Old Friends Reunited

On his one hundred and first Save-Load, Xu Kai returned to the moment he had moved to snatch the credential. He stopped in his tracks and abandoned the idea.

The credential carried far too much authority. It was very likely something that belonged to the boss of this Instance. The Instance boss was a Rule Ghost, and Xu Kai did not even know what level a Rule Ghost was. He had no concept of it at all, but he knew that something belonging to a boss like that was not something he should be touching yet.

Touch it, and he would die.

Back at the point he had loaded, the doctor's face was pale. The credential seemed to flicker, and Xu Kai immediately looked away, turning his gaze to the doctor's ankles.

[Temporary mission, visible to everyone in this Instance. Patient Number Nine is in critical condition and must proceed to the operating room within ten minutes]

The game's voice rang out, and Xu Kai knew the credential had caused this.

After the game's voice ended, an announcement rang out throughout the building:

"Patient Number Nine is in critical condition. Please proceed to the operating room immediately for emergency treatment!"

When the announcement ended, the pale-faced doctor spoke to Xu Kai:

"You heard that, didn't you? Let's go, Number Nine."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the effort, doctor, squeezing out such a huge fart."

"Hehe..."

Walking ahead, the doctor smiled and thought, Go on, enjoy yourself. Once we get to the operating room, I'll show you what a doctor can do.

Following the doctor's lead, Xu Kai walked out of the ward and suddenly realized that his was the only ward left on the entire floor. All the nearby wards had disappeared, replaced by a thick wall.

"Patient Number Nine? What are you standing there for? Oh, you can't see the other patients? Hmph, there's something wrong with your perception. The rest of us can see them just fine."

Xu Kai did not answer the doctor's specious argument. He studied the wall carefully and spotted a clock. It showed 7:35; only five minutes had passed.

As soon as Xu Kai entered the corridor, he stopped talking altogether and followed the doctor quietly. The doctor smiled, quite pleased that Patient Number Nine knew his place.

He led Xu Kai to the left of the ward, in the direction of the elevators.

The doctor led Xu Kai to the elevators, but did not enter. Instead, he cast a wary glance at Elevator Three and turned away from the elevators.

"We're taking the stairs. By the way, you haven't taken the stairs yet, have you?"

There was a suggestive note in the doctor's voice, but then he suddenly realized that patients were bound by the Corridor Rules and could not speak at all. In the end, he shook his head, finding it all rather dull, and continued onward.

He led Xu Kai to a heavy fire door and said:

"Once you go in, act as if you're on flat ground. Keep walking straight ahead. Don't look back, and don't turn. Even if you're stepping into empty space, keep walking until you're through. Understand?"

Xu Kai nodded. The doctor did not care whether the nurse understood. Leading the two of them, he pushed open the heavy door, flashed the credential ahead of him, then walked on by himself.

Xu Kai did not rush forward. Watching the doctor, he saw that he was not walking as if on flat ground, but going down the stairs normally. His actions did not follow his own instructions.

The nurse trembled. She did not listen to what the doctor had said, but copied what he was doing now, crawling inside just like that.

Then Xu Kai saw the plate at the nurse's mouth fall to the floor with a crisp click. The nurse herself plunged straight into the gap in the middle of the stairwell, as if she had jumped in of her own accord.

That left only Xu Kai standing before the fire door.

Xu Kai scrutinized the area, a grave look on his face. Previously, he had not found the stairs here at all. This spot was simply too well hidden. The heavy firewall blended right into the wall, and he could not tell them apart. He had thought the entire hospital had only elevators.

Since the doctor wanted him to walk to the operating room, he would never let Xu Kai die in the stairwell. So Xu Kai decided to believe what the doctor had said.

First, he bent down and picked up the milk and bread from breakfast. Then he stepped forward normally. His leading foot landed in midair, and he suddenly felt a solid surface beneath it.

The staircase had come alive, moving a step to catch Xu Kai's foot. From an outsider's perspective, he looked as though he were going down the stairs normally!

But only Xu Kai himself knew that he was merely pretending to walk forward normally, and that he had to pause for at least a second after every step. Only after that second had passed would the staircase judge the step acceptable and move to meet his foot. Otherwise, he would fall.

Xu Kai had just died once because he had walked too quickly and plunged straight down from a great height. It definitely had not been the height of the seventh floor. Xu Kai felt that he had fallen ten thousand meters before crashing to his death, Weird Energy and all.

So after loading back, he obediently followed the rules here. After a while, he succeeded in spotting the doctor ahead, as well as the operating room beyond.

The doctor had put on protective clothing and goggles, but Xu Kai could still tell from his sleazy gaze that he was the same doctor as before.

Xu Kai walked forward, stopping the instant his left foot entered the operating room. A smile touched his lips, and he said to the doctor:

"Asshole, the mandatory mission is over, and that fart you worked so hard to let out has dispersed. I'm leaving!"

With that, Xu Kai not only stopped moving forward but began backing up frantically. The movements were almost the same as walking forward, just in a different order. And he still had to wait a second before each step back.

The doctor froze, his pale face flushing red. He was furious. He could not understand how Xu Kai dared to exploit a loophole in the rules. He was practically throwing his life away. This was an erasure rule! Ever since the doctor had learned that rules existed, he had not dared to touch them at all.

It was the first time he had ever known someone to defy the rules like this. Xu Kai had only just reached the operating room, yet he dared to back away. Was he really not afraid of death?!

Furious, the doctor gestured into the operating room, then turned and pointed his index finger at Xu Kai.

At that instant, Xu Kai felt two gazes shoot out of the operating room, carrying an extreme sense of threat.

Roar!

The monsters had yet to appear, but a terrifying sound had already reached him.

The sound waves had taken physical form and spread along the stairwell. When they struck Xu Kai, five percent of the Weird Energy in his body vanished outright. He felt as if his internal organs had shifted out of place, his limbs went numb, and he was forced to stop retreating.

Then two monsters emerged from the operating room. Xu Kai sensed their auras, and his gaze sharpened.

For no other reason than that they were all too familiar: one was Leng Chong, and the other was Nurse Lin.

But their bodies had completely changed. Their eyes were crimson, their heads resembled those of savage wolves, and fleshy wings grew from their backs. Leng Chong radiated cold from head to toe. The Weird Energy from Evil's body had been perfectly preserved and had even grown stronger.

Nurse Lin was even stranger. She too had completely transformed into a monster that moved on all fours, but instead of growing webs on her hands, she had two long, coldly gleaming blades tucked within her foreclaws.

After Xu Kai recovered, his expression remained calm. All were equal in the stairwell, and the two monsters also had to go through the motions of walking forward, one step per second.

So Xu Kai continued backing away, certain that he could get out of the stairwell before them.

Unfortunately, the doctor seemed to see through it all. He waved his hand, and a heavy bang rang out. This is bad, Xu Kai thought.

The doctor had actually shut the heavy fire door to the stairwell from a distance.