"It happened," Jiang Cheng answered without reservation.

A mischievous smile, difficult to describe, spread across Fatty's face. He craned his neck, licked his lips, and narrowed his eyes, knowingly asking, "What have you two been up to?"

"She asked me about the newspaper from before," Jiang Cheng replied, "After realizing she wasn't good enough for me, she turned hostile and wanted the newspaper back."

Fatty was stunned for a moment, then blinked and whispered, "And then?"

Jiang Cheng looked up at Fatty, not speaking at first, but his eyes conveyed a lot of information.

Fatty's throat bobbed, and he suddenly had a very bad feeling.

"I told her you snatched the newspaper," Jiang Cheng leaned back in his chair, looked at Fatty a few seconds later, and continued, "Remember to make up the rest yourself, and don't let anything slip if you run into her again."

"Doctor," Fatty's face twitched, "Don't you think you should look for reasons on your own about why you're an orphan?"

Their conversation seemed to end abruptly and unpleasantly, which Jiang Cheng could tell from Fatty's subsequent behavior.

After breakfast, Jiang Cheng sat at his desk and began to work. He pulled out the medical records of several returning patients and called their relatives to inquire about their recovery.

But as soon as the call connected, there was either the sound of banging and clattering from upstairs as Fatty fixed things, or the sound of insane chopping and slicing from the kitchen.

Those who knew would understand that Fatty was cleaning fish, but those who didn't would think he was dismembering a body.

Helpless, Jiang Cheng had to schedule an in-person meeting.

The time was set for the afternoon.

Soon it was lunchtime, and Jiang Cheng planned to put on a good show during lunch, trying to reconcile with Fatty.

He was going to praise Fatty's cooking skills.

But as soon as the dishes were served, Jiang Cheng's enthusiasm vanished.

Fatty had divided each dish equally into two portions.

For example, with spicy chicken, the plate in front of Jiang Cheng was full of peppers, while the plate in front of Fatty was piled high with chicken.

The same went for the sweet and sour fish: the head was for Jiang Cheng, and the body was for Fatty.

After taking a few bites of rice in silence, Jiang Cheng finally couldn't help but tentatively reach his chopsticks toward Fatty's plate. Unexpectedly, the next second, Fatty silently picked up the meat from his plate, dumped it all into his bowl, and ate it with the rice.

Jiang Cheng stared at the red rice in Fatty's bowl, involuntarily smacking his lips a few times.

"Fatty," Jiang Cheng asked with great enthusiasm, "I remember you used to work as a kitchen helper at the Yellow Crane Tower Hotel. Your cooking skills are really good! If you keep at it, maybe the position of head chef will be yours!"

"You're mistaken, Doctor," Fatty said without looking up, "I was a cleaner at the Yellow Crane Tower, mainly responsible for cleaning toilets."

After a long while...

"I'm done eating," Fatty stood up, saying as he cleared the plates and bowls, "I have to wash the dishes. Doctor, enjoy your meal."

Fatty took his bowls and chopsticks back to the kitchen, and a few seconds later, the sound of running water and the clinking of dishes could be heard.

Jiang Cheng lowered his head, looking at the half of the sweet and sour fish that Fatty had left untouched on his plate.

After lunch, Jiang Cheng went upstairs for a nap, as yesterday's nightmare had drained his energy more than a single night's rest could replenish.

Through three nightmare missions, he had gradually figured out some of the taboos, or rather... rules.

First, behind each door was a completely different world, but that world, in a sense, was also real, as if it were a fragment extracted from the distant river of history by the hand of God.

No matter what they did, they couldn't change the ending of the story; all they could change was the process.

That was all.

Second, the nightmare was like an amplified selection mechanism with its own rewards and punishments.

The punishments were obvious, as the ghosts inside would tell you.

And this so-called reward was what Jiang Cheng was most concerned about.

Currently, he knew that if all his teammates died and the last person left managed to complete the mission, then they would receive a blank piece of paper.

And it was said that this paper could withstand the damage of a ghost.

Of course, not permanently, only once. After use, this blank paper would also disappear.

This was what Yu Wen, whom he had saved in the last instance, had told him. She had survived the ghost's attack thanks to the blank paper.

Thinking of this, Jiang Cheng couldn't help but narrow his eyes, and the figure of Chen Xiaomeng appeared in his mind again.

In the abandoned Qian family building, Chen Xiaomeng was able to escape from the ghost's clutches even when locked in the closet, which couldn't be explained by luck.

She should also have a piece of paper like that in her possession.

It was just that she had used it up under the ghost's attack.

This explained why, during the body search later, he only found the clue item, the group photo, but not the life-saving blank paper.

Judging from their interaction in the first mission, Chen Xiaomeng was completely skilled at killing her teammates. If he hadn't appeared out of nowhere and saved the situation, she would have succeeded again.

She was much stronger than Yu Wen, so she naturally should have something like that.

Jiang Cheng chose to enter this instance alone also with the intention of getting one of those papers, but unexpectedly, a woman named Li Lu beat him to it this time.

He wasn't so arrogant as to want to kill all his teammates, but he had ways to search for good things from his teammates.

Chen Xiaomeng was the best example.

It was just a pity that he was a step too slow, otherwise that blank paper would have been his.

Third, this was also something that Jiang Cheng hadn't figured out yet, which was the relationship between the newspaper and the blank paper in the rewards. But he could see that the priority of the newspaper was lower than that of the blank paper.

After all, the latter could save lives.

But to say that the blank paper was stronger than the newspaper wasn't entirely true, because the two had different functions.

The blank paper was used to save lives, while the newspaper recorded some clues from the mission.

For example, if given a choice between the two, ordinary people should try to choose the clue newspaper in order to have a higher chance of survival.

Because on the road to surviving purely through reasoning, they would hardly go far. Even if they had one chance to save their lives, they would still die after the opportunity was exhausted.

And the death would be even more painful.

To use an inappropriate analogy, it was like a prisoner kneeling on the ground waiting for execution, blindfolded. As a result, the person executing him fired and found that it was a dud.

Then they could only change the bullet and fire again.

But the result was the same. Anyway, they were going to die, and they also suffered a wave of fright before death. Thinking about it this way, having the blank paper was worse for them than not having it.

But for high-level players like Li Lu and Chen Xiaomeng, the situation was very different.