Silence stretched on for a long time.

Aside from the faint rustling of the snake mass as it moved, the cave was utterly quiet.

After a long while, the demoness said softly, “Before answering, I need to ask you something first…”

Shen Mo’s brow creased slightly.

The demoness: “Do you believe in the existence of aliens?”

“Aliens?” Shen Mo slowly repeated the word.

It sounded somewhat absurd.

“Are you trying to say all of this was caused by aliens?” Shen Mo asked.

“What else?” the demoness laughed. “How else would you explain the doll game’s existence?”

Shen Mo frowned. “You’re the one I’m questioning right now.”

“You’re right…” the demoness smiled. “Very well, let us run a hypothetical—

Suppose there are many aliens in this world. They lurk among humanity, disguising themselves with human appearances, living alongside humans, growing with them, evolving with them.

Being a different species, naturally: humans speak, eat, age with the passage of years, and walk toward death—that is humanity’s law of existence. But aliens are not the same. They are governed by a different law of existence, one that humanity struggles to comprehend—things like solar high-dimensional particle activity cycles, concepts utterly baffling to humans. In any case, when one cycle ended, they faced their first wave of extinction.

After they died, the human disguise disappeared, their shells became human-shaped dolls—which is how those television news reports came about. Their deaths were more like a form of dormancy: all they needed to do was shed the doll body, transfer to another human, and wait for the next cycle’s awakening.”

“Wait.” Shen Mo asked suspiciously. “You mean those humans who turned into dolls were not actually human—they were aliens? That’s impossible.”

He had seen teammates turn into dolls with his own eyes. And so many people’s relatives and friends had turned into dolls—surely they couldn’t all be aliens.

“Don’t rush—let me finish…” the demoness said at a measured pace. “The aliens’ whereabouts were exposed. Naturally, humanity could not sit and wait for destruction. They immediately gathered the world’s most authoritative scientists to jointly study the truth of the dolls. After great difficulty, they discovered the first evidence of alien existence—and among them, one scientist devised a plan for how to save humanity.”

The demoness’s voice slowed, carrying a teasing note: “That scientist’s name was… Song. Ming. Chuan.”

Shen Mo was stunned.

She was talking about Professor Song.

“This Song Mingchuan invented a device that interfered with the aliens’ life cycle. Once deployed, it could suppress the aliens’ intrusion upon humanity.

Aliens were everywhere, and naturally learned of this. They began doing everything in their power to strike back. The balance was shattered completely. More and more humans across the world turned into dolls—all because of the aliens’ rapid mass transfers.

Song Mingchuan’s situation grew increasingly dangerous. His superiors dispatched many people to rescue him, and you were among them. But your luck was truly terrible: when Song Mingchuan activated the device, an error occurred, and your body was seized by an alien. Your consciousness was trapped in the alien’s stream of awareness, with no way out.”

Shen Mo was in disbelief—he found these words utterly beyond comprehension.

“You’re saying… all of this right now is my fabrication? That none of it exists?” He frowned and stared at the demoness. “How is that possible? Every experience I’ve had—everything I’ve seen and heard, every wound, every game—it’s all real. How could any of it be false?”

“Hmm, you’re right…” the demoness laughed softly. “So everything I just said was false.”

Shen Mo was stunned.

Then an inexpressible fury surged within him.

“You tricked me?” he said quietly.

“I said so from the start,” the demoness smiled. “A hypothetical—I said, let’s run a hypothetical—”

Shen Mo said coldly: “Your answer is a fabricated hypothetical?”

“Of course not.” The demoness looked at him. “But I want to ask you seriously, Shen Mo—do you think this world is real?”

—