Kill them all?
If I had that ability, I’d already be the director of this place. Would I still need to be so deceptive here?
Zhou Qi’an accepted the bracelet with a smile. This thing might come in very handy. “I will definitely work hard.”
Anyway, no quest was generated, so he’d just make an empty promise for now.
Seeing that he was relatively sensible, the killing intent in the female patient’s eyes decreased by a few tenths of a point.
Zhou Qi’an had originally wanted to make a few more empty promises to probe for information, but the female patient’s mental state was truly problematic. She began to speak incoherently and would occasionally think about smashing things.
“The fragrance of flowers, do you smell it? The suffocating fragrance of flowers!” The woman glared fiercely at Zhou Qi’an. “Burn them, burn them all for me!”
“…”
·
At 5:40 in the morning, with no sign of dawn, a broadcast suddenly echoed through the empty hospital building, each echo infinitely amplified.
“Today is June 5th, XX year, twenty-four degrees Celsius. Please pay attention to keeping warm.”
“On this new day, we hope the patients can maintain a positive attitude. Orderlies must also continue to care for the patients attentively. We hereby call on all orderlies to learn from the orderly of Ward 4.”
“This orderly has a heart that shines like gold and has received high praise from the patient…”
The players in their various wards had different expressions.
What normal hospital would have this kind of broadcast? It made it seem as if only patients and orderlies were left.
The young man, Zhang Zhuzi, was changing a patient’s bedsheets. He had a strange smile on his face after hearing the broadcast.
The spots for the special inpatient department were limited. On the surface, this broadcast was meant to give the players a sense of crisis, but it was actually more of a psychological suggestion, making everyone subconsciously think that a broadcast would sound at this time every morning.
Alarms in instances easily attract unclean things. It would be interesting if someone let their guard down and didn’t check the alarm.
“Waking up at 5:40 is a death rule.”
The young man’s playful expression sank as he thought of something. That jellyfish-head really had some skills, to actually make a patient choose ‘satisfied’ on the opinion book.
“How on earth did he do it…”
He couldn’t figure it out.
In the next ward, after hearing the broadcast, Zhao Sanxun stared at the fog outside. There was no trace of a smile, only a touch of gravity in his expression.
A moment later, he turned and went directly downstairs, leaving through the back door.
On the other side, Mu Ge was not in his own ward but had gone to find Wangcai, whispering something to him.
Everyone had their own thoughts. Only Shen Zhiyi was the most pragmatic. He paid little attention to the broadcast and was looking for a place for Zhou Qi’an to get food.
Han Li was also looking for the canteen.
The two happened to meet on the first floor. Today, the lobby had a bit more life. A few medical staff could occasionally be seen. The hospital lights were also on during the day. White coats cast shadows on the ground as the staff walked around numbly.
A dining cart was parked at the entrance.
Han Li felt a chill upon seeing Shen Zhiyi’s blood-red eyes, and she forced herself to stand still.
Shen Zhiyi glanced at the menu. Meat dishes were more than three times the price of vegetable dishes. In games, cheap things were never good. He ultimately chose the meat dish.
Han Li also ordered two portions of braised pork. Just as she was about to hurry upstairs, a cold voice came from behind.
“Wait a moment.”
Han Li forced a smile. Just as she was about to be deceptively polite, a few casual words from Shen Zhiyi made her expression suddenly change.
A moment later, Han Li came back to her senses and nodded. “Okay.”
However, when she looked up, Shen Zhiyi was already gone.
Third floor.
Carrying the boxed meal, Shen Zhiyi passed by Ward 4 and knocked lightly on the door.
An entire night of caregiving work, Qi’an must be tired.
The door opened quickly.
Shen Zhiyi’s hand, which was passing the food, paused slightly.
Even with the disguise, he still recognized that the person who came to get the food was a woman. She was holding a broom, and it was clear she had been cleaning not long ago. The sound of yawning came from the hospital bed. Zhou Qi’an was lying on the bed with a calm demeanor and turned his head upon hearing the noise.
“?”
“??”
Shen Zhiyi’s eyes narrowed slightly. His life is quite comfortable.
…He even had someone to clean for him.
To cooperate with Zhou Qi’an and avoid others discovering their acquaintance, he didn’t linger in front of the ward for too long. He just took a deep look at the hospital bed before leaving.
Zhou Qi’an, who was being waited on hand and foot: “…”
He felt that the last glance was somewhat unsettling.
The woman had been confined for a long time and retained some interest in simple daily activities. As for the newly delivered boxed meal, she was completely uninterested, though she did stare at Zhou Qi’an and swallow her saliva a few times.
Letting her gaze at him like food, Zhou Qi’an was sure the woman wouldn’t act immediately. He calmly ate a few bites of rice and patiently waited for time to pass.
The second hand went round and round, and finally, it was almost eight o’clock.
The corner of Zhou Qi’an’s mouth curled up. It was almost time for the patient’s outdoor activity.
“The day’s plan starts in the morning. Let’s set off,” he proactively invited.
…
All the windows in the ward were welded shut. The fog outside was even thicker than it looked from the window.
During the free outdoor activity time, the air didn’t feel fresh at all. A thin figure was steadily following behind a special wheelchair. All patients had to be bound to wheelchairs with restraints when they went out.
However, at this moment, no patient was wearing restraints. Zhou Qi’an was wearing dirty clothes and had reverted to his original hair color, having temporarily switched back with the woman.
To avoid direct contact with the dirty clothes stained with the flesh mound monster’s blood, he wore two extra layers of patient gowns underneath. Even so, he didn’t feel hot.
A hint of coldness permeated the air.
The woman controlled the wheelchair herself. Zhou Qi’an was pushing another cart, which was transporting the flesh mound monster killed last night.
After leaving the ordinary inpatient building, he was heading to another building, said to be the special inpatient department.
Following the woman’s directions, Zhou Qi’an walked through the vast white fog. Without daylight to illuminate the way, it was dark and hazy. He resisted the urge to take out his holy artifact for light. The nearby air seemed poisonous. Even with deliberately controlled breathing, the further he walked, the more his body couldn’t take it.
The feeling of exhaustion made Zhou Qi’an think of the meat and bone dish in the morning’s boxed meal.
He felt like he was about to fall apart too.
After walking for about five minutes, Zhou Qi’an suddenly realized that the distance between the buildings might not be as wide as he had imagined. It was just that the fog inexplicably brought a sense of fatigue. When a person is in a highly tense state, their sense of time and space can become unbalanced.
“We’re here.” The female patient’s voice became hoarse as she looked ahead. “That’s it. I can’t be away from the ward for too long.”
Although she didn’t show anything, Zhou Qi’an knew that danger lay ahead.
Because the female patient turned her wheelchair and left without looking back.
Zhou Qi’an looked up and could vaguely see the outline of a building. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything clearly, like a layer overlapping with the fog, its edges smoothed out.
Fortunately, with every half-meter he moved forward, the visibility seemed to expand by half a meter as well.
He pushed the cart up a dedicated side ramp and finally entered the main door. A refreshing fragrance drifted over.
The interior of this building was not filled with fog, and his vision suddenly opened up.
Different from what he had imagined, the surroundings were dead silent, with no strict security.
The ground was covered with police tape and scattered bloody footprints. The edge of the medicine collection window in front was covered in blood, with half a dried ear hanging above it.
It wasn’t hard to imagine that a very terrifying emergency had once occurred here. Someone, in a panic while escaping, had even tried to squeeze through the small hole of the locked medicine collection point.
“This special inpatient department is quite special.”
A separate building. He had thought it would be high-end and grand inside, but who knew it would look like this.
Some of the bloodstains were still relatively fresh. Zhou Qi’an was a little worried about the college student and Ying Yu.
As he was about to reach a corner, as if sensing something, he gently shoved the cart forward and went around the edge himself first. The next second, Zhou Qi’an directly summoned his cane and struck diagonally.
The person hiding around the corner repeatedly stepped back, raising their hands and saying, “Calm down, I’m one of us!”
Zhou Qi’an took a closer look. “Zhang Zhuzi?”
With the voice changer, even the slight surprise was processed into a soft tone.
The young man patted his chest. “You scared me.”
The blue strands of hair fluttered due to his recent movements. Zhou Qi’an’s androgynous face remained guarded. “What are you doing here?”
The young man was speechless. “I came here before you.”
In terms of direction, the other party wasn’t lying. Zhou Qi’an put away his cane.
“A two-and-a-half-star difficulty, of course I have to explore the map.” The young man had a natural baby face. He chuckled, “Remember what the wealthy woman said? Not just anyone can go to the special inpatient department. Translated, that means it’s possible to go.”
This translation was even better at rounding up than his own. Zhou Qi’an secretly cursed, “Madman.”
The young man seemed to know that Zhou Qi’an was looking at him as if he were a madman. He enjoyed it when people looked at him this way.
The curve of his lips relaxed a bit. The young man suddenly looked in a direction. “Since you’re here, why hide?”
A few seconds after his voice fell, a figure slowly emerged from under a one-stop help desk. It was surprisingly Zhao Sanxun.
Zhou Qi’an noticed that Zhao Sanxun had many knife wounds on his arm. As he walked over, his fingernails remained dug into his palms, as if he were forcibly enduring something.
Apparently, after being injured by the dagger stained with the woman’s blood last night, Zhao Sanxun’s body had an adverse reaction.
“Brother, you’ve come at the right time.” Zhou Qi’an reached out as if to pat his shoulder.
Zhao Sanxun dodged with a grim face, while staring intently at Zhou Qi’an, not missing any expression on his face.
The place the other party was about to pat was exactly where he had released the listening device last night.
This shouldn’t be a coincidence.
Zhou Qi’an sneered inwardly. When he changed his clothes back this morning, he had noticed an inconspicuous crystal on his shoulder.
However, judging from Zhao Sanxun’s mistaken target last night, this thing didn’t work in the ward.
This was a high-level game.
Zhao Sanxun was indeed not to be underestimated. If it weren’t for the female patient’s directions, he might not have been able to find this place without relying on the holy artifact for light.
Zhou Qi’an thought of something and suddenly narrowed his eyes.
Zhao Sanxun was clearly injured, yet he chose to come alone, without his two followers.
After a short while, Mu Ge also arrived.
What surprised Zhou Qi’an was that not long after Mu Ge came in, another old acquaintance arrived through the fog—Han Li.
Seeing them, Han Li’s red lips parted slightly. “Don’t all gather together.”
If an NPC came, wouldn’t they all be caught in one go?
This sentence was indeed effective. Zhang Zhuzi, being bold and skilled, was the first to leave the group, surprisingly taking the elevator directly upstairs. Zhao Sanxun and Mu Ge chose to take the security stairs.
Everyone tacitly avoided moving with Zhou Qi’an. They probably guessed the reason why Zhou Qi’an was moving with a cart; it was nothing more than to find a logical chain. If a nurse saw them, they could make up a story about the flesh mound monster.
But there were pros and cons. The cart was too noisy and would easily attract attention wherever it went.
After confirming that everyone had left, Zhou Qi’an’s gaze fell on Han Li.
“I’ve temporarily teamed up with that guy named Mu Tianbai. I was able to get here thanks to his directions.”
Han Li took the initiative to talk about what happened when she went to buy food in the morning. Mu Tianbai first found her and told her a speculation.
The appearance of more medical staff in the lobby this morning meant there was a possibility of triggering side quests. During the process of completing the quests, the instance difficulty would most likely increase.
“…To increase the survival rate, we must cooperate. One person intercepts side quests in the ordinary inpatient department, while the other explores the map while the difficulty level is not yet high.”
“That man chose me probably because he thought I was easy to manipulate.” This was also the reason why Han Li chose to tell Zhou Qi’an everything. The young man in front of her was her greatest guarantee of survival.
Hearing this, Zhou Qi’an’s gaze flickered slightly.
Han Li was being used as a messenger by Shen Zhiyi. The latter used Han Li as a partner probably to further conceal his relationship with him.
This way, no matter who wanted to harm him, the hidden Shen Zhiyi could become a trump card.
The old ginger is spicier.
No wonder Zhao Sanxun and Mu Ge came alone. That unruly young man was definitely not a lone wolf as he appeared. Zhou Qi’an guessed that he and the remaining A’ling were also in a hidden cooperative relationship, one in the light and one in the dark.
“Compared to these people, my skills are still shallow.” Zhou Qi’an smiled bitterly. “I didn’t consider the side quests at all.”
Han Li comforted him, “Even the wise are not always free from error.”
She felt a strange sense of comfort inside. Even Zhou Qi’an hadn’t considered it, so it wasn’t a big deal that her own intelligence was being crushed by the instance.
“By the way, what are you doing here?”
Since he hadn’t thought of the connection between side quests and instance difficulty, a normal person’s choice should have been to explore the ordinary inpatient department first.
“I’m here to kill Dr. Z.”
Han Li was bewildered. “Who is Dr. Z?”
Zhou Qi’an: “Probably the boss of this instance.”
At this moment, the air was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
It took Han Li a long time to find her voice again. She said drily, “It’s been a while, you’ve become more humorous.”
She tried to laugh a couple of times, but seeing Zhou Qi’an’s extremely calm expression, she couldn’t laugh anymore.
“Seriously?!”
Zhou Qi’an’s face was calm.
Side quests and main quests were like the branches and trunk of a tree. Of course, the straight, upward trunk was more important.
Currently, the only main quest was to get transferred to the special inpatient department. While the instance difficulty was not yet high, he had to move towards this goal and see if he could trigger other main quests in advance.
“Let’s go.”
According to the prompt after getting the bracelet last night, the nutrition department and the special inpatient department were in the same building. He planned to go to the clinical nutrition department based on the information on the patient’s bracelet to see what was going on with the flesh mound monster.
The birth of these monsters must be related to the mysterious Dr. Z.
Zhou Qi’an: “I’ll take you on a wide, open road.”
Han Li: “…”
Please, just shut up.
When Zhou Qi’an mentioned the nutrition department, Han Li’s expression was strange. “The inpatient department has this department?”
“Anyway, the patients in this department look quite nutritious.”
Saying that, Zhou Qi’an asked her for gloves.
There were many special insulation-type glove items. The square-faced man had borrowed them from Shen Zhiyi before. He didn’t want to spend points on such small items.
Han Li handed him a pair.
Zhou Qi’an put them on, then took out the special backpack Ying Yu had given him, picked up the flesh mound monster, and forcefully stuffed it inside. Since there was no staff in the lobby, carrying it on his back was more convenient than using a cart.
Han Li watched as the young man kneaded the soft, slippery flesh-mud into the bag like jelly. She almost couldn’t breathe.
“This is…”
“A patient from the nutrition department… Let’s go.”
Time was limited. Eleven o’clock was medicine time, and the nurse would come. They had to go back before then.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t delay for a moment and quickly rushed forward.
Han Li didn’t want to be left behind either and hurriedly followed.
It was a mess everywhere. They couldn’t find any signs. The nutrition department usually wouldn’t be on a very high floor. Zhou Qi’an decided to start from the first floor and slowly search upwards.
The corridor floor was covered in blood and mud. There were terrifying scratch marks on the walls, and “HELP” was written in large letters with blood.
Han Li caught sight of half a skeleton and her scalp tingled. “The time of death looks to be a mix of new and old.”
It was hard to imagine what had happened here.
Zhou Qi’an analyzed, “Players should have been here before. With so much blood, many NPCs should have died too.”
Players wouldn’t leave letters on the wall in a life-or-death situation.
The corridor was dark and silent. The others were nowhere to be seen. Han Li couldn’t help but wrap her clothes tighter and muttered, “How low is the air conditioning in this place?”
Besides the sinister atmosphere, the temperature inside the hospital itself was strangely low and seemed to be continuing to drop.
A door to a department office was open ahead. The two carefully turned in.
“Hiss—” Han Li sucked in a breath. How was it colder in this room than in the corridor?
Two corpses lay on the floor. Due to the low temperature, the bodies looked quite fresh. Han Li was in charge of keeping watch. Zhou Qi’an quickly checked the bodies. Their skin was covered in sliding fleshy bumps. It wasn’t as exaggerated as the flesh mound monster, but it was enough to make one’s SAN drop.
He didn’t find any inpatient bracelets or other identifying items on the bodies. The deceased’s original clothes had rotted in the bodily fluids from the burst tumors.
He couldn’t determine their identity, and there was no department sign on the door.
Zhou Qi’an frowned, feeling that something was not right.
Without lingering in one office, the two ran to the next one. They checked three or four offices in a row. Besides the bodies, they didn’t find any useful information.
Han Li was so cold her eyelashes were about to frost over. “The first floor doesn’t seem to have much. Why don’t we go up and take a look?”
Zhou Qi’an, lost in thought, re-examined the office. Besides the blank medical records scattered on the floor, there wasn’t even a pen on the desk. The other offices were the same. There were soil particles on the windowsill, indicating that there used to be flowerpots, but now there was nothing.
After a moment, he lowered his eyes to hide his contemplation and bent his cold fingers. “To the second floor.”
The second floor was even colder than the first.
In the dark and oppressive corridor, the ground was covered in filthy bloodstains. There was even a corpse hanging directly on the handrail, its mouth wide open, continuously dripping stinking liquid.
The two started checking from the first room.
Similar to downstairs, there were only bodies, and nothing else could be discerned. The second room, the third room—
When they reached the fourth room, Zhou Qi’an’s footsteps paused outside the office.
Han Li immediately became nervous. This office didn’t seem much different from the previous ones. She followed Zhou Qi’an’s gaze and saw a crystal ball on the desk.
While she was still observing the crystal ball, Zhou Qi’an glanced at the already withered flowers on the windowsill, and finally, his gaze stopped on some faint footprints on the floor.
His expression suddenly changed. “Run!”
Without a hint of hesitation, Zhou Qi’an practically leaped over several flights of stairs, flying downwards.
Han Li subconsciously followed, glancing back midway. She said while panting, “There’s no monster…”
Zhou Qi’an’s pace did not stop.
Of course, he knew there was nothing.
But the danger level of the special inpatient department was bound to be high. From the moment they entered until now, they hadn’t encountered any danger, which was the strangest thing.
The real reason he decided to retreat first was another discovery.
In the previous office, the new version of the skull ring had reacted to the soil residue on the windowsill, proving it was a useful material. There was soil residue, but the entire flowerpot was gone.
All along the way, the offices were practically empty, obviously having been swept clean.
But in that last room, the flower, pen, and small trinkets… all these materials that the ring judged as useful were there.
Connecting these details, it wasn’t hard for Zhou Qi’an to deduce what had happened.
Ying Yu had also been here and had collected materials extensively. Besides Ying Yu, no one would even take soil.
Until a certain moment, the other party discovered something and fled without bothering to continue collecting. Because he left in such a hurry, he accidentally stepped on the corpse fluid on the floor, leaving footprints.
Whatever could make Ying Yu give up collecting materials and turn tail must not be a small problem.
“…Just run without thinking.”
First, leave an escape route and run out, then think.
Although nothing was chasing them, Zhou Qi’an felt immense pressure.
As he ran, the bad premonition in his heart grew stronger, and his speed reached its peak.
In less than twenty seconds, Zhou Qi’an had successfully rushed back to the lobby. The surroundings were more than one degree darker than before. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. The main door, which had been open before, was now tightly shut.
The heavy glass outside was covered with flesh-mound-like monsters. As they rubbed against the glass, translucent, fleshy bumps, similar to insect eggs, could be vaguely seen, with turbid liquid sloshing inside.
The escape route was gone.
__
Author’s note:
One minute ago:
Zhou Qi’an: Ying Yu ran, so I have to run too.
One minute later:
Zhou Qi’an: …I ran too late.
