Chapter 8
Chapter 8
There was no sign of the biker in the emergency room!
“Ha-ha.” Zhao Xiuming laughed, too. His smile didn’t reach his ears, but it came fairly close.
His eyes crinkled with his smile. What a bright, cheerful young man.
Zhou Qingyan stood right beside him, staring in shock. Why?
Why could he still laugh? Was he insane?
The driver fired instinctively. The terrifying attack on the road had left its mark on him. It was almost a reflex.
Naturally, the gun was useless. Assistant Li knew things were about to go wrong, but he had no time to stop it.
The hole in the anomaly doctor’s forehead was slowly closing.
The doctor’s whole body began trembling. The other doctors looked over, too.
Only then did the driver realize what he’d done. In his terror, he waved the gun wildly as he backed away, though he didn’t dare fire again.
Assistant Li and the uninjured bodyguard quickly raised their guns as well, edging together toward the door, afraid the surrounding anomalies would pounce.
Zhao Xiuming didn’t move, which left him closest to the anomaly.
“Zhao Xiuming!” Assistant Li snapped. “What are you doing?”
Had fear driven him mad?
His detached air infuriated Assistant Li and the others.
They couldn’t understand it and found it utterly exasperating. Angry and bewildered, they thought he was an idiot.
But Zhao Xiuming knew what he was doing. His world was a melodramatic romance novel, now mixed together with a supernatural horror novel.
How exactly did these two merged worlds work? The ghosts and monsters from the horror world were plainly there for the players outside. Didn’t leaving the hospital to intercept romance-world NPCs like them count as neglecting their duties?
If they could eat cannon fodder from another novel’s world, especially characters who had actual scenes (himself, for instance, or the second female lead, Zhou Qingyan, or the second male lead, Assistant Li),
what would happen? Would there be some fascinating change?
As for whether he died, Zhao Xiuming wasn’t particularly concerned.
They were in a supernatural horror world now. Alive or dead, what difference did it make?
“Wonderful.” His expression mingled genuine feeling with barely restrained fervor. “Does stopping people on the road count as skipping work?”
“How do you operate? This is so interesting.”
“All these things mixed together, and it hasn’t collapsed. Then what’s the point of our existence?”
“Could you eat me first?”
“Or Zhou Qingyan. Assistant Li would do, too.”
“Let’s see what happens. Ha-ha, sorry. I’m really a little curious.”
Zhou Qingyan stumbled back several steps in fright, shaking her head in disbelief.
Before the horror could even build, his barrage of questions had shattered the mood.
Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan looked aghast.
To Zhou Qingyan and the others, nine out of ten things about Zhao Xiuming were wrong. Make it a hundred, and ninety-nine would be abnormal.
Accusing him of being behind these supernatural events hardly seemed unfair. Just look at what he was doing!
Even someone with a death wish wouldn’t act like this. What a complete moron.
Zhao Xiuming truly wasn’t afraid. Interest shone in his eyes, his pretty face a stark contrast to the hideous monster.
He didn’t look like someone seeking death. He looked like a researcher who had finally found a satisfactory specimen.
He also looked like an ignorant fool, spouting nonsense and doing everything possible to get himself killed.
Everyone was certain he was doomed. Yet after staring at him for a good ten seconds, the anomaly doctor actually spoke like a person. “Who are you… What’s your relationship with the one in the helmet?”
Zhao Xiuming wasn’t very pleased. He checked again. [System, am I really cannon fodder?]
The System seemed to be holding back laughter. [Yes, you are.]
[Even in your hometown, you’re cannon fodder who never appears in front of the players.]
It took Zhao Xiuming half a second to work out who “the one in the helmet” was. “The biker?”
“He and I…”
“I’d say we’re at the stage where he’d let me touch him.”
Then he saw an expression of disgust appear on the doctor’s plastic face. The fellow even made a vivid show of retching.
Zhao Xiuming was displeased. “That’s rude.”
“I’m going to file a complaint.”
The anomaly doctor took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.
Ignoring the aura around Zhao Xiuming, he lunged straight past him at the bodyguards and Assistant Li’s group.
The other doctors moved at once. Amid screams, they tore the humans apart. Red liquid flew onto the ceiling and spattered in every direction.
Gunshots rang out like a ceremonial salute. With each blast, pieces of human bodies scattered.
Zhou Qingyan tried to run, but the nurse in white blocked the door. She was still human-shaped, though red feelers lashed wildly across her face.
Assistant Li reacted fast, dragging the driver in front of him to die in his place.
At the same time, he noticed something unusual. He darted toward Zhao Xiuming, aiming for the clothing in his hands.
His gamble paid off. The moment he put it on, the anomalies stopped attacking him.
Unfortunately, everyone else had been reduced to blood and gore. The emergency room lights flickered. The figures in white coats stood there, turning their heads in perfect unison.
They were filthy with blood, fresh blood dripping from their mouths. Feelers filled their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, waving in the air.
Zhou Qingyan fainted. Breathing hard, Assistant Li seized Zhao Xiuming around the waist.
Zhao Xiuming obligingly raised his arms to let him get a grip. Once again, a gun pressed against him.
“You did that deliberately,” Assistant Li rasped.
Zhao Xiuming shook his head. “No.”
“Your man provoked them. You’re the one who pulled someone in front of you as a shield.”
“Don’t be upset.”
“Who said they were dead?”
As if to prove his point, the red scraps on the floor began sticking together, slowly gathering.
The uneaten remains devoured one another. In the blink of an eye, they became new anomalies.
These anomalies were made of things like organs and legs, coated in red blood, with black feelers writhing wildly.
The anomaly doctor who had spoken to Zhao Xiuming smiled again, watching him as though enjoying a show.
Zhao Xiuming considered it briefly. “We’ve been had. My clothes are useless.”
“They can’t kill the three of us. But things from our own world can.”
Now he was no longer willing to die so readily. He could guess what would happen after his death.
He’d simply merge with that mass and become part of it.
Zhao Xiuming patted Assistant Li’s hand around his waist. “I’ll tell you what you want to know once we’re safe.”
Assistant Li didn’t want to believe him, but now he had no choice. The things made from his companions’ bodies were already squirming toward them.
And the original monsters really weren’t moving!
He released Zhao Xiuming, and they ran for the door together.
Zhao Xiuming handed him the bags, then scooped Zhou Qingyan off the floor and carried her in his arms.
Assistant Li didn’t know quite what to feel. He hadn’t expected Zhao Xiuming to bother with her.
A moment ago, he’d seemed positively eager to get everyone killed. He hadn’t reacted to the deaths of the driver and bodyguards. Yet now he remembered to take Zhou Qingyan with them.
So it really had been Zhao Xiuming, hadn’t it? He really was the one who had abducted Li Zhehan and Zhang Xueya but let Zhou Qingyan go?
He had many secrets and knew a great deal. Assistant Li suppressed his thoughts. At a look from Zhao Xiuming, he offered the dried meat in his hands to the nurse blocking the door, braced for death.
The nurse smiled, took two pieces, and stepped aside, letting them leave.
Once outside, Assistant Li kept looking back, afraid something would come after them.
He had countless questions, but he didn’t dare lower his guard.
Around them, the hospital still looked “normal.” Seeing it now, he felt a chill in his bones.
He took the initiative. “What are you going to do next?”
“Me?” Zhao Xiuming turned his head, his eyes clear. His slightly long hair had come loose and now hung at the corners of his eyes.
He closed his eyes in discomfort. “I don’t know.”
Assistant Li took a deep breath and tucked the hair by Zhao Xiuming’s eyes behind his ears. “Listen. I don’t care whether you’re behind this.”
“I admit, this is beyond what I expected. I came unprepared. I didn’t think things would turn out like this.”
“I thought there was only the one monster Zhou Qingyan described. I didn’t know there would be so many.”
“I just want to get out alive and figure out what to do from there.”
Zhao Xiuming’s expression was mild. Once again, he told the truth. “I don’t know how to get out alive.”
“I didn’t do it. And I’m not the one who let Zhou Qingyan go.”
“If you ask me what’s happening here, I can tell you.”
“If you ask me what caused it, I don’t know.”
Assistant Li found a seat in the hospital lobby. He wouldn’t lower his gun. Even knowing it was useless, it was the only thing that gave him any sense of security.
For once, he set aside his own view of the world and followed Zhao Xiuming’s reasoning. “Then tell me what you know.”
Zhao Xiuming settled the unconscious Zhou Qingyan against himself. “Anomalies exist in this world.”
“The hospital is a gathering place for them. Remember those people who called themselves players?”
Assistant Li nodded, and he continued, “They’re here to clear it. That means completing some sort of mission in a place where anomalies gather.”
“Once they’re done, the hospital will let them leave.”
Assistant Li struggled to understand. “Then we’re players, too?”
Zhao Xiuming smiled. His expression was gentle, his eyes calm and accepting. “Us? No, we’re not.”
“I’m cannon fodder. You’re the second male lead. Zhou Qingyan is a supporting female character.”
“Your young master Zhehan and Zhang Xueya are the male and female leads.”
“We don’t belong to this instance. We’re part of a different system.”
“Once the players leave, there’s no telling what will happen to us. We might stay here forever. We might get out.”
Assistant Li laughed in exasperation. “Are you sane? Do you have any… evidence for all this?”
He stood. There was too much he didn’t understand, and he was deeply desperate.
It had come to this: following a madman’s train of thought. The worst part was that the world this madman saw might be the real one.
After pacing a few circles, he couldn’t help saying, “Come on. Let’s find those players.”
“Hmm…” Zhao Xiuming seemed to have thought of something interesting.
“Wait.” Assistant Li pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to recall the scene when the players arrived.
“When those players were talking, the anomalies couldn’t hear them, could they?”
“What are we to the players?”
“If we go over and reveal that we aren’t players but can hear their conversations… will they help us?”