As soon as E Xuehai finished speaking, we heard whistling sounds from the gaps surrounding the hall. It seemed like many poisoned needles were being shot out from these gaps. He Jinghui and He Xiaoyu reacted immediately, shielding me and He Xin with their bodies. I watched the poisoned needles pierce their bodies, but these two individuals remained composed, as if nothing had happened.
With a flick of their sleeves, they collected the poisoned needles into their sleeves. Then, they raised their hands and released these needles, which at that moment, accurately blocked the outlets from which the needles were being reflected. With a series of clicks, the machines seemed to be filled and could no longer fire anything.
Seeing this, E Xuehai was terrified and shouted, "How is this possible? How did you do it?"
"A minor trick. E Xuehai, is this all you're capable of? Don't think that by blocking all the entrances, I can't find you. This is nothing to me! You'd better prepare to escape! Otherwise, I might find your location in the next second!" He Jinghui threatened. E Xuehai, however, calmed down and said, "It seems you're more capable than I imagined. But this makes the game even more interesting. Alright, now the fourth trial officially begins. This hall will continuously release a disorienting poison fog. After inhaling this fog, your minds will become extremely unclear, and then, ha ha ha! You'll know soon enough. The time limit is 30 minutes. If you can last until the end within this period, the stone doors around you will automatically open. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait to be consumed here!"
I originally thought that since the nozzles were blocked, E Xuehai couldn't use the poison fog anymore. However, the fog he referred to was being ejected from the gaps. And not long after he finished speaking, the fog began to spray down like rain from above, from the sides, and even from the floor simultaneously. Within a few minutes, the entire hall was covered in this gas.
Of course, we didn't want to inhale this gas, but there was simply no time. Even if He Jinghui gave us anti-tainting pills, it was already too late. Everyone inhaled a significant amount of the poison fog, and besides, anti-tainting pills seemed ineffective at this moment.
Because this poison fog seemed to be an aphrodisiac!!
I never expected E Xuehai to pull this stunt. We were completely caught off guard this time. The moment the drug took effect, all of us couldn't help but blush, and then we felt an intense heat all over our bodies, with a strange itchiness. I didn't have strong desires in this area before, but at this moment, I felt like a different person, with my mind filled with obscene thoughts.
There was nothing I could do but turn my head away, trying not to look at He Xiaoyu and He Xin. He Jinghui, like me, turned his back to them. He Xin and He Xiaoyu, likewise, could only turn their backs to us.
After all, if we could last 30 minutes, everything would return to normal. Wasn't it just 30 minutes?
That's what I thought at the time. However, under these circumstances, let alone 30 minutes, even 3 minutes felt like an eternity.
Time passes extremely slowly when you're in pain, and extremely quickly when you're happy.
A paper published in "Neuron" in 2002 by Patrick Haggard of University College London and his colleagues first proposed the phenomenon of a shortened temporal perception between active behavior and its corresponding consequences. In this experiment, participants were asked to press a button that would emit a sound with a delay, and to estimate the duration between pressing the button and hearing the sound. The researchers found that when pressing the button was an active behavior, participants perceived the time interval between the button press event and the resulting sound as shorter than when the button press was not active. In other words, if we are the active initiators of an event, our perceived duration of that event is shortened.
In the above experiment, the control group for non-active button presses involved participants whose muscles were contracted by transcranial magnetic stimulation to touch the button, and this group did not experience a reduction in the perceived time interval between behavior and outcome events. Haggard and his colleagues inferred from this that subjective volition is the primary factor determining people's temporal perception and discussed in the same paper the use of this phenomenon to judge whether people's behavior is indeed out of subjective volition.
In the past, I merely read these as news items. I never expected to experience a similar situation myself today and truly understand its intricacies.
Time ticked by, second by second. The black-clad man, E Xuehai, seemed to be doing it on purpose, mocking us by playing a very ambiguous and stimulating piece of music. This music was somewhat like rock music, with a strong rhythm, making our hearts even hotter and unable to break free.
"Why aren't you reacting at all? Do you think just turning your backs to each other is enough? I'm telling you, no one could last 10 minutes in this place in the past. Whether they were father and daughter, strangers, or people with deep-seated grudges, everyone who came here couldn't help but get together, ah ha ha! I really want to see you all engage in incestuous acts, I will definitely film it and post these clips online for everyone to know what you're doing! Then, Detective He, you will surely be condemned by society and your reputation will be ruined! Ah ha ha ha!!!!"
"E Xuehai, you despicable scoundrel! You can't defeat me by other means, so you resort to such dirty tactics? Can't you be a bit more straightforward?"
"Detective He, don't provoke me. Your goading tactics are useless against me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have followed the Bishop to this point, would I? The demon god will not forgive foolish people like you!"
"Demon god??"
At that moment, we didn't understand his meaning. Somehow, as I clenched the Polaris pendant on my chest, I felt my mind clear up a bit. So, I held it tightly. As long as I could keep holding on, it would be enough.
However, I could still maintain a little clarity, but it was different for the others, especially He Xin. At this moment, she suddenly turned around and pounced on me, hugging me tightly from behind and saying, "Daddy, I can't take it anymore. Just satisfy me. The worms in my heart are about to bite me to death!"
"He Xin, calm down. Now more than ever, you need to maintain your reason. 10 minutes have already passed!"
"But there are still 20 minutes left. Don't talk about 20 minutes, I'll go crazy even with two minutes! Woo woo!"
"It won't be like that. Think about it, haven't these 10 minutes passed in the blink of an eye? That means 20 minutes won't be much different. If we can just get through another 10 minutes, then we'll only have the last 10 minutes left!"