Chapter 58: Tentacle Monster

"Why is it still so blurry!"
"I distinctly remember the photo having a pretty clear resolution!"
Lu Yuan had a lingering feeling that the issue wasn't with the photograph itself. He pressed his finger against it and rubbed hard, but the two figures in the picture remained indistinct.
Yet, those two people gave Lu Yuan a very familiar sensation.
Try as he might, he just couldn't place them.
Lu Yuan stared fixedly at the photograph.
After a long while, he glanced at the time.
"It's getting late. I can't afford to waste any more time on this photo."
Wen Ke's visit had eaten up some time, and studying the photograph had consumed even more. It was already past eight o'clock in the evening.
Lu Yuan placed the group photo back on the desk and lay down on the bed.
"Let's enter the ghostly dream world first."
"I can look into the photo again after I wake up tomorrow."
Nothing useful could be gleaned from the photograph in Lu Yuan's hands. However, he wasn't the only one who possessed such a picture.
Wen Ke had one too.
If Lu Yuan remembered correctly, the copy in Wen Ke's possession was slightly clearer than his own.
Lu Yuan felt a quiet sense of helplessness in his heart.
It seemed as though he and Wen Ke were tethered to one another.
Either Wen Ke came looking for him, or he had to go looking for Wen Ke; one of them always had to take the initiative to find the other.
On the bed.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes.
He was forcing himself to fall asleep.
Yet, for an insomniac, trying to summon even a shred of sleepiness was agonizingly difficult. Lu Yuan tossed and turned, shifting constantly across the mattress.
To fall asleep, one must never open their eyes.
He had to force himself to keep his eyes shut continuously!
Only in this way could a sense of drowsiness gradually take root within the dark environment.
Through Lu Yuan's persistent efforts, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. The consciousness in his mind began to blur, and his entire being felt as though it were spinning endlessly into a black vortex.
Lu Yuan knew one thing clearly.
It definitely wasn't ten o'clock at night yet.
If it were ten o'clock, his consciousness would have been abruptly and instantaneously yanked into the ghostly dream world, rather than gradually dissolving into a fog like this.
After an unknown length of time, Lu Yuan's consciousness began to return.
He slowly opened his eyes.
He expected to find himself inside his own psychological clinic, but the moment his eyes fluttered open, Lu Yuan was frozen by the scene before him.
He was not in the psychological clinic.
There was no light here either.
Even so, relying on his decent eyesight, Lu Yuan managed to make out his surroundings. He was in an extremely cramped room devoid of even a single window, enclosed only by three solid walls and an iron door.
The clothes on Lu Yuan's body had also changed.
His previously loose garments had been replaced by a blue-and-white striped patient uniform, with the name of a psychiatric hospital stamped across the chest.
"Have I become a psychiatric patient?"
Lu Yuan frowned slightly.
He did not panic.
Having spent a considerable amount of time in the ghostly dream world, he had developed a certain capacity for calm analysis when faced with sudden, unknown circumstances.
Lu Yuan walked up to the iron door and tugged at it. The door emitted a harsh, grating screech that scraped against the nerves—evidently, it hadn't been opened in a very long time.
After trying unsuccessfully to force the iron door open from the inside, he had no choice but to shout loudly, "Is anyone there? Is anyone outside?"
Regardless of whether the person answering his call was human or a ghostly entity, he needed to draw them over first.
Lu Yuan pounded incessantly on the iron door.
After a long while, he halted his actions because he heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching from outside the door.
Shortly thereafter, the sound of a key turning in a lock reached his ears.
Seeing this, Lu Yuan concealed himself behind the iron door, intending to launch a surprise attack.
The next second, however, Lu Yuan realized something was amiss. This place did not seem to be the ghostly dream world either, as he could not open his inventory or retrieve his utility knife.
If he wanted to launch a surprise attack, he would have to rely solely on his bare hands.
This undoubtedly increased the difficulty of a successful ambush exponentially.
"No matter what."
"I'll have to take the risk!"
The moment the iron door swung open, Lu Yuan burst forth with sudden violence, clamping his hands around the intruder's neck from behind. He exerted all his strength, attempting to use the power of his arms to induce suffocation.
Very quickly, Lu Yuan's expression turned grim.
The intruder's neck was as hard as steel. No matter how much force he applied, he couldn't pose the slightest threat.
In the next instant, the head held within Lu Yuan's grip rotated a full 180 degrees, a pair of gray eyes locking onto his face.
Before Lu Yuan could utter a single word, his consciousness plunged once more into absolute darkness.
Once again, an unknown span of time passed before Lu Yuan slowly regained consciousness. A dull, throbbing pain emanated from the back of his head, as though he had been struck a heavy blow.
Upon waking, Lu Yuan discovered that he was no longer in that small room. Instead, he had been relocated to an open clearing, positioned dead center while twelve chairs were arranged in a circle around him.
"Where is this place now?"
Lu Yuan once again attempted to access his inventory, but it still indicated failure.
Suddenly, a voice rang out from behind him.
"You betrayed us."
Lu Yuan whipped around sharply.
The twelve chairs that had just been empty now held a figure wearing a black brimmed hat in one of them. The voice gave away neither male nor female characteristics.
"I betrayed you?"
"Who are you people?"
Lu Yuan remained uncertain.
He still hadn't figured out his current situation.
The person in the black brimmed hat did not answer his question. From behind him once more, another voice echoed.
"Do you know what the consequences of betraying us are?"
Lu Yuan turned around again.
Another chair now occupied a person, similarly draped in a black brimmed hat that obscured their face.
This time, Lu Yuan did not speak. He concentrated all his energy on observing the black-hatted figures before him, finally catching a few telling details.
The second black-hatted person who spoke was a woman.
Her fingers were fair and slender, and her fingernails bore the traces of a manicure.
"I thought you would be a qualified administrator."
"I granted you administrative authority."
"Yet you chose to betray us."
"No one has ever dared to defy our commands."
"If they do, there is only one consequence: death!"
......
With every additional sentence spoken in the clearing, another person materialized in one of the twelve chairs. Soon, all twelve chairs were filled, and a dozen figures in black brimmed hats surrounded Lu Yuan in the center.
"Die."
"Die."
......
All twelve individuals began speaking simultaneously, repeating the exact same word. Lu Yuan was left completely bewildered, utterly incapable of making sense of the situation unfolding around him.
At that exact moment, the light above Lu Yuan's head abruptly plunged into darkness.
A massive, shadowy silhouette plummeted from the sky, crashing heavily onto the ground right before his eyes.
Lu Yuan looked up in horror.
This colossal figure possessed no facial features; instead, it was pieced together from hundreds of writhing arms, enough to trigger an immediate wave of severe trypophobia.
Lu Yuan swallowed hard.
A tentacle monster!
This was a literal tentacle monster!
Lu Yuan had always assumed tentacle monsters were merely a figure of speech, never imagining that the metaphor would actually manifest into reality......