Ask Sword

In short, the most urgent task is to calm down first.

Chai Cuiqiao silently took the Langhao pen away from the examination paper, and looked around the examination room.

All the candidates in the examination room are facing the same situation. Even the fastest candidates can barely write a single stroke on the examination paper under great pressure.

Then I tried my best to drop my pen and couldn't finish writing my name.

'something is wrong'

Chai Chai withdrew his gaze and put his hands on his cheeks thoughtfully, The final exam in the academy is set up for recruiting students, not for torturing candidates.

The Jinshi Corps of the Chang'an folks graded the 2,500 candidates who advanced to the final exam, and divided the candidates into three grades: A, B, and C. Each grade has three grades, upper, middle and lower, to guess who The most likely to pass the final exam and become a disciple of the academy.

According to the probability, in this examination room, there are at least four candidates above the first grade.

If even they are at a loss and get stuck in the first step, it is even more impossible for other candidates to pass'

Chai Chai fell into deep thought, blocking out external noises.

'The examiner said just now that this final exam will not only test courage and perseverance, but also test heart, wisdom, and understanding. . .

In the illusion generated by the examination paper, there must be hidden clues to pass the test.

Whether it is an ordinary candidate who has just started to have spiritual power, or a student recommended by the Ministry of Military Affairs who has fought against the enemy and has been tempered in courage, the starting conditions for both parties should be fair.

As long as you find the clues, or figure out the joints, you can unravel the illusion'

Chai Chai thought for a moment, put the hairpin back on his head, put the two intact test papers aside, faced the first test paper that had been blackened by ink, and picked up the Langhao pen again.

In the next moment, an illusion of interlaced light and dark was created around,

The beam of light projected from the top of the head is warm and bright, highlighting the chaos and sinister surrounding darkness.

Without any warning, the beam of light above the head began to shrink slowly, becoming weak and dim, while the surrounding darkness surged over without haste.

Chai Chai felt a cold current rushing all over his body, his scalp was involuntarily numb, and he instinctively wanted to turn around and flee.

'Calm down and think! '

Forced to stand where she was, without backing away, she began to look around for clues.

The light on the top of the head is cylindrical, shrinking at about an inch per breath. It's not like it's emitted by a normal light source, it's more like it's constructed by the illusion itself.

The ground under my feet is neither gold nor wood, it seems to be some kind of stone, the texture is hard, there is no muffled sound after stepping on it, it doesn't look like there is an underground cavity.

There is no pen in hand.

It proves that only consciousness is in the illusion.

In addition, spiritual power can be used.

But the best candidates in this year's class have only just entered the state of feeling, and they have not yet learned about talisman spells, let alone using spiritual power to create artificial light sources to illuminate the surrounding environment.

Where is the clue?

She took off the hairpin she wore on her head and held it firmly in her hands as a weapon, her eyes staring into the darkness ahead.

The strange sense of being stared at by natural enemies came to my heart again, and the uncontrollable fear flooded the will like sea water.

The blood flows faster, the muscles tense and stiff,

As the darkness spread step by step, the fear finally reached the critical point, and the soles of the feet lifted and retreated uncontrollably.

call

The light and darkness receded in an instant, and consciousness returned to the examination room again.

And the writing brush in his hand dripped a few extra drops of ink, further staining the test paper black.

‘Same as last time, I didn’t even see what was hidden in the darkness, and there was almost no progress. '

Chai Chai put the brush on the table, paused, and touched the hairpin firmly on his head, Well, it can't be said that there is no progress. '

In the illusion, he clearly took off the hairpin and held it in his hand as a weapon.

And out of the illusion, the hairpin is still worn on the head

Hallucinations are mere hallucinations, without any real bodily effect other than the terror of the mind?

Wouldn't there be a situation where when you die in the hallucination, the person in reality also dies?

Chai Chai thought for a while, picked up the Langhao brush again and returned to the illusion, and before being frightened by the darkness, took the initiative to take half a step back and escape from the illusion.

'Backing back is indeed the trigger for leaving the illusion. So going, walking into the darkness, is the way to break the illusion? But how to overcome the fear of being invisible and intangible.’

Chai Chai pursed his lips slightly, looked down at the Langhao Pen, and Li Ang's views on the mechanism of biological fear emerged in his mind when he was chatting.

That Darwin, based on the fact that orangutans are afraid of snakes they haven't seen before, believes that orangutans will be afraid of snakes and pass it on to their offspring in the form of genes.

What are genes? Well, you can understand genes as dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the sons of mice can make holes.

But this theory, to some extent, is half right.

The things that genes can do are relatively limited. There have been studies by psychologists and anthropologists. When humans are still babies, they will simply classify the things around them. For example, people who can walk on two legs, animals that can't move , fish swimming in water, dogs walking on four legs, etc.”

In this process, the brain will establish a cognitive model to screen out useful information, useless noise, and potentially harmful information.

When something that goes against the common sense of the brain happens, the brain will immediately recognize it and mark it as abnormal, generating fear interest.

Like walking on the street, everyone is walking on two legs upright, you don't have the mood to observe everyone at all. But when a few people suddenly walk on all fours on a normal street with their faces in the air, the fear emotion It will be generated involuntarily, even earlier than curiosity and doubt.

The same goes for the uncanny valley theory.

In other words, the innate fear of animals is the fear of the unknown and other things.

If a large model of a hippopotamus is shown to gorillas who have never seen a hippopotamus, they also have a certain probability of feeling afraid.

What? How do you explain that mice are naturally afraid of cats?

To be precise, mice are not naturally afraid of cats, but respond to specific smells and sounds such as cat saliva, cat urine, and cat meowing. When the mouse smells cat urine, the endocrine system of the mouse will be activated. It starts to work automatically, increasing the anxiety level of the mouse, forcing it to move far away, so as to avoid the possibility of encountering the cat.

And if genetic engineering technology is used to edit the mouse gene so that it no longer responds to the specific protein of the cat-like pheromone, then the mouse will no longer show stress. Even in the face of a live cat, it will not be afraid. mood.

The same is true for Toxoplasma gondii. Rats parasitized by Toxoplasma gondii will be indifferent to cat pheromones, and even take the initiative to contact cats, hoping to be eaten by cats, so that Toxoplasma gondii can continue to spread.

So, innate fear is just the brain's own reaction.

So, is it possible to overcome innate fear, or even not generate fear at all?

That's a good question.

Well, there are also methods. One is to use genetic engineering technology to knock out specific genes like what is done to mice. However, humans are different from mice. During the long evolutionary history, mice accidentally mutated the corresponding DNA, making mice When facing predators such as cats, there is a higher probability of survival, and thus a greater probability of passing this DNA to the next generation. And in the tests from generation to generation, continue to optimize, and finally form a unique 'ability'.

As for humans. In the millions of years of evolution of the terrifying upright ape, it seems that they have never encountered too terrifying predators and natural enemies, and they will have uncontrollable fear of certain smells and sounds.

Another way is to beat the brain.

Emotions are plainly a game for the brain to entertain itself. The area that controls emotions is called the limbic system. It includes the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal area, dentate gyrus, cingulate gyrus, mammillary body, and amygdala.

Among them, the amygdala controls the emotion of fear. If the amygdala is removed in a macaque, it will lose the ability to fear forever. No longer afraid of snakes, no longer afraid of strong members of the same group, no longer even afraid of climbing high place—even if the height is high enough for him to fall to his death.

In another case, a woman suffered from a rare genetic disease called 'lipid proteinosis'. This disease can cause lesions and even shrinkage of the bilateral amygdala of the brain. Because this disease , the patient will not feel any fear. Watching horror movies, playing in haunted houses, being pointed at by guns, and seeing unknown shadows outside the house, no matter what she encounters, she is extraordinarily calm.

Theoretically, patients with this disease, and those with their amygdala removed, are the closest people in the world come to the literal meaning of the word 'fearless.'

The memory gradually faded, Chai Chai opened his eyes and let out a long breath.

Li Ang often told her things that she couldn't understand or understand, but she never thought deeply about why Li Ang somehow understood so many strange things, she just attributed it to the reason that the young master is a genius.

In Chai Chai's small world, Li Ang is the smartest and most resourceful person. Even a saint who is born with knowledge is not as capable as Li Ang.

Chai Chai believed in this before, now, and in the future.

And what she has to do is to use the information in Li Ang's fragmented words to pass the final exam.

'The emotion of fear originates from the amygdala. It is the amygdala that detects specific information and outputs various hormones. Increased heart rate, sweaty palms, and elevated blood pressure. An involuntary desire to run away, or to freeze in place and not move. '

‘The most fundamental way to overcome the illusion is to remove the amygdala, anyway, the injuries in the illusion will not be brought to reality. But I can’t do it by myself—the young master never pointed out the location of the amygdala to me. '

'Then, the only way is to block the fear. '

‘How to do this? When the amygdala is stimulated, it will start to direct the body to secrete rapidly, unless the five senses are stripped away, and the root cause is to prevent yourself from receiving any stimulation from the source of fear. '

'The young master seems to have said that there is a way to strip the five senses. Blindfolded, lie down in a pool of warm water made of highly concentrated salt water. Floating on the surface of the water, without hearing or seeing, all senses will gradually fade away, and finally reach an ethereal state. '

'But there is no such condition in the illusion. Is there warm water and salt there'

The predicament has returned to the original starting point,

Chai Chai frowned, desperately thinking about countermeasures.

Strip off the five senses and block fear.

'Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. In the illusion, there are very few external stimuli. There are only two kinds of light and darkness. '

Could it be.

Chai Chai's eyes lit up, he let out a breath of foul air slowly, and picked up the Langhao pen on the table.

The illusion strikes again, and she appears under the light again, facing the vast darkness around her like an abyss like an ocean.

'If I am not mistaken, darkness is not an immediate stimulus to fear. There is nothing there. There is no visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile stimulation. '

‘It was the light above my head that really sparked my inner fear. '

She raised her head and looked up at the warm and peaceful circular beam of light above, as if she wanted to see through the beam of light to see clearly what was in the light.

tear up.

Accompanied by the sound of cloth being torn, Chai Chai cut off a corner of the clothes with a hairpin, wrapped several pieces of thick cloth on the soles of the shoes,

Cover your eyes, and plug your ears and nose.

The premise of isolating fear and shielding the five senses.

She fastened the cloth firmly, even if her eyes and ears hurt, she took a deep breath and quietly waited for the darkness to come.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths.

She silently calculated in her heart that since the shrinking rate of the circular beam of light was stable and consistent, she could calculate the time for the circular beam of light to completely shrink by breathing.

about there.

His eyes were covered by the cloth, and he couldn't see a ray of light. There was a strong voice in her heart, calling for her to take off the blindfold and take a look at the external environment.

She blocked all the noise, opened her legs, and took a step forward.

Can't hear my own footsteps,

Even because of the soft cloth wrapped around the soles of the shoes, she couldn't feel that she was taking a step forward, she just felt that she was controlling her legs to walk forward.

Step two, step three.

She strictly controlled the speed of her steps, and finally, when she walked to the hundredth step, she suddenly felt a cold touch in her heart.

That is, Langhao pen holder.

She pursed her lips slightly, held the pen holder, and in the absolute darkness, she assumed a writing posture and wrote her name calmly.

Chai Cuiqiao.