227: The cabinet moved—<Impermanence of all things, all things as they may> Bonus Edition (titled)

At exactly eight o'clock that evening.

The dazzling array of recommendations on the homepage of Hong Guo Net was suddenly all removed.

In their place was a minimalist poster with a black background and red text,

featuring only a single, highly provocative sentence in white Songti font:

[The internet's first mental endurance test: How many chapters can you last before going insane?]

Below the poster hung a real-time, pulsing blood-red counter, and the note beside it was arrogant to the extreme:

Current number of people whose Sanity has hit zero:

【72116】

【72427】

...This kind of reverse marketing instantly enraged netizens who championed "absolute rationality."

In a world where even ghost stories required a scientific basis, this kind of "mystifying" promotion was simply an insult to intelligence.

The click-through rate didn't drop; instead, it doubled compared to usual.

"Grandstanding!"

The famous gaming blogger "Eggplant King" reposted this poster on Microblogging platform,

adding a large "Challenge" emoji.

As the internet's recognized "God of the Rationalist Faction,"

Eggplant King had once achieved the glorious feat of completing several horror games while wearing a heart rate monitor, with his heart rate never exceeding 80 throughout.

He publicly declared war:

"At ten tonight, I will personally debunk this so-called 'cthulhu mythos'.

I'll read the first ten chapters in one go, and I'll even wear a pulse monitor while I pick out the author's grammatical errors!

If my heart rate goes over 100, I'll send the author one 'King of Gifts' for every beat over! This post is my bond!"

...At ten o'clock in the evening, the livestream began on time.

The audience immediately exploded, with the number of online viewers surpassing four million,

and the dense barrage of comments nearly obscured the screen.

To demonstrate his fearlessness, Eggplant King deliberately dimmed the livestream lights to the lowest setting,

played soothing light music in the background, and even held a glass of iced 'happy water' in his hand.

"Brothers, today we're going to see what 'indescribable courage' really means."

Eggplant King propped his feet up on his gaming desk and even took a moment to adjust his hair for the camera before casually glancing at his wrist.

The numbers on the heart rate monitor pulsed lazily—72.

He clicked on the first chapter and began reading aloud in a flippant tone.

"...It was a geometry that did not belong to Earth... R'lyeh... Old Ones..."

Eggplant King scoffed and skillfully opened a drawing software,

explaining to the camera as he worked:

"Non-Euclidean geometry, right? Defying the laws of physics, right? Brothers, don't be fooled.

In art, this is called forced perspective.

Come, I'll reconstruct it for you and expose this trick in minutes."

"Hahaha."

"Eggplant is the GOAT!!"

The comments were filled with a jovial atmosphere.

However, by the time he reached the third chapter, a strange change began to occur in the livestream's atmosphere.

Eggplant King's voice started to pause.

He subconsciously loosened his collar, his brow furrowing.

Then he began blinking frequently, rubbing his temples hard, his voice taking on an unconscious irritability:

"The AC in here is a bit too high today; the words are shaking."

"What's wrong with this monitor? Did the refresh rate change?"

He picked up his happy water and took a huge gulp, trying to suppress the inexplicable churning in his stomach, stubbornly saying:

"I didn't sleep well last night, got a bit of astigmatism. Let's continue."

At this point, the viewers began spamming the chat.

"Something's wrong. Just like that guy on Huzhi this morning, he's starting to hallucinate."

"Host, what's wrong? The words are fine, and the screen is fine too."

Looking at these comments, Eggplant King felt as if his heart were being squeezed by a hand.

His face was almost pressed against the screen, his eyes bloodshot.

The plot progressed to the part where the protagonist glimpses the descent of Cthulhu himself in a dream.

Eggplant King tried to recite that obscure incantation.

"Ph'nglui... mglw'nafh..."

That was a frequency that human vocal cords should not have been able to produce.

His voice began to turn turbid and slimy,

as if countless soft-bodied creatures were crawling along the walls of his trachea, constantly rubbing against them.

The light music in the background had stopped at some point,

leaving only Eggplant King's increasingly heavy breathing, like a drowning person desperately gasping for air.

"Cthulhu... R'lyeh..."

Eggplant King's reading came to an abrupt halt.

His eyes widened to their limit, instantly becoming bloodshot.

The square characters on the screen were melting, the originally straight strokes beginning to twist and rearrange.

"Not right... not right..."

Eggplant King began to neurotically scratch his neck, his nails leaving red welts on his skin.

"That angle is wrong... there's something in the corner... watching me..."

"Beep— Beep— Beep—!!!"

The heart rate monitor on his wrist emitted a piercing alarm.

The value soared from 80 directly to 143, then to 185, and finally froze at a shocking 201!

"Host? Host, are you okay?"

"Stop reading!"

The tide of the comments completely shifted as panic began to spread.

The climax arrived at that very second.

Eggplant King suddenly whipped his head around, pointing in terror at the empty wardrobe behind him.

At the edge of the livestream frame, the gap in the originally closed wardrobe door

seemed to actually open and close like a breath, revealing a blackness so deep it seemed capable of sucking out one's soul.

"Ah—!!!"

A shrill scream pierced the microphone, making the eardrums of the four million viewers ache.

As if seeing some extremely terrifying hallucination,

Eggplant King violently pushed back his chair and scrambled into the corner of the room, covering his eyes tightly with both hands.

"My cabinet moved! It moved! I'm not playing anymore! I'm not playing!"

He howled hysterically, completely losing his mind.

The next second, he rushed forward like a madman to turn off the computer,

but because his hands were shaking, he knocked over the happy water on the desk.

"Sizzle—"

The sound of static rang out, the image shook violently,

and finally froze on Eggplant King's extremely distorted face, written with terror.

Black screen.

The livestream fell into a deathly silence, then completely exploded.

The original mockery vanished, replaced by a screen full of "Holy shit" and "Eye-protection charms."

Tags like #EggplantKingScaredInsane, #WhatIsCthulhu, and #IndescribableTerror

parachuted to the top of the trending lists at a terrifying speed.

Another wave of readers, driven by curiosity and disbelief, followed the trending topics into Hong Guo Net.

The comment section was no longer filled with gibberish; high-quality "victim" analysis posts began to appear.

"I finally understand... that fear isn't ghosts, but the insignificance of humanity before the universe."

"Fear of the unknown is the highest form of fear! Dream Weaver is amazing!"

The word "Cthulhu" became a code representing top-tier horror... Jiangcheng, Xisheng Mansion.

Lin Que lay on his bed, watching the recorded clip of Eggplant King's "sacrifice" that was being widely shared by netizens.

"Crunch."

He took a comfortable bite of the Red Fuji apple in his hand, the crisp sound echoing in the quiet room.

As the "Dream Weaver," his mischievous side was greatly satisfied at this moment.

"One hundred and one Kings of Gifts—Eggplant King better not welsh on the debt."

Just then, the phone screen suddenly lit up.

Lin Que swiped open the screen, and a concise message from Shen Qingqiu popped up:

"Rested up? Don't be late tomorrow, it's Monday."

Lin Que stared at the words "Don't be late" on the screen, his originally crisp chewing motion stopping halfway.

He let out a sigh.

One moment, he was the mastermind causing tens of millions of people's Sanity to plummet.

The next, he had to go back to being a high school student who carried a backpack and woke up at six.

This massive sense of disconnect made Lin Que give a helpless, bitter laugh.

"Alright..."

He turned off his phone and downed the milk in his glass.

Only, returning to school with the halo of a national champion and a rising star in the literary world... could Jiangcheng No. 1 High School really still accommodate a peaceful desk tomorrow?

...