Chapter 164.2 Frank Hospital
Wen Shi didn’t inquire with the game, since the true spirit had said it, verifying the result would undoubtedly align with what was spoken.
At that moment, he was deeply shocked.
Just how sinister could this true spirit before him be!
Wen Shi seldom resorted to falsehoods, but when he must, he adeptly weaved fragments of truth into his deception. He was well aware that, in certain situations, the truth could be more unsettling when used as a tool for manipulation.
Knowing it shouldn’t be trusted, strange as it may seem, the words of the true spirit held a certain enchantment, especially that one line: “The people you care about will forever stay in the hospital,” lingering persistently in Wen Shi’s mind.
“If you want to save people, you can borrow the path, leading straight to the Fantasy Zone. I suggest you act quickly,” the true spirit advised.
He was just like Boss Mei, with knowledge of everything happening within the instance’s dimensions, including Wen Shi’s intention to rescue Ji Yuanzhi.
After the true spirit spoke, the quest reward displayed the term “borrow the path” and added a small crucifix. Clicking on it allowed for freely setting the start and end points, but the entrances and exits were always placed near crucifixes.
Wen Shi gazed ahead at the long, narrow path that seemed to have no end. He thought about the structure of the intersection and realized he was likely inside the space of the crucifix. Seventh Commandment Guild Leader would still be in the treatment room.
“Thank you.”
Without showing any doubt, Wen Shi swiftly turned and directly set his location to the Fantasy Zone, where a dark path had a few words cobbled together with ghostly flames: Fantasy Zone.
It meant he could take this path to reach the fourth floor.
Under the ghostly flames’ illumination, Wen Shi felt like he was walking along a rural path lit by scattered stars. He could vaguely make out blurry outlines.
He proceeded alone, without considering calling Li Nan and Yu Xingzhou, opting to explore the situation first.
Wen Shi had made thorough considerations beforehand.
Firstly, he didn’t want to spend more time with the true spirit, as he feared his thoughts might be influenced. Secondly, this was an excellent opportunity for a rescue mission. Patients were more constrained by the rules during the day, and the two previous alarm sounds indicated that there were likely many nurses in the deep zones. Nurses could further restrict the patients, and as long as he didn’t misuse his skills, his identity as a doctor provided a reasonable excuse for checking on patients. Even if the rescue failed, Wen Shi had a reasonable chance of escaping.
More importantly, practice was the sole criterion for testing truth, as the true spirit had mentioned,【I suggest you act quickly】.
Wen Shi wanted to verify the truth of this statement.
Hurrying meant he didn’t have time to contact others. He had to rely on himself.
The further he went, the deeper the pitch-black environment became. The narrow path had widened at some point. Wen Shi was on the verge of losing his sense of direction.
The small lantern’s light would be absorbed by the ghostly flames. He wasn’t sure if the nurses would react differently when they saw his transformation, so to avoid being mistaken for a witch and set on fire, Wen Shi chose to walk in a straight line along the dark path, much like a blind man.
……
The central area of the crossroads.
After Wen Shi left, the man continued to read in the dimly lit environment. A vague reflection appeared in the glass of the fish tank. Wherever there was a mirror, the Mirror God could come and go as he pleased.
The true spirit didn’t even lift his head. “Entering someone else’s territory without permission isn’t polite.”
“Is deceiving children fun?” The Mirror God glanced at the book in the man’s hands with disdain. “And you’re pretending to be a philosopher.”
“I never lie.”
He didn’t speak the truth, nor did he utter a single falsehood.
The Mirror God paused for a second, speaking with a meaningful tone, “A deceptive god who never tells lies?”
“Yes.” The man licked his smooth lips. Not only was it the truth, but every word that came out of his mouth had the power of persuasion. The more one cared about the matter, the more it would take root and grow in their mind.
On this point, the Mirror God couldn’t argue. He reviewed what the man had said earlier. The Wandering Corpse was indeed a calculation left behind by the Supreme Will. As long as Wen Shi agreed, the Deception God would even fulfill his promise to help him kill A’Ao.
However, once the Wandering Corpse died, Wen Shi would be trapped in the game forever, unable to escape for the rest of his life. In a sense, it was even more tragic than Pei Hongxin trapped in the orphanage.
……
Up ahead, a faint light invaded, and the dark road was finally reaching its end.
Just as Wen Shi prepared to quicken his pace, the notification tone abruptly sounded.
“Side quest – Rescue an innocent victim completed.”
“You are borrowing ?’s spatial channel, with a duration of less than fifteen minutes.”
No specific name was mentioned, the man’s pseudonym was “true spirit.” After the notification tone appeared, Wen Shi could see the countdown for using the spatial channel through the attribute interface.
【14:59】
This meant that he had used up half of the time just by walking to this point. Wen Shi had been cautious on his way here, and returning would be faster if he shapeshifted.
Nonetheless, he didn’t have much time left.
While summoning the Wandering Corpse to return, Wen Shi quickly walked toward the source of light. From the hazy brightness, he could see a door at the end shaped like a crucifix.
The Wandering Corpse didn’t return immediately.
With a foreboding feeling, Wen Shi made a second summoning attempt, while trying to push the door.
In the Fantasy Zone, the crucifix didn’t rotate but was more like a skylight, opening with a simple push.
It didn’t require much effort, and when the crucifix was propped up, only a small gap was revealed.
Unlike the simplicity of a hospital room, this room was covered in various colorful glass panes, none of which allowed light to pass through. Ji Yuanzhi lay inside a modified steam box, filled with water. His head protruded from a circular opening in the middle, but it was rather limited in size, making it difficult for him to move his neck.
Ji Yuanzhi’s glasses had been removed, his hair seemed a bit longer, and there were traces of blood around his mouth.
As if sensing something, he opened his eyes and made eye contact with the head protruding from the crucifix.
His normally light-colored eyes, perhaps influenced by the vivid colored glass, now had a deep blue glow in their depths, which somehow reminded Wen Shi of a merfolk.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Wen Shi pointed in the direction of the door and mouthed, “Where are the nurses?”
It was currently the treatment period. After the previous round of treatment, Ji Yuanzhi would temporarily find it challenging even to speak.
Unable to obtain useful information, Wen Shi planned to swiftly execute his rescue plan when he noticed the treatment guidelines next to the steam box.
【12:00-13:00: Hydrotherapy】
The wall clock displayed that there were six minutes left until the treatment was complete.
Taking the patient away before the treatment was finished could trigger the rules, and the alarm on the protrusion of the steam box made Wen Shi even more cautious.
He glanced at the countdown:
【14:46】
If he waited for the treatment to finish and then acted, using the【Wild Dash】 skill along with a speed-boosting item, he had a nearly ninety-percent chance of carrying Ji Yuanzhi away before the cross-shaped passage closed.
The only issue was that everything was going too smoothly.
Right now, he could jump from the wall, completing the quest of going to the deep zone in advance. From discovering the true spirit to borrowing the passage, Wen Shi wouldn’t question it if it were a regular instance. But in the 3S instance, being able to simultaneously rescue someone and complete a quest seemed too good to be true. He was worried it might backfire.
The main quest of saving an innocent victim was proceeding almost too smoothly.
He only had one thing to do each day, and the difficulty shouldn’t be this low.
“Well, let’s take it step by step.”
Wen Shi kept a close eye on the time, preparing to execute the rescue plan as soon as the treatment time was up.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling—
Just as he was fully focused, the sharp sound of a ringing telephone suddenly echoed in his mind. Wen Shi was taken aback for a moment, then picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
The call came from the underground special treatment room.
Not long ago, the special treatment room was also undergoing a brutal “hydrotherapy.” The metal door was tightly closed, and the gap with the ground was sealed by an invisible barrier. Holes in the ceiling were releasing a continuous flow of black liquid into the room.
The entire treatment room had become a steamy chamber in a different sense.
The black liquid made the Wandering Corpse, disguised as a patient, feel as though he was stuck in a quagmire. He didn’t need to breathe, so the impact wasn’t significant for now.
However, the Wandering Corpse had a strong sixth sense.
The solution seemed to be draining his strength. He also felt a strong sense of danger.
Bang!
The Wandering Corpse attempted to attack the metal door, but the door remained smooth, emitting a silent taunting aura.
Bang, bang, bang! The Wandering Corpse continued to make attacks, leaving only shallow dents. With his current strength, he couldn’t break through this metal door, specifically designed to prevent monsters from escaping.
Wen Shi was unaware that the simplification of the quest was pushing the Wandering Corpse towards a sacrificial path.
The instance was filled with checks and balances. Assuming he hadn’t taken the shortcut, if Wen Shi were to undertake this quest himself, one strike would be enough to break the metal door.
However, if Wen Shi disguised himself as the bandaged patient, it would waste at least an hour’s time. Seventh Commandment Guild Leader’s underlings outside, who were monitoring closely, would then wait for A’Ao’s return and report the situation.
Regardless of which path he chose, it would be a matter of life and death.
After several attacks that further depleted his strength, the Wandering Corpse, who was futilely attempting to break down the door, suddenly stopped and looked toward the center of the room.
There, a delicate figure had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
The bandaged patient, who had been knocked unconscious and hidden away, suddenly emerged. The sinister look in his eyes, borne from years of abuse, had transformed into one of calm and composure.
This individual, designated as the【innocent victim】within the game, had a tragic background. Despite not suffering from mental illness, he had been subjected to torment due to a family inheritance dispute. However, all the darkness he had endured had been driven by an invisible hand.
The bandaged patient was, in fact, one of the Deception God’s incarnations.
He hadn’t been as fortunate as Song Yan. He had undergone all the miseries that every incarnation must experience. The long-held resentment inside him was now benefiting the true spirit at its core.
For a brief moment, this accumulated resentment disappeared.
The will of the true spirit manifested within the incarnation’s body. The flesh beneath the bandages ceased to fester, and the “bandaged patient” conjured a telephone receiver seemingly out of thin air.
The power balance between the two shifted dramatically. The Wandering Corpse didn’t even have the strength to raise his hand. He coldly observed the bandaged patient, considering how to eliminate him.
“Six minutes until the scheduled room-wide electric therapy. The electric current, coupled with the special solution…”
Every word spoken by the patient carried a stronger impact than the brainwashing effects of the host’s【Pen Stylus】. The combination of truthful words and the magic of verbal persuasion created a double buff, causing listeners with slightly lower IQ to skip the thinking process entirely.
“Your flesh will be broken down first by these solutionz. The temperature of these solutions is so high that they can even replace a crematorium. The sparks from the electric current will further ignite them,” the true spirit provided a detailed description of the scene, “just like the bodies the nurse burned in the morning. In the end, you’ll be roasted into several pieces of fragmented jerky.”
After explaining these gruesome details, the true spirit also offered a lifeline.
“This telephone receiver can help you call for help.” The ‘bandaged patient’ revealed a sly smile, “If he comes, you’ll still survive.
“…But subtracting the time it takes to make the call, he has to arrive within five minutes.”
Who he was referring to was self-evident.
In other words, Wen Shi not only had to give up the rare opportunity to rescue Ji Yuanzhi but also had to rush over without hesitation. Given the true spirit’s previous prophecies about the future, there would inevitably be a moment of consideration.
Under the magic of verbal persuasion, the sentence about the important person’s death would make him agonize at a crucial moment.
If Wen Shi gave up saving the Wandering Corpse, it would be even more intriguing. As soon as the hour struck, the other party would realize that the patient upstairs didn’t need rescuing at all. At that moment, the true spirit would personally deliver the remains of the Wandering Corpse right before him, ensuring an entertaining spectacle.
There was a choice, yet no real choice.
This situation also involved some objective elements. For example, the Wandering Corpse had poor communication skills, and now he was very weak. By the time he managed to describe the current situation and send out a distress call, time would be further reduced. Even if Wen Shi ultimately chose to rescue him, this delay could potentially leave both options fruitless.
The Deception God rarely used bloody methods to create trouble for others. He preferred to use the truth to trap his prey in a cage.
“The power of words is great and irreplaceable.” The ‘bandaged patient’s’ mouth moved fluently, as if the word “eloquent” were tailor-made for him.
His world tour had not even started. The Wandering Corpse, with average intelligence but a strong will to survive, naturally sought help.
He gathered all his remaining strength into one arm to barely lift the telephone receiver.
“Hello,” a familiar voice came from the other end, very soft. The Wandering Corpse had been with Wen Shi for some time, and knew he only deliberately lowered his voice in busy or dangerous situations.
He’s busy, and he might not come to save me.
The Wandering Corpse drew a preliminary conclusion.
But the Wandering Corpse continued to race against time, struggling to say the word: “Underground…”
The ‘bandaged patient’ elegantly counted down on the other side, softly saying, “Five minutes and twenty seconds left.”
The black liquid had already submerged the Wandering Corpse up to his thighs. He, who had lost the ability to breathe long ago, soaked in the solution, experiencing the long-forgotten sensation of suffocation.
His weakness caused him to feel dizzy.
“Five minutes and fifteen seconds.”
The Wandering Corpse fell silent for a moment, and then his sharp, toxin-coated nails pierced his flesh, using pain to stay alert. “Underground, hurry… rescue…”
His other hand pressed on his abdomen, and the Wandering Corpse uttered a colossal lie, “I’m going into labor.”
Without saying a single extra word, he ended the call.
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