"Speaking of humanoids, my first thought was the mimicry fungus we encountered on the road." Ke Lan continued, "But then I rejected this idea. Not to mention that the place where we encountered that kind of fungus is tens of thousands of kilometers away from Leviathan. If what they encountered in the mine was really this kind of thing, there would be no survivors at all."

It took about twenty minutes to clean and disinfect the entire confinement room. During this process, the survivor was merely curious about Ke Lan and did not show any signs of fear or madness. However, every time Ke Lan raised his arms or took a small step, his breathing became rapid and he would subconsciously make body movements as if in resistance.

"It's time to prepare for hypnosis." Ke Lan dragged a bag full of garbage to the door. At this moment, he suddenly took off the cardboard box covering his head and turned his head.

The imagined shouting did not appear. The survivor still stared at Ke Lan with curiosity, and even locked eyes with Ke Lan for several seconds... But nothing happened.

"Have his heart rate and blood pressure increased? How's his muscle tension?" Ke Lan whispered into the headset - a monitoring bracelet was installed on the survivor, and his physical condition could be checked at any time through the control panel outside the confinement room.

"There's no change in his heart rate and blood pressure, but just now when you took off the cardboard box, his breathing paused for a second, but it's back to normal now."

"Yeah." Ke Lan responded casually, then walked out of the confinement room.

Could it be that I guessed wrong... The other party clearly saw my face, but he was not afraid... Could it be that the stressor was not a human?

Even if there is something wrong with his mental state, he should still retain some normal logical thinking. After seeing his own face, he should be able to guess that this "thing that doesn't look like a human at all" is actually a human in disguise, thus triggering his stress response... But in fact, the human face is not the correct stressor.

Humans are stressors, but human faces are not stressors…

A bold guess gradually emerged in Ke Lan's mind: Could it be that the real stressor is just human limbs?

A human body without a head, that is... a headless corpse? Was this survivor frightened by seeing his teammate's headless corpse and became like this?

However, if the stressor was a headless corpse, he should not have such a violent reaction when he saw a normal, living person with a head.

Could it be that some kind of illusion was affecting him, causing him to only see human bodies and ignore the heads? Ke Lan thought about it and felt that this possibility was quite high. Even a normal person would be scared to death if he saw a group of headless bodies walking around.

"Ivan, you can start... If possible, try not to stimulate him too strongly." Ke Lan took off the protective suit stuffed with cardboard and cotton wool, looked up and said to Ivan.

"Okay, but your behavior just now gave me an inspiration. Before hypnosis, I also want to do an experiment." Ivan said, "Mr. Manstein, can someone find a big mirror?"

"Okay...are you going to let him look directly at himself in the mirror?" Seeing this, Manstein had fully reacted.

"Yes, I want to confirm whether he still retains his cognition of himself." Ivan nodded.

Soon, a full-length mirror was pushed over. With the help of four robotic arms, the mirror was placed in the room, facing the single bed in the corner.

The survivor was alert to anything new that appeared in the house, and when he saw the mirror, his first reaction was to jump out of bed.

As he got closer, he saw his own reflection in the mirror.

The stress response did not occur. He took two steps forward and tried to raise his arm.

The image in the mirror raised a corresponding arm.

Ke Lan suddenly realized that he had seen a similar scene before... If he remembered correctly, it should have been in the recording of the mirror experiment conducted by scientists in the old era on chimpanzees.

"Judging from the expression on this guy's face, he should know that it's himself in the mirror." Old Dog said, crossing his arms across his chest and staring at the one-way observation window.

Ivan nodded and said, "Self-awareness should exist. After all, he is just mentally ill and his brain has not suffered any organic damage... Huh?"

At this moment, the survivor looking in the mirror suddenly revealed an expression of pain and despair on his face. He grabbed his hair with his hands, leaned forward, opened his mouth slightly, and a dry voice came out of his throat: "No... don't... I don't want it... Impossible... This is impossible..."

Soon, this pain turned into frenzy, and he began to tear his hair hysterically, and even his scalp was torn off, and blood flowed down his cheeks -

"Hurry, take the mirror away and inject another sedative." Ke Lan said hurriedly, and Manstein ran directly to the operating table, grabbed the joystick himself, and used the robotic arm to take the mirror out of the confinement room.

"Do you want to hypnotize him again? After two consecutive strong stimulations, will he be unable to recover?" Ke Lan asked, looking at Ivan who was preparing props.

"Now is the best time to help him recall as many of the memories hidden in his subconscious as possible... Although it is a very painful thing for him, we have no choice... By the way, Mr. Manstein, is he left-handed or right-handed?"

Five minutes later, the survivor was tied to a comfortable recliner. All the joints of his body except his right wrist were completely locked by restraints. His right hand was stuffed into a hard glove that held a pen, and a ballpoint pen was firmly stuck between his thumb and index finger.

Indwelling needles were implanted in his left and right arms, and four large bottles of medicine prepared by Ivan were hung high on the infusion pole behind the chair. Under the action of gravity, the clear liquid was slowly injected into his veins.

Drug hypnosis is simpler and more brutal than suggestive hypnosis, but it is also easier to make people fall into a deep hypnotic state.

In that half-awake trance, many memories that were sealed up by the brain's self-protection mechanism will resurface, and even things that the hypnotized person thought he had forgotten will reappear one by one...

"Increase the drug infusion rate to 75% within fifteen seconds... Dim the room lights... Play the audio clip..."

The lights in the confinement room gradually dimmed, and then the sound of dripping water began to be heard, mixed with the slight sound of bumping and friction between hard-soled military boots and the ground.

Ivan gently turned the volume control button, and the sound of dripping water and footsteps gradually became amplified, and even the echo unique to the cave environment began to appear.

"Blood pressure and heart rate are rising... I've detected a large amount of adrenaline being secreted..." Ivan stared at the monitoring device and muttered to himself, "Increase the drug dosage again, and increase it to 90% within five seconds. Push in five units of phentolamine..."

Phentolamine is a drug used to treat vasospasm and toxic shock. It is a type of alpha receptor blocker that can bind to alpha adrenal receptors, thereby inhibiting the effect of adrenaline.

"Increase the drug supply to 110%, activate the breathing mask to supply oxygen, and inject ten units of muscle relaxant..."

…