Joey also discovered a key point. This group of people did not know that the dreamland was related to the missing women.
Extraordinary experiment?
Dreamland Curse?
What is the necessary connection between the two?
For a moment, Joey's thoughts were in chaos.
"Didn't anyone report these things to the church's senior officials?" Joey asked.
Professor Remo said nothing, but a snoring voice came from next to him.
"What can the church do?" Anderson, the fish seller, curled his lips disdainfully and said: "Let me think about it, how should I report it to the church? Is it because I have nightmares every night, or is my body affected by extraordinary things, and I may die at any time?"
"Do you think the church wastes a lot of energy on us civilians?"
Professor Remo shook his head seriously and said: "Actually, there is no need to be too pessimistic. That is just one aspect. The other reason is that the curse is too weird and cannot find the root cause. The church's investigators have no way to start. Moreover, the damage level of the curse is not high. , not enough to attract high-level attention.”
When Joey thought about it, it was really like that. Entering the dreamland would not result in immediate death, but the process of consuming the spirit body. Even the spirit body of an ordinary person would take a long time to be consumed.
According to the information previously exchanged, the longest time to death is even more than half a year.
The major churches have very few investigators, so how could they waste time on an incident that is not very harmful?
While chatting, Joey had a weird feeling in his heart. It was a spiritual warning from the Lucky Master.
He raised his head and looked at a place with a complicated expression. There was a retro-style floor clock there, and the time was only five minutes before 6 am.
"Do you ever feel like time is running out?"
Upon hearing Joey's words, everyone turned their attention to the grandfather clock. The grumpy Chris walked over and observed it carefully. He found that the time on the clock was really not moving, so he kicked it viciously. .
"What the hell, it's going to be bad sooner rather than later. It has to be bad when it's almost dawn."
"I remember there was a wall clock in the room on the second floor." Margaret hurried upstairs. After a while, when she came back, she had a lonely expression on her face. She didn't say a word, but shook her head slightly.
The cook, Jami Henriquez, shook his body fat: "I'll go back to the room and have a look too."
After Margaret came back, the faces of those who stayed on the first floor were ugly, and there was a faint feeling of panic spreading.
"Don't go." Annie stopped the fat man and said with complicated eyes, "I think there must be something wrong with the clocks in this house."
"You mean, it might be trying to mislead us." Olivia's eyes suddenly lit up under the black frames.
This was the first time that Joey had seen this literary girl show interest in something. Her eyes looked like she had discovered something interesting and interesting.
Not only Joey noticed Olivia's sudden behavior, but the others also looked at her curiously.
She pushed up her glasses, her cheeks flushed slightly: "Sorry, I thought of a detective novel I read before."
Everyone was sweating wildly.
So you are like this Olivia.
“This possibility cannot be ruled out”
"What story does that detective novel tell?"
Everyone seemed not to realize the seriousness of the matter and were still making fun of Olivia.
Originally, there was no real death in the dreamland, and there was no four-legged beast chasing him tonight. Although everyone looked heavy, no one actually cared.
As an ordinary person, Joey had reason to suspect that they might not know the real method of killing people in Dreamland.
It is true that if you are killed here, you will not lose your life. Anyway, you will wake up the next day, thinking it is a nightmare.
The real cause of death is spiritual exhaustion.
This was something Joey accidentally discovered when he escaped from the dreamland with the help of gray mist, and later confirmed the conclusion he came to after many times.
The reason why the time of death of cursed people cannot be predicted is because the level of personal spiritual consumption is different.
"I need to remind everyone one thing, it has been 5 minutes since we woke up," Joey said.
Annie's originally calm expression suddenly froze and she looked at Joey: "Are you sure?"
Joey nodded and said: "As you know, I just graduated from school and my morning classes are at 6 o'clock. I get up at 5 o'clock every day. It has become a habit."
The atmosphere at the scene suddenly dropped to freezing point. After a long silence, Olivia suggested: "Maybe we can try and look for clues in the house."
"What do you mean?" Chris looked at her suspiciously.
Anderson snorted contemptuously: "Chris, you really should study hard, otherwise you only have steel plates and rivets in your head."
"What Olivia means is that we are now a group of prisoners trapped in a secret room and need to decipher the code to escape."
The two people seemed to dislike each other from the first time they met, as if there was an inexplicable feeling of hostility.
I don't know if it's an illusion, but Joey always feels that the way the two get along is a bit strange.
"Ah, no," Jami Henriquez howled with pain on his face: "If I am trapped here, I will starve to death."
Joey even wondered if this damn fat man was missing something in his brain. At this time, he still wanted to eat.
"Don't worry, you won't be hungry in the dream." As the person who has survived the longest in the dream among the nine people, Annie's words are very authoritative.
The closed room, the door that cannot be opened, and the stagnant time all indicate one thing - decryption.
"Fuldman's Formula" Joey opened his mouth and suddenly said something: "What am I talking about?"
The others turned to look at him suspiciously.
Only Professor Remo looked solemn, as if he had thought of something.
"Fuldmann's formula, what is it?" Annie asked.
Joey himself felt confused. He scratched his head and said with a blank expression: "I don't know."
He lowered his head and knitted his brows tightly together. This time, it was not that he was deliberately pretending, but that he truly felt it.
"When I heard Olivia talking about decryption, I didn't know what was going on, so I just answered it casually."
Chris could hardly suppress his emotions at the thought of being trapped and dead here.
He rushed to Joey, buttoned the collar of his clothes, and asked: "Tell me, are you the cause of this dream? We have never been here, why do you know the Fuldemann-Ra formula?"
"Calm down, everyone, calm down, now is not the time for internal strife." Chef Jami Henriquez separated the two of them with a smile on his face.
"I remembered." Professor Remo slapped the table excitedly, his cloudy eyes sparkling.
"Fordman was once the archbishop of the Poseidon Church. In the early days of the establishment of the Church of the Seven Gods, he once led Poseidon believers to attack the stronghold of the church. Gods are not allowed to interfere in the situation on earth."
"Fordman was called the strongest angel under the true God. He was surrounded and killed by the seven deacons of the temple."
When he said this, Professor Remo's voice paused, his face became solemn, and he said in a low voice: "The Holy Church did not obtain his extraordinary characteristics. The Fulde Manla formula was reported shortly after his death."
"It is rumored that if you unlock Fulde Manra's formula, you can gain the power of his strongest angel."
This is a little-known secret, and Remo Lewis also learned about it accidentally, according to the records of this planet's era.
Fuldman was active at the end of the Second Age and the beginning of the Third Age, thousands of years ago. If he hadn't deliberately studied general history, he would never have known that this person existed.
In an era without sequence levels, Fuldman was the strongest representative under the True God, the extraordinary one, and he was the unit of measurement for the strong.
The longer it can last in Fuldman's hands, the more it proves its strength.
Before the battle, if one of the parties said that they had survived Foldman for five minutes, his enemy would turn around and run away without hesitation.
Joey didn't expect that one of the strongest angels would be involved behind the words he said casually.
"You are indeed our mascot." Annie looked at Joey with a smile, her eyes glowing with gold, as if she was very satisfied with her temporary decision.
Chris pointed at Joey angrily: "Don't you suspect that he deliberately concealed it?"
I'm going to eat your rice and you're staring at me? Joey rolled his eyes and stepped aside.
He is not afraid of being questioned by everyone, there is no need to pretend, he doesn't know anything in the first place.
My mind is still dizzy now.
"That is a power that we cannot understand," Remo Lewis explained in a solemn tone: "It was Joey who said that, and it could be any one of us."
"The professor is right," Olivia nodded in agreement, "Maybe this is a hint."
Joey cast a grateful look at the two of them.
"Then what do you think we should do now?" Chris saw everyone pointing the finger at him, as if he was the bully who bullied others.
Although, that's what he was thinking, why did Joey lose his face before?
Anderson suggested at this time: "We can search the house carefully, such as which paintings?"
"Yeah, why didn't I think of that? I just wanted to ask you if you think any of the paintings are weird." Gur Friedman, who had not spoken for a long time, suddenly spoke.
As a veteran helmsman with more than ten years of sailing experience, his vision is more meticulous than everyone present.
Sailing a sailboat depends entirely on the experience of the helmsman, who must always pay attention to abnormalities on the sea.
"I'm going to search for rooms on the second floor."
"I'm going to the utility room"
"I'm going to the library"
. . . .
After the division of labor was completed, everyone began to take action.
Half an hour later.
Chris's whirring voice sounded:
"Come on, see what I found?"
A painting as tall as half a person was carried down from the second floor by him.
Putting the painting on the table in the hall on the first floor, he pointed at the painting and said, "Look, do the nine shadows in the painting look like us?"
It was a work in a frame, with a layer of glass on the outside covered with dust.
"It's dirty, no one can see it, I'll clean it up," Jami Henriquez complained dissatisfied.
As a chef, he must not only cook delicious food, but also be hygienic and healthy. He has a serious mysophobia.
"Don't move yet!" Olivia suddenly shouted, her face full of tension.
"What's going on with you? Did you find a new problem?" Annie asked.
Under the gaze of everyone, Olivia's cheeks turned pink. She was very uncomfortable with this feeling of being stared at.
He lowered his head silently and whispered in a low voice: "It's okay, I just want to remind everyone, be careful."
Anderson looked at her with a half-smile, "You seem to know something?"
These words were tantamount to throwing the word suspicion on Olivia's face.
"No, no," Olivia hurriedly waved her hands: "You misunderstood, I just thought of some storylines from detective novels."
"Just like that, when the form reaches an impasse, the author will arrange some things or objects to promote the plot."
"You mean it?" Chris pointed at the painting carelessly.
"Yes." Olivia nodded and said, "Perhaps it is the activated device. We'd better be fully prepared, collect all the clues about possible problems, and then discuss them together."
"In this kind of puzzle game, there will never be only one answer."
Joey felt that Olivia's analysis was correct, and he would not act rashly.
If you study that painting now, it will be easy to solidify your thinking.
"There are so many worries, let me do it." Anderson clenched his fist and broke the glass of the frame with one punch.
"Don't~" Olivia exclaimed.
The others were also startled by Anderson's sudden move.
They all stepped back and looked at the broken picture frame warily.
After waiting for about two minutes, nothing strange happened.
Anderson smiled widely and said, "Look, nothing's wrong. Look, I scared you."
"Don't move yet"
"Back off"
. . .
At first, I thought it was because of dust sticking to the glass that made the picture blurry. Now after the glass is broken, the picture is still hazy.
Only then did everyone realize that there was something wrong with the painting itself.
That painting seemed to describe the long table in the banquet hall on the first floor.
Nine vague figures sat around the table.
Under everyone's stunned gaze, among the nine people, the one sitting in the lower right corner of the long table suddenly turned gray-white, and the color was obviously darker than the other eight.
"What does this mean?" Chris looked at Olivia with suspicious eyes.
Olivia's eyes under the black frames flashed with an obscure meaning, and Youyou said: "If this happened in a detective novel," she stretched out a white finger and pointed at the gray-white Shadow's voice trembled: "This person... will die."
"Get out of the way, get out of the way, get out of the way. Let me see who it is?" The cook pushed Chris away and lay on the table, standing tall and fat. He squinted his little eyes and carefully looked at the gray man. silhouette.
After staring for two minutes, he burst out laughing: "It's not me, hehe."
"It's so blurry that you can tell it's not you?" Joey walked over, glanced at it, curled his lips and said with a smile.
"With this figure, it's obviously not me, but I don't know which one of you it is."
"Why does it look like a woman?"
