Chapter 87: Implanting the Thought Stamp

In the Second Chamber.

It was still the same sofa, coffee table, chair, and mirror, but with an extra door.

This door had an Electronic Lock.

It required a four-digit password.

Chen Ran supported the old man to the door, though the elderly figure seemed somewhat resistant.

Chen Ran offered comfort. "Go on, the person you want to see should be inside."

The old man tremblingly reached out a finger, pausing in mid-air to look back at Chen Ran as if silently asking for the password.

Chen Ran gave no reply.

After a moment of hesitation, the old man pressed the keys on the Electronic Lock one by one: 1011.

Inside was a single bed, upon which lay an Old Man of about seventy years of age.

His breathing was as fragile as a gossamer thread.

He was hovering on the brink of death.

Chen Ran, who had been standing behind the old man, completely vanished. Astonishingly, without anyone to support him, the old man quickly rushed to the bedside and fell heavily to his knees.

"Grandfather!"

The old man knelt by the bed, his eyes welling with tears that soon cascaded down his weathered cheeks.

It was a bizarre sight—a centenarian calling the seventy-year-old on the bed his Grandfather.

The Old Man struggled to open his eyes. Upon seeing the person by his bed, a flash of fear crossed his face, but after looking closer, he asked uncertainly, "Lin Jiabao?"

The old man crawled forward on his knees. "It is me, it is me! Grandfather, it is me. I am Jiabao."

As he spoke, he continually kowtowed.

"Good, good. Are you in control of your own body now?" The Old Man was overjoyed and struggled to sit up, but his long-abused body refused to let him move.

Hearing this, the old man by the bed showed a mixture of shame and blazing fury. "Not yet... but I, Lin Jiabao, swear From the Highest Heaven to the Lowest Hell, I will kill Lin Jiabei!!!"

"How dare she!!!"

"Occupy my body!!!"

"And torture you to death!!!"

The Old Man seemed to recall many things; his entire being bordered on madness, overflowing with monstrous hatred.

Let us look at this from an omniscient perspective.

In truth, throughout this entire Instance, there was never a second Successor.

Or rather, the two Successors were actually the same person.

Otherwise, there was no way to explain why, in the Second Chamber, there was absolutely no trace of a second Successor escaping the Basement.

There was only one answer: the Young Inheritor and the Young Heiress existed within the same body.

A split personality!

Furthermore, recalling the words The Youth spoke to the girl before entering the Secret Room: From the Highest Heaven to the Lowest Hell, he would kill her.

It was easy to deduce.

The Youth was the primary personality.

The girl was the secondary personality.

The secondary personality hijacked the body and tortured the primary personality's Grandfather—the Old Man—to death.

Reviewing the entire Instance.

The Old Man had no children of his own and adopted the Young Inheritor. From the Study Room, one could deduce that the Old Man was a literary master.

Even if he was not, his literary accomplishments were at the very least extraordinarily high.

If the Old Man had adopted two children, growing up by his side and being constantly influenced by him, it would be impossible for them not to understand the Second-round Simplified Characters.

Since both would understand it, why would the Old Man use Second-round Simplified Characters to leave his dying message?

Therefore, there was only one adopted Child, and having grown up by the Old Man's side, they could read the Second-round Simplified Characters.

The primary personality could read the Second-round Simplified Characters.

The secondary personality lacked the primary personality's memories and therefore could not read them.

At the same time, half of the Glass Beads in the Hourglass were numbered, while the other half lacked numbers.

The Hourglass symbolized time, and drawing books symbolized knowledge. Through the screening of the Hourglass, the Old Man determined which was the primary personality and which was the secondary personality.

As well as the time patterns of when the two personalities appeared. For the Old Man, he naturally wanted to destroy Lin Jiabao's secondary personality.

Because of this, in the First Secret Room—the Old Man's Study Room—any Player corresponding to an unnumbered glass bead...

Would die!

Naturally, this action successfully enraged the secondary personality, laying the groundwork for the Old Man's death...

At the very beginning, before sitting on the chair in the Escape Room Game, Chen Ran used this exact point to anger the Young Inheritor. It was originally a surefire plan, but it was thwarted by the Three Flowers Converging at the Peak.

This also explained why Chen Ran directly used the Eternal Kingdom just moments ago.

Because for the upcoming act, he had to ensure absolutely nothing went wrong.

Indeed, the centenarian old man was the Young Inheritor, lost in the Fourth Dream Layer.

As for how Chen Ran knew the Young Inheritor was named Lin Jiabao, the answer lay outside the photography studio tent. The crowd of fans there had been holding support signs bearing both of their names.

Returning to the present.

The Old Man's fingers twitched on the bed. Seeing this, the elderly Jiabao tightly grasped his hand and wept, "Grandfather, I am here. I am right here. Your Jiabao is here..."

"You have suffered. If possible, you must think of every way to kill her." The Old Man was incredibly weak, his voice intermittent.

"I will. I will definitely do everything in my power to kill her. Kill her! Kill her!" The old man's eyes were bloodshot.

When no response came, the old man looked up in confusion at the figure on the bed.

In the next second, he saw the one scene he dared not recall for his entire life.

On the bed, the Old Man's face was completely covered by layer after layer of wet paper.

He was completely motionless.

"Ahhhhh!" The old man's mind broke down at that moment. Clutching his head, he rolled on the floor in agony, an image of absolute despair.

Scenes from the past flashed through his mind: the moment the Old Man adopted him.

The times the Old Man taught him how to write, celebrated his birthdays, and imparted life lessons on how to be a good person.

Ultimately, the memory that played in his mind was waking up in the Basement, finding himself standing in place, while his Grandfather sat in the chair, his face suffocated by layers of wet paper.

"Lin Jiabei killed Grandfather, and I killed Grandfather too! Ahhhhh!"

The old man resembled a devout believer, kowtowing repeatedly as he repented for his past.

However...

The bed before him, along with the Old Man upon it, had completely vanished.

Chen Ran had appeared behind him at some unknown point, gasping for air, his face deathly pale...

'Fuck! I almost suffocated to death!'

'This is my first time constructing a dreamscape. I never expected the mental drain to be so massive.'

Indeed, the Old Man on the bed just now had actually been Chen Ran. He used the dreamscape to transform himself into the Old Man's likeness.

If one paid close attention, they would notice that the Old Man had only spoken three sentences from beginning to end. Two were questions, and one used the word 'if'. All three instances were deliberately phrased to avoid lying.

Chen Ran watched the old man, who was alternating between weeping with his head in his hands and kowtowing in repentance, looking utterly insane.

Unhurriedly, he lit a Cigarette and waited for about half an hour. He was genuinely afraid that this Young Inheritor, who had aged into a withered old man, would drop dead right then and there.

Snuffing out the cigarette butt.

He walked forward and patted his shoulder. The old man on the ground lifted his head and looked at Chen Ran, his cloudy eyes holding a silent question:

"Are you Chen Ran?"

"That is right. You forgot that we entered the Escape Room Game. If my guess is correct, you probably died on the third layer. Your consciousness fell into the Fourth Dream Layer, the deepest part of the dreamscape. Having survived in the Fourth Dream Layer for so many years, your body slowly aged, becoming the withered figure you are now."

Speaking of this, Chen Ran felt quite a bit of sympathy. The Young Inheritor had lived entirely alone in the Fourth Dream Layer for at least eighty years...

That kind of crushing loneliness was unimaginable.

'No wonder this is a Hell-level difficulty. If the Young Inheritor had not already died once and become an NPC of this Instance, he would not have survived so easily. If it were anyone else trapped in a sealed room, let alone eighty years, they would suffer a mental breakdown and want to end their own life after just one.'

Hearing Chen Ran's words, the old man gradually recalled the events from decades ago.

Decades ago, a group of Players had indeed entered his Instance, and among them was a Newbie Player named Chen Ran!!!

As his memories recovered, the dreamscape could no longer be sustained, and the space shattered inch by inch.