Matryoshka Off-Limits Chapter 184

Chapter 184 Frank Hospital（End）

Friendship Day.

These two words were not unfamiliar to the host. He saw them on the wall every day, but hearing them from Wen Shi’s mouth at this moment gave him an indescribable feeling.

When Wen Shi moved his hand away from the corner of the mirror, the smooth surface returned to its previous iron plaque appearance. He shifted his gaze away from the rules.

“The fifth floor curse should be related to all of you who preserved Father’s brain,” Wen Shi seemed to be talking to the air, his voice barely audible. “Isn’t it time to remove the curse placed on me?”

After asking, he suddenly felt that the question was somewhat unnecessary.

Having completed the inheritance quest and become the new director, everything in the hospital fell under his jurisdiction, including the fifth floor. The curse could no longer affect him.

Wen Shi moved his wrist a bit to ensure there was no discomfort as before and attempted to say, “I want you to lift the curse from the host’s team.”

The host, who was still pondering whether or not to do a joint story on Friendship Day and the underworld, experienced a sudden lightness in his shoulders and a complete relief in his stiff limbs.

He stood still for a moment, unable to believe that the curse that had troubled him for a long time had inexplicably disappeared.

“It’s gone?” He had even written his own eulogy beforehand.

Wen Shi casually adjusted his wrinkled white coat and calmly said, “Back in Sealed Coffin Village, I mentioned I had some backup.”

Following the first generation is always a surefire path!

After inquiring about Jian Qingrong’s whereabouts, Wen Shi turned and headed towards the fourth floor. After descending a few stairs, a nurse’s corpse blocked his path. It didn’t seem polite to step over it directly, so Wen Shi moved the body aside, and as he did, he caught a stronger whiff of blood.

He took out the small lantern and, for the first time, felt that the hallway could be described as a sea of corpses. There were bodies of patients and nurses, piled together, with twisted facial muscles frozen in the expression of their final moments.

The Deception God had appointed A’Ao as the temporary director not because of the hand that could play beloved tunes.

The director was the most vital part of the hospital. With him in charge, the hospital’s rules ran smoothly. After A’Ao’s death, these rules began to loosen, and numerous patients slipped out of control every few hours.

This situation only improved when Wen Shi completely fulfilled his quest of mending doctor-patient relationships. At that point, the rules returned to their original track.

The stairwell of the fourth floor was filled with a gruesome mix of red and black blood and piles of internal organs. There wasn’t even a spot for Wen Shi to place his foot.

He suddenly raised the lantern in his hand and saw Seventh Commandment Guild Leader lying on the staircase corner between the third and fourth floors. The guild leader remained motionless, showing no signs of life, clearly dead.

Wen Shi found the guild leader’s death location on the third and fourth floors somewhat suspicious.

The director’s secret room was also in that area. If he encountered a monster, he should have tried his luck by hiding in the secret map room. Why would he die outside?

“Forget it, he got what he deserved.” Wen Shi couldn’t be bothered to investigate the cause of the guild leader’s death. He looked back at the corridor, but the lantern’s light had limited coverage, and he couldn’t see Jian Qingrong within the lit area.

Just as he was about to take out his phone to contact, he suddenly heard faint footsteps from the opposite corridor. Wen Shi focused his gaze until a stern figure gradually entered the illuminated area.

Astonishingly, Jian Qingrong’s lost hand had miraculously regrown within just two days. Under the light, the pale skin seemed to have a subtle glow.

Even though he missed the chaotic scene of slaughter, Wen Shi could instantly figure out what had happened.

“You used the identity of a patient to kill indiscriminately, to replenish energy, right?”

“It’s purification,” Jian Qingrong explained softly.

Absorbing the dark energy from the monsters and channeling it all to himself could be considered a form of liberating the souls of the dead.

“……”

After Patient 51 missed the chance to destroy the photo, Wen Shi didn’t come back immediately, but Jian Qingrong wasn’t worried about his safety. Once midnight passed, the patients began to be restrained by the rules again, and the chaos showed signs of subsiding. This confirmed that Wen Shi was likely unharmed and might have even gained the inheritance right that should have been his.

Jian Qingrong was worried about something else. “Now that my hand has healed early, will you still beat me?”

The way Jian Qingrong looked, as if afraid he wouldn’t get a beating, made Wen Shi’s temple throb violently.

He seriously considered whether to give him the cold shoulder for a while before helping him in retrieving the lost memory.

However, when Jian Qingrong spoke, he lowered his head slightly, the sight overlapping with the image of when they first met in the time rewind. No. 82 also liked to lower his head when he was quiet, as if the world in his eyes was only the tip of the iceberg he could see.

Pity, as an emotion, was dangerous. It could lower a person’s bottom line. Wen Shi remained silent for a moment and then suddenly asked, “Do you still remember…”

The words “No. 83” was ruthlessly blocked by the rules.

Wen Shi sighed softly.

He had been hopeful, but reality was harsh. The game wouldn’t let Jian Qingrong retain that memory completely. It could intervene in many ways, like infecting the experimental subject with a fever and causing him to lose a portion of his memory, and so on. The game aimed to eliminate every possible butterfly effect.

“What’s wrong?” Jian Qingrong asked when he noticed Wen Shi hesitating to speak.

Wen Shi shook his head and said, “Nothing, I just suddenly thought of the time at the sanatorium. In terms of infrastructure, the environment there was better than the main hospital.”

Frank Hospital could use a good renovation.

Patient 51’s room was near the end of the hallway. As they walked in that direction, Wen Shi had already changed the topic. But unexpectedly, Jian Qingrong brought it back up, “I’m not sure if it’s due to the patients running amok, but the Split Zone seems to be affected by the Fantasy Zone, causing hallucinations… I feel like I had a very long dream earlier.”

Wen Shi halted in his tracks.

“…In the dream, I saw you,” Jian Qingrong furrowed his brows. He rarely let his emotions show through his expression, but the bewilderment was clear in his eyes. “I can’t remember the details, though.”

In reality, he wanted to tell Wen Shi, “I think I’ve known you for a long time.”

However, he worried that Wen Shi might associate him with the mini octopus who had been spouting cheesy pickup lines recently, so he held back.

Catching a glimpse of his profile, Wen Shi suddenly smiled. The next moment, he held the lantern in one hand and gently took Jian Qingrong’s newly-grown hand in the other.

Jian Qingrong’s body trembled slightly.

Wen Shi said, “After we go back this time, let’s attend a tea party together. I’ll introduce you to my family.”

This slightly odd statement added another layer of confusion to Jian Qingrong’s expression.

“Go meet them with a completely new identity.”

A completely new identity?

In just one sentence, a turmoil of emotions, no less powerful than a storm, swirled inside Jian Qingrong. All the dark memories of the past seemed to transform into colorful fragments in those few words, cheering and clustering together to form an exceptionally beautiful… sunflower.

At this point, Wen Shi was already standing outside Patient 51’s ward.

Patient 51 sat on the bed and calmly, yet coldly, said, “You won.”

When it came to calculating emotions, humans always had a natural advantage over monsters.

Wen Shi stated his purpose, “I’d like to borrow those two photos.” He paused for a moment and, in Patient 51’s seemingly amiable but actually indifferent gaze, continued, “They should witness the hospital returning to normalcy in a brighter environment.”

Patient 51 remained silent for a few seconds.

“Just for half a day.”

In the end, Wen Shi managed to get the photos from Patient 51. He then handed them to Jian Qingrong and whispered a few words. Jian Qingrong nodded. “Alright.”

Patient 51 preferred silence. Wen Shi tactfully closed the door to the room before leaving.

As soon as the door closed, Wen Shi inquired about Yu Xingzhou and the others, “Where are the remaining people?”

Jian Qingrong: “In the prayer room.”

The fierce battle had only come to a halt two or three hours ago, and now there were body parts and bloodstains everywhere. Only the prayer room was relatively in a better state.

After going downstairs, Jian Qingrong went to do what Wen Shi had instructed, heading directly out the main door, while Wen Shi walked alone towards the prayer room. He hadn’t even reached there when he heard Song Yan’s voice—

“He’s back! That’s his footsteps!”

Wen Shi: “……”

When he entered the prayer room, Yu Xingzhou laughed. “Indeed.”

Scanning the area, Wen Shi noticed that there were a few players missing. He found it somewhat surprising. With A’Ao gone, even in the event of patient riots, there shouldn’t have been significant casualties if everyone worked together.

As if knowing what he was thinking, Song Yan approached quietly and said, “Like everyone kicking a falling wall, Seventh Commandment Guild Leader was thrown out by players to block the monsters. But before he died, he said that as long as one could scheme the death of others, they could reclaim special items like keys. And, right before his death, he said this while holding a lie detector item…”

Wen Shi rubbed his temples, already able to imagine the chaos that followed.

Seventh Commandment Guild Leader was indeed ruthless, easily stirring up the greed of others.

“In the end, we all split up. I was with the two guild leaders, and the others went their separate ways.”

Most players who could enter this instance carried a key on them, and perhaps, during the 3S instance settlement, they might gain another key. All it took was getting one more to escape the game.

Recovering keys from players was much less risky than entering a high-difficulty instance, so having ulterior motives was quite normal.

Wen Shi shook his head after hearing this. He walked straight to the crucifix under the watchful eyes of surviving players.

The crucifix remained unchanged, showing that the true spirit currently had no desire to meet him. Wen Shi gazed at the black rust on the crucifix and suddenly felt curious, “Do you prefer me dead, or alive?”

This question was destined to remain unanswered.

Not just the true spirit, but even the game itself probably didn’t know.

Afterward, the group hardly communicated further as they quietly waited for the last day to arrive. The hospital’s bloody first half of the night and its tranquil second half created a stark contrast, transitioning from dark to daylight successfully.

When the moon had completely disappeared, players began to leave the hospital one by one.

After the downpour, the air was filled with the scent of wild grass and soil. Wen Shi took in deep breaths of fresh air, and when he looked up, he faintly saw a figure on the fifth floor, as if the host was also opening a window to let in some air.

He waved to signal the person to come down.

When the host and the camera crew appeared, Wen Shi did something quite surprising. He took out a 【Small Megaphone】 and shouted at the building, “From today onward, I will be the new Director of Frank Hospital. I promise that during my tenure, I won’t misuse my authority and cause trouble like A’Ao…”

The host glanced at the cameramen and said, “Quick, capture everything. We can edit it into a documentary later.”

Amid his impassioned speech, advanced equipment was brought in from outside by carriages, accompanied by an construction team and a corpse-cleaning squad led by the butler.

Wen Shi: “First and foremost, let us thank the Earl for sponsoring the hospital. In the near future, the hospital will undergo a major renovation!”

The host was stunned. He could never forget the lunatic he saw during the martial arts matchmaking competition, who frightened him so much that he ran ten miles away. On the night when the Earl sent Wen Shi to work the night shift, the host watched from the fifth floor as the Earl beat up A’Ao.

“How could he be willing to sponsor us?”

“He had no choice but to sponsor us,” Wen Shi spoke rapidly. “He’s mentally unstable. As long as we use the sponsorship wisely, the hospital won’t admit him.”

“……” What happened to not misusing your authority?

Corruption, oh, corruption!

The last carriage stopped, and Jian Qingrong descended from it. Following him, several workers carried two paintings.

The previous night, Wen Shi had asked Jian Qingrong to find the castle master, using the upcoming tea party as an excuse, and requested a final favor — to paint down two pictures.

The castle master possessed top-notch painting skills. His portrayal of the bride in the painting was so lifelike that it could almost come to life.

Wen Shi walked up to the delivered paintings. Inside, every character looked incredibly real, as if they might step out of the painting in the next moment. What was even more remarkable was that whether they were monsters or humans, their smiles appeared incredibly genuine.

“Hang them in the prayer room,” he instructed the workers in a soft voice after standing quietly for a moment.

As day turned into night and seasons changed, there were some things that would never fade.

A familiar notification sound rang out:

“Congratulations to the player for clearing the 3S instance Frank Hospital and becoming the true heir.”

“Settlement will commence shortly.”

“Congratulations to the player for achieving a 100% role-playing score, earning a 1.5x point bonus! A total of 66,666 points!”

“……” Have you been infected by Song Yan?

【Based on the player’s performance in the instance, your title has been upgraded to ‘Director.’】

The cat doctor finally achieved his long-cherished wish and became a real cat director! Wen Shi’s shoulders relaxed, and he was just about to stretch under the clear sky when the game’s notification sound came again—

“Player 460872…”

Wen Shi raised an eyebrow. Every time the game recited his player’s number, it felt like it was calling his full name through gritted teeth. This time, it was surprisingly calm.

“The nesting doll ends.”

All the gambling, schemes, and the twisted, conflicted thoughts have completely ceased, all came to a complete halt, much like the torrential rain from last night.

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