don't open your eyes [unlimited]

This is a question that cannot be given a standard answer.

Personality, identity, growth experience, living environment, all the encounters along the way...all of these are shaping everyone, and at the same time bringing different choices to everyone.

Everyone will have their own answer in their hearts.

Only the parties concerned can truly understand the meaning and weight of the answers they give.

And sometimes...perhaps even the parties themselves, at the moment of making a choice, may not have anticipated all the possible consequences of such a decision.

The room fell silent without warning.

Even several consultants who were supposed to unify their opinions, after exchanging glances for a few rounds, all of them retracted their gazes in unison and calmed down.

"If you think about it carefully, you will definitely not do it. But if you ask me this question casually... if you don't have a brain, I will probably answer very happily."

In the silence, it was Wu Li who sniffed and curled up sadly: "To be honest, I suspect that's what that bastard outside thinks..."

After finally realizing that he was the "shadow" left behind, and remembering that the real self had already left the hotel with the teacher, Wu Li's chaotic memory returned to normal.

In fact, he never left Room 315 at all, so when Professor Du came back to quarrel, he watched the whole process from the sidelines.

As for the memory of successfully returning the room card and returning to the hotel for the second time with the teacher, it is the frontal lobe area of ​​the brain responsible for logic that self-corrects and weaves up details in order to connect these fragments of him.

"At least the other half of the teacher will come back to quarrel, and my other half has never been back at all!"

The more Wu Li thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt: "Just throw me here! I'm just out there on my own, never thinking about my feelings..."

Zhuang Die shook his head: "Not necessarily."

Wu Li was stunned for a moment, and quickly asked: "Why?"

"You probably haven't violated any rules." Yan Xun also followed his train of thought and explained from the side.

"You have been waiting for the teacher, you have not tried to solve the puzzle, and you have not actively explored the outside environment."

"Even if you saw Professor Du who came back here again, you didn't realize the strangeness, and thought you were dreaming."

"Because there has never been any self-doubt from the beginning to the end, the part that left is actually hard to detect your existence."

Yan Xun thought about it for a while, but still spoke bluntly: "And the you outside... If I'm not wrong, you have never used your brain after twelve o'clock at night."

"One of the more probable assumptions is that it's not just that you didn't realize you were a shadow until now."

Yan Xun said: "The you outside probably just realized that your shadow was lost a few minutes ago."

Wu Li: "..."

He suddenly regretted knowing this possibility, and leaning on his aching knee, he floated back to the chair.

Yan Xun looked back at Zhuang Die: "What's your point of view?"

He paused, then shook his head again: "No, you're not here to express your point of view... what matters is the question itself."

"You're right, there's never going to be a way around that."

He has already regarded Zhuang Die as a colleague, adjusted his glasses, and looked serious: "Whether you accept it or not, the 'stripping' has already happened."

Before that, Yan Xun actually didn't think it was necessary to answer this question, so he skipped this step at the beginning.

And now, Yan Xun also fully understood what Zhuang Die meant.

——Those parties who kept going back and forth to the hotel, the confusion that occurred in their consciousness level was not caused by simple shock or dislocation.

As long as the internal and external consciousness cannot reach a consensus on this issue, it will lead to extremely serious consequences.

What begins as an argument can quickly escalate, gradually turning into mutual attacks, and then deteriorating into a desperate struggle for control of the body by any means.

Just like the boy that Professor Du and Wu Li brought out.

In reality, boys gradually begin to resist sleep instinctively, because as soon as they fall asleep, they will be forcibly dragged back to the hotel by another part of themselves.And the consciousness trapped in the hotel will take this opportunity to desperately ask for help from the people around him.

Due to this endless internal consumption and torture, boys' consciousness will inevitably weaken day by day.

In order to prove that he is the one worthy of being left behind, the subject will desperately try to prove himself - burying his head in reading, writing papers, and striving to become better.

But the boy didn't realize that he was actually on the verge of collapse.

……

So, when Professor Du hypnotized the boy to find out what happened, he actually induced two separate consciousnesses at the same time.

The two consciousnesses hate each other and attack each other, and both want to completely drive the other away and replace it.

They have completely split into two selves.

"Does that mean... as long as we leave the hotel, we will face this situation?"

The bald consultant looked back and forth, and said in a low voice: "We are still complete now, but it is only because we returned in time, right? The 'stripping' has actually been completed."

The bald consultant's expression was a bit complicated: "I thought it was a hallucination, but I'm embarrassed to say... In fact, from just now, I feel that the circle outside me is dangling, and I always feel that I will fall off if I touch it."

Beside him, the middle-aged partner remained calm, dragged the chair and moved away: "I'm fine, I don't feel anything strange."

"..." The bald consultant got angry for a while: "It's okay in words, but have you already drawn a clear line with me in actions?!"

The middle-aged partner shook his head. His condition was more serious and he was not prepared to take any risks: "Just in case, I don't want to break into pieces in front of you."

"That's what I said, isn't the outline quite smooth?"

The bald consultant touched his head, but when he turned his head, he found that the hypnotist had also moved a few centimeters away: "What's going on with you!"

With a calm expression, the hypnotist took out a crystal ball with a chain and shook it regularly in front of his eyes: "Relax your body, you will feel extremely calm..."

The bald consultant was furious: "...he just started hypnotizing me!"

The hypnotist shook his head regretfully, muttered something in a low voice, and put the crystal ball back into his pocket.

……

After all, they are all professionals, and they know how to adjust the atmosphere and adjust their mentality, so that they will not fall into panic before the situation is resolved.

The three people interrupted a few words half-jokingly, which also eased the almost stagnant atmosphere in the room a lot.

Yan Xun's expression was still serious, he stared at Zhuang Die: "What else have I overlooked?"

"Why does everything look better than before?"

Zhuang Die erased the previous handwriting again, and he re-drawn the main entrance of the hotel: "What is left behind is not a fault that has been singled out, nor can it be generalized as a negative trait. A dream cannot do this level of discrimination. But why does everything seem to be more desirable?"

Zhuang Die continued: "Combining everyone's situation, I have a guess..."

He stopped talking and looked at Ling Su who was leaning in the corner with his arms folded.

This kind of speculation has already been formed, but Zhuang Die has been looking for other reasons to convince himself to veto this possibility.

But the more it is verified, the more unshakable this conclusion becomes.

"The hotel doesn't actually do anything." Zhuang Die said, "It's just... not so easy to get out."

That door is not as seen, you can come and go at will.

Once a part of each resident's consciousness has the will to "don't want to return to reality so much", it will be left behind.

There is no pure distinction between good and bad, and there is no positive or negative discrimination-the reason why this happens most of the time is that many people will inevitably have a flash of unsatisfactory parts of themselves for a moment. Had similar thoughts.

"It would be nice if I stayed in my dream all the time, being lazy."

"It would be great if I, who is cowardly and submissive to everyone, can be completely hidden."

"It would be great if those messy outdated knowledge and useless wrong experience could be packed and thrown away, so as to free up more space for new knowledge."

"If no matter how hard you try, it will be of no use to your family and can only add chaos and harm, then just never return to reality."

……

This part of yourself that is not accepted and liked is the easiest to be eliminated.

In addition, there are actually more parts.

—For example, the boy who was struggling.

The part of his consciousness left behind by the hotel actually didn't think that much at all.

Because the studies are too hard, he just dreams of being able to hide a little bit, not having to do experiments and write papers all day long, not having to help the tutor and the brothers and sisters who are studying for Ph. That's all.

"me too!"

Wu Li almost jumped up: "I didn't even think about hiding—I just couldn't hold back when I went out, and I said with emotion that I also want to lie in bed and fish for a day!"

He just thought about it for a moment, and it wasn't true that he didn't want to go out!

Wu Li was anxious: "And I didn't last long for the one who went out! I saw it! He's secretly playing games now!"

"This is the consequence of 'separation'." Yan Xun explained, "Because there is no experience of correction, self-adjustment, and self-overcoming, even after the separation, the same emotions will still be felt again soon."

Yan Xun reminded him: "If the outside you go back to the hotel now, a third you may be split."

Wu Li: "..."

He looked down at his body - as his memory recovered, he had actually begun to notice that his body was gradually approaching the shadow, and many places had become somewhat transparent.

Wu Li drifted back to his seat.

He rubbed his aching head vigorously, and the memory that had always been blank finally emerged in the depths of his mind.

……

Zhuang Die was right.

Compared with "stripping", a more accurate description is that his shadow accidentally wandered away.

The hotel didn't do anything, and Wu Li didn't do anything himself.

It was just a very common dream, he followed his mentor to find a lazy boy.Because the weather in the dream was very comfortable, he couldn't help yawning when he went out.

It was at that moment that the idea of ​​"it seems pretty good not to go out" suddenly popped up in his mind.

The moment this thought appeared, he suddenly couldn't move anymore.

He watched himself and his tutor go farther and farther. The tutor talked about the previous academic exchanges, shook his head and sighed, and told him to be diligent and stop wasting time.

The boy followed them, rubbing the back of his head shyly, promising that he would study hard and stop worrying his family when he went out, but he couldn't help sighing, stretching his waist and chanting about how beautiful the manga was.

The weather in the dream was really good. When he came back to his senses, he realized that he was the shadow that fell on the threshold.

He wandered around the hotel in a daze, but he couldn't find the door that could be stepped out by just lifting his legs, so he had to go back to room 315.

He stayed in that room, dozed off on the bed puzzled, and seemed to have another dream in a trance, dreaming that he left the hotel with his teacher and returned to reality, and worked hard for a whole week.

The roommates on the other bed were not so harmonious—the boy was always fighting with a boy who looked exactly like him, and it was just a quarrel at first, and then it turned into a scuffle, with the two constantly blaming and scolding each other The shortcomings of the other party never cease every night.

Later, two boys who were exactly the same, you bit my arm, I tore your ear, twisted and entangled, stumbled out of the hotel, and never came back.

He hadn't been clean for a long time, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the teacher squatting beside the bed arguing with a piece of brain.

Occasionally in the corridor, there are black-smelling shadows fighting and tearing each other, biting each other fiercely and swallowing them desperately.But while swallowing the opponent, he also became more ferocious and terrifying.

Upstairs there is a black shadow who has been drunk all day long, and occasionally he will be beaten to death by the men who come back. Both legs are broken, and he knocks on the door everywhere drunk and asks for a drink. Grab the smaller black shadows and eat them.

A middle-aged man in a certain room downstairs was reciting a poem. The poem was really not good, but the middle-aged man read it so intoxicated, as if he was the only one in the world to appreciate it.

In a certain room next door was a little girl who would always scold and cry herself. When she cried enough, she gritted her teeth and scolded again, tremblingly practicing how to ask the other party to get together and get out.

According to regulations, these situations can be complained.

The administrator is very conscientious and will knock on the door to remind the other party of the current number of complaints.

Among the residents whose doors were knocked on, some would restrain themselves a lot, while others would intensify their efforts, as if eager to accumulate fifty complaints as soon as possible to be blasted out.

……

Sitting on the bed, Wu Li's shadow watched the teacher leave the room after listening to the last debate.

He couldn't stand this confusing life, and wanted to try to get out of the hotel, so he walked up the stairs to the front desk.

The door to the front desk was open, and there was no one to stop it.

The bald parrot and the wooden man behind the counter repeated each other's words endlessly, and it was difficult to judge who was the first.

He listened on the sidelines for a while, not too embarrassed to interrupt, so he had to watch their wheels go down like a perpetual motion machine.

Wu Li's shadow squatted on the ground, thinking about why he appeared in this kind of place, whether he was too tired from the whole week's work and needed a month of indulgent rest.

Next to him was a dark figure crouching in the corner of the reception desk, staring motionless at a wall.

He couldn't help it, and boldly poked the black shadow.

The black shadow grinned and laughed "hehe", the sound it made was very noisy, like some kind of low-pitched muttering, or extremely chaotic dream talking.

Hei Ying was very proud, rummaging slowly like a treasure, showing him the worn-out doll in his arms, humming a hoarse, indistinguishable tune, stood up unsteadily, and walked back along the stairs.

……

Wu Li's shadow still didn't understand what was going on.

He can't even tell the difference clearly—most of the time, he feels that the experience outside is the reality, and everything that happened in the hotel is just a vague, strange and interesting dream.

Occasionally, he would have an idea that it would be good to stay in the dream and not go out.

While thinking this way, he squatted in a daze at the front desk, smelling the little bit of cool rain moisture, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't leave through the ordinary door.

Without a clear subjective will to "return to reality", one will never be able to get out of this open door.