Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 661 What did you see?
"This guy."

Li Zheng looked at Lu Li, a boy who looked only seven or eight years old, and shook his head helplessly: "No wonder you have a mental illness. Most of your mental energy has been extracted to maintain such a complex mental world. It is only natural that your mental energy is so much weaker than that of an ordinary person and that you are easily affected by sudden emotions."

but……

He frowned and reached for Lu Li's nape with one hand, where a gray, toad-like creature was lying, exuding an aura that tempted people to degenerate.

When the gray toad saw Li Zheng reach out to grab it, it tried to dodge behind Lu Li's neck, but its claws seemed to be connected to Lu Li's cervical spine, so it could only stay in that position and could not escape.

Li Zheng grabbed it, and a faint light shone from his palm. The light was imprinted on the toad's body, and it was as if a red-hot iron had been placed into dirty water, causing a puff of smoke to rise.

"It really is Laziness, and it's Laziness with very obvious artificial traces. Apart from those ancient races, no one else could make this thing." Li Zheng opened his mouth and took a deep breath. The smoke swirled as he swallowed it and disappeared in the blink of an eye. "The ancient race's version of rage can be made into a tool for training mental strength through special means. This Laziness should be able to do that too. I'll study it later."

"……Who are you?"

At this moment, the young Lu Li slowly woke up, looking at Li Zheng who appeared in front of him with a blank expression: "Why do you look exactly like me when I was a child? Where am I? Why can I only see your presence and not anything else?"

"You don't remember what happened?" Li Zheng asked.

"Xiao Siyuan let me enter the outer city first, along with Ma Long and Qian Bugou. Later... I felt sleepy for many days in a row..." Lu Li's thoughts hadn't recovered, and he subconsciously blurted out everything he was thinking. After he realized what he was saying, he quickly stopped and looked at Li Zheng warily: "Who exactly are you? What is your purpose in bringing me here?"

“Being able to remember what happened during this period means that you had your own consciousness during the time you were influenced.” Li Zheng nodded and said, “When did you come into contact with anything from the ancient race? How come you didn’t even realize you were being parasitized by the Laziness Emotion?”

"What ancient race?" Lu Li's eyes were filled with wariness: "Who exactly are you?"

Seeing his expression, Li Zheng had no choice but to explain: "I am Li Zheng. We are currently in your mental world. What you see now is my spiritual body, but my spiritual body is a bit special and reflects other people's appearances."

"Are you Li Zheng?" A hint of doubt flashed in Lu Li's eyes, then he tentatively asked, "Then tell me, is Li Zheng my son or my grandson?"

"Fuck you!" Li Zheng roared, "You unfilial son, you have no respect for elders, do you need to be taught a lesson?"

Lu Li was overjoyed: "You really are Li Zheng!"

"..." Li Zhengxin sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily: "Never mind, I'll go out first, and then we can talk slowly."

As he spoke, Li Zheng withdrew his mental energy, and the lazy emotion that was wrapped around the center of his mental body was sent into the Dark Realm through the portal of the Lamp Holder, to be imprisoned, waiting for Li Zheng to have some free time to slowly process it.

"Holy crap!" Lu Li opened his eyes and saw Li Zheng, blurting out, "It really is you... Ouch... My head hurts so much."

He sat up abruptly, his face suddenly changing color as he clutched the lower back of his head in pain: "It felt like I'd been hit hundreds of times with a blunt object; the pain was so intense it made my vision go black."

Li Zheng called Miriel in and asked her to continue preparing dinner, reminding her that many people would be coming to eat tonight and that she should prepare more.

Then he returned to Lu Li's side: "You've been affected by laziness, and your will has been dulled for quite a while. Right now, you're just having a headache, so you should be secretly happy. The last person I met like you has already completely died of laziness on the Bloodstained Battlefield."

“Laziness…right!” Lu Li remembered something and said to Li Zheng, “When I came to the outer city, I stopped in one place, but my memory of that place is a bit vague. I only remember someone tying me to an autopsy table and stuffing something into my brain.” He shook his head, feeling his head hurt even more. “But I didn’t feel any discomfort at the time, so I didn’t think much of it…by the time I realized I’d been infected with Laziness, I was too lazy to care anymore…”

"What do you mean 'too lazy to care'?" Li Zheng frowned and said, "Didn't Ma Long and Qian Bu'er notice anything unusual about you?"

“They found out.” Lu Li smiled wryly. “But they don’t know me well, so they assumed I was just naturally lazy. Plus, when we went on missions in the wilderness, I didn’t hold back at all when it was my turn to help, so they probably misunderstood…”

For the first ten days or so, laziness was only slowly taking effect, gradually worsening the symptoms.

Just today, when the effect was at its peak, Li Zheng happened to be there and saved him in time.

If they hadn't met Li Zheng today, Ma Long and the other man would definitely have noticed something was wrong with Lu Li when he fell into a deep sleep and taken him for treatment.

In the outer city, the ancient tribes' petty tricks are beneath their notice.

Compared to the messy stuff that the Heavenly Will Organization has come up with, it's far inferior.

Even doctors could expel them through medical means, which shows how pathetic the ancient tribes were.

Or rather, this race excels at creating and improving mechanical beings, rather than studying these so-called negative emotions.

From the very beginning, the ancient race went astray in their pursuit of mastery. Moreover, because they were a chaotic entity formed by the fusion of several different consciousnesses, they became inexplicably stubborn and insisted on following this crooked path.

This is a typical case of knowingly accessing a risky page but still continuing to do so.

"Fortunately, it was discovered in time, and no major problems have occurred." Li Zheng then recounted the problems he had discovered in Lu Li's mental world: "I do have a way to solve your situation, so that you will never have to suffer from mental problems again."

Lu Li's mental strength is far weaker than that of an average person, far from meeting the requirements to communicate with the magic crystal, let alone absorb its energy for his own use.

However, Li Zheng could let Lu Li's spiritual body enter the Dark Realm, allowing him to walk his old path and systematically improve his spiritual strength.

With diligent training, it won't be long before you can make up for it.

"Oh right, and this too." Li Zheng took out a fruit from the capsule. It was the fairy fruit that he had asked Chou Nong to plant. Nearly twenty days had passed since the fairy fruit was planted, and a batch had already ripened.

However, the spiritual power boost from the Fairy Fruit was countless times weaker than that from the White Magic Crystal, making it too useless. Li Zheng no longer valued it and kept it hidden away.

Giving Lu Li one at this moment would be just right.

Lu Li stared at the fairy fruit in Li Zheng's hand, remaining silent.

After a long pause, he asked, "What...what did you see in my mental world?"

(End of this chapter)