“The sun… sealing the heart.”
Zhou Qi’an looked at the sun, which seemed both real and illusory, and connected it with the mission, pondering it over and over. Suddenly, a plan gradually formed in his mind.
He stopped pacing and instead sat cross-legged on the ground, his expression calm, as if he were in a state of rest.
One second, one minute, a quarter of an hour… he silently counted the time in his heart.
“It’s about time.”
The half-hour duration of the Roly-poly Potion should have passed.
When he opened his eyes again, Zhou Qi’an seemed to have made some kind of decision. He took out the extract Ying Yu had given him.
The reddish flower juice was in a test tube. Under the sunlight, the sediment piled up at the bottom like willow catkins.
Zhou Qi’an took a light breath, and then, without hesitation, he opened the test tube and lowered his head to sniff the floral scent inside. The high-concentration cyclamen scent was intoxicating with just one sniff, but it wasn’t enough to completely enter a dream.
Zhou Qi’an had to pour a little out, extend the tip of his tongue, and taste a bit of the nectar. His brain instantly became drowsy as if bewitched.
In a flash, an endless drowsiness swept over him. Gradually, his thin eyelids drooped powerlessly.
Zhou Qi’an lowered his head and fell asleep cross-legged, leaving only an unconscious murmur from his mouth, “Dream…”
In reality, the sun couldn’t appear inside a building, let alone be successfully shot down.
What can’t be done in reality can only be done in a dream.
In a dream… shoot down this sun.
“I wonder if Shen Zhiyi and the others have also entered a dream?”
With this last doubt, Zhou Qi’an’s head drooped even lower, and he completely lost consciousness.
…
Cyclamen Hospital, near the outpatient department.
The sun hung high in the sky.
The whole world was bright, and all the darkness was dispelled by the sunlight.
Han Li, who had been separated in the secret passage, was now standing dizzily in the sunlight. For a moment, it seemed like spots of light flashed before her eyes. She felt a bit cold and subconsciously stood more in the sunlight, only to feel even colder.
Why is the sunlight cold?
The moment this doubt flashed through her mind, an answer seemed to pop up automatically: she had been accidentally burned by fire during the escape, so her body was not in good condition.
“Finally… we finally survived!” a voice came from the side.
Mu Ge’s voice carried a rare cheerfulness. She brushed the black ash from her hair, her expression extremely complicated as she looked in Zhou Qi’an’s direction, “Map Cannon, he hid it from us so well.”
Although the other players didn’t say anything directly, their expressions also carried waves of excitement.
The dizziness subsided a little, and Han Li suddenly understood.
She remembered. They had just gone through a fierce battle. In the midst of fighting with patients, she was injured. At the critical moment, it was Zhou Qi’an who risked setting fire to the greenhouse, successfully ending the history of Cyclamen Hospital!
In the process, she was also covered in wounds. Thinking back on it now, her eyes were filled with lingering fear.
After a few deep breaths, she bathed in the sunlight, slowly embracing the joy of survival.
Han Li echoed Mu Ge’s words, “That’s right, we survived.”
She had actually survived a five-and-a-half-star instance.
The portly woman who had brought them on the first day appeared before them again, a trace of unwillingness on her face, “Due to special circumstances, Cyclamen Hospital is about to close for rectification.”
Mr. Si’s rabbit face showed no good expression at all, staring intently at Zhou Qi’an the whole time, “The car is parked in the wilderness. Everyone, follow me.”
He cursed, “Damn car thief, made me borrow a colleague’s car.”
Han Li followed them out. The University Student beside her looked guilty, as if he knew the truth about the stolen car.
The sun in the sky remained high in one spot.
As they gradually moved away from the hospital, the wind from the distant wilderness was gentle and healing.
With every breath, her mind became more relaxed. Han Li vaguely felt that something was wrong. She didn’t seem to have the heartfelt joy she usually felt after leaving an instance.
But as she walked, she couldn’t control her body’s most primitive enjoyment. The joy of finally leaving a five-and-a-half-star instance exploded in her mind like fireworks.
Step by step, without her knowing, her real body was leaving Cyclamen Hospital.
The sky was actually covered with dark clouds, and the gale from the wilderness blew like a bone-scraping knife.
However, in Han Li’s eyes, the weather remained consistently sunny.
The road in the outside world was no longer as smooth as when they arrived. Beneath the knee-high wild grass were terrifying swamps and countless skeletons, an endless stench of decay emanating from them.
The biggest taboo in an instance was to escape the mission map, but Han Li was now proactively and eagerly entering that mysterious and ominous wilderness.
The players in front seemed even more urgent, their steps getting faster and faster. Among them, Han Li was only relatively familiar with Zhou Qi’an. For some reason, his figure in the distance seemed a bit more unfamiliar than usual.
She tried to catch up to him, subconsciously wanting to get a clearer look at the owner of that back.
But that figure became more and more unfamiliar. Amidst her shouts, his speed increased.
“You guys… wait for me!”
…
The world seemed to be bathed in a sea of flowers, a faint floral scent still lingering between her lips and teeth.
So sweet.
This sweetness seeped from her heart and spleen into her lungs, the fragrance rushing straight to her brain.
How could it be so fragrant?
Zhou Qi’an unconsciously licked his lips. The floral scent had a long aftertaste. He vaguely remembered eating some nectar. Eating nectar seemed to be for the purpose of entering a dream… The moment a word appeared in his mind, it shattered, the fragments scattering in his mind like hard objects being inserted into his flesh, and his head began to ache faintly.
“No, it wasn’t eating nectar…” Zhou Qi’an denied his previous thought. An image of himself standing in the greenhouse inexplicably interspersed in his mind.
That’s right, this floral scent was picked up in the greenhouse. That was the most densely cultivated area for cyclamen, which was why the scent was so strong.
“Still not leaving? Do you want to stay and accompany that elephant seal?”
Mr. Si’s yin-yang rabbit face leaned over. Zhou Qi’an, who was deep in thought, was startled by him.
Elephant seal?
As Mr. Si’s voice fell, the fragmented images in Zhou Qi’an’s mind suddenly connected.
He remembered. Not long ago, he had gone to attract the elephant seal, then used the elephant seal to break into the greenhouse, and finally successfully destroyed all the flower plants inside.
Beside him, Shen Zhiyi was looking at him with worried eyes, asking softly, “Are you okay?”
Zhou Qi’an shook his head, indicating he was fine. His headaches had been getting worse lately. It seemed he had to prioritize evolving his brain in the next instance.
Amidst Mr. Si’s urging, Zhou Qi’an felt a sense of relief. At least this round of predicament was over.
Since there was no car, Mr. Si was urging them to walk. In the context of leaving the instance, even his urging sounded like heavenly music.
Mu Ge忍了又忍,还是没忍住开口问: “Why do we have to walk back?”
The wilderness was boundless. How long would this take?
Mr. Si sneered, his gaze, which wished he could slice a person into a thousand pieces, fell on Zhou Qi’an, “If you want to blame someone, blame a petty thief who did something bad to my car.”
He subtly tempted, “If anyone can help me punish him, I will give some unexpected benefits.”
Seeing Mr. Si constantly looking at Zhou Qi’an, the players’ expressions varied.
Zhou Qi’an had recovered by now and curled his lip in disdain.
The warm breeze caressed his face. He slowed his pace slightly and couldn’t help but rub his temples again, “I seem to have forgotten something.”
Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but look back.
The sunlight had dispelled all the gloom, and the fog around Cyclamen Hospital had disappeared.
While he was in a daze, Mr. Si in front of him suddenly urged, “Hurry up. If you get lost, you can just wait for death on the world map.”
Seeing that Zhou Qi’an still wasn’t moving.
Mr. Si repeated himself expressionlessly.
“I almost forgot…” Amidst all the chaotic thoughts, Zhou Qi’an finally caught one of the threads and barely remembered something.
He shot Shen Zhiyi a look, “Help me stall for time.”
After speaking, he ran back towards Cyclamen Hospital.
The moment he turned around.
Behind him, whether it was Mr. Si or Shen Zhiyi, their faces suddenly changed.
They stared grimly at Zhou Qi’an’s back, as if looking at a cooked duck trying to fly away. The daylight shrouded them, and a black-red light shone on the players. The flesh under their skin became mottled, like rotting walking corpses.
Zhou Qi’an was unaware of the terrifying changes happening behind him.
He was rushing towards the hospital building. When he passed the central area, several pregnant women were lying on a long bench, humming and sunbathing. The moment they saw him, their motherly smiles suddenly became somewhat ferocious.
“Hmm?”
The instance is about to end, why do the NPCs still have so much hostility?
The pregnant women stood up, holding hands, and showed a tendency to walk this way.
Since it was a safe period anyway, Zhou Qi’an even learned the song they were humming and sang a few lines along with them.
The pregnant women seemed shocked by his behavior. By the time they came to their senses, Zhou Qi’an had already run away like a gust of wind.
He ran freely in front. Behind him, Mr. Si, Shen Zhiyi, the players… outside the outpatient building, they all walked back in with the same indifferent faces. When they passed the long bench, they joined the hand-in-hand pregnant women and walked in Zhou Qi’an’s direction.
The instance was over, and the inpatient building was even brighter.
The elevator happened to be on this floor. As he entered, Zhou Qi’an looked at the slanted wall with some confusion. That area didn’t seem to have a window, so why could he clearly see the reflection of the sunlight?
The doubt in his heart grew deeper, but his brain felt as if it had rusted; every operation was extremely slow.
Zhou Qi’an had the illusion of being stuck in a quagmire.
By the time he came to his senses, the elevator had already started to ascend.
As usual, he entered through the safety door and then transferred to the special elevator. As the doors closed, he vaguely heard many chaotic footsteps in the distance.
Within the distance of a few floors, Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but press his brow again.
Amidst the headache, the elevator finally reached the twelfth floor.
The Special Inpatient Department was particularly quiet today. In the daylight, one could clearly see dust motes dancing like musical notes in the corridor.
Zhou Qi’an stared fixedly for two seconds, a struggle he himself didn’t understand welling up in his heart.
Following the familiar path to the ward he was in charge of, Zhou Qi’an forcibly averted his gaze and pushed the door open to enter.
It was a habit to close the door and restore it to its original state upon entering a place.
The female patient inside was surprisingly not asleep. She stayed on the warm bed of the petri dish. Seeing Zhou Qi’an, her eyes instantly became much more savage. Her overly long nails looked like they could pierce through the glass jar. The female patient licked her lips, her gaze fixed on the most vulnerable part of a person, the heart.
Not only was the petri dish not covered, but it was wide open.
“Is it because the instance is over?” This seemed to be the only explanation.
Zhou Qi’an proactively approached.
Faced with the young man’s unnatural state, the female patient seemed to know something. She concealed the schadenfreude in her eyes and watched as this damned nursing assistant walked towards her, preparing to disembowel her prey directly.
“Here.”
Zhou Qi’an extended his arm. At the same time, the female patient also revealed her withered, ghostly hand with long, bluish-purple nails.
But when she saw clearly what he was handing over, her movements suddenly froze.
A small, rectangular white card. It was the universal key card.
Seeing the key card again, the female patient’s reaction was not as intense as the first time.
She was looking at the person beside the petri dish with an incomprehensible gaze.
“I told you, as long as you cooperate, I will find a way to help you leave Cyclamen Hospital.”
Zhou Qi’an always kept his promises. He had a terrible headache right now, so he kept it short, “You will most likely die after leaving the hospital, but you can try to extract the juice from the flowers in your ward. It can barely suppress it for a while.”
Before leaving, he thought for a moment and still gave a suggestion, “…Go feel the wind in the wilderness.”
Freedom, even if it’s just for a moment, is precious, no matter how great the cost.
He turned to open the door. Just then, footsteps came from the corridor, accompanied by a strange rubbing sound.
A nurse?
Zhou Qi’an checked the time. It wasn’t time for medication.
The temperature in the room invisibly dropped a little. The footsteps stopped outside the ward door. Someone was knocking.
“Thump, thump, thump.”
Could it be that something went wrong on Mr. Si’s side, and Shen Zhiyi and the others came up to find him?
The afternoon sun was just right, shining on him through the window.
The sunlight made his head hurt even more, but each pang of pain was accompanied by an inadvertent relaxation of his mind.
It was an uncontrollable lethargy.
“Thump, thump, thump.”
In the special light, a trace of confusion flashed across Zhou Qi’an’s expression. His consciousness and physical reactions were slower than usual. For some reason, he didn’t want to open the door, just as his body had instinctively closed it when he entered.
It was as if he was resisting and guarding against something.
Zhou Qi’an resisted the instinct to open the door, wanting to first ask who it was.
His lips had just slightly parted, “Is it…”
A cold hand reached out from behind without any warning and covered his mouth.
A jolt went through Zhou Qi’an’s heart, and he was about to resist.
“If you don’t want to die…” The female patient had appeared behind him at some point, her voice terrifyingly grim, “then don’t make a sound.”
__
Author’s Note:
Han Li: Where am I? Please rescue me.
Shen Zhiyi: Busy and out of contact.
Ying Yu: Busy.
Youth: Please rescue me +1.
Wang Cai: Please rescue me +2.
Mu Ge: Attempting self-rescue.
University Student: Please rescue me, and where is Brother Zhou?!
Zhou Qi’an: Already so kind that I don’t need to ask for help, and was inexplicably rescued.
“?? “
