Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Assistant Li’s shirt was soaked through. The scenes that had just unfolded flashed through his mind, bringing a rush of relief and belated fear.
The players actually had something that could detect lies. And his companions could still speak after becoming a monster!
They had come so close… to being exposed.
Shaken to his core, his heart pounding in his chest, Assistant Li couldn’t help looking at Zhao Xiuming.
This man…
He was smiling mildly, enjoying himself.
Enjoying the chaos he’d created. Enjoying the absurdity before him.
For a moment, Assistant Li didn’t know how to face him. All he felt was alarm.
The three-headed anomaly had long since been overwhelmed, its body riddled with injuries from the players’ items.
Besides their items, the players had enhanced bodies.
They handled it with ease. Although they couldn’t kill it outright in such a short time, they had severed plenty of its feelers.
The anomaly made from the bodyguards and driver could speak, but it wasn’t very intelligent. It relied on instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm.
Under attack, the monster had no choice but to retreat, practically fleeing in panic.
Plaster had broken off the walls throughout the ward. Beds lay scattered at odd angles.
Yet the other wards on the floor were eerily quiet. Not a single player or NPC came to investigate.
The players didn’t dare relax. They were even more wary of Zhao Xiuming’s group.
From somewhere, Zhao Xiuming produced more dried meat and began chewing.
The players’ expressions turned extremely ugly. They had already decided that all of it was human flesh.
Zhou Qingyan’s legs were shaking uncontrollably. She didn’t know why the monster had attacked the players. Was it truly craving human flesh? Would it really eat people?
How were they supposed to get away now? Would the players let them leave?
Assistant Li looked up at Zhao Xiuming. His cheeks were puffed out with dried meat, and he was still in the mood to tease the players for his own amusement.
He deliberately said, “Actually, I’m quite fond of dried meat myself.”
“How about I…”
The players’ expressions darkened further. Assistant Li badly wanted to cover his mouth and shut him up.
But then Zhao Xiuming narrowed his eyes and walked toward the door.
Assistant Li hurried after him with Zhou Qingyan, tugging her out of her frightened stupor and half carrying her forward. One player moved to stop them.
Before the player could raise a hand, Zhao Xiuming pulled open the ward’s precariously hanging door and swiftly grabbed someone.
The man was so tall that Zhao Xiuming had to look up at him.
He wore armored riding gear. Goggles covered half his face, and a mask concealed even the exposed portion of his chin.
His black top hugged his body. Clothing like that would have been a disaster on someone without the figure for it. But this man had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and the arm beneath Zhao Xiuming’s hand was very firm.
When Zhao Xiuming grabbed his arm, he merely lowered his head a little.
With his size and strength, he could have broken free effortlessly. Yet he didn’t move, as though Zhao Xiuming had seized his one vital weakness.
“The one in the helmet!” Zhao Xiuming exclaimed in delighted surprise.
Faced with the mysterious man who had helped him, he did something no one expected.
He forced his hand into the man’s palm, pushed his fingers between the other’s, and locked their hands tightly together.
Assistant Li adjusted his glasses. Good. Zhao Xiuming knew to hang on to a lifeline.
Zhou Qingyan felt a little embarrassed. Wouldn’t the man get angry at being grabbed like that?
The players had no idea where this new NPC had come from. Watching them, someone speculated, “Two anomalies dating? Huh. Let’s give everyone in the livestream a look…”
Assistant Li’s mouth twitched. Zhou Qingyan quickly lowered her head. Both pretended they couldn’t hear the players.
Zhao Xiuming didn’t care. The System, silent for a long time, suddenly came back online. [What are you doing?]
Zhao Xiuming answered casually, [Making sure he doesn’t run off.]
[System, who is he?]
[I did what you said and touched him. He really does let people touch him.]
The System’s boyish voice sounded a little awkward. [You don’t know who he is?]
Zhao Xiuming was all smiles. [Should I? Do you know?]
The System said, […No.]
The players had never seen anything like this. The NPCs were doing nothing, not interacting with the players, absorbed in their own business.
Generally, an instance revolved around the players. They would inevitably encounter its most central elements.
Even when a hidden mission began, it was the players who discovered the secret, a major secret concerning the instance.
This had conditioned them to think: This NPC must be trying to give me a hint.
So the dozen-plus players followed them into the corridor, their eyes sweeping back and forth like searchlights, afraid of missing any clue.
Some discussed it loudly, relying on the fact that NPCs couldn’t hear game-related information.
“What are they doing? Going on a blind date?”
“They must be showing us the relationships between the NPCs. Is the main storyline connected to them?”
“Hospital doctors raising monsters and feeding people to them. That must be the hospital’s secret.”
“You need combat strength in a monster instance. The anomalies in this hospital don’t have much variety.”
“Something about these NPCs feels off…”
“Didn’t we see them when we first came in? They weren’t wearing uniforms then. They’d brought back an infected person, too.”
“The anomalies in this instance can spread infection…”
Once the players confirmed that Zhao Xiuming and his companions were NPCs, they took it for granted that they were doctors.
Even though they’d seen them without white coats earlier, they hadn’t thought much of it.
That was the trouble with habitual assumptions. Zhao Xiuming wanted to remind them to think more boldly.
He glanced toward the players, eager to test and provoke them without regard for his own safety.
But the moment he opened his mouth, the man beside him covered it with his free hand.
The leather glove was large enough to conceal almost half of Zhao Xiuming’s face.
Thoughtfully, the mysterious biker shifted his palm downward, cupping Zhao Xiuming’s chin in his whole hand and leaving his nose clear so he could breathe.
Assistant Li entirely understood the decision to cover Zhao Xiuming’s mouth.
Zhao Xiuming behaved himself now. It wasn’t as though he absolutely had to court death. Beyond having fun, he’d also been testing the mysterious man beside him.
The biker gestured for them to leave and pulled Zhao Xiuming along, their fingers still intertwined. Naturally, Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan followed.
“Wait.” It was the woman who had used the lie-detecting item. She wasn’t willing to let them go so easily.
The biker and Zhao Xiuming turned at the same time. One pair of hands remained tightly clasped; with their free hands, they both pointed behind the players.
Only after pointing did they notice what the other had done. Both paused.
The players turned to find a white-coated figure standing silently in the corridor behind them.
It was the clerk whose head had come off, the anomaly doctor who had attacked the driver and bodyguards in the emergency room.
The name badge on his chest read “Pu Yuanliang.” His face gleamed like a plastic mannequin’s.
“You’re changing rooms,” he announced coldly.
“Leave this area immediately.”
The players exchanged looks, then glanced at the devastated ward. It really was uninhabitable. Even the door was broken.
Seeing that they still wanted to stall, more figures in white coats came up the corridor stairs.
All had faces like plastic mannequins. They were exactly the same height, their steps perfectly matched. Their bodies were nimble, yet there was an indescribable stiffness to them.
The sight of so many plastic people approaching was thoroughly intimidating.
The anomaly doctors stopped a short distance away and came no closer. They seemed wary of something.
Only when the elevator chimed and the biker left with the black-haired doctor and his two companions
did the mannequin-like doctors dare move. The players had no choice but to comply. They couldn’t risk a confrontation with so many NPCs.
As the players filed out, Dr. Pu, who was in the lead, walked into the wrecked ward.
He bent over with a creaking sound. After rummaging for half a minute, he pulled some dried meat from beneath a sheet.
“So,” Assistant Li reasoned in the elevator, frowning, “it wasn’t that the bodyguards liked type B blood. It was because of your local specialties.”
“You were only pretending to record blood types. You were really planting food.”
“How could you be sure everything would go the way you wanted?”
Zhao Xiuming looked surprised. “Why would I need to be sure everything would go according to plan?”
Assistant Li closed his eyes, looking as though he’d expected precisely that.
He knew it!
His head ached a little. He was a cautious man who preferred to be sure of things. He wouldn’t act without confidence in the outcome.
He couldn’t understand a gambler’s mindset. Even gambling ought to involve calculating the odds and weighing the gains against the losses.
The elevator finally stopped on the first floor. The silent biker made a slight movement, and Zhao Xiuming immediately squeezed his fingers together, gripping him tightly.
The biker could only lift his chin toward the doors, indicating that they needed to get out.
Zhou Qingyan tried to persuade him. “Zhao Xiuming, this gentleman’s come all the way here with us. He probably wants to talk. You don’t need to hold him quite so… intimately.”