In less than the blink of an eye, Zhou Qi’an seemed to have made up his mind.
Ahead, Mr. Si, who was blocking the door, let out a ferocious grin. “I’d like to see…”
Before he could finish his threat, the holy relic, gleaming with a golden light, came piercing through the air.
It was too fast.
Not Zhou Qi’an’s speed, but the fact that he attacked without a second thought.
Mr. Si had personally witnessed the other party on the verge of death from blood loss after using the holy relic. His previous threat was based on the premise that the player, having lost too much blood, would be sent to the emergency room.
He was betting that, to avoid being dragged to the ICU, Zhou Qi’an wouldn’t dare use the holy relic at all.
Who knew that the latter’s first move would be an attack.
Mr. Si was stunned twice.
The first time was because of Zhou Qi’an’s attack. The second was the memory of being impaled by a fishing spear at the school flooding back.
These two moments of hesitation gave Zhou Qi’an the chance to rush forward and push the door.
“Like I’m scared of you.”
If he lost too much blood, he’d just restart with the pocket watch. The whole point was the element of surprise.
The terrifyingly sharp rabbit claws came grabbing at the young man’s back from behind. Zhou Qi’an, who was pushing the door, felt a chilling current of air that made all his pores stand on end.
“White Silk Ribbon.”
The game couldn’t possibly leave the operators’ powers completely unrestricted. Now it was up to the ‘third party’.
Shen Zhiyi pushed the door with Zhou Qi’an, without any extra movements.
A single white silk ribbon couldn’t possibly stop Mr. Si, and it missed, wrapping around empty air from above.
In the brief moment he avoided the white silk ribbon, Mr. Si felt a pulling sensation.
There was another player?!
He jerked his head around. The shadow that had just returned quickly circled around from the side. Ahead, Zhou Qi’an pushed open the door, and the dark shadow slipped in smoothly behind him.
Zhou Qi’an, who had successfully entered, said, “Bye-bye now.”
As long as the trick worked. Just like how someone always falls for the “darkness under the lamp” trick in the game, his feint to the east and attack in the west was always effective.
Behind him, the pupils of Mr. Si’s rabbit eyes contracted. The sharp claws that were about to grab the young man’s back suddenly retracted when he saw the figure rushing in without a second thought. In its place was a strange smile.
Go on, go to hell.
On the other side, having finally entered the space behind the door, Zhou Qi’an twisted his head and slammed on the brakes. His peach-blossom eyes instantly widened into round cat eyes.
From here on, it was a vast expanse of terraced fields, with a more layered feel than the typical fields used for growing crops.
Looking down from above, one could see that each layer was filled with medicinal liquids of different colors, similar to rice paddies. There were also countless overlapping flowers providing cover, and within the flowers, ‘sleeping beauties’ were curled up.
The patients seemed to be in a permanent slumber here.
“Cyclamen…”
These flowers had previously been a source of danger for Zhou Qi’an, and had even caused him a bit of suffering in the special ward.
But now it seemed that these flowers were also a protection for the players. The cyclamen were also weaving a beautiful dream for the monsters. After the patients were transferred to the special ward, they would surely become more and more uncontrollable. If the flowers in the ward were to be destroyed… that would probably be the real danger.
“Be careful,” Shen Zhiyi suddenly said.
Zhou Qi’an looked back. Mr. Si actually hadn’t followed them in. His vigilance immediately heightened.
According to the floor plan, the dispensary and the testing room each had a safety emergency exit, which meant there was a chance to leave from inside.
It was truly strange that Mr. Si didn’t come in to catch them.
The rabbit is quiet, it must be up to something.
Guessing was useless. The most urgent task was to find the others as soon as possible.
Zhou Qi’an’s throat moved. “We might wake these monsters when we go down.”
Shen Zhiyi nodded. Not only them, but the shadow would too. It was fine when there was no movement, but once there was, some negative energy would inevitably leak out.
Each terraced field contained at least a hundred monsters.
Zhou Qi’an held his breath and took a risky look from the edge. The countless heads below and the strange flowers themselves came into view at the same time. His trypophobia was about to act up.
His mind was working faster than ever. He quickly came up with a preliminary plan, his peripheral vision glancing at his side and rear. The only thing he needed to worry about now… was the extremely unstable factor outside the door.
…
At the door.
Mr. Si was about to pull the door open, but suddenly stopped.
“A thief has come…” This was a good thing.
Not long ago, the manager of the Ghost Market had privately contacted him. The other party had clearly suffered a major setback at Zhou Qi’an’s hands.
[I hear you have a grudge against him.]
[Coincidentally, I have something to tell you… This bastard, this isn’t his first time in an instance at all!]
Three years ago, the game was more or less in its beta testing phase. At that time, Mr. Si had just joined and had not heard of Zhou Qi’an’s notoriety.
When he saw the secret information sent by the Ghost Market manager, Mr. Si was also quite surprised.
Someone had been in and out of the game repeatedly?
That was insane.
“This time, it’s truly the right time, the right place, and the right people.”
If he wasn’t at work, Mr. Si would have already called the Minotaur to renegotiate the details of this trap.
A cruel cunning flashed across his face. Thinking of the design of the dispensary, Mr. Si’s three-lobed mouth almost split to his ears.
“Emergency safety exits are a good thing.”
Who knew if this passage would lead to heaven, or to hell?
————
In the previous sprint, the nurse’s hat had gone askew. Zhou Qi’an tied up his long hair to prevent it from getting in the way while running. His hair had returned to its original color, and his blue ponytail fluttered in the gloomy wind. His other slender hand tightly gripped a fountain pen.
He glanced at Shen Zhiyi. After they made eye contact, the latter nodded slightly.
After clicking the pen cap three times, Zhou Qi’an took a deep breath:
“Ying Yu, is Ying Yu there!”
“College Student, College Student, where are you now?”
There were countless flowers, and countless patients. He had no special technique for calling people; he just shouted.
Even if Ying Yu and the College Student were still alive, in such a dense fragrance of flowers, they had probably already sunk into an illusion and wouldn’t wake up as easily as the other monsters. There were flowers everywhere, and some of them even had the stench of corpses. It was impossible to find them by sight alone.
The Dream Pen was activated. Within ten meters, all living creatures had to hear his voice.
Unfortunately, the area of each terraced field was very wide. Ten meters could only cover a very small area. Zhou Qi’an not only had to shout, but he also had to run around the map like crazy while shouting.
The flower branches trembled. Shen Zhiyi suddenly pulled Zhou Qi’an. He looked down and saw a skeletal hand stretching out from the soil where he had just been.
The patients in the flower field, who still looked somewhat human, also woke up, but it was as if there were bugs crawling inside their bodies, their blood vessels throbbing unnaturally.
One monster after another, like dominoes. After the first round of shouting, all the patients within a fifty-meter radius slowly woke up. Many petals were scattered on their bodies. They stood up, their postures crooked as they approached.
A living tide of corpses.
“Lucky items are so lucky,” Zhou Qi’an gritted his teeth.
The ankle-deep medicinal liquid stung his skin. In this kind of siege-like attack, it was impossible to avoid. Zhou Qi’an directly used his staff to strike at the patients coming from one direction.
Just hitting them couldn’t kill the monsters.
The patients all had wounds to varying degrees. With Shen Zhiyi providing cover, he aimed for the wounds, and the body of the staff directly pierced through.
The distance was very close, and fresh blood splattered.
The exposed skin of both of them was stained with the patients’ blood. Except for the bursting of the Flesh Mound Monsters, without an open wound, this blood wasn’t that potent.
However, the number of patients was too large. During the fight, the blood flowers exploded and scattered like fireworks, some splashing into his eyes.
Zhou Qi’an was not wearing the protective suit from the morgue. That thing had its pros and cons. Once put on, his movement speed would slow down, and his vision would be obstructed.
This time, the main purpose was to find people and escape.
His body’s reaction came quickly. There was even a clear perception that after a slight burning sensation, this dirty blood was further penetrating his skin, continuously and actively destroying his immune system.
Zhou Qi’an endured the discomfort, seeming completely indifferent to his current infected state, and continued to kill monsters impassively.
“College Student! Ying Yu! If you’re there, wake up quickly!”
A rare trace of anxiety was in his voice.
According to the plan, Zhou Qi’an was in a great hurry now. If he couldn’t find these two within a minute, he would have to temporarily give up.
Shen Zhiyi wasn’t looking for people. The two had a clear division of labor; he was responsible for finding the safety exit.
As they fought their way forward with difficulty, Zhou Qi’an’s foot was tripped. He looked down and found it was a corpse.
The patient in the medicinal trough looked quite peaceful in death, as if in a beautiful dream, but their body had long since stiffened.
Hopefully, Ying Yu and the others are okay.
“About a hundred meters ahead should be the safety exit,” Shen Zhiyi suddenly said in a low voice.
After confirming the location, the two did not immediately rush over. The Dream Pen was still transmitting Zhou Qi’an’s voice:
“Mr. Ying, the employee who danced the sacrificial dance for you is still waiting for you to come back. Don’t forget the house-hiding plan! If something happens to you now, what will happen to the laboratory, what will happen to the people?”
“College Student… don’t force me to smack you. I’ll give you three seconds to wake up.”
The instance difficulty was currently at three stars, a bit higher than before, but still acceptable.
The most terrifying thing about the current monsters was their contagiousness. Their flesh and blood were the best offensive weapons.
Another blood flower splashed on Zhou Qi’an’s forehead, like a birthmark. A petal-shaped brand was now there.
The person involved only felt pain.
There was blood and monsters in all directions. For some reason, Zhou Qi’an never stopped counting the time. “Forty seconds.”
Waving his staff to fight the monsters, the blood mist made his eyeballs ache. He couldn’t even take a good look at his surroundings.
“Ying…”
Zhou Qi’an suddenly stopped. It seemed there was a different sound.
A light, mainly red, was projected from mid-air.
The source of the light was a Rubik’s Cube.
His eyes instantly lit up. In Fengshui Village, when dealing with the Saintess, Ying Yu had used this cube.
“Over there!”
Shen Zhiyi also saw it. The two of them were practically bathing in blood water as they advanced.
Ahead, a large number of roots spread out from the medicinal liquid. The dark, long strips crisscrossed on the ground. Zhou Qi’an’s vision was already a bit blurry. Wiping the blood from his eyelashes, his gaze suddenly fixed on a spot.
About twenty meters away, a slender male body lay in the flower field. Some of the roots containing medicinal liquid had already pierced his veins, seeming to be constantly injecting something.
There were such injection holes on his shoulder, spine, and lower back. It was hard to imagine that under such circumstances, the man’s body still had the rise and fall of breathing.
Zhou Qi’an stood upright in the rain of blood, his throat moving. He recognized the importance of teaming up in instances.
The morgue setting was just bad luck for whoever got it. If Shen Zhiyi hadn’t manually controlled the instance’s difficulty level, he feared he would have ended up in intensive care even if he got out.
Not far away, there was another person.
The College Student looked much worse than Ying Yu. His body was covered in blood spots. Zhou Qi’an noticed that the blood holes on Ying Yu and the College Student’s own bodies showed a tendency to heal every so often. The College Student was unconsciously using a healing skill.
Ying Yu had clearly made some arrangements before falling into a coma. There weren’t too many patients surrounding them.
His eyelids trembled slightly. Ying Yu should be consciously awake but still unable to completely control his body, barely manipulating his items with his will.
“Fifty-one seconds.”
Zhou Qi’an bought a long-handled knife from the mall and frantically accelerated, chopping at the stems on the ground.
The first strike was not successful. The stems were not completely severed.
Shen Zhiyi: “Cut the branching points.”
Zhou Qi’an tried it, and indeed, it was much easier this way.
Fifty-two seconds.
Fifty-three seconds.
Fifty-four seconds.
…
He was almost done chopping, but monsters were swarming in from all directions.
Even if they finished cutting all the vines now, with more and more monsters reviving, they wouldn’t be able to hold on.
It wasn’t just the patients on this level who had woken up. In the terraced fields below, like a zombie siege, the awakened patients, smelling fresh flesh and blood, were all climbing up one by one. From his angle looking down, they were as dense as countless lice.
The patients from the next terraced field were the first to arrive. Hundreds of monsters instantly appeared around them.
Shen Zhiyi said in a low voice, “That’s about enough.”
Zhou Qi’an suddenly stopped attacking as if he had given up, not even thinking of shielding the College Student and the others.
He took a deep breath. “Fifty-nine seconds.”
Facing the endless monsters, Zhou Qi’an activated the pocket watch at the last second. “Life is all rehearsals.”
[You have successfully activated the pocket watch]
[Time will return to one minute ago]
[Time is reversing—]
In the instant time reversed, the smell of blood in the air gradually faded. The pursuing patients were like a lagging PowerPoint presentation, rewinding frame by frame.
Even Zhou Qi’an himself, in a dizzying spin, returned to his original position above the terraced fields.
After swaying a couple of times, Zhou Qi’an subconsciously reached out for support.
Shen Zhiyi steadied him.
Zhou Qi’an was still staring at the pocket watch, and let out a sigh of relief.
His memory was still there.
He had originally worried that after using the pocket watch, his memory would also be reset to one minute ago. Fortunately, the game item wasn’t so crappy.
The pocket watch currently showed it was on cooldown.
He quickly looked at Shen Zhiyi. “You…”
Shen Zhiyi’s voice was cold, but it carried a reassuring quality. “With the shadow here, my memory is not disturbed.”
The bloodstains on his body were gone, and he was back to a green, pollution-free state. Zhou Qi’an moved around a bit. “Let’s go.”
Having already run the map once, this time, the two of them chose their positions precisely and jumped directly into the terraced field below that was closest to the College Student and the others.
This saved a lot of time. The large number of monsters that should have revived long ago were only now beginning to stir.
Zhou Qi’an and Shen Zhiyi skillfully chopped at the branching points of the roots. Having chopped them before, they were extremely precise with where the blade fell each time. Arriving at the two’s side again, Zhou Qi’an directly carried the nearby Ying Yu on his back. Shen Zhiyi, who could have carried one in each hand, had his turn stolen. He could only give the man on the young man’s back a sinister look and single-handedly carry the College Student with a look of disgust.
The two directly retreated towards the safety exit.
“Shadow,” Zhou Qi’an called.
The shadow casually tossed the Flesh Mound Monster’s bracelet they had snatched earlier.
The patients’ obsession with the bracelets was innate. The patients in the dispensary were still in the cultivation stage and had not been assigned a department, so naturally, they had no bracelets. The patients blocking the way nearby subconsciously went to fight for the bracelet first. This bought Zhou Qi’an a little time.
Avoiding direct combat, the two of them hurried towards the safety door.
It wasn’t until they were almost at the safety door that Zhou Qi’an began to use the Dream Pen. “College Student, Ying Yu, both of you wake up…”
Ying Yu, half-asleep, moved his finger.
His mind was still a bit fuzzy.
However, Ying Yu instinctively made a judgment. He knew who would come to rescue them. Without a word of nonsense, before his eyes were even open, he managed to say something useful for the current situation.
“…Each terraced level has one… one emergency safety door… one level corresponds to one… one department.”
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes moved. He remembered that the ninth floor was the Neurology Department.
Before the Dream Pen’s effect entered its countdown, Zhou Qi’an quickly said a few words into the pen. Ying Yu, still on his back, heard him and his eyelids twitched.
The next second, the [Universal Door Card] was swiped lightly on the door.
The safety door, which had no buttons around it at all, slowly opened.
Zhou Qi’an rushed out in one go. Shen Zhiyi brought up the rear, and the shadow was responsible for closing the door. The twisted, pursuing patients behind them slammed against the door, frantically pounding and slapping it.
“Finally…” The moment he successfully escaped, Zhou Qi’an let out a slight sigh of relief.
“Clap, clap.”
The sound of applause came from ahead, unexpectedly, drowning out the dull thud of the monsters hitting the door.
Zhou Qi’an’s body stiffened slightly.
He turned around. What met his eyes were several white coats and nurses. Mr. Si was still applauding enthusiastically. It was he who had notified the medical staff on the ninth floor not long ago.
Each terraced level had a safety door, but correspondingly, their locations were different and hard to find, and one had to face a large number of patients.
If Zhou Qi’an wanted to escape, he could only return the way he came or go through the ninth floor. Going any further down, the danger factor would be too high.
Based on his understanding of the young man, he would definitely retreat from the ninth floor. Mr. Si showed an exaggerated smile and said meaningfully, “The patients in the intensive care unit have not been very well-behaved recently. Besides the nutrition department, some have escaped from the dispensary.”
Zhou Qi’an’s face darkened.
This was directly labeling them as patients.
The nurse uniform had long been stained beyond recognition by flower juice and leaves during the run. A patient might still have a way out, but if it were a nursing aide who deliberately let people out, the situation would be much more serious.
Nursing aides and dispensary patients also had no bracelets. Mr. Si was reminding him to endure, to obediently play the role of a patient.
Of course, the other party’s intentions were by no means good.
The sign hanging ahead proved he had not remembered incorrectly. This floor was the Neurology Department. The large characters written in red blood were shocking.
The last person who had targeted his brain like this was the Ghost Market manager.
The pathological paleness on the faces of the surrounding NPCs far surpassed their white coats. The leading doctor, with nurses in tow, walked over step by step. Each step exuded a terrifyingly oppressive feeling.
[Congratulations on discovering the Neurology Department]
[The neurologist is willing to temporarily accept you as patients of this department]
[You will undergo twenty minutes of brain treatment]
The prompt made Zhou Qi’an’s expression colorful. The treatment was starting before a diagnosis was even made?
The College Student in Shen Zhiyi’s hand suddenly woke up. “…Are we saved?”
He asked weakly.
The fragrance of flowers in the air didn’t seem so obvious anymore.
The College Student remembered seeing Brother Zhou’s figure in a daze… the other had turned a bit blue.
He had seen the azure version of Zhou Qi’an when he went to feed the fish in the lake.
Thank heavens, Brother Zhou had led them out of the tiger’s den.
“Where are we…”
Where are we? The instance, the instance passage, or… back in reality?
Zhou Qi’an: “…”
You should just stay unconscious.
__
Author’s Note:
Zhou Qi’an: Just got out of the tiger’s den and now I’m in the wolf’s den. A bit tired.
College Student: Let me handle it.
Zhou Qi’an: ???
