7: Chapter 7 The Cost of the Potion

Highway 13 is longer than Chen Mo imagined.

The mileage is increasing, but the scenery along the way has barely changed.

The same asphalt road, the same abandoned vehicles, the same occasional ghostly silhouettes flashing by.

The only difference is that this road has no fog.

Or rather, the fog is blocked outside a certain boundary.

Chen Mo glanced at the path behind him through the rearview mirror; about five hundred meters behind, the grayish-white mist lay straight across the highway like a wall.

The mist was churning slowly, but it did not cross that invisible boundary.

He withdrew his gaze and continued forward.

The countdown still had over three hours left.

Ghost Night had not ended yet.

He felt his pocket; there was a small glass bottle inside, sold to him by Old Zhou, an F-Grade Perception Potion.

It cost three fragments, and it was said to temporarily boost the ability to perceive Ghost Shadow, but it had side effects.

Chen Mo took the bottle out and shook it against the light on the car roof.

The liquid was transparent, but under the light, it shimmered with faint golden specks, as if countless tiny stars were suspended within it.

The movement trajectory of those light specks was very regular, slowly rotating around the bottle wall to form a vortex shape.

Pupil of the Sequence automatically activated—

【 Item: F-Grade Perception Potion (Unused) 】

【 Effect: Within 30 minutes after consumption, the perception range for Ghost Shadow expands to 50 meters, capable of detecting invisible Ghost Shadow 】

【 Side Effects: Within 1 hour after consumption, persistent tinnitus occurs; in very rare cases, it may trigger brief auditory hallucinations 】

【 Suggestion: Use in a safe environment, or prepare psychoactive drugs to counteract the side effects 】

Chen Mo stared at that line of text.

"In very rare cases, it may trigger brief auditory hallucinations."

What is the probability of this "very rare"?

He recalled what Old Zhou had said at the Trading Post: "The side effects can be mitigated."

He didn't understand what it meant at the time, but now Pupil of the Sequence gave the answer (psychoactive drugs).

But he had no psychoactive drugs.

Moreover, he was driving, traveling through the Ghost Night, and heading to a place that was said to have "few people who go there come back."

It was not the best time to use the potion.

Chen Mo put the bottle back in his pocket and continued driving.

After driving for another half hour, the abandoned vehicles on the roadside began to increase.

Chen Mo slowed down, letting the pickup truck glide slowly.

All the car windows were black, and all the doors were closed.

But there was no one in the driver's seats.

Or rather, there were no corpses.

It was as if the drivers had gotten out at the same time and walked in the same direction.

Chen Mo looked in the direction the car fronts were facing—on the right side of the highway, there was a complex of buildings, dark silhouettes, and it was hard to see what they were.

Pupil of the Sequence scanned over.

Golden lines appeared.

Not Ghost Shadow, but some kind of... very faint lines distributed over the entire complex.

Those lines were like blood vessels, covering every building, and then converging at a single point.

That point was glowing.

It was very faint, but very striking in his golden vision.

【 Special Area Detected: Abandoned Town 】

【 Danger Level: E-Class (Overall) 】

【 Core Location: Town Center Church 】

【 Suggestion: Detour or explore during the day 】

Chen Mo did not hesitate.

He stepped on the gas and accelerated to pass.

The pickup truck's headlights swept over those abandoned vehicles, reflecting a pale light on the glass.

After driving five hundred meters out, the vehicles on the side of the road finally decreased.

Chen Mo breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he heard that sound.

It wasn't tinnitus; it was a real sound, coming from the passenger seat.

The sound of breathing.

Chen Mo turned his head abruptly—

There was a person sitting in the passenger seat.

A woman.

She looked to be in her twenties, wearing a white dress, with long hair draped down and a pale complexion.

She was looking at Chen Mo, a faint smile hanging on the corners of her mouth.

Chen Mo slammed on the brakes with his right foot, while his right hand drew the cleaver.

The pickup truck dragged a black skid mark on the road surface and then stopped.

There was nothing in the passenger seat.

Chen Mo stared at the seat, breathing heavily.

His right hand held the cleaver, the tip pointing at the void, ready to strike at any moment.

Nothing happened.

He slowly lowered the cleaver and gripped the steering wheel again.

He remembered the Perception Potion in his pocket; he hadn't drunk it yet.

【 Warning: Mental contamination detected 】

【 Source: Unknown 】

【 Contamination Level: Mild 】

【 Suggestion: Stay awake, avoid falling into a hallucination loop 】

Chen Mo's heart tightened abruptly.

Mental contamination.

He had heard this term before; in the Trading Post, someone had mentioned it while chatting.

It was said that there were some special existences in the Ghost Realm that did not directly attack the body.

Instead, they attacked the mind, making people unable to distinguish between reality and hallucinations, eventually leading them to their own deaths.

The woman he had just seen was the product of mental contamination.

But why was she sitting in the passenger seat?

Chen Mo's gaze shifted to the passenger seat.

There was a slight depression in the leather of the seat, as if someone had really sat there.

His hand reached out to that position—

It was cold.

Cold as if it had been refrigerated.

Chen Mo withdrew his hand, started the engine, and continued driving.

But this time, his right hand did not leave the cleaver.

After driving for about ten minutes, the sound appeared again.

The sound of breathing.

This time it came from the back seat.

Chen Mo did not turn his head. He stared at the road ahead, his right hand gripping the cleaver, his left hand on the steering wheel.

"Why don't you look at me?"

A woman's voice, very light, as if coming from a very far place.

Chen Mo did not answer.

"Am I not good-looking?"

Chen Mo still did not answer.

There was a rustling sound from the back seat, as if something was moving.

"Look at me," the voice said, "just one glance."

Chen Mo's Prediction vision suddenly activated—

Three seconds later, the thing in the back seat would suddenly lean against his ear and repeat the three words "Look at me."

If he turned his head at that moment, he would be dragged into the back seat by some force.

He did not turn his head.

He slammed on the accelerator, and the pickup truck roared forward.

The sound in the back seat disappeared.

But a new sound appeared—from the radio.

The radio was off.

But the sound still came out.

"...Highway 13... Safe Zone... The coordinates are..."

It was that recording.

Exactly the same as the one Sister Lin played in Old Zhou's fake Trading Post.

"...Repeat... Safe Zone... The coordinates are..."

Chen Mo reached out to turn off the radio.

But before his fingers touched the button, the radio turned on by itself.

The screen lit up, showing not a frequency, but a line of text:

"Why don't you look at me?"

Chen Mo's fingers stopped.

He stared at that line of text, at the blinking cursor.

The cursor was moving.

Word by word, new content emerged:

"I am right behind you."

Chen Mo's back tightened instantly.

In his Prediction vision, the thing in the back seat was slowly, bit by bit, approaching the back of his head.

It had no physical form, just a mass of black mist, but there was a face in the mist.

That face was exactly the same as the woman in the passenger seat just now.

Its mouth opened.

It was going to speak.

Chen Mo did not wait for it to speak.

He turned around abruptly, his right hand gripping the cleaver, and swung it at the mass of mist with all his might.

The cleaver passed through the mist and struck the seat, making a dull thud.

But the mist dispersed.

Then, in Chen Mo's vision, the mist re-condensed into a face.

Not the woman's face, but his own face.

His own face.

That face was smiling.

"You can't hit me," it said, "because I am you."

Chen Mo stared at that face, at the eyes that were exactly the same as his own.

"You are not me," he said.

"I am," the face said:

"I am a part of you, the part you have always wanted to ignore—fear, loneliness, and that thought you never dared to think."

"What thought?"

"You've thought about giving up, haven't you?" the face said:

"When you were at the Orphanage, you asked yourself why you were alive, and after entering the Ghost Realm, you asked the same question. You have no answer, right?"

Chen Mo was silent for a second.

"I have an answer," he said.

"What?"

"Being alive doesn't need an answer," Chen Mo gripped the cleaver: "Being alive itself is the answer."

He swung the blade again.

This time not at that face, but at his own chest.

The tip of the cleaver pierced his clothes, pierced his skin—

The moment the pain came, the whole world shattered.

The highway, the pickup truck, that face, all shattered, turned into countless fragments, and then disappeared.

Chen Mo opened his eyes.

He was still in the pickup truck, still on Highway 13.

The car was still moving at sixty kilometers per hour, everything normal.

There was no one in the passenger seat.

There was no one in the back seat either.

The radio was off.

Only his chest was hurting.

He looked down and saw the cleaver stuck in the passenger seat, the tip piercing through the leather and sticking out.

And on his chest, there was a small tear in his clothes, and a shallow scratch on his skin.

It was what he had stabbed himself with.

When he "swung the blade at himself," he was actually stabbing the passenger seat.

But he had indeed felt the pain.

【 Mental contamination removed 】

【 Source: Phantom Passenger (E-Class Ghost Shadow · Mental Type) 】

【 Contamination Level: Moderate 】

【 Resistance successful 】

【 Obtained: Mental Resistance + 5 】

【 Pupil of the Sequence function three unlocked: Sequence Resonance 】

【 Sequence Resonance: Can absorb sequence fragment to accelerate mental recovery; can perceive the sequence fluctuations of other Chosen Ones 】

Chen Mo took a deep breath and pulled the cleaver out of the seat.

His temples were throbbing, and the tinnitus became exceptionally clear.

That sharp, continuous high-frequency sound was like countless mosquitoes buzzing in his ears.

The side effect of the Perception Potion.

But he hadn't drunk the potion.

Chen Mo froze for a moment, then realized—

It wasn't the potion.

It was that "Phantom Passenger."

When it attacked him, it left something on him.

The tinnitus caused by that thing was exactly the same as the side effect of the potion.

He scanned his own body with Pupil of the Sequence.

In his golden vision, several faint black lines were coiled around his head, and those lines were like parasites trying to burrow deeper.

That was the source of the tinnitus.

【 Mental contamination residue detected 】

【 Suggestion: Use Sequence Resonance to accelerate recovery 】

Chen Mo closed his eyes and concentrated.

How to use the third function of Pupil of the Sequence?

He tried to sink his consciousness into those golden lines, the lines that had flowed into his body from the fragments.

They usually lurked in his body like a reserve of energy.

He "touched" one of them.

That line instantly became active, flowing upward from his chest, into his head, and then...

Those black lines were wrapped and squeezed by the golden lines, and then dissolved bit by bit.

The tinnitus lessened.

Chen Mo continued this process, mobilizing the stored fragment energy one strand at a time.

Twenty-four fragments, each corresponding to a strand of golden line.

He used five strands to completely clear those black residues.

The tinnitus disappeared.

【 Mental contamination residue cleared 】

【 Consumed: f-grade fragment × 5 】

【 Remaining fragments: 19 】

Chen Mo opened his eyes and exhaled a breath of turbid air.

Sequence Resonance.

This ability was more useful than he had imagined.

It not only accelerated recovery but also allowed him to control the use of fragment energy more precisely.

He glanced out the window.

The highway still stretched forward, and a road sign could be vaguely seen in the distance.

Highway 13 · End.

Ahead was that legendary "Safe Zone."

Chen Mo stepped on the gas and accelerated into the darkness.

Behind him, the mass of black mist seeped out from the gaps in the seat, condensing into a vague human shape.

It watched the pickup truck driving away, its corners of the mouth slowly splitting, splitting to an impossible angle.

Then it disappeared.

Leaving only one sentence, drifting on the silent highway:

"Being alive itself is the answer... what a good answer."

"Then I'll wait and see how long you can live with that answer."