WTNL Chapter 25

Fukang Hospital
Chapter 25: Mom, you look so beautiful

This word “Mommy” rendered Wen Jianyan speechless.

He didn’t expect that in a short five minutes, he would go from an innocent, single young man to the mother of a child whose status as human or ghost was unknown.

Is this logical?!

But the next second, Wen Jianyan suddenly realized he couldn’t move.

That bruised, purplish little hand tightly gripped the hem of his clothes.

An irresistible force struck, and his body, as if controlled, stepped forward one step at a time.

Every inch of muscle in his body tensed, every nerve screaming in resistance, trying to fight against this invisible, compelling force. But it was all to no avail; he couldn’t break free at all.

Wen Jianyan could only mechanically move his feet, walking stiffly forward along the corridor.

In this situation, he couldn’t even reach into his pocket for his phone, let alone open the shop to buy items.

Crap, crap, crap.

Wen Jianyan rolled his eyes, struggling to look around, trying to find some way out—

Suddenly, his gaze paused, landing on the glass door they had just passed.

Reflected in the glass was the young man’s blurry figure. His movements were stiff and sluggish, walking forward slowly like a marionette. Beside him, a pitch-black, semi-blurred small shadow could faintly be seen.

Like a child.

The proportion between the head and the body was unbalanced. The head was exceptionally large, but the body was thin and small, looking exceptionally deformed and bizarre. A bloody, mangled umbilical cord hung down, tightly wrapping around the young man’s body, dragging him forward.

In that instant, Wen Jianyan felt a chill rush up his spine, his hairs standing on end.

He had a feeling… something bad was going to happen.

However, no matter how anxious he was internally, his body still uncontrollably walked forward, leaving the Obstetrics Department step by step.

Wen Jianyan watched helplessly as he passed the duty room and walked straight towards the Gynecology and Obstetrics Treatment Center.

His body expertly turned a corner, pushed open the door, and walked into a prenatal examination room.

The room was brightly lit, but it was far more unnerving than pitch darkness.

Various anatomical diagrams of reproductive organs were posted on the walls. In the center of the room was a gynecological examination bed that one could lie face up on, surrounded by blue curtains. To the side was a machine for ultrasound examinations, which had started up at some point, emitting a buzzing sound.

Wen Jianyan lay down on it uncontrollably.

The clothes on his abdomen flipped up, revealing his fair, flat lower belly. That baby-hand-sized bruise had spread, almost covering his entire lower abdomen. Blue and purple, as if he had been viciously punched several times, it looked exceptionally shocking under the bright lights.

“Bzz… bzz…”

The ultrasound machine next to him started operating automatically.

A black-and-white image of the abdominal cavity soon appeared on the small screen. However, unlike a normal ultrasound image, Wen Jianyan could clearly see the face of his “child” this time.

A massive head, a malnourished-looking body.

It pressed its face tightly against the screen, as if wanting to drill out of it. Its blurry facial features moved amidst the black-and-white contact points, as if smiling.

Its mouth opened and closed, the lip movements seeming to say—

“Mommy.”

Wen Jianyan: “…”

A layer of cold sweat broke out on his back. He swallowed hard, his throat feeling dry and a bit painful.

“Hello.”

Wen Jianyan twitched the corners of his mouth, forcing himself to reveal the most natural smile possible:

“I wonder when I will be able to meet you. My baby.”

He needed to know how much time he had left before he was done for, so he could decide how to escape next.

“Click.”

The ultrasound machine automatically turned off, and the entire room fell into an unnerving dead silence.

The next second, Wen Jianyan felt something icy cold grab his finger, and a baby’s voice rang in his ear: “We’ll meet very soon, Mommy.”

He quickly glanced down.

That bruised, purplish little hand tightly gripping him was much more solid than it had been just now. He could almost vaguely see a wrist, as if it was rapidly acquiring life and substance.

“Mommy, once you give birth to me, we can be together forever.”

The child’s voice sounded exceptionally innocent, yet inexplicably carried a hair-raising creepiness: “Mommy, do you want to be with me forever?”

“Of course.”

Wen Jianyan answered without hesitation.

He moved his fingers with difficulty, sensing the condition of his body, and tried his best to answer in a deeply affectionate and loving tone: “The person Mommy loves most in the world is you. Of course we will be together forever.”

“That’s great!”

The ghost baby let out a “giggle.”

Wen Jianyan discovered that as the other party’s mood changed, he gradually regained a little autonomy over his body.

He inconspicuously rolled his eyes, looking towards the window to the side. The bright light fell on the window, and he could vaguely see the reflection of the room.

Wen Jianyan could clearly see his body lying on the bed, and that pitch-black baby clinging tightly to him.

The ghost baby rested its deformed head intimately on his shoulder, staring intently at Wen Jianyan with those pure black eyeballs, giggling:

“Mommy, you look so pretty.”

Wen Jianyan secretly moved his fingers while calmly replying: “Really? You must just be saying that to make me happy.”

“I am not!”

The ghost baby pressed closer, almost touching the young man’s face.

Wen Jianyan could almost smell the fishy, cold, rotting scent radiating from it.

The ghost baby giggled:

“You are the prettiest mommy I’ve ever seen, prettier than all the other kids’ mommies!”

…Other kids’ mommies?

Wen Jianyan froze, an unbelievable thought suddenly flashing through his mind.

He asked tentatively, “Have you seen other mommies?”

“Of course.” The ghost baby giggled: “But everyone else’s mommies are not as pretty as my mommy, nor as gentle as my mommy.”

Its outline had gradually become clearer.

The massive, livid-black head was pressed tightly against Wen Jianyan’s shoulder. The pure black eyeballs were as big as tennis balls, without a trace of the whites of the eyes. Veins crisscrossed beneath the skin, like an over-inflated balloon that would pop with a light touch.

But for some reason, Wen Jianyan still saw a trace of bizarre infatuation and affection deep within the other party’s pure black eyeballs:

“Besides, Mommy says he loves me and says he will be with me forever. No one else’s mommy has ever said that.”

It hugged Wen Jianyan’s arm:

“—I love Mommy the most.”

“Others?”

Wen Jianyan asked: “Do you have other friends here?”

“Of course.”

“Can I meet them?”

The ghost baby fell silent, seemingly a bit reluctant.

“I want to be involved in my baby’s life,” Wen Jianyan said softly. “Don’t you want me to, baby? Didn’t you say you want to be with Mommy forever?”

“…Okay.”

The ghost baby finally wavered. It took Wen Jianyan’s hand and stood up, reminding him somewhat uneasily: “But Mommy, you can’t let others take you away.”

Led by the other party, Wen Jianyan left the prenatal examination room and walked towards the Neonatal Care Center.

Upon entering this area, Wen Jianyan immediately noticed that this place was vastly different from the other areas.

If the other areas, though almost bizarrely quiet, still fell within the realm of a normal hospital, the feeling this place gave was completely different.

The overhead lights were ghastly white and dim, affected by some unknown force, flickering from time to time and emitting a buzzing sound.

The temperature dropped sharply. The icy, chilling air scraped against the bones like steel blades. Not even a minute after walking in, Wen Jianyan felt as if he had fallen into an ice hole, the heat all over his body sucked away.

Soon, a tightly closed door was right in front of them.

The walls outside the room were painted with small animals and children, and quite a few cute stickers were plastered on them. However, perhaps because too much time had passed, those originally brightly colored pictures had become faded and peeling. The stickers were mottled. What should have been a very cute and childlike scene looked exceptionally twisted and bizarre in the current setting, even giving off a bit of a creepy children’s cult vibe.

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, watching his hand push open the door uncontrollably.

This was a nursery. The space inside was exceptionally wide, with small beds neatly arranged. Not far away was a small playroom, the floor covered with colorful sponge mats, and some plush toys and the like scattered about.

But… what caught Wen Jianyan’s eye were not these things.

It was the densely packed, livid-black ghost babies inside the entire nursery.

Some were lying in the cribs, some were crawling on the floor, and some were stuck to the walls. Every single one had a massive head and a thin body. Hearing the sound of the door opening, pairs of terrifying pure black eyeballs looked in this direction simultaneously. Even though Wen Jianyan was mentally prepared, he still couldn’t help but break out in goosebumps.

“Mommy…”

“New mommy…”

Whispers arose from all directions.

The ghost baby holding Wen Jianyan’s hand possessively hugged his arm: “This is my mommy; none of you are allowed to snatch him!”

Babbling whispers arose from all corners of the nursery, as if communicating in a language Wen Jianyan couldn’t understand.

Heavy darkness flowed everywhere in the room, giving off an extremely unsettling feeling.

Perhaps because it felt the other party had arrived in its territory, the ghost baby seemed to let its guard down. Although the umbilical cord on its body was still wrapped around Wen Jianyan’s waist, it let go of his arm.

Wen Jianyan was suddenly able to move freely.

He inconspicuously breathed a sigh of relief, rotated his stiff wrist, and slowly shifted his standing posture.

Perhaps due to the change in angle, Wen Jianyan suddenly saw someone leaning against the wall, sitting in the shadows in a corner of the playroom not far away. It should be a man. His entire person was hidden deep in the darkness, his head drooping lifelessly, his belly bulging high, looking exceptionally miserable and pitiful.

“!”

This was probably the “other mommy” the ghost baby mentioned earlier.

Wen Jianyan turned his head to glance at the room full of ghost babies in front of him. Taking advantage of the fact that no babies were paying attention to him for the moment, he slowly took a deep breath, silently turned around, and walked toward the man.

As the distance closed, Wen Jianyan recognized the other party’s signature hairstyle: a mohawk.

He realized what was going on.

Oh, so it’s that streamer who made a huge fuss at the hospital entrance and didn’t want to come in.

Seemingly hearing the approaching footsteps, the mohawk guy moved and slowly raised his head.

His face was extremely pale, his cheeks very visibly sunken, and dark circles under his eyes. He looked incredibly haggard. The hem of his nurse uniform was propped up by his bulging belly. The thin clothing close to his body could no longer hide the changes in his body and was pushed upwards, revealing a livid-black belly with bulging veins.

Veins popped on his belly. Beneath the thin skin, dense capillaries could be seen. It seemed something was squirming and struggling beneath the skin, occasionally forming bizarre protrusions, as if it would rip him open and drill out from under his flesh the next second.

The shape vaguely resembled a smiling, deformed baby’s face.

A long umbilical cord was wrapped around the man’s waist, stretching far into the crowd of ghost babies.

The mohawk guy’s eyes lit up the moment he saw Wen Jianyan.

But soon, his gaze landed on the umbilical cord around Wen Jianyan’s waist. That glimmer of hope extinguished, turning dark once again.

Wen Jianyan took out his phone and opened the quest list.

Sure enough, the side quest had updated.

[Optional Side Quest refreshed: Find the intern nurses who patrolled the third floor in the previous round.
Completion: 1/3]

The mohawk guy clearly misunderstood Wen Jianyan’s action.

He let out a weak, cold snort: “Don’t even think about it. There are no items in the system shop that can solve this situation. Even if there are, the price is not something we streamers can afford. As long as you are entangled by the umbilical cord, you can’t run away. No matter where you go, that ghost baby will follow.”

“I’ve done everything I could do.” The mohawk guy spread his arms, letting the other party inspect his current wretched state: “Look, I’m still here.”

His gaze landed on Wen Jianyan’s abdomen, a look of realization dawning on his face: “Judging by this, you must have just been entangled recently, right?”

“Right.”

Wen Jianyan nodded: “And you?”

The mohawk guy twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile that couldn’t really be called a smile, and answered dryly: “Over an hour now.”

He reached into his pocket with a trembling hand, took out a flattened pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and placed it between his lips, saying somewhat vaguely: “Based on my experience, two hours should be a boundary point in this instance. It probably won’t be long before I give birth.”

After saying this, he twisted his lips into a sneer, seemingly finding his own choice of words highly amusing.

Wen Jianyan had heard the term “boundary point” in the Streamer Hall.

It meant that in some instances, the time node itself was a hint. Sometimes it was a “point in time,” just like the previous instance Wen Jianyan cleared, [Decai Middle School], where the critical time point was midnight. Once this boundary was crossed, the instance would undergo irreversible changes.

There were also instances where a “period of time” served as the boundary point, just like this [Fukang Private General Hospital] instance. It was likely divided into different segments by a “two-hour” boundary. In such instances, most game rules would abide by this “boundary point.”

For example, patrolling, for example, giving birth.

The mohawk guy offered the flattened cigarette pack.

Wen Jianyan shook his head, signaling that he didn’t smoke. He narrowed his eyes, casting a thoughtful gaze at the man before him.

Whether it was his state or the information he knew, the other party didn’t seem like a rookie streamer entering an instance for the first time.

He cut straight to the point and asked:

“Which instance is this for you?”

“The fifth.”

Perhaps knowing that his end was near, there was no need to hide this information, so the mohawk guy answered very cleanly and neatly.

Wen Jianyan made a rough estimate in his head.

If he had successfully completed four instances, even if the unlock progress in each instance wasn’t high, with the live broadcast points accumulating game after game, he should be at least a D-rank streamer by now.

In other words, the contents of his shop were unlocked an entire level more than his own, and the number of points he could bring in was far higher than his own one thousand.

However, since the other party wasn’t a newbie, then why…

Seemingly seeing through Wen Jianyan’s confusion, the mohawk guy raised his eyes and took a drag of his cigarette. The glowing red ember flickered in the darkness: “Are you thinking of asking why, since it’s not my first time entering an instance, my reaction at the hospital entrance was so extreme?”

Wen Jianyan nodded without concealing it, affirming the other party’s guess: “Yes.”

The mohawk guy chuckled, flicking his cigarette ash onto a plush toy. The grayish-white ash fell on the toy’s dull glass eye, burning a small scorch mark: “If we can get out alive, I’ll tell you. How about that?”

“Deal.”

Wen Jianyan nodded casually.

The mohawk guy looked up, somewhat surprised, his gaze landing on the young man standing before him.

He had clearly just listened to the words he said, but for some reason, the expression on this young man’s face didn’t change much. Instead, he looked calm and composed, as if completely indifferent to the perilous situation he was in. His figure was tall and straight, exuding an extremely strong and calm aura. Even the mohawk guy, who believed he was dead for sure, couldn’t help but feel a bit swayed by him.

He asked:

“Speaking of which… which instance is this for you?”

Wen Jianyan smiled slightly. The interplay of light and shadow from the corridor outside fell into the depths of his light-colored eyes, like floating crushed gold, carrying a hint of mischief and mystery:

“If we can get out alive, I’ll tell you.”

“…”

The mohawk guy was stunned by the other party’s attitude. He subconsciously straightened up, narrowing his eyes in surprise and uncertainty, sizing up the young man standing before him from a completely new angle:

Damn, so arrogant.

Could this seemingly frail, pale, and skinny young man be…

A bigshot?!

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room.

[…]

[I don’t know why, but seeing this scene, I suddenly have a strong premonition that this dog scammer is definitely up to no good.]

[Me too!]

[+1]

[Based on past experience, the streamer is definitely going to cause trouble again!]

[Hahahahahaha the real bigshot: A D-rank streamer who has already cleared four instances; the fake bigshot: A dog scammer who has only cleared one instance, painlessly became a mom, spews lies, and deceives people as easily as drinking water.]

[I have a premonition, there’s going to be a new victim soon!]

[Welcome, newbie, to the Wen Jianyan Victims family! Our atmosphere here is warm, loving, healthy, and harmonious. If you don’t believe me, look at how happily the ghosts and streamers from the last instance smiled with the streamer!]

__

Author’s Note:

Wen Jianyan, a pretty single male mom who got pregnant out of wedlock, a heroic mother who still comes out to scam people for milk powder money while pregnant!

A certain future father who is still slumbering but unexpectedly has both a wife and child: “?”

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