Chapter 2

Right on cue, the system chimed.

[A new group of patients has been admitted.]

[The SSS-ranked instance, The Asylum Hunt, has officially begun.]

[Please note: medical staff patrol the hospital at irregular intervals. Anyone caught will be subjected to mandatory treatment as a penalty.]

[Survive for twenty-four hours and find your own medical record to qualify for discharge.]

[Good luck.]

I’d been through this instance a few times. The medical records spawned in random locations, but I had the layout memorized.

Keeping close to the wall, I slipped away to try my luck at the nurses’ station.

I’d just rounded the corner when a silver flash sliced through the air.

A scalpel skimmed my ear and lodged in the wall behind me, taking a lock of hair with it.

Ji Lingchuan stood at the far end of the corridor, his red eyes icy behind his glasses.

“Su Yi. What are you doing here again?”

I rolled my eyes.

He made it sound as though I was dying to visit his instance.

If I hadn’t been trying to ditch my online boyfriend and screw Ji Lingchuan over in the process, I’d have had to be out of my mind to come here and make myself miserable.

“I felt like fighting a boss,” I snapped. “An SSS-ranked one, preferably.”

Ji Lingchuan’s expression darkened. Three more scalpels flew at me in a triangular formation.

I dodged two, knocked the third aside with my dagger, and charged in to stab him.

He sidestepped and reached to seize my shoulder.

Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered something, he forcibly stopped himself and retreated beyond striking distance.

I froze for a moment.

What the hell?

Normally, we’d already be locked in a fight, demolishing half the building. What had gotten into him today?

My heart lurched.

Had he… figured out I was his online boyfriend?

Ji Lingchuan withdrew a full ten meters and coolly straightened his cuffs.

“Stay away from me. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

For a second, I thought I’d misheard. “What is wrong with you?”

Ji Lingchuan tipped his chin up.

On that perpetually frozen face, I could actually make out a trace of smugness—and something disturbingly lovestruck.

“My boyfriend came into the instance to see me.”

“Keep your hands off me. I don’t want him to misunderstand.”

Keep my hands off him?

That was the first time I’d heard someone make a fight sound so suggestive.

I ground my teeth.

“You’ve got some nerve saying that.”

“Then stop chasing me all over the map every time I show up!”

“Do you know what people say on the player forum? That you want me, can’t have me, and all that unrequited love has turned into hate—”

“The forum also says you cause trouble in my instance to get my attention,” Ji Lingchuan cut in coldly.

“That’s bullshit!” I shouted.

“Glad you know.”

At some point, a group of players had started shipping Ji Lingchuan and me on the forum.

Apparently, the top-ranked player getting together with the strongest boss was a horror-game tradition.

The thread had thousands of replies, all “They love and hate each other,” “Enemies make the best couple,” and “He runs, he chases, there’s no escape.”

Worse still, one day I’d accidentally tapped on a fanfic.

Forbidden Asylum: Forced Punishment After a Failed Clear.

It depicted Ji Lingchuan trapping Su Yi on an operating table and subjecting him to forced intimate contact.

After reading it, I’d wanted to gouge my eyes out.

Ji Lingchuan seemed to remember some equally unprintable material. His mouth twitched.

“Anyway, behave yourself this time.”

“Cause any more trouble and scare my baby, and you’ll be the first to try the new equipment in the electrotherapy room.”

With that, he turned and left.

As he walked, he took out his phone again and eagerly started typing.