With that thought, Yannick felt much calmer. He sat back in his chair, relaxed, and quietly waited for time to pass.

  In the control room, everyone watched the scene, dumbfounded.

  “As expected of a world-renowned psychologist, he just goes to sleep in the Death House!”

  Liam, who had come upon hearing the news, slapped his thigh, his tone ambiguous, not sure whether he was praising or mocking.

  Professor Yannick's two assistants exchanged glances.

  They had noticed long ago that Professor Yannick was behaving very differently from his usual self, and his emotions were clearly fluctuating.

  Closing his eyes now wasn't a sign of strong psychological resilience, daring to sleep in a haunted house.

  He was clearly afraid of being subjected to psychological hypnosis or suggestion, so he was using this clumsy, physical method to protect himself.

  “Useless?” Jake shook his head secretly.

  The mystery of the Death House was never about psychological hypnosis or suggestion.

  Yannick was just wasting time.

  ...

  Time passed by slowly, and soon ten minutes had gone by.

  Nothing had happened during those ten minutes.

  Yannick's tense nerves gradually relaxed, and he was secretly pleased.

  No matter how advanced your psychological hypnosis and suggestion are, what can you do when you meet a scoundrel like me!

  Just then, something unexpected happened.

  "Heh heh..."

  A burst of sinister laughter suddenly echoed in the room.

  The sinister laughter seemed to rise from the mountains, starting strong and then fading, echoing for a long time before disappearing.

  Yannick's hair stood on end, and his breathing became rapid.

  He felt the sinister laughter right next to his ear.

  An icy chill spread from his ear down his skin, making his scalp tingle and the hairs on his back stand on end.

  He was also incredibly panicked.

  Although he had his eyes closed, he was sure there was no one else in the room besides him.

  After all, he hadn't heard anyone open the door and come in.

  But what was the sinister laughter, and the chilling sensation that was transmitted through his scalp to his whole body?

  As a world-renowned psychologist, he knew very well that this feeling could not be achieved by psychological hypnosis or suggestion.

  "Since it's not psychological hypnosis or suggestion, then there must be something touching my ear..."

  Yannick was in a state of chaos.

  No one had come in, but something was blowing air on his scalp.

  What exactly was it?

  Was it human?

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  If it wasn't human, what could it be?

  Yannick wanted to open his eyes and look around, but he couldn't muster the courage, and he was very conflicted.

  “It must be some kind of mechanism!”

  While planting psychological suggestions in his mind, Yannick frantically recited the core values: prosperity, democracy, civilization...

  Finally, he mustered up his courage, squinted his eyes, and opened them just a crack.

  "Huh?"

  "Where is this?"

  The world in the crack of his eyes was clearly not the Death House, but a deserted wilderness overgrown with weeds.

  "How did I get here?" Yannick wondered.

  He was now in a deserted suburb, with undulating mounds in front of him.

  These mounds were uneven, and yellow joss paper and tombstones faded by rainwater were scattered on the ground.

  Yannick was staring at a mass graveyard.

  “No, this is an illusion!”

  Yannick thought of the information that Uncle Eric had given him before.

  The information mentioned that many people had experienced an incredibly realistic, dreamlike world in the Death House.

  Thinking of this, Yannick quickly started to move around.

  First, he slapped himself.

  Then, ignoring the burning pain, he bent down to smell the surrounding scents, and plucked a blade of grass and chewed it.

  His sense of pain, smell, and taste were all perfectly normal, just like in the real world.

  “How is this possible!” Yannick felt that his worldview had been completely overturned.

  He had been studying psychology diligently for thirty years.

  He had read countless psychology books, both domestic and foreign.

  He had also communicated with many psychology masters.

  But he had never heard of a psychological technique that could allow a person to be in another real world.

  If someone had said this before, he would have cursed them as a liar.

  But now, he was experiencing it all.

  No matter how much he didn't believe it, the evidence was irrefutable, and the facts spoke louder than words.

  "Boom!"

  A lightning bolt as thick as a water column fell from the sky.

  In that instant, the sky was torn apart, darkness was dispelled, and the world was briefly bright.

  Yannick's breathing suddenly became rapid, his face pale, and he subconsciously took a few steps back.

  Taking advantage of the moment when the lightning flashed across the sky, he saw that some of the mounds in the mass graveyard in front of him seemed to be moving, as if something was about to crawl out of them.

  "Boom!"

  Another lightning bolt fell.

  This time, Yannick saw more clearly, large chunks of fresh soil were being turned over.

  He saw a thin, emaciated arm reaching out of a mound.

  "What is this?"

  "Could it be a ghost?"

  "But isn't it true that there are no ghosts in the world?"

  Fear appeared in Yannick's eyes.

  As a materialist, he didn't believe in the existence of ghosts and monsters.

  But how could he explain everything in front of him?

  How did he come to this world?

  What were the things in the mounds?

  Yannick's worldview was collapsing bit by bit.

  In a daze, he seemed to return to his childhood.

  At that time, his parents went out to work, and he had lived with his grandmother in the countryside since he was a child.

  At that time, the U.S. was not like it is now, and there were many ignorant people in the countryside, and the idea of ghosts and gods prevailed.

  Having been immersed in such a cultural environment for a long time, Yannick became suspicious and timid.

  Later, his family sent Yannick to a psychologist for treatment.

  During the treatment, Yannick gradually fell in love with psychology, and became a big name in the field of psychology.

  Of course, that's another story. At that time, the psychological treatment Yannick received was hypnosis and suggestion.

  The psychologist helped him constantly suggest to himself that there were no such things as ghosts and gods in the world.

  After that, Yannick also cured his mental illness, and had not relapsed for a long time.

  After all, in real life, he had never encountered a real ghost that tore through his psychological suggestions in a bloody way.

  But now...

  Boom!

  Another lightning bolt roared.

  Yannick saw that the things in the mounds had all crawled out, standing gloomily beside their graves, their empty eye sockets facing his direction.

  Boom!

  The lightning in the sky continued to boom.

  Each flash of light allowed Yannick to see that the things crawling out of the graves were getting closer and closer to him!

  "Ah!"

  Yannick screamed and, without thinking about what it all meant, turned and ran!

  But no matter how fast he ran, every time the lightning flashed and dispelled the darkness, he could see that those things were getting closer.

  "There are no ghosts in this world!"

  "It's all fake!"

  "It's all made up by ignorant people!"

  Yannick gave himself suggestions as he ran.

  But no matter how much he suggested, he couldn't explain what was happening with the things that were getting closer to him.

  At this moment, he seemed to be back in his childhood, afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone, and whenever he closed his eyes, he always felt that there were things around him.

  As a child, he could pull the covers over himself to get some psychological comfort.

  But now he didn't even have a blanket, and he could only watch as the things behind him got closer and closer.

  The emotion of fear grew in his heart bit by bit.

  Seeing his breathing becoming more and more rapid and his body getting weaker and weaker.

  Yannick knew that he couldn't run much further, and he steeled his heart and shouted, "If you can't beat them, join them!"

  Immediately, he gathered all his strength in his head and slammed it hard against a sharp rock on the ground.