Chapter 174 Frank Hospital
Outside, A’Ao went crazy, making things difficult for the players inside the carriage.
Li Nan and Yu Xingzhou had different focus. “Only one hour has passed since we left.”
So, the question arose, how could Pei Wenwei alone eliminate Jian Guangsi within an hour? It took two seconds for the word “alone” to be sensibly struck out.
The director looked terrifying during his fit of madness, but his aura had weakened significantly. His thick beard was covered in sticky blood. Ji Yuanzhi adjusted his glasses, which had just been knocked askew by the commotion, and predicted, “The game would soon assign a quest to kill the director completely.”
A’Ao’s mental state had become increasingly unstable, causing him to lose control as an instance boss. Keeping him alive didn’t help the game’s mechanics.
It was either his death or the players’ death.
Ji Yuanzhi suddenly glanced at Seventh Commandment Guild Leader.
The guild leader, who had earlier wished harm upon Wen Shi, smirked and said four words, “Prioritize the bigger picture.”
He still understood this principle.
Once there was a quest to kill the director, he certainly wouldn’t stab anyone in the back at that time. Killing the most dangerous NPC was advantageous for ensuring the stability of the instance, and only then could his own safety be guaranteed.
Seventh Commandment Guild Leader despised Wen Shi. Just yesterday, he had been striving to become an official employee, but today he was forced to join the task force aimed at taking down the director.
Ji Yuanzhi observed Seventh Commandment Guild Leader, who appeared unusually understanding. He concealed any subtle edge in his narrowed eyes, leaving his thoughts a mystery.
•
Hospital, fourth floor, XX Zone.
The gruesome heart, a mass of flesh and blood, lay on the bedside table as Wen Shi boldly proclaimed, “This is just the beginning. Before tomorrow’s end, I will take away the other half of the director’s life.”
Anyway, the quest was arranged this way. It was a fight for survival, and all he needed was to exploit this situation to enhance his personal image.
At the moment, this method was proving highly effective. No matter how unimpressive A’Ao might be, his identity as the director gave him an inherent authority. If Wen Shi dared to challenge or even undermine that authority, it would be enough to make others see him in a new light.
Confirming that Patient 233’s gaze had lost a hint of disdain, Wen Shi brought up his real purpose, “What’s special about the fifth floor?”
But Patient 233 brought up a different matter altogether. Seated at the edge of his bed, the lust in the sex addict’s eyes was not very intense during the day. “You’re quite skilled at ordering others around.”
This crazy doctor had managed to get this far. It was likely thanks to the journalist. The patient glanced at the door, suddenly grabbed Wen Shi’s white coat and pulled him closer. Jian Qingrong, who was waiting outside, furrowed his brows. Before he could step inside, Patient 233 had already whispered something to Wen Shi, “The fifth floor is a good place to hide a man.”
He casually raised an eyebrow, “Got it, little social butterfly?”
Pushing the other person away, Wen Shi adjusted his clothes, smoothing out wrinkles on the surface and dusting it off, as though the spot where he had been grabbed was particularly dirty.
“Thanks.”
He turned around and said to Jian Qingrong, “Let’s go.”
Patient 233 didn’t explicitly mention anything related to the curse on the fifth floor, but he hinted at it. Most people didn’t want to go up to the fifth floor, and that likely included A’Ao and the nurses.
Jian Qingrong had escaped from the deep zone, which was akin to a prison break, making it impossible to avoid the hospital’s search.
Disregarding the curse for a moment, the fifth floor was actually a good hiding place.
Wen Shi’s gaze flickered, suggesting that the curse on the fifth floor affected everyone equally.
In the fragments of memory, A’Ao instructed Jian Guangsi to continuously split, claiming that each new entities would assist him in finding something. In places entwined with curses like the fifth floor, using the split entities to explore was the most suitable approach.
The game had indicated that the important item he needed to find on the fifth day might also be hidden here.
After leaving the deep zones, Wen Shi had a brief conversation with the host.
“There’s nothing useful,” the host, who had been on the fifth floor for some time, said. “There are only some records from the first director.”
At first, the host had managed to prolong his survival by pretending to admire the first director, which unexpectedly led to Wen Shi rescuing him. Later, the patients had directly sent him to the fifth floor, claiming it would help him better understand the director for his report.
The photographer from behind handed over a few photos they had taken. When Wen Shi looked at them, he didn’t find any noteworthy information. They were all old interviews with his father, discussing Frank’s founding principles.
To make sure nothing was missed, Wen Shi personally went to the fifth floor, with Jian Qingrong following along. As for the curse, neither of them was too concerned. They were bound to come here sooner or later.
The entire floor had only two rooms. Aside from the unique color of the doors, which was similar to the host’s suit, there wasn’t much else.
The information inside the room matched what the photographer had captured. Wen Shi quickly finished exploring. On the table, there were photos from his father’s interviews, which he took as mementos. When he went out, he saw Jian Qingrong standing by the wall, as if in contemplation.
“What’s wrong?”
“This wall gives me a strange feeling.”
Wen Shi walked over and looked at the same spot. The wall was covered with long, thin cracks, running from the ceiling to the floor. Staring at it for too long gave a subtle feeling that something might crawl out of those cracks.
He closed his eyes briefly and shifted his gaze away. That sensation made Wen Shi feel as though he had returned to the last instance, where similar absurd illusions would arise when his rationality dropped.
“Where could the source of the curse be?”
Wen Shi instinctively picked up the newspaper and gazed at the unshaven man in the photo, feeling troubled.
His eyes scanned the interview dialogue, which emphasized dedication. Wen Shi couldn’t help but chuckle. “When it comes to dedication, no one burns themselves out more than the host.”
One of the rooms on the fifth floor had been set up as a workspace. Even with the curse issue unresolved, the host was still leading his team there, drafting articles.
“Common characteristics.”
“Huh?”
Catching sight of a photo in the newspaper, Jian Qingrong suddenly brought up another matter. “I saw a photo in the Split Zone. It had your foster father, a patient, two true spirits, and a mosaic.”
Jian Qingrong then talked about the speculation regarding the original and the incarnations.
“At night, I tried calling to inform you.” Jian Qingrong glanced at the mini octopus clinging to Wen Shi’s shoulder. His right eye carried an unsettling chill as he continued, “The line was busy the whole time.”
After the mini octopus reverted to its mimetic form, Wen Shi stashed its phone receivers into his backpack. Its freed tentacles sprawled out as it admitted, “Yes, that’s right, it was me.” Then, it countered with a question, “So what?”
Wen Shi: “……”
“Not long ago, someone divined for me, and the result was just three words: whole and part.” In order to save the mini octopus, Wen Shi promptly shifted the conversation, leaning against the wall with crossed arms. “Considering the available information, it’s not some philosophical question at all, just a matter of literal interpretation.”
Boss Mei’s mention of【common characteristics】, coupled with the image of the true spirit reading philosophy books, made his thoughts wander.
What was crucial wasn’t the whole but the part that stayed with him. That was his greatest asset. The key was inside the Wandering Corpse, Song Yan was the first to note the fact that everyone was shrinking during the night shift, and the host killed Jian Guangsi.
The last possibility was probably accidental. Even the true spirit likely couldn’t predict how it would end.
The room suddenly grew somewhat quiet.
After a moment, Jian Qingrong turned his face slightly and softly asked, “Strange, isn’t it?”
Wen Shi nodded.
“Do you know what hint I received the first time I came to this unfamiliar world and encountered the existence of monsters?”
Jian Qingrong followed up with a question, “What?”
Wen Shi repeated every word meticulously, even mimicking the mechanical voice perfectly, “This game is dedicated to promoting truth, goodness, and beauty.”
The game enjoyed tormenting players by testing their humanity. Now, thinking back, all the options it provided weren’t just for the final decision but choices made at the beginning and during the process itself. Wen Shi glanced up at Jian Qingrong. This was also a choice.
His choice to abandon the quest of deleting a file record had allowed the already skewed path of fate to run wild like an untamed horse.
Unable to find more favorable leads, tonight was bound to be another sleepless night. Wen Shi chose to return to his office and catch some sleep first.
With half the hospital’s staff off on a team-building event, he slept quite soundly. He woke up after an unknown duration, and outside, there was a light rain falling.
His lazy eyelids fully opened when he saw three figures across from him.
The door had been repaired, and the glass shards on the ground were cleaned up neatly.
A slender man, a featureless black shadow devoid of eyes and limbs, and an octopus were standing together. Raindrops drifted in at an angle, tapping against their faces, creating an eerie scene.
Jian Qingrong was the first to break the silence, “Two choices: crawl back into the eye socket or stay outside while the brain watches you.”
With the brain present, their attention would be further divided, but rolling back into the eye socket meant unifying their willpower. The mini octopus calculated with its tentacles and found the latter option more favorable.
Splitting one’s focus too much wouldn’t lead to anything good.
It had mastered the art of playing the victim. In its mimetic form, the large, innocent-looking eye took vulnerability to the extreme, gazing at Wen Shi with a longing expression. It said, “When you need me, I’ll come out to be your companion.”
After leaving the deep zone without permission, it was safer to return to the main body and move as one for now.
What kind of phrasing was “to be your companion”?
Wen Shi’s eyelid twitched, deeply suspecting that the innate power of the rules in the Intellectual Disability Zone had also affected the mini octopus.
However, in the blink of an eye, the cute large eye suddenly turned sharp and cold. The relatively larger head of the octopus turned towards the window. Wen Shi followed its gaze and was momentarily taken aback. Behind the fine protective mesh, there was the black market player standing there. The other person, holding a broken umbrella borrowed from the guard room, openly watched from outside.
“Are you choosing a consort?”
Looking at the three different species lined up in front of Wen Shi, the black market player’s thin lips moved as he voiced the question.
The last remnants of drowsiness disappeared.
Wen Shi sat up. The fact that Jian Qingrong and the others were present didn’t seem to surprise the newcomer too much. Perhaps it did, but it was expertly concealed.
Just as he was contemplating his purpose, there was suddenly a commotion outside.
The black market player rushed to the gate with the umbrella, and Wen Shi also ran outside to check the situation. As he approached the nurses’ station, the wall clock pointed to 6:55.
“A’Ao is back.”
Wen Shi furrowed his brow slightly and turned to Jian Qingrong. “You go to the fifth floor first.”
Patient 233’s hint, though crudely phrased, was not without reason. Indeed, it was a good place to hide a man.
The drizzling rain blended with the surroundings near the hospital, and even the rainwater carried a faint scent of disinfectant.
On the path near the main gate, the muddy rainwater had turned into deep puddles, perfect camouflage for a pit. A horse’s hoof plunged into one, nearly flipping the carriage behind it.
The passengers in this carriage were players. The black market player, fulfilling the duties of a gatekeeper, went over to fish them out. The first to be pulled out was Seventh Commandment Guild Leader, who had already reached for the carriage door, ready to disembark. He had a few bruises on him, not from the carriage collision but from today’s team-building event.
Ji Yuanzhi, behind him, waved his hand and came out on his own.
When the players emerged from the carriage, most of them had some injuries. It was clear that their side quest today had been quite chaotic.
The rain began to intensify. Wen Shi didn’t have an umbrella when he came out. After standing for a while, his hair and clothes were thoroughly soaked.
He brushed the damp strands of hair from his forehead back and watched the players come out of the waterlogged pit one by one. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. As far as he remembered, there wasn’t such a pit near the hospital.
A seething glare interrupted Wen Shi’s thoughts. A’Ao’s carriage had already stopped outside the iron gate, his back slightly bent, like a wild beast ready to erupt at any moment.
If it weren’t for rule limitations, Wen Shi suspected that A’Ao would immediately have used every means to kill him.
Seeing the iron hook slicing through a string of raindrops, seemingly aiming toward him, Wen Shi equipped a speed-boosting item and prepared to use the【Burial Shroud】to enhance his defense.
He never relied solely on the rules. A’Ao couldn’t use his full power, but within a certain range, using his abilities wouldn’t incur punishment.
Boom—
At the critical moment, a flash of lightning tore through the half-gathered dark clouds in the sky. Amidst the thunderous roar, the third and fourth floors of the building, typically shrouded in darkness, kept flashing red lights, as if something terrifying was slowly waking up on this rainy day.
The wailing alarm continued. A’Ao’s expression changed. He took large strides towards the hospital building.
Wen Shi intentionally maintained some distance from him and followed behind.
“Warning, a patient from the Split Zone is fleeing outside.”
“Warning, a patient from the Intellectual Disability Zone is fleeing outside.”
Frank Hospital was built in a bygone era, but the hospital’s interior actually contained some relatively high-tech setup. This was the first time Wen Shi had heard the hospital’s internal broadcast, sounding like an AI.
He couldn’t help but wonder why the alarm was going off at this moment.
Clearly, Jian Qingrong had successfully crossed the zone in the morning.
The nurse, who had been absent during the day, hurried down the stairs and ran into the lobby, her face pale. She said, “Several underworld patients have awakened and intentionally triggered the alarm.”
Patients from two deep zones had escaped overnight. These patients were clearly very dissatisfied with A’Ao’s management methods.
A trace of rationality restrained A’Ao’s extreme anger. The fact that the underworld patients hadn’t personally attacked proved that the escaped patients were still nearby.
As the words reached Wen Shi’s ears, a slight smile of satisfaction appeared on his lips. He had never imagined that the hospital had a hidden management team. Was someone going to be held accountable?
In terms of hierarchy, even if the sky fell, there was still the director to hold it up.
Before the smile could fully spread, the game’s prompt suddenly descended amidst the piercing alarm—
【Main Quest: Kill the Pianist]
Quest Details: If the heart is the lifeline of the Director, the piano is his soul. The dark requiem of death is about to play. Before the Director performs the piece, “Cursed Elegy,” eliminate this terrifying piano master.
In case of failure, this elegy will become the dirge for the doctor’s departed soul.】
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
