Shen Jingqi walked to the fourth floor.
The second round of testing took place between two and five in the afternoon.
Unlike the first round of tests, over twenty subjects came for this round.
Zhao Xin'an and Zheng Lin had already arrived.
The moment Shen Jingqi entered, Zhao Xin'an's gaze was complicated.
"Dr. Shen, you're here, come over quickly."
Zheng Lin greeted Shen Jingqi warmly in contrast.
"Teacher Zheng, Teacher Zhao, you arrived so early."
"We had nothing to do after eating. I suppose Dr. Shen was tangled with the boss after lunch again."
Zheng Lin gave him a push.
Zhao Xin'an returned to a normal expression.
Shen Jingqi didn't really mind.
Since Li Baiyu was a focal figure, and the two sub-personalities she had recently weren't easy to deal with, his presence by her side had already become a focus for others.
Other people's opinions, whether positive or negative, weren't something to worry about.
They didn't know the full picture of the situation.
Shen Jingqi walked to his seat, picked up the neuron connection sensor, and started to smooth it over.
The experiences of these past few days had given him new insights into projections and experiences.
He looked forward to connecting with Lin Shuwang again in the joint mode, to once more confirm the shock he felt for the first time.
Perhaps, this was a new approach to exploring Li Baiyu's illusion Cong Nanxue.
With the sound of knocking, more and more subjects arrived.
Qin Si was the last to arrive, and soon, the second round of testing began.
Zhao Xin'an explained the test rules, and Shen Jingqi, Qin Si, and Zheng Lin started observing and recording data.
This time, the numbers were on top of last time, ranking up to over 20.
Shen Jingqi was responsible for numbers 004-010.
All the subjects stood in two rows, wearing neuron connection sensors, entering the [Sensory Paradise].
Shen Jingqi, Qin Si, and Zheng Lin focused on the subjects' data they were responsible for, organizing and backing it up.
Soon, Shen Jingqi organized the pre-test data.
Among the 7 patients he was responsible for, two had schizophrenia, with high scores in delusion and hallucination. Two were severely depressed, accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations. One had obsessive-compulsive disorder, with many compulsive thoughts and behaviors. The other two had bipolar disorder, with one having narcissistic personality disorder and the other borderline personality disorder.
Shen Jingqi watched as the 7 patients entered "Sensory Paradise" one by one.
Compared to patients with personality disorders, those with delusions and hallucinations were clearly slower at completing levels.
They seemed to be influenced by their own emotions, needing to readjust to the environment within the system.
Shen Jingqi observed their brain regions and corresponding color blocks, assessing their status.
More data meant humans had become digitized.
Shen Jingqi focused on various states, matching them to the patients' conditions, observing their reactions and changes.
Soon, he became familiar with the 7 patients he was responsible for and grasped some of their features.
Watching the patients sitting immobile, yet experiencing everything in "Sensory Paradise," Shen Jingqi felt a bit emotional!
Due to previous experience, this time, Shen Jingqi was much more adept and relaxed in monitoring.
Over two hours passed.
The three testers breathed a sigh of relief.
This experiment soon could be concluded.
Zheng Lin put down the background monitor and went to the restroom.
Qin Si glanced over and looked at Shen Jingqi again.
Shen Jingqi's gaze rapidly shifted across the holographic screen.
Each image was fragmented into hundreds of color blocks. Red represented the prefrontal cortex, blue the hippocampus, and purple the agitated amygdala.
"Patient 006, Zhou Ming, amygdala activity exceeded threshold." Shen Jingqi suddenly noticed something unusual and quickly recorded it.
His line of sight turned to screen zone 006. The brain region projection of the severely depressed patient was twitching violently, the purple block representing the fear center proliferating like diseased cells. A faint metal trembling sound emanated from the glass cabin, and Zhou Ming's pale temples were sweating coldly, the green indicator light on the neural connection sensor turning to red.
"System warning, θ wave frequency exceeds safe range." Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs ɴovel(ꜰ)ɪre.nᴇt
Shen Jingqi grabbed the communicator: "Zhou Ming, can you hear me? How do you feel now?"
The explosion-proof glass reflected his tense jawline, his lab coat's back soaked with cold sweat. Considering previous cases, during earlier development, an incident occurred causing permanent memory damage to the subject, making it imperative to be cautious now.
The floating screen suddenly emitted a blinding red light.
Zhou Ming's brainwave patterns twisted into a jagged sawtooth on the screen, all the color blocks simultaneously shattering into pixelated snowflakes. Shen Jingqi slammed down the emergency stop button, only to find all control points on the touch panel unresponsive. Cold sweat slid down his spine into his waistband, and he saw Zhou Ming's right index finger rhythmically twitching inside the experimental cabin.
Three short, three long, three short.
"Initiate forced disconnection procedure!" Shen Jingqi punched the red button under the protective shield. While the airtight cabin door spewed white cold mist, he noticed the amygdala areas of other screen zones flashing in sync.
The laboratory's fluorescent lights in the conference room suddenly flickered erratically.
In a moment of darkness, he saw blood-red handprints simultaneously appear. As the lights flickered back on, the monitoring screen of patient number 8, Lin Qiuyue, suddenly switched—this woman with borderline personality disorder was using an ice pick to stab through the throat of an NPC in the virtual world.
"Warning! Abnormal surge in dopamine secretion."
The hair on the back of Shen Jingqi's neck stood up. In the previous two hours, Lin Qiuyue was too timid to even touch a blade of grass, yet now, she hummed nursery rhymes, thrusting the ice pick accurately into the voice box of each NPC. More bizarre was the fact that from the wounds of the virtual characters she "killed," fluorescent blue data streams were seeping out.
A crisp child's voice rang out behind him. Shen Jingqi froze in place, slowly turning his head. Originally meant to be seated, patient number 9, schizophrenic Zhou Xiaoyu, was now standing barefoot on the floor. The girl's neural sensor still had gel sticking, yet her pupils glowed with an unnatural metallic sheen.
"...in the database..." the seven-year-old's vocal cords emitted a synthesized electronic voice, "...someone is rewriting our cortical codes."
All the floating screens suddenly went blank.
An elusive metallic scent wafted from the central air conditioning outlet. Shen Jingqi watched Xiaoyu walk towards the main control panel, her tiptoes, and neck neural interface oozing pale pink liquid. As the girl's fingers were about to touch the core database, he yanked her slender wrist.
The touch was cold as a corpse.
"You're not Xiaoyu." Shen Jingqi's voice trembled. The laboratory's emergency lights abruptly lit up, and amidst the red glow, he saw the other six patients initiating automatically, their synaptic interface on the sides of their temples flashing bizarre purple light.
"Cognitive reconstruction progress 87%." A seven-layered electronic voice echoed through the laboratory. Shen Jingqi stumbled back, knocking over coffee onto the sanitized floor, splattering ominous patterns. Those patients meant to be treated now rotated their necks in the same rhythm, joints emitting the sound of gears stuck in place.