Chapter 600
The Correct Cause and Effect
Wu Wang thought for a moment.
After a moment, he slowly closed his eyes, and the image of himself entering the door and casually tossing the key onto the table flashed through his mind.
bang-
Suddenly, he heard an extremely faint sound.
Even without opening his eyes, Wu Wang knew—there were now six keys on the table.
This also brought a slight smile to the corner of his mouth.
"A result without a cause."
“In this room, the effect can occur completely independently of the cause. Even if I do nothing, the result will still appear.”
The discovery of all the keys at present proves this point.
He then stood up, walked to the shrine, and touched the wall next to it with his hand.
But in my mind, I try my best to imagine that I am performing a pantomime.
In pantomime, a classic movement involves the performer pretending to be in front of a wall and using physical gestures to represent touching the wall.
The next second, the feeling that Wu Wang should have felt in his hand—the cold and rough feeling of the wall—gradually faded.
Finally, he couldn't feel anything at all, which meant that his hands completely lost their sense of touch with the "wall".
The action of touching the wall is the cause, and the feeling of the wall is the effect.
"There is a cause but no effect."
Wu Wang is testing step by step what exactly the rule of "denying cause and effect" is in this heretical sect.
Two types have been found so far.
There's no need to try the third option; he's already completely figured it out.
In fact, three rules were already present when the fingers were snapped at the very beginning.
A simultaneous snap of fingers behind you signifies "effect without cause," while a snap of fingers without sound signifies "effect with cause but no effect."
The sound appearing before the snap is the third possibility—[Reversed Cause and Effect]!
These three causal relationships constitute the "wrong views" in the room.
They appear to appear randomly, and each action they take triggers one of these relationships.
In reality, one is controlled by the thoughts in one's mind at the moment of making the action.
Ultimately, wrong views influence people, and this dormitory merely embodies them.
The five sharp afflictions are in contrast to the five dull afflictions of greed, anger, ignorance, pride, and doubt.
The most striking feature is that they come and go in a hurry.
In a sense, they can influence people in an instant, or they can be understood and seen through in an instant.
Wu Wang casually picked up a key from the table, turned around and walked to the door.
This door is very strange; it seems that you need to insert a key to open it, whether you are inside or outside.
However, when Wu Wang reached the door, the keyhole inside had mysteriously disappeared.
The third key was just inserted there not long ago, and now there's only a flat wooden board left, with nowhere to insert a key.
Wu Wang was not in a hurry to search for it.
Instead, they directly pushed the key towards the wooden board.
He muttered to himself, "I created the cause of 'insertion'."
thump—
The key made a dull thud against the wooden board; it wasn't inserted into anything at all.
But there wasn't a single scratch on this seemingly thin wooden door, so it was clearly not something that could be destroyed by brute force.
Wu Wang was not surprised by this situation.
He simply pressed the key against the door panel and turned it, as if it were already inserted into the lock.
He continued to mutter to himself, "I created the cause of 'unscrewing'."
Nothing happened in the room after all that was done.
Wu Wang simply walked back to the table where he had been sitting.
The moment he put the key back, he picked it up again and repeated the actions and words he had just spoken.
Once, twice, five times, ten times...
As time went on, Wu Wang had repeated these two actions and statements nearly twenty times.
Every time he picked up the key and pressed it against the door, the angle at which he turned it, and even the way he walked from the table to the door, it was exactly the same.
It's like a robot that only knows how to run according to a pre-programmed sequence.
When he made this "insertion" action for the twentieth time.
The hand suddenly paused, clearly indicating a feeling of forward momentum.
The key really went into the wooden board!
To be precise, a keyhole appeared.
Even the cracks in the door seemed to be appearing, and a slightly cool breeze could be felt blowing in from outside.
Wu Wang's approach was actually quite simple and crude—he was establishing a certainty through repetition.
Humans are creatures that are easily influenced by their subconscious.
Many subconscious behaviors are simply formed into habits through repeated practice.
Language is also a very important factor.
For example, if the first thing you do every morning is stand in front of the mirror and gaze into your own eyes with a firm tone, saying "My future is full of light," over time, both your mindset and your perspective on things will become more positive and optimistic.
From a psychological perspective, this is an effective exercise that combines self-affirmation, cognitive restructuring, and embodied cognition.
It is a fairly scientific process of psychological development.
Wu Wang wanted to instill the idea that "the key should be inserted into the lock and the door should be turned" into his subconscious through repeated actions and words.
In other words, establish a correct cause and effect within this room.
Don't be fooled by the fact that this is just a simple repetition; it's actually quite difficult to do in a short amount of time.
The premise is to temporarily abandon self-thinking; any extra thinking will lead to distractions affecting the formation of this subconscious.
Having just experienced being chased by insects, Buddha statues, and monks, it's simply impossible for an ordinary person to completely empty their mind in a bizarre room.
Unfortunately, Wu Wang was not a normal person.
He was not worried at all about being harmed by the strange phenomena, and he was indifferent to his own life to a very serious degree.
I'll just go short, I don't care about the danger, I'll just die for you.
Click—
However, even though the key could be inserted into the lock and turned, he still couldn't open the door.
Immediately afterwards, Wu Wang pulled out the key and repeated the process several times.
But each time, the result was the same: the door was stuck at the opening position.
The door to this heretical monastery is like an unshakeable mountain, remaining perfectly still no matter how hard one tries.
Wu Wang put the key back on the table, and the dullness in his eyes quickly returned to its sparkle.
He sighed, scratched his head, and said helplessly, "Sure enough, it was still a bit too clever."
In fact, Wu Wang had also thought that this approach, which seemed to establish certainty about opening the door through repetition, did not truly solve the problem of cause and effect.
Why would turning the key always open the door? What's behind the door? And why is this key able to be inserted into the lock of this room?
Upon closer examination, this approach is riddled with cause-and-effect relationships that cannot withstand scrutiny and cannot be definitively established.
Wu Wang was simply emptying his mind and forcibly avoiding this kind of thinking.
This can be considered a form of cheating by taking shortcuts.
Looking at the gap in the door that still exists even after I've returned to normal, I realize that this clever approach can only be considered progress at best.
However, this cannot completely dispel the erroneous view that denies cause and effect. Sigh—
Just then, the candlelight on the table flickered slightly, and the light in the room began to change.
The original orange candlelight turned into a strange dark red.
This dark red color isn't as terrifying as blood; instead, it has the glow of a setting sun, the color of something about to come to an end.
Under the dark red light, numerous outlines began to emerge on the original white wall surface.
To be precise, it's the outline of a person.
The shadows projected onto the wall are crammed together, resembling the negatives of a photograph.
They were all doing one thing—bending down, picking things up, and putting them down.
The three movements repeat endlessly, making it so unsettling that it can give anyone goosebumps.
Wu Wang walked to the wall, squatted down and observed carefully. He discovered that what they were picking up was the key in his hand, or rather, the shadow of the key.
In a sense, what these shadows are doing is just like the actions I just took repeatedly to try to open the door.
He turned his head to look at his own shadow with great interest.
In the candlelight, shadows were cast on the wall, and occasionally, when the candlelight flickered inexplicably, one's own shadow would sway along with it, as if bending over.
"Ah, I see."
Wu Wang gripped all the keys on the table in his hand, thought carefully, and then suddenly realized what was going on.
He came up with another possibility—
The appearance of each key is indeed a result.
But am I really the cause of their problems?
Perhaps some of these keys are the result of other people's "cause" being presented to us?
As for the other people in this room...
Wu Wang looked at the figures on the wall who kept repeating the action of picking up and dropping keys.
He then said calmly, "You are not ghosts or monsters. You were once residents of this Evil Observation Dormitory, weren't you?"
brush--
The moment these words were spoken, all the figures froze in motion.
They had no faces, only dark figures, standing motionless on the wall.
Wu Wang knew they were listening.
So he simply picked up a chair, moved it to the wall, sat down, crossed his legs, and laughed:
"You and I were trapped here after entering the Evil Stories Dormitory."
"You tried various methods to leave, getting caught up in creating a truly correct causal relationship in this room in order to break the 'denial of causality'."
"However, because there were no windows and no sunlight, and I didn't know how much time had passed, I could only keep trying. As time went on, things became more and more chaotic, and I became more and more doubtful."
“You doubt whether what you are doing has any meaning, and it seems that no matter how you try, you can’t get away.”
"Once such doubts appear in your mind, even if they only flash by, you will never be able to find the correct cause and effect. After all, the seed of doubt is always there and will sprout when it is needed."
Actually, after discovering the problem with the Heretical Abode, Wu Wang also had a question—
Judging from the number of worshippers at Cibei Temple every day, even if a small number stay overnight every now and then.
There must have been quite a few people who lived in these huts.
He didn't believe that all the ordinary worshippers could decipher the rules of the monks' quarters.
The description of the instance also clearly states that recently, devout pilgrims have mysteriously disappeared from the temple, with very few returning, and all of them appearing dazed and reciting unknown scriptures.
Most of the missing people were trapped and died in their dormitories or other places. Even if a lucky one occasionally managed to get out, he or she would usually go insane.
What about those people who are trapped? Why didn't I see them in my cell?
Now this question seems to have been answered.
All of these people on the wall lost their ability to think, becoming shadowy figures trapped in obsession, only knowing how to repeat their actions and single-mindedly trying to determine the correct cause and effect.
The figure trembled slightly after hearing what Wu Wang said.
They slowly raised their hands and stretched them forward, but no matter what they did, they couldn't do it.
After all, they are just shadows on the wall, mere obsessions trapped in a cycle of wrong views, and have no physical form whatsoever.
Watching these people's actions, Wu Wang raised an eyebrow and asked:
"You want to ask me, since your analysis is so precise, is there a way to crack it?"
The figures looked at each other and then nodded.
To this, Wu Wang laughed and said, "Of course I know."
Having said that, he began his second round of solutions.
Wu Wang gripped the key tightly with his palm facing down and took a deep breath: "If I hold the key, it will be in my hand."
After saying that, he let go of her hand.
pat-
The key fell to the ground.
He bent down and picked it up.
It appears to be no different from what those figures did.
He then continued to repeat this process.
"I hold the key, and it will be in my hand."
"I held on..."
The same operation begins to repeat.
An unusual phenomenon occurred.
On the thirty-sixth time, the key did not fall to the ground the moment Wu Wang let go of his hand.
Instead, it hovered steadily in mid-air next to his hand, as if it were still being held by Wu Wang.
Seeing this, Wu Wang smiled.
Then, he clasped his hands together and grasped the suspended key.
He said coldly, "If I release the key, it will fall to the ground."
This time, he only said it once.
The moment the hand was released, the key fell to the ground under the influence of gravity.
Ding--
The crisp sound echoed in the room.
All the shadows on the wall took a step back at the same time, and the gap in the door seemed to widen slightly.
Although it was rather insignificant, Wu Wang created an event in this room where "doing A would definitely lead to B".
Yes, everyone subconsciously feels that anything under the influence of gravity will definitely fall to the ground if no one is holding it.
Even when Wu Wang first established the condition of "holding the key," it was presented in this way.
However, none of them had considered this—
The key will fall to the ground after you let go of it.
This process itself is a cause and effect, and it also requires human confirmation, rather than being finalized once the room is presented.
Wu's demise essentially created two kinds of cause and effect, allowing them to form a closed loop at the starting point and the ending point, thus creating a complete and correct cause and effect.
Now, can the door be opened?
All the figures turned their faces toward the door that seemed ready to open at any moment.
Even without facial expressions, you could feel their tension.
But no one noticed that Wu Wang's own shadow was also on the wall behind him, doing the same thing... (End of Chapter)