Zhou Qi’an’s hand, holding the newspaper, paused.
Had his luck turned? To find a clue for a hidden item just by reading a newspaper—this kind of manna from heaven made him a little scared.
Goosebumps broke out on Zhou Qi’an’s skin.
Could changing one’s name to “College Student” make them luckier?
Kerr noticed the change in his expression and immediately stared at Zhou Qi’an, “Did you discover something?”
Casually handing the newspaper back to him, Zhou Qi’an shook his head. “It’s just a bit of a shame. It only introduces the general background of the instance. However, the leader of the Cyclamen Plan is also named Zhang, so it could be the person we’re looking for.”
Contrary to his calm expression, Zhou Qi’an was rapidly pondering things in private.
Ying Yu had said that their wave of players had suffered from internal conflict because someone had simultaneously discovered a clue to a hidden item. However, most of that group was dead now, so the item certainly hadn’t been retrieved.
Zhou Qi’an glanced sideways at Kerr.
Kerr was surely completely unaware of the hidden item; otherwise, he wouldn’t have shown him the newspaper.
Identity.
Zhou Qi’an instantly understood. The identity of a special ward nursing assistant was the key; the earlier system prompt had specifically emphasized these words. Perhaps other identities could also unlock the clue, but definitely not that of an ordinary nursing assistant.
Under the constraints of the contract item, Kerr revealed another clue, “We also found a fragment of a notebook. It records that water from Xianlai Lake was extracted to be used as an indoor hot spring, located on the basement level of the outpatient building.”
So the basement level was very likely the recuperation area for patients in the special inpatient department.
“…I’ve told you everything I was supposed to.” Kerr glanced at his arm, which was splashed with the flesh mound monster’s fluid and was rotting into something resembling a honeycomb briquette, as he waited for Zhou Qi’an’s remedy.
If he couldn’t provide one, it would be a breach of contract.
Then he could just wait to be eliminated by the contract item.
Zhou Qi’an never broke a promise he made. He took out the Cyclamen extract Ying Yu had given him. “I can give you a third of it.”
Like a professional salesman, he even specifically stated its effects, “A moderate oral dose will slow the spread of the virus. Sprinkling a little on your body will also make the monsters a bit gentler towards you due to the scent.”
The scent of cyclamen would make monsters fall into a dream state, and they had a subconscious resistance to it. Of course, you could have too much of a good thing; you couldn’t sprinkle too much, or you’d risk knocking yourself out first.
Kerr took the portion he was given, a sly joy flashing in his eyes.
From start to finish, aside from agreeing to backstab Ah Ling, he had only given up a few clues about the instance’s background.
Zhou Qi’an took in his expression.
If it had been Zhao Sanxun who had suddenly made a deal so favorable to himself, he would have immediately become suspicious. Kerr’s cunning was still far behind his.
At this moment, the College Student weakly broke the silence, “Should we go down first, or wait for them to join us?”
“We can’t rely on others for everything,” Zhou Qi’an lectured him. “We have Mr. Kerr to lead the way for us.”
The corner of Kerr’s mouth, which had just turned up, froze.
The only way to the basement level was by elevator.
Once inside the car, Zhou Qi’an consciously stood behind Kerr, with the College Student third, forming a skewer-like line.
Kerr cursed inwardly, ‘What’s wrong with them?’
With so few people in such a small space, was there any need to hide?
When the doors opened, none of the three stepped out immediately.
The entire basement level really did have the feel of a healing sanctuary. The lighting wasn’t the crimson or deathly white of the inpatient department but a very harmonious warm tone.
However, like the sun on the open ground when they first arrived, it shone on their bodies and sent a chill to their bones.
Kerr walked with extreme caution. A normal hospital would never build a therapeutic spring underground.
Zhou Qi’an continued to follow obediently behind him.
The layout of the basement was somewhat similar to the tenth-floor intensive care unit. There was a circular hall in the middle with a passage on each side. At the end of each passage was a door, and no one knew what was behind them.
Zhou Qi’an looked at the College Student. “Pick a direction.”
The College Student was more hesitant than ever before, finally saying, “The left.”
After choosing, he seemed to have more to say to Zhou Qi’an but was cut off by a wave of his hand.
Zhou Qi’an had also noticed that the College Student’s luck was somewhat suppressed in this instance, but there was no other way right now. “It’s fine, we have Mr. Kerr.”
Kerr: “…”
Kerr your mom.
The three-person team maintained their perfect skewer formation.
Kerr wasn’t an idiot and wasn’t willing to selflessly walk at the front, but Zhou Qi’an was very good at managing the situation. He wasn’t just being a coward; he held the Cyclamen extract and muttered that if they ran into trouble, he would throw it, which could buy them some time to escape.
Aside from the players, who were invaders, the dream belonged only to the patients. There were no medical staff in the circular hall and corridors, which made it easier for them to move around.
The corridor was so quiet that only the three of them could be heard breathing.
Zhou Qi’an’s gaze wandered to the ceiling more than once. The ceiling height of the outpatient building was even greater than that of the special inpatient department, far exceeding a normal gap, making the whole space feel even colder and more sinister.
This ceiling height gave him a bad feeling for some reason.
They continued forward and finally reached the sticky-feeling door at the end.
“Don’t worry, open it. We’re your strong backup,” Zhou Qi’an cheered Kerr on.
A backup should be at the back.
“…” For a moment, Kerr sincerely wanted to take him down with him.
Cursing inwardly, he prepared himself and gently pushed the door with his other hand.
Screech—
All three of them jumped.
The sound of the door opening was extremely loud, a grating noise that echoed throughout the entire basement level.
Since it was already pushed, instead of running, they all instinctively peeked inside.
The interior was bright, a classic buffet restaurant design. The difference was that there were almost no hot dishes to be seen; it was all a cold and fresh section. Large quantities of fresh seafood were laid out on transparent crystal ice.
There were only a few patients as diners.
The cold air from the seafood section blurred the writing on their wristbands, and the temperature was not much higher than in a morgue. The sound of the door opening made the patients turn around slowly, one by one. Kerr tried to seize this last chance to investigate.
“Run!”
Unexpectedly, a cold shout came from behind him—it was Zhou Qi’an.
This shout was mainly to remind the College Student.
The College Student had started running early, and Zhou Qi’an ran fast. Kerr was once again forced into the rearguard position.
As the three of them ran frantically, cold mist constantly rose from under their feet, as if the entire corridor had turned into a freezer section and they were the food placed on display.
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes darkened as he recalled the scene he had just seen. Two of the patients could be identified by their hairstyle and color as old players from the previous wave. The appearances of the other four matched the portraits Ying Yu had provided.
There were only six patients here in total, so they could be directly ruled out. This should be a place Ying Yu had visited in his dream.
It seemed Zhang Xiuxiu was not here.
“A pity…” When Ying Yu woke from the dream, he only remembered the patient information; all scenes from the recuperation were completely wiped clean, otherwise it would have been easier.
A strange sound came from behind them, like the squishing of slime.
Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but look back. He saw that the patients who had arms and legs just moments ago had their bodies instantly melt into a transparent, liquid-slime-like material. It was extremely fluid, spreading out in mid-air into a large, flat, blood-colored gelatinous face that lunged towards them.
“Fuck!”
Zhou Qi’an’s scalp tingled, and he decisively accelerated.
Ding!
Just then, the elevator doors suddenly opened.
Ah Ling and the other two had just escaped the crisis outside, but their luck was truly terrible. They were standing inside the car, conducting a normal initial observation, when suddenly a huge, bloody face flew at them.
“…” This damn jump scare.
No one spoke or asked what was happening. They all adjusted their breathing to their optimal state and sprinted, subconsciously joining the running group.
Amidst the chaotic footsteps, Zhou Qi’an’s eyes darkened slightly. Given the strength of these few people, it shouldn’t have taken them this long to fight their way out of the siege of pregnant patients.
What were they doing with the extra time?
“Could they be plotting against me?”
A trace of suspicion arose in his heart, and Zhou Qi’an ran even faster.
Everyone was running towards the other door. Midway, Zhao Sanxun used a skill, and the pursuit speed of the highly fluid blood-face slowed a bit.
Among everyone, Zhou Qi’an was far ahead, his hand the first to touch the door in front of them.
The entire door was abnormally cold, and the air inside was very humid. A thin layer of frost had formed on the door panel, the chill stinging his palm.
A small drop of water slowly dripped from an unknown place. In the reflection of the water drop, the bloody face behind them grew larger and larger.
Seeing the blood-face about to catch up and knowing he couldn’t delay any longer, Zhou Qi’an ignored the cold, gritted his teeth, and pushed the door open.
A wicked wind at the entrance blew his long hair around.
He had thought the ten-tiered terraced greenhouse in the pharmacy was surprising enough, but when he truly saw this place, Zhou Qi’an’s expression changed slightly. Beneath the outpatient building was an extremely vast lake.
The water’s surface was somewhat murky, with oily substances floating on it. Ripples spread out in layers, and occasionally, water snakes could be seen swimming.
Beneath the entire lake, undercurrents surged.
Kerr had said the water from Xianlai Lake was extracted for an indoor hot spring. Zhou Qi’an now seriously suspected that, just like the hospital being a front for a research institute, the hot spring was also a front. The entire Cyclamen Hospital was built on top of the lake.
The College Student temporarily bought a pair of binoculars. Zhou Qi’an took them and looked, faintly seeing several figures of patients on the other side of the lake. They were lying on the high ground opposite, motionless, as if they had become one with nature, one with this world.
As comfortable as the patients were, the players were just as miserable.
The group ran desperately along the lakeshore, with the blood-colored faces following them like shadows.
After running for some distance, the youth panted and said, “Something’s not right.”
No matter how far they ran, the road ahead still felt endless. A terrifying yet logical guess suddenly occurred to him: it was almost impossible to get around by following the shoreline.
Unless… unless they swam across the lake!
He wasn’t the only one who had come to this conclusion. Several gazes swept across the lake surface one after another. Below the oily film, large dark shadows flashed by continuously.
It was certain that many terrifying creatures were being raised in the lake. The fatality rate of jumping in was quite high.
The College Student spoke, out of breath, “In the buffet restaurant’s refrigerated section, I saw a creature that looked like an alligator.”
The reason he said “looked like” was that the alligator’s fangs were exposed outside its mouth; it was a completely deformed creature.
The area around the hospital was wilderness, so this kind of ‘fresh produce’ shouldn’t appear. It was most likely caught from this lake.
The dangers in the lake were probably even greater than they imagined.
“Jump!” Zhou Qi’an made a decisive call.
The flesh and blood behind them had reassembled, connecting into a huge sheet, forming red ‘sunset clouds’ above their heads.
In the next second, a large net of flesh and blood expanded and pressed down, almost enveloping everyone within it.
Splash, splash!
With no other choice, the group jumped into the lake one after another.
The blood net above their heads seemed to have an aversion to the lake and didn’t follow them down. It kept floating in mid-air, following them unwillingly.
The loud commotion from entering the lake disturbed many creatures.
Being too close to the surface gave the illusion that the blood-faces were always there, ready to suck them into the monster’s mouth. Everyone subconsciously dived a little deeper, trying to observe the situation inside the lake.
The water was dark, and swimming blindly was too dangerous. Ah Ling took out a lighting item, and her expression changed drastically when she shone it.
Aquatic creatures that should have been scattered across the world’s oceans and lakes were all gathered together in this one.
Zhou Qi’an’s expression wasn’t much better.
Han Li’s talent was electricity. Luckily, she hadn’t come in this time, or she would have been crying about professional suppression.
Ahead of them was a group of electric eels, known as the high-voltage lines of the water. There was far more than one; they were intricately tangled like a grid, almost sharing a section of space with hundreds of giant pythons, not to mention the alligators swimming towards them, already in a predatory posture.
“Hiss.” The youth suddenly shuddered, almost inhaling a mouthful of water. It turned out that some diving bell spiders were hanging upside down from the water’s surface laying eggs, and one had stung him.
Zhou Qi’an pulled the College Student aside in time, helping him dodge an attack from a lamprey.
These animals were only about fifty percent similar to their outside-world counterparts; the other fifty percent was in their deformed development. For example, the lamprey had two heads, and its teeth were unimaginably dense.
The dangerous mutated creatures were attracted by the light and swam over, but it was impossible to have no light at all. In the end, it was Zhao Sanxun who took out an object resembling a luminous pearl to provide light.
After holding their breath underwater for too long, the group briefly surfaced to catch their breath.
The moment they emerged, the blood-face in the air immediately pressed down on them.
Zhou Qi’an spoke quickly, “Cover me while I swim across.”
Ah Ling and Zhao Sanxun’s expressions changed slightly upon hearing this. Zhou Qi’an raised an eyebrow. “Or we can all have a water burial together.”
Without another word of nonsense, everyone submerged back into the water.
The two who had been called out were forced to act as security.
Ah Ling swam in front of Zhou Qi’an, holding a dagger forward, clearly intending to fend off the creatures for him.
Zhao Sanxun was also nearby.
Being clustered together was too big a target, so the College Student and the youth kept a certain distance as they swam.
The creatures swimming towards them formed a dense black shadow. The water churned, making a rushing, stirring sound. The players could only carve a bloody path to get through. Just as they were about to get close, the two who had been forced to protect Zhou Qi’an a second ago suddenly retreated rapidly.
Not only did they retreat, but they also used a high-level focus-fire item at the same time.
At this distance and with such suddenness, even the fastest reaction couldn’t avoid it.
After retreating to a relatively safe distance, Zhao Sanxun made a throat-slitting gesture, and a strange smile appeared on Ah Ling’s face.
The two moved quickly. The turbulent water and the crisis pressed down heavily.
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes flashed. For them to act so unscrupulously, they must have found a way to leave the dream.
“No wonder they were delayed outside for so long.”
Seeing Zhou Qi’an frozen as if scared stiff, Ah Ling and Zhao Sanxun sneered, each holding a hospital wristband.
They had made several attempts outside earlier and finally discovered that when a patient was killed in the dream, their hospital wristband would linger for a few seconds before disappearing.
After grabbing the wristbands, the system prompted them that possessing a wristband was equivalent to having a patient’s identity in the dream.
Once the wristband was completely destroyed, it meant losing the [Patient] identity and being able to leave the dream.
Now, they just needed to confirm that Zhou Qi’an was being besieged by these deformed underwater creatures, and they would decisively leave this place. After ensuring the safety of their real-world bodies, they would return to explore the dream.
The two were highly focused.
They had to time it perfectly, retreating just before anyone in the real world discovered Zhou Qi’an’s death.
More and more terrifying aquatic creatures gathered around. The youth thought the College Student would go help, as they seemed to be on the same team. Who knew that the latter, as if equipped with a propeller, not only swam quickly to another area but also took the opportunity to surface for air.
The youth floated to the surface with him and clicked his tongue. “It really is every man for himself when disaster strikes.”
Partners these days were unreliable. Just like he originally thought Ah Ling was a decent person and they agreed to do this instance together, only to find out she had taken on an extra job on the side.
Taking a deep breath, the College Student spoke incoherently, “…beautiful.”
“He became beautiful!”
And incredibly beautiful at that. Is this normal?!
Zhang Zhuzi felt that the person before him had gone mad.
The College Student’s body trembled slightly as memories from the past flooded his mind.
In the lake at Liangye Villa, he had thought it was an illusion that the fish and shrimp wouldn’t eat Zhou Qi’an, but the more he thought about it later, the more it felt wrong.
If it was an illusion, why did only he experience it?
Under the water just now, history was repeating itself. Because the light was too dim, almost no one noticed that Brother Zhou’s hair was growing longer and his skin was emitting a faint fluorescent glow.
Recalling how the other man had been the first to eagerly jump down, it even felt a bit like a ‘glorious homecoming’.
This was definitely another part of Brother Zhou’s plan!
He wasn’t afraid at all; in fact, you could say he was waiting for the other players to turn on him in the water.
At the bottom of the lake.
Zhou Qi’an was actually only ninety-nine percent sure.
Similar to the holy water of Huagu City, he didn’t have much of a reaction in it, but if there were a large number of other fish-like creatures in the water, it was hard to say. It could easily stimulate some kind of change in his body.
They say that whales are the true rulers of the ocean. The food chain rule of big fish eating small fish seemed even more irreversible in the game.
The man-eating fish at Liangye Villa didn’t eat him, so maybe these wouldn’t either.
What’s more, he now had the death-immunity item that Shen Zhiyi had forced on him, so he wasn’t afraid of trial and error at all.
On the other side, after successfully using the focus-fire item and personally witnessing the deformed alligators and other aquatic creatures besieging Zhou Qi’an, Ah Ling and Zhao Sanxun were about to destroy their wristbands. But after a full half-minute, these aquatic creatures were only circling Zhou Qi’an, not even getting close.
The expected scene of flesh being torn apart vanished like a bubble.
The victorious expressions on their faces also gradually faded.
At the same time, the form of the besieged target began to change.
His silver-blue, lustrous long hair began to grow wildly, eventually extending almost to his slender ankles. His mismatched eyelashes swayed gently in the water. His half-closed eyes opened completely, the clear, cold pupils coldly observing everything before him.
The encirclement of the ‘small fish and shrimp’ had stimulated a deeper consciousness. The displeasure of being provoked by lower-level creatures was causing the truest form of this body to gradually reveal itself.
Ah Ling and Zhao Sanxun looked at each other—
He… he’s transforming?!
__
Author’s Note:
Zhao Sanxun: Transforming in the middle of a fatal crisis, is that reasonable?!
Zhou Qi’an: By the dark power of Gulana—transform
