Double Skewer

That afternoon, Xu Kai reviewed the clues from the entire instance and found that the answer still lay in the transformation. Whether doctors or nurses, their perceptions all seemed to be changing.

Once their perceptions changed, they would all believe that only those who crawled on all fours, stuck out their tongues, and used tools with their mouths were human.

Xu Kai couldn't imagine it. At first, he suspected drugs were responsible, but he immediately decided that didn't make sense.

If drugs changed their perceptions, doctors and nurses wouldn't take them for no reason.

Xu Kai took a couple of steps, then suddenly thought of something. In his excitement, he slapped the IV stand. It immediately swayed, jolting Patient Number Eight awake where he was skewered on it. Patient Number Eight let out an uneasy roar.

Xu Kai patted Patient Number Eight on the head. When Number Eight saw it was Xu Kai, he became much more docile and quietly lay back down.

He couldn't beat this upright ape. A wise man knew when to yield.

Xu Kai paid Patient Number Eight no mind. His eyes lit up; he'd just hit on a lead.

Drugs couldn't have caused the transformation. There was no way every doctor and nurse took drugs, but every doctor and nurse had to eat!

And in the entire hospital, only the second floor had a cafeteria. Everyone had to pass through it. If something was causing the transformation, nine times out of ten, it was in the cafeteria!

Xu Kai sat on the hospital bed, rhythmically tapping his fingers on the table as his thoughts grew clearer.

Number Eight had only begun transforming after he came out of the cafeteria. If the cafeteria was responsible, everything made sense.

Xu Kai began recalling what the cafeteria looked like.

The strangest things there were Fat Auntie and the serving window.

When the serving window opened, all the patients on all fours had been eager to rush over. There had to be something wrong there.

But Fat Auntie seemed strong. Faced with so many crawling patients, she'd driven them all back with a wave of her ladle. With just a shout, she'd even pinned Xu Kai to the table.

Clearly, Fat Auntie was neutral at the very least and wasn't on the same side as the crawling patients. Still, she had to know something.

But beyond that, Xu Kai felt he couldn't deduce anything else. He realized he was still just a college student. With some problems, deduction alone amounted to nothing more than guesswork.

Earlier, when he'd gone up to the window, the food he'd received was no different from anyone else's. Fat Auntie had served everyone the same way; only the way she called their numbers was a little different, and that could be explained as a way to keep the line in order.

The food was also clean, with nothing unusual about it. Xu Kai had asked about the nutritional meal, but Fat Auntie hadn't reacted much and had only told him to come back for it tomorrow.

Xu Kai felt he'd reached a blind spot.

Knock, knock.

As Xu Kai was thinking, a knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

"Come in."

A nurse crawled in on all fours, struggling to hold something back. Expressionless, she said to Xu Kai:

"It's afternoon, Patient Number Nine. It's time to take your medicine."

"I already took it this morning."

Xu Kai answered calmly. According to the game rules, he was required to take medicine once a day. He'd already taken it that morning, so when he saw the nurse that afternoon, he chose to refuse outright.

"How can you refuse treatment? Number Nine, with an attitude like that, are you hiding your condition? Has it gotten worse?"

The nurse on all fours grew furious. She removed her mask, revealing a chin that was no longer human, but a wolf-like jaw. She was about to pounce on Xu Kai.

The nurse didn't seem to be giving Xu Kai a chance to explain. It was as though she would pin him down no matter what he said.

Xu Kai was just about to explain when he saw the nurse bearing down on him. Helplessly, he glanced at the spot in the ward where the two IV stands had originally been.

Only one IV stand remained there.

Squish!

Without a moment's hesitation, Xu Kai dashed over, grabbed the IV stand, and stabbed it straight into the nurse's back. He carried out the move with practiced ease: the same pounce, the same IV stand, the same stab in the back.

Xu Kai felt like Runtu, who had now bagged two zha with his own hands.

The nurse struggled and could still just manage to speak, but her perceptions were growing stranger and stranger.

Xu Kai watched it all with a grave expression. For no other reason than that it was too fast.

The nurse had been crawling when she came in, but she'd still been able to speak. Now she could only babble a few syllables.

The nurse struggled. Her eyes were no longer vicious, but pleading as she said:

"Medicine, medicine, you, you take it, then I take it!"

"Why can't you just take it yourself?"

"'Rules,' nurses can't take medicine the patient hasn't taken, must..."

Before she could finish, the nurse used what reason she had left to first take out Patient Number Nine's medicine box.

"Please, save me, one pill! You..."

"Why did you think of coming to me?"

"..."

"Heh, do you know a nurse surnamed Lin?"

"...Quick, take it."

The nurse went wild, struggling with all her might. Her whole body swelled, and wings even grew from her back, tearing through her uniform.

At this point, Xu Kai calmed himself and recalled how urgently the nurse had knocked and then pounced. It hadn't seemed as though she wanted to kill him, but to restrain him.

He decided to take a gamble. Taking the nurse's medicine, he asked:

"Which one is the blue pill?"

"Left, left!"

As soon as the nurse finished speaking, she began to roar. Without hesitation, Xu Kai swallowed the blue pill and gave the red one to the nurse.

The moment the nurse took the medicine, her wings rapidly withered, revealing her pale back.

"Cough, cough, thank you. My name is Kana, and this stand..."

Bang!

Xu Kai snapped the stand with his bare hands, and Kana hurriedly stepped free. Her back had been pierced through and was bleeding; she needed an emergency bandage. Fortunately, she had a first-aid kit strapped to her. She immediately treated the wound, then gave Xu Kai a thumbs-up and said:

"Cough, cough, impressive! I lost my mind just now. I don't even know what nonsense I was babbling, but you actually managed to figure it out."

"Maybe practice makes perfect."

As Xu Kai said this, he glanced sideways at Patient Number Eight, who was fast asleep.

"Now that you're better, tell me: how did you end up like that just now, and what's going on with the medicine?"

"Cough, cough, haven't you noticed you've gotten stronger?"

Xu Kai froze at the nurse's words. He was "Evil." Wasn't it normal for him to be a little stronger?

But now that the nurse had mentioned it, Xu Kai really did sense something strange.

He thought hard, as though he could feel a terrifying power concealing something. Xu Kai searched his memory with all his might, and with the willpower he'd gained from dying countless times and enduring countless ordeals of pain, he finally remembered.

When he'd snapped the steel IV stand just now, he hadn't used any Weird Energy at all!

Xu Kai's gaze sharpened, and he said to Kana:

"I'm starting to transform, aren't I? I saved you. Isn't it a bit much to keep your savior in suspense?"

"Cough, cough."

The nurse struggled to breathe. The wound on her abdomen still hurt too much, and the blood loss had left her a little dizzy. But she still pointed to the skewer of meat beside them—that is, Patient Number Eight—and said:

"What I'm saying is, there's something wrong with this entire hospital! It's gradually turning us into things like that. Only medicine! Only the medicine handed out every day can suppress this transformation!"

"So you stole that medicine and, following your 'rules,' found the corresponding patients, letting them take it while you took it too?"

"Smart."

The nurse nodded.

Xu Kai frowned. This is trouble. He'd originally thought taking the medicine would slowly transform his body. He hadn't expected the opposite to be true: only by taking the medicine could he suppress the transformation.

"How much medicine are you carrying? How much of it is mine?"

Xu Kai immediately realized this and asked the nurse.

"None left. I was pressed for time, so I could only steal a little for each patient. But looking around on my way here, you're the only patient left who can stand."

"How long have you been out looking for patients? Who's managing the medicine?"

"I-I don't remember. Why are you asking?"

Kana looked at Xu Kai in confusion. Xu Kai said nothing, and Kana couldn't read anything in his eyes either.

"You don't remember? Don't you think that's strange? Why don't you remember?"

"I... should I remember?"