Half an hour later, after Sanimo had notified everyone, energetic young men and women arrived, and the once desolate place suddenly became lively.
These people got together in small groups as soon as they came, laughing and bantering with each other. The club was filled with a cheerful spirit.
Every time these people asked Sanimo what great discovery he had made, Sanimo did not answer directly but said he would wait until everyone came.
“Sanimo, you said you had a huge discovery, so what is it?”
At this point, the president, Marcus, arrived. He calmly looked at Sanimo who remained mysterious and then asked.
As the president, he had to always display a calm character and persuasive abilities and his hard work had indeed been rewarded. Many people in the club harbored a deep respect for him, something that was very difficult to achieve among peers.
Hearing the question from President Marcus, Sanimo obediently said, “Marcus, I’ve made this huge discovery inadvertently. I suspect that I’ve found a hypnotic image. This image can affect the human subconscious and cause people to have consecutive nightmares.”
“Oh?”
Marcus took a look at Sanimo when he heard this and saw that Sanimo did indeed hold a sheet of A4 paper in his hand, with something printed on it. Marcus then smiled. “Surely you don’t mean the picture you’re holding right now.”
Sanimo nodded.
Seeing this, Marcus continued. “Sanimo, I’ve said many times, the amount of information carried by pictures isn’t large and it’s far from sufficient to be used as a tool for hypnosis. In psychology, at best, it can only be used as a tool for a suggestion. If used for hypnosis, songs on the auditory level are much more effective than pictures on the visual level.”
Sanimo shook his head and said firmly, “Marcus, if you had said this in the past, I’d have agreed with you, but now it’s different. The picture in my hand is unusual. I could tell the moment I first laid eyes on it!”
“Let me see, then.”
Seeing this, Marcus did not refute again, but reached out and put his open palm in front of Sanimo.
Sanimo hesitated and finally put the picture in Marcus’s hands.
Marcus smiled and spread out the image in his hands. At the same time, the group of club members gathered around quickly.
Following that, a strange-looking man’s face appeared in front of everyone…
The moment they saw this picture, everyone present was taken aback. In an instant, the entire club fell silent, but this scene did not last for two seconds before it was swallowed up by the eager discussions in the club.
“Is this the picture?”
“Except for being quite strange, there’s nothing special about it.”
“Maybe the language of higher psychology is involved or its origin is a hint in itself?”
“He looks so ugly…”
“Hahahahaha!”
At once, everyone was discussing this loudly. They all commented on the picture in front of them to express that they were not afraid.
Among the crowd, only Marcus and a few people wore a pensive expression.
“Where did you come across this picture?”
Marcus suddenly turned his head and asked Sanimo.
“I drew it unintentionally.”
Sanimo’s possessive nature made him reluctant to name the forum, so he said vaguely, “I named it This Man. The important thing now is that we must understand whether it’s a hypnotic picture, right? I believe that the moment you saw him, you felt something unique in your hearts, right?”
“Maybe it’s because he’s so weird.”
A guy immediately explained, “I did feel peculiar the moment I saw the picture, but I think this is a form of suggestion. First, you planted a suggestion to make us think it will be mysterious. By the time you showed it, we were all stunned because we were caught off guard. This is why we felt an unusual emotion in our hearts.”
This opinion immediately attracted everyone’s support.
“In the final analysis, whoever strikes first will have the upper hand. This picture also seems related to the phenomenon of the ‘uncanny valley’, which is the reason we felt so weirdly about it.”
Another girl followed up.
The “uncanny valley” was a theory about how humans felt toward robots and non-human objects — depicting the emotional response of humans toward certain anthropomorphic things (robots, movies, anime characters, and so on) as a graph. As anthropomorphic things were similar to humans in appearance and behavior, humans would have positive emotions towards robots. This emotional value would increase as the similarity between the anthropomorphic object and humans increased.
However, when the degree of similarity between anthropomorphic objects and humans reached a certain value, humans’ reactions to them would suddenly become extremely negative. Even if anthropomorphic objects were only a little different from humans, these tiny distinctions would become very conspicuous, leading to disgust and even fear. At this point, the curve of the emotional value would plummet straight down.
As the similarity between anthropomorphic objects and humans continued to rise, achieving the same similarity that existed between ordinary people, humans’ emotions toward them would return to a positive scale again. This resulted in a human-to-human empathy level, which meant that the emotional value curved right up again and reached a level similar to the previous peak.
Therefore, this pattern would appear: the curve of human emotions toward anthropomorphic things slowly rose from the beginning to a rapid drop in the middle, and then rose again at the end. A “Great Rift Valley” appeared in the middle of the curve.
This Great Rift Valley was called the “uncanny valley” effect. It referred to the fact that some anthropomorphic things were too human-like, but they were still different from human beings. Therefore, to the human senses, the appearances of these objects would seem creepy, unsightly, and so on…
Therefore, this club member was now attributing their responses to the uncanny valley effect.
“I admit, it does look ugly, but I swear, this isn’t the uncanny valley.”
Sanimo shook his head, extremely disappointed from the bottom of his heart. He did not expect that everyone would not believe him, so he retrieved the image from Marcus, then turned and walked out of the club.
“The only way to test this is, you only need to wait until tonight to know.”
After saying this, Sanimo walked straight out of the club and ignored the shouts and cries of everyone behind him.
Only Marcus quietly lingered upon the creepy feeling from before and gradually, a thoughtful look appeared on his face.
When it was time for lunch, everyone in the club gradually dispersed. As the last person who left closed the door of the club, the entire venue fell into silence.
Still, this silence lasted only a few minutes. Soon, as the bathroom door creaked, the door slowly opened, and a blonde girl walked out of the door.
This girl was the one who put forward the uncanny valley theory earlier. She first looked around and confirmed that there was no one in the club, then quickly walked to the computer and began to retrieve the previously printed documents.
Soon, a thankful look shone in the girl’s eyes. She briefly pressed the print button and immediately the printer made a squeaking sound again. At the same time, a pattern was printed out.
It was the same weird face as before.
Seeing this image, the girl picked up this picture in satisfaction and was just about to leave. However, the moment she turned around, she suddenly discovered that a tall person was standing behind her without her realizing it!
“Ahh!”
The girl sat down on the ground in shock. Only then did she get a clear look. It was President Marcus who was standing behind her.
“Marcus, what are you doing sneaking around behind me?”
The girl stood up, huffing angrily, and at the same time subconsciously hid the paper sheet she was holding behind her back.
“No need to hide, I’ve seen it.”
Marcus stretched out his hand and grabbed the picture from the girl’s hand. At the same time, he calmly said, “It’s very unethical to print someone else’s unauthorized material privately.”
“I was just curious.”
The girl wanted to snatch it back quickly, but she could not reach it, so she stomped her feet. Then her eyes gleamed and she suddenly smiled. “Mr. President, why haven’t you gone back?”
“I was just going to clean up.”
Marcus replied while putting away the picture in his hand. He moved to pick up the broom on the side.
“Marcus, isn’t the reason you’re still here also because of that weird picture of Sanimo’s?”
The girl made a request and at the same time persuaded, “How about this — I’ll print another one. We’ll each take our own and keep our mouths shut. What do you say?”
Marcus hesitated for a while, then nodded in agreement and then left the club.
When he walked out of the club and came to the campus path, Marcus took out the pattern again. He looked at the peculiar face in the pattern and his eyes glimmered in deep thought.
The reason he stayed behind at the club and even bumped into the girl who had also lingered on for a long time was that he had a special feeling about this picture.
It was an emotion filled with coldness and abnormality. The moment he saw the picture, he seemed to see the human face talking to him and at the same time, there seemed to be a deep whisper by his ear.
This was a feeling that no movie, book or even painting could induce. Perhaps, as Sanimo said, it was a pattern that could hypnotize the human spirit.
Therefore, he was the last one to leave the club just now.
However, now it appeared that in the entire club, apart from Sanimo, only he and Molly had sensed the extraordinary nature of this pattern while the others seemed unable to feel it at all. Otherwise, they would not have dismissed the mysterious pattern so readily…
Thinking of this, Marcus returned to the dormitory. He recalled what Sanimo had said before, so he simply put the pattern away and lay directly on his bed.
Then, he slowly closed his eyes, preparing to use his sleep to verify whether all this was true or whether it was just Sanimo spouting nonsense.
Gradually, Marcus fell asleep.
“Who are you?”
Marcus looked around. At this moment, he was on a desolate road. He was walking alone and there was an impenetrable mist around him.
At the very head of the road, a black figure stood quietly at a close distance.
The black figure’s limbs were extremely slender as if they were a bag of bones, but unlike the limbs, the head was huge. This head, placed upon this body, created an extreme sense of incongruity.
After seeing this, the weirdness of the scene caused Marcus to stop warily. He stood still and said to the shadow in front of him, “Who are you?”
“Rustle rustle…”
There was the sound of someone shifting in the mist and at the same time, the figure began to move its feet slowly, approaching Marcus step by step.
Marcus wanted to run but at this moment, he felt as if he was standing in a pool of asphalt. No matter how he moved his legs, he was firmly adhered to the ground, unable to move at all.
Thus, he could only helplessly watch the dark shadow slowly approaching…
Ten meters, nine meters, eight meters…
As the figure got closer, Marcus became increasingly terrified. He seemed to understand instinctively that this person approaching him was not a good person!
When the figure was only three or four meters away from him, finally, the shadow revealed its face. The instant Marcus saw this face, he could not refrain from gasping sharply!
This Man!
This name popped out in Marcus’s mind for some reason. He screamed and the entire world quaked rapidly, like a landslide!
His dream was collapsing!
A flash of understanding appeared in his heart. At this moment, Marcus suddenly regained consciousness in his dream. He looked bewildered at This Man who was still standing in front of him and said suddenly, “Who are you really!”
This inquiry was completely different from the previous question…
“I’m no one, I’m me, I’m you, I’m everyone in the world…”
However, a surprising thing occurred. The weird man in front of him did not do him any harm but directly answered, “And now, I’m the embodiment of your dreams and unknown fears.”
After hearing these words, Marcus wore a flabbergasted expression. For some reason, his emotions in his dream were more adaptable and abundant than in reality. He suddenly raised his head and asked again, “Why did you appear?”
“Weren’t you the one who brought me here?”
The strange man replied solemnly, “Because deep down, you wanted me to appear. That’s why I appeared. It’s that simple.”
Marcus took a deep breath after hearing this.