Chapter 161, Meditation, is entirely green (green) content, please be lenient.

You have entered an empty world, surrounded by countless glowing bubbles.

You float in the ocean currents of bubbles, frowning as you gently embrace a handful of bubbles.

No, it's less like a bubble and more like a box, except it's surrounded by layers of transparent round shells, and inside each shell is a "you". These "you" are in different poses: some are hunched over a desk, some are wearing school uniforms and writing with their heads down, and some are staring at you with empty eyes.

You reach out to touch it, and the sturdy box appears to break at the slightest touch, immediately followed by a violent explosion.

The blood, like a high-pressure liquid compressed within, sprays instantly onto your face and body, warm, salty, and slippery, soaking through your sleeves.

What was that? You heard your heart pounding a few times.

You quickly look down at yourself; you need to make sure this creepy thing isn't actually affecting you.

Thank goodness, you're alright.

So what's going on here?

There is no exit or origin here. If you follow these boxes that project your images, you will only end up going around in circles.

Is this some kind of "blind box"? If you poke the wrong one, blood will spurt out; if you poke the right one, a scene might be revealed, allowing you to enter and solve a mystery?

You start popping boxes one after another. But all that follows is a series of explosions and a spray of blood. And the number of boxes doesn't decrease at all.

This is the wrong path.

You stop and rethink.

There are four classes in a morning. The first three were fine, so it doesn't make sense for them to suddenly do something serious in the fourth. If I had to say, you were a little late, but this punishment is far too harsh.

If I had to put it into words, encountering such a space is probably part of the course and part of the normal process.

What's the purpose of this class...? You know nothing about Buddhism, but you remember the classroom was dimly lit and quiet, and there was a musical instrument in front of the teacher that you'd seen in videos where tapping it would produce different notes.

meditation!

Yes, this should be meditation. You've probably tried meditating with some apps when you were having trouble sleeping or feeling anxious—it was completely useless. But you roughly know the purpose of this thing.

The so-called "flow" allows meditators to find a deeper connection with themselves in order to achieve a mysterious and profound sense of mental relaxation.

So, this should be your consciousness—but not entirely. If it were truly a normal flow state, you should be fast asleep, with everything in complete darkness.

But perhaps you can try your ability. You tell yourself, "Wake up, I want to wake up."

Hmm, completely useless.

Thinking about what happened last night, you mustered all your strength to rouse yourself and screamed at the top of your lungs, "I want to wake up!"

Well, nothing has changed except that you seem a bit silly.

Or... you could say, "After popping ten boxes, we can leave this place."

You set a rule instead of issuing a direct command. Then, you do just that.

When the tenth box exploded, a gust of wind blew all the surrounding boxes away, and you felt a lightness on your feet, and your buttocks landed on the chair in the dissection room.

The familiar iron plate gleamed with a cold luster, and the air still carried a lingering smell of formaldehyde.

It seems that the "rules" formulated in this way have not brought about a real solution.

Where does the problem lie? A thought arises in your mind: Are there any flawed rules? No. If a rule has no loopholes, it is not a rule, but a cage.

Ultimately, the reason you've survived this long is because you've followed the rules and found loopholes.

Thinking of this, a jolt ran through the back of your head, making you break out in a cold sweat. You should have remembered something by then, but in your daze, you've already forgotten it.

So you try your best to calm yourself down and think quickly.

This is meditation, or to put it bluntly, just a dream. Even if it's influenced by the instance, it can still be considered a part of your inner self—otherwise, it's impossible to explain why the scene that reappears is the anatomy classroom that just caused you so much discomfort.

So even the influence of a Buddhist teacher can't take away your control over your dreams. Therefore, you need to try to deduce new rules—richer rules that can limit your actions but also ultimately allow you to leave.

Oh, we can also leverage general rules.

—It's been less than 24 hours since you arrived here, and you've barely had time to properly analyze the general rules. However, the rules this time are quite different from before. They're almost entirely written out in riddles, clearly stating what you should and shouldn't do.

You chose the rule that has been proven useful many times to write down your rule.

First rule: Respectfully clasp your hands together in front of the animals on your plate, for you have infinite respect for life.

Think of another one? You look at the clock on the wall, ticking away, and you have a feeling that you don't have much time left to come up with the rule.

Hurry!

A scene flashes before your eyes, this time in the trash can. You've got it.

Article 2: An open belly is also a door to the outside world; you can wake up as soon as you open your eyes.

You shout it out loud, and the sound vibrates in the empty dissection room like the sound of a striking bell.

The school bell rang.

The doorway creaked open. You turned your head and saw your teacher walking in.

To be precise, it was a monster with the same figure and shoes as the teacher, because on its neck was an ugly frog head with its eyes rolled back.

The frog's eyes bulge out, deathly white, and there's a wet patch around its mouth—you know, that's the frog's blood.

Bearing a dead head, its movements were natural, just like a real teacher a few tens of minutes earlier, distributing materials to each table. Even though you were the only student in the entire classroom.

The materials are not clear until you receive them, and only when they are placed on your desk do you realize that this time it's not a frog.

Instead, there were rows of little dolls. Yes, human-shaped babies.

You wouldn't know how big a newborn baby is; these on the table are much smaller than the baby actors in TV dramas. Their skin is grayish-white, like it's covered in a layer of wax—yes, wax. These must be babies who have just been delivered and whose placenta hasn't been washed off yet.

You're about to throw up.

You have to bear with it.

The babies' dark pupils gleamed wetly, and the frog's mouth opened and closed: "The new student has received help, so why don't you get started?"

What they called "help" was that each baby's belly was cut open beforehand, the incisions so clean they looked like surgical cuts. Inside, there were no bloody internal organs, but rather a stuffy, cotton-like substance, from which you could smell a strong metallic rust.

You stare at these babies, your fingers trembling uncontrollably. These are the rules you set for yourself, and no matter how distorted everything in the scene becomes, you have to follow them.

Belly—Gate—

But... if you pick up the tweezers and start stirring inside this baby's belly, you're doing something against human ethics. But... cold sweat pours down your forehead.

The teacher stands in front of the podium, and the frog tilts its head towards you, its eyes lifeless and dull, yet it seems to be "watching" you. It appears to be waiting for your action.

You know, if you don't follow the rules, you'll be punished. Yes, you should have listed a few more rules to cover everything, but it's already like this... You have to do it, or the dream world here will "automatically" correct you and throw you into bloody punishment.

But if you do it, can you be sure it will actually lead to the exit?

You raise your hands with trembling hands, first clasping them together, and then chant to the things in the iron plate, "I have infinite respect for you, may you be reborn in the Pure Land"—don't bother me.

Then, you carefully reach out and touch the cut on one of the dolls. You place your palm on its belly, close your eyes, and whisper a prayer that comes to mind that even you can't understand.

Suddenly, the doll's body twitched slightly. You looked up sharply, and its eyes were staring straight at you. It simply opened its mouth, exhaling a foul, fishy breath, its lips moving as if to say, "Go."

Your heart skipped a beat, and you decisively inserted your finger into the incision.

The cotton-like stuffing instantly transformed into flesh and blood, warm and slippery. You pulled it open, and thick blood immediately gushed out, soaking your arm. You wanted to back away, but then you remembered the second rule: the open stomach is the exit.

You grit your teeth, tear your belly open completely, like pushing open a blood-stained door. You close your eyes and shout, "Wake up!"

Blood gushed out, splattering onto your face, as if you were being swallowed whole. The surroundings twisted and churned, and you desperately gasped for breath, feeling suffocated.

Did it fail?

Now you know why it didn't work! "Animals".

What you just tore open, the contents under that human skin were cotton wool, clearly a doll, not an "animal".

Damn it, you always exploit loopholes in the dungeon rules, and now it's the damned dungeon's turn to exploit the loopholes in the rules you verbally described.

Before you could think any further, in an instant, the gaps in the dissection tray seemed to be stretched wide by something, turning the dark hole into a downward-facing trapezoidal well, its edges all slippery, fleshy-colored, and deep down there seemed to be...light! And wind.

It's a natural breeze, carrying a familiar scent—the sweetness of coconut milk.

Your stomach churns from the sweet smell; you'd rather smell something foul, at least that would fit the scene before you!

There are even more aromas, all of which are flavors you would normally find delicious.

The word "cafeteria" flashed into your mind. Before you could even think about "why the cafeteria," a gust of wind carrying information about delicious food grabbed the back of your neck like a hand and pressed you down.

You were swallowed whole by the door.

You slide through a slippery pipe, surrounded by warm, fleshy walls that contract every inch, as if someone is tightly embracing you, or as if someone is about to crush you.

You let out a very short, muffled groan, your throat immediately filled with a sweet, metallic taste. You tried to raise your hand to wipe it, but your elbows were trapped between your arms, preventing you from wiping. You could only push your head forward. Suddenly, the space in front of you widened, and you, along with the air enveloping you, were propelled forward a short distance. You were drenched in sweat, as if you had been pulled up from underwater, and the cold, white light hitting your face repeatedly.

You lay on the ground, panting heavily.

The floor was made of old-fashioned red and green pebbles, with grout lines full of grease. The air smelled familiar—just like the cafeteria: coconut milk, pandan, fish sauce, and fried chicken.

You look up and see rows of steel tables, on which are placed gold-rimmed bowls, small cups, and paper sandalwood flowers, and white gauze hangs above the door.

Before you could even stand up, Teacher Froghead had already entered from the other side, carrying a gold-rimmed tray containing a row of dolls' bellies, like neatly cut-out round lids, with clean edges and white subcutaneous fat gleaming yellow. He placed the tray in front of you, clasped his hands together, and smiled.

A gold-rimmed tray... The general rule says you can't refuse gold! But are you really going to eat this? If you don't move, you'll have to put your hands together as well and bow first.

You see that frog—it's not with you anymore, it's on the stove? A small fire is rising from the iron plate on the stove.

In no time, the frog that was supposed to be the teacher's frog had been pierced through the abdomen with two thin iron skewers and hung there like a neat "sample" to be roasted by the stove.

Wait, how did things develop like this?

Save it, yes, you want to save it. You're already clenching your cheek muscles, about to utter a "wait a minute" sound.

Then you stopped.

If dissection and frogs are merely images used to kill you in your meditation, then what about what you did during the break between classes?

The general rules in this instance keep emphasizing what can and cannot be done. Considering the religious beliefs here, does that mean you will be punished even if you do something that is clearly not a bad thing?

This is definitely wrong.

So you decided to wait and see.

Then the frog did the last thing by itself.

It arched its abdomen, and the iron skewer slid out of its body, bringing with it a glossy black section of intestine. It made no sound, but its eyes shone even brighter for a moment. It fell into the iron pan with a "plop," and you saw it spit out a black object from its mouth. The fire on the stove heated this black object until it glowed red, and finally, it turned into golden eyes.

You tilt your head in confusion, but everything before you is so clearly directional.

You had no choice but to pick up the metal plate containing the dolls, then take the golden scalpel and walk to the stove.

You cut open the golden eyes, and then all the dolls' bellies turned into gates. You chose the one that shone with golden light.

When you open your eyes again, you are back in the classroom.

The teacher is smiling and gesturing to you directly opposite you.

And around you, in this small square classroom of no more than 30 square meters, there are more than forty students, a third of whom have already collapsed, convulsing.

When the bell rang, the students who had fallen did not get up again, and everyone ignored them.

You couldn't hold back any longer and mustered up your courage to stop the teacher. You turned on the language translation on your phone: "Teacher, please explain it to me."

—This is a school, you're a student, if you ask a teacher a question, she should be able to answer it, right?

Your teacher appreciates your thirst for knowledge and will naturally share everything they know.

Those selves within those boxes are projections of your true self and desires: the things you crave, the things you fear, the things you resist, the things you long to be seen. They usually lurk deep within your heart, driving you to make choices, without you even realizing it.

"Observe the body as impure, observe feelings as suffering, observe the mind as impermanent, observe phenomena as without self." What you see in meditation is not an external illusion, but a momentary realization of the present moment, and also a revelation of the future.

What are you saying? You don't understand!

You want to ask more questions? The teacher just smiles and leaves without saying a word, leaving you standing there frustrated.

Meiling pulled Huimin along as they ran from their classroom to find you: "What are you daydreaming about? Come on, let's go eat."

Where should we eat?

"What nonsense are you talking about? Go eat in the cafeteria."

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Author's note: Haha, checking my mental state.