for lights.
“Be quiet. The child’s guardian has quite a temper.” Tang Qing pulled back one of the curtains. A bed was placed in the middle of the darkness. A stick-thin young man was lying on it. The man’s head reached into a hole in the wall, but his body was left out. It looked so strange.
The testers could only see the young man’s body, so they had no idea what Immortal Pharma had done to his head. It felt like they purposely moved the man’s head behind the wall to spare them the horror.
Tang Qing said nothing as he stood beside the bed. The lights on the devices flickered a few times. When all the lights turned green, the walls moved to the left. An old man with a worker ID walked out. His eyes were sunken. It felt uncomfortable being stared at by him.
“Uncle Chan, I’ve brought the testers. We’ve gained the qualification to enter the brain game of B11.” Tang Qing was very polite.
After Uncle Chan confirmed their identities, Tang Qing introduced them with a smile, “This is the manager of Zone B, Chan Yiqiu. He is very experienced when it comes to researching the middle-layer nightmares.”
Uncle Chan shook everyone’s hands. Then, Tang Qing led them to the path behind the wall.
The dark path appeared to be endless. Xu Deyi panicked, but the team of three didn’t react too much.
“All of you have entered the middle layer before, but I still have to say a few words. The difference between the surface and the middle layers is the difficulty of waking up. In the nightmare, you need to figure out the owner of the nightmare and then find out why the nightmare existed in the first place. Explore the owner’s life.” Tang Qing whispered to Gao Ming, “It’s best for newbies to stick together and don’t wander off.”
“How much can we get from this test?” Xu Deyi asked a realistic question.
“Since this is a brain realm that no one has been into before, if you can find the exit and leave it, you can get 5000 as the basic reward. The more valuable the information you bring with you, the greater the extra rewards.” Tang Qing appreciated Xu Deyi’s personality. Greedy people were the easiest to control.
“This is not right. Before this, Immortal Pharma would always give us detailed information about the owners. Why don’t we get that this time?” The woman was cautious.
“This donor’s brain is very special. We’ve spent a long time constructing a game around it. We only succeeded recently. You’re the first batch to enter it, so we don’t have much information. As for the patient’s records, we’ve already sent them to your bands.” Tang Qing stopped to touch the wall. Then, helmets like the ones from last time showed up. “Please put on your safety devices here. Then, keep moving forward.”
Tang Qing moved to the back of the group. He even kindly helped Gao Ming put on the helmet. “Jiang Cheng’s brother’s situation is very similar to yours. He just woke up after a long coma. When you’re in the nightmare, look after him, and we’ll pay you more.”
“I’ll do that even without the reward.” Gao Ming suddenly remembered something. “By the way, do you have a researcher called Tang Ling here?”
“Tang Ling is my elder sister.” Tang Qing was shocked. “She is working in the Level 5 lab. We haven’t seen each other for months already.”