Yu Qing's instincts had always been sharp.
His breathing quickened, his steps slowed, and his heartbeat grew increasingly uneasy.
Finally, a short way into the corridor, he quietly stopped and turned back. In the lobby, apart from the young nurse on duty at the reception desk, all that remained was... a life-sized stone statue.
It was an angel statue, standing atop a platform roughly three meters across, surrounded by a ring of lifelike, fur-covered animal statues modeled after the twelve zodiac animals. Except-
Had these statues been arranged like this just now?
He remembered the angel and the twelve zodiac animals all looking toward the entrance when he first came downstairs. Why were they now... all looking at him?
And the angel statue's eyes weren't the color of plaster. They were pitch-black, like... human eyes!
At that realization, dizziness swept over Yu Qing. Then a series of sharp cracks rang out beside his ears. His surroundings grew darker and darker, and before his eyes, the life-sized angel statue cracked apart piece by piece. Plaster fell to the floor, slick with thick blood.
It revealed a woman inside, her skin gone, her entire body drenched in blood.
The woman opened her gaping, bloody maw. Her pitch-black eyes locked onto him as she came closer, closer, closer!
Soon, she stopped right in front of him. A hand of rotting flesh clamped around his neck with a distinct smack.
Yu Qing seemed frozen in place. Before he could escape, his entire body was hoisted into the air. His delicate face slowly turned blue as he stared, suffocating, at the bloody face drawing ever closer.
A moment later, the woman opened her bloody maw and, with a crunch, bit his head clean off!
Drip-
A drop of blood hit the floor. Yu Qing finally came to his senses and shook his head. It had been a hallucination!
He had seen a hallucination.
The drop of blood on the floor was actually his own cold sweat.
His legs felt weak.
Yu Qing took a step back. Only after a long while did his breathing ease enough for him to steady himself.
He clenched his trembling hands and took several deep breaths before raising his head again to look at the eerie angel statue.
The Angel Psychiatric Sanatorium had been named after an angel statue blessed with divine favor. This statue...
No, not just the statue. The animals surrounding it-the twelve zodiac animals-also had pitch-black eyes. They weren't round animal eyes. They were...
Yu Qing stepped forward, cautiously approaching the sinister statue. Little by little, he carefully inspected the twelve animal figures of varying shapes and discovered-the rabbit was missing.
The rabbit... where had it gone?
"Aaaaaaah!"
Suddenly, a shriek distorted by terror came from the end of the corridor. Then, rumble-
Thunder erupted, lightning flashed, and the beautiful nurse who had been sitting at reception handing out bells turned into a skeleton.
[Aaaaaah! Mommy, I'm scared! Rookie instances weren't this hard before, were they?]
[Exactly. In previous instances, the nurse only turned into a skeleton at night. Why is she doing it in broad daylight today...]
[I seriously thought the streamer got eaten. Fuck, aaaaaah, that scared me to death.]
[Nobody stared at the statue during the last run. Has the streamer unlocked some hidden mechanic by looking at it too long?]
Sure enough, no sooner had the comments appeared than the system announced:
[Congratulations to streamer Yu Qing for discovering the crucial clue "Secret of the Angel Statue." Story exploration: 11%.] [The angel's murderous intent has intensified. Instance difficulty increased.] [Current difficulty: level 3 (maximum level: 10).] [Keep up the good work, streamer~]
The instance... had leveled up?
The noisy livestream chat fell silent for a moment, then-
[Hahahahaha, my wifey is amazing! One look at a statue and he raises the instance difficulty by two levels! I love him!]
[Level three is great! Level three means a higher death rate! Everyone's chances of dying just went up! Hahahahaha, seriously, he's killing me!]
[Other streamers: ◝₍ᴑ̑ДO͝₎◞]
Yu Qing: "..."
Was the difficulty... really that unstable?!
No wonder they said they took no responsibility whether you lived or died!
Taking a deep breath, the young man ignored the wailing livestream chat, turned decisively, and hurried toward the source of the scream.
At the bend in the corridor, he saw countless bloodstained vines protruding from the wall, each distinct, all aimed at the Tang-Suited Young Man tearing talisman paper with his hands.
The vines writhed and convulsed like whips. A moment later, crack-
One lashed across the young man's back, instantly leaving a bloody mess of torn flesh.
The whip grew even more excited after tasting blood. Just as it was about to strike again, suddenly, "Mmph..."
Yu Qing rose onto his toes and firmly covered the young man's mouth.
His watery, almond-shaped eyes widened as he rapidly scanned their surroundings. Soon, his gaze fixed on a nearby notice, and he whispered a warning. "Shh-no loud noises."
The Tang-Suited Young Man's mouth was covered tightly, but he soon spotted the sign on the wall too: [Sanatorium patients need quiet. Loud noises are prohibited.]
He nodded hastily and removed Yu Qing's hand, even slowing and quieting his breathing.
The surrounding vines were like bloodthirsty beasts. Unable to locate any loud sounds, they began flailing wildly in every direction, making no attempt to conceal their savagery.
Yu Qing held his breath and carefully backed away with the Tang-Suited Young Man. At last, they retreated into the nearest room, 104.
Click-
The door closed, granting them a brief respite.
Blood was still seeping from the young man's back. He kept a tight grip on the doorframe, watching the corridor carefully through the tiny pane of glass in the door.
Only when the vines reluctantly withdrew into the wall did he finally breathe a sigh of relief. He turned to Yu Qing in surprise. "You're not mute?"
Yu Qing: "...And you don't stutter."
"Huh?" The young man paused, then gave a roguish grin. "I was copying you, wasn't I? Otherwise, I'd have had to do Morgue Guard Duty. Oh, right, I'm Qian Lai."
Seeing the young man offer his hand, Yu Qing considered for a moment before shaking it. "My name is... 3.1415926."
Qian Lai: "..."
"It's not safe here," Yu Qing said again. "Let's talk about that once we're out."
With that, he motioned for Qian Lai to sit and shared what he had learned. "The requirement for clearing this instance is to find the key that lets us out. I saw that the lobby door was locked from the inside, but there was no keyhole. What we need is probably a Keycard."
He had observed this man for a while. Qian Lai was responsible, intelligent, and consistently followed the principle that everyone should survive together. He might... even know a little about the occult. He was a teammate Yu Qing could trust.
"Security guards usually carry those," Qian Lai reasoned. "But we went around the lobby and only saw the director, the male doctor, and the female nurse."
"Neither the male doctor nor the female nurse had one, so maybe..."
"The director has it," Yu Qing finished for him. The cold sweat on his palms had faded, and his heartbeat was gradually returning to normal.
He drank his medicine, thought for a moment, then opened the system shop again and bought a slightly cheaper topical medicine. "We can try looking for the Director’s Office first... Take your shirt off."
Qian Lai: ???
Livestream chat: [???]
[Where's the BOSS? Where's the black mist? He's getting cheated on! The streamer was calling him "hubby" yesterday, and today he's telling another man to strip. Oh my, oh my! So! Exciting!]
[I heard it with my own ears! The black mist BOSS is going to be angry. Why am I kind of looking forward to the streamer getting caught?]
[Calling the BOSS! Calling the BOSS! Woohoo-]
Bang-
Suddenly, a tremendous crash rang out outside, as though an enormous rock had slammed into the floor.
The violent sound overlapped with his terrifying hallucination. Yu Qing's fingertips trembled, and a deep unease rose within him. Then the medicine was snatched from his hand.
An icy chill enveloped both his hands completely, leaving him unable to move. Next, an invisible force lifted the bottle, and with a splash-
Dumped all of it onto Qian Lai's back!
"Ah... mmph!" The moment he cried out, Qian Lai remembered the rule against loud noises. He raised his head, about to ask Yu Qing what he was doing, only to see the entire room light up scarlet.
Rapid beeps blared deafeningly as an alarm announced with deadly urgency, "The angel has locked onto its newest sacrifice: the male streamer with long white hair whose name is entirely numbers! The one who's 176 centimeters tall."
Yu Qing: "???"
"Please prepare yourselves. We will arrive promptly at midnight tonight~"
Tick, tick, tick-
Night fell. Inside the ward, the second hand advanced one notch at a time.
There was no moonlight in the instance's night. Black mist filled the air, so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. The silence was unnerving.
Step, step, step-
Footsteps passed along the corridor. "Run, run, quick... run, run, quick... the red, red drawer is full of blood, the white, white bed will eat you up..."
"Run, run, quick... run, run, quick..."
A girl's singing suddenly drifted through the hushed corridor.
The sound filtered faintly through the heavy door. Something stirred in Yu Qing, and he wanted to muster his courage and go outside to look.
But his body seemed pinned beneath a heavy, freezing pressure that he couldn't shake off. His fingers felt leaden, breathing was difficult, and even opening his eyes was a struggle. He could only face the boundless darkness alone.
Then he felt the bed beneath him slowly collapsing.
It grew soft and yielding beneath him, until at last he lay in a void, his limbs unable to find any support.
Sinking completely...
The air around him grew colder and damper. Sticky, squelching sounds occasionally slipped past his ears, as though something dangerous lurked in the darkness. Suddenly, Yu Qing shuddered violently!
Something long and ice-cold was sliding over his ankle, brushing past his upper thigh, winding and writhing upward until it gradually... coiled around his waist...
Before you continue