Not a Little Girl

His pupils dilated, his breathing quickened, and all he could feel was that tentacle tightening, tightening, tightening...

As though it would slice him in half the next second and crush every organ inside him.

I'm going to die...

Blood surged through him, his pounding heart shaking his chest, but Yu Qing's grip on the knife never slackened. Veins bulged on the back of his pale hand as he suddenly demanded, "Are you trying to kill me?!"

The BOSS remained unmoved, still watching him.

He neither admitted it nor denied it.

"Kill me, and you'll never get the earring's power. But if you let me go now..." Yu Qing raised his voice, laying out his terms with absolute conviction. "Let me go, and I'll tell you how to extract its power."

The BOSS stared at him, his bestial gaze engulfing him entirely. Their eyes met like a lion looking down on a hare. He had virtually no chance of escaping.

Then the tentacle around his waist gradually loosened. Yu Qing seized the opportunity to take several desperate breaths, then reached out decisively and wrapped his arm around the man's neck.

His breath came in a soft murmur, his warm lips drawing close again to distract the other's gaze. "Baby."

He suddenly spoke, switching to a more intimate endearment. "Did you know humans have an old saying? A gentle blade... kills with every stroke."

Shhk-

Before the words had finished leaving his lips, the knife plunged into the tentacle wrapped around his own waist!

The BOSS's pupils dilated, and the tentacle instantly contracted. Yu Qing used that opening to spring up, flee, and put distance between them.

Seconds ticked by, yet the void behind him seemed impossible to shake.

Yu Qing felt cold, so cold his hairs stood on end and goosebumps covered his skin. But he dared not stop, or even look back.

His instincts told him that the moment he turned around, those hellish, scarlet eyes would meet his.

Those eyes followed him effortlessly, watching him run for his life, watching him scramble, like a cat toying with a mouse. After a while, seemingly amused, the BOSS suddenly chuckled. Two hands formed from mist settled on his shoulders and pressed down hard.

"Ngh... cough, cough!" The force was immense, forcibly halting his desperate flight.

Thump!

Yu Qing's heart skipped a beat, his feet forced to stop. A fine sheen of sweat rose over his body as he let those hands delicately stroke his jaw, the tips of his ears, and his cheeks, wiping away his sweat and blood.

Before long, as though they had played enough, the hands hooked into his hair and slowly gathered it, drawing his waist-length locks behind him and tying them into a loose, low ponytail.

Then a quiet, pleasing voice sounded beside his ear, soft and eerie, yet seemingly drifting in from far away.

Yu Qing heard him say, "The game has begun."

Begun...

The next second, Yu Qing jolted awake and sat up in his hospital bed, the cold sweat on his body almost soaking through his thin shirt.

He hastily reached up to feel his ear-there was no wound!

He vaguely remembered that black hand brushing over his ear. Had the BOSS healed him, or... had that whole experience only been a dream?

Yu Qing couldn't tell.

He was about to put on his shoes and get out of bed when he noticed that the loose strands that had hung beside his ears were gone.

His eyes sharpened slightly. Yu Qing reached behind his head, and his hair fell loose as he pulled off a... hair tie.

Blue with a black pattern, it was the hair tie the black mist had swallowed when he was fleeing for his life upon first entering the instance.

The BOSS had returned it to him...

At the same time, [Ding-]

System announcement: [Congratulations, streamer! You have unlocked an epic hidden quest: Play games with the BOSS.]

Yu Qing: ?

[All game rules will be determined by the BOSS. Have fun~]

"..."

As Yu Qing moved, the bells on his wrist jingled. In the dark of night, they woke Qian Lai in the neighboring bed and made the little girl humming outside stop skipping.

Yu Qing turned and exchanged a glance with Qian Lai. Both fell silent at once, fixing their eyes on the doorway.

Tap, tap. Tap, tap...

Out in the corridor, the little girl's singing had stopped. Her footsteps grew softer and slower, and... drew closer and closer to them...

Creak-

The dilapidated ward door swung open, and something slowly walked inside.

Meanwhile, the morgue on the ninth floor had long since been enveloped in thick darkness.

The pristine white walls began to decay, oozing black and red blood on their own.

Tick, tick, tick.

The wall clock overhead ticked with a hollow sound, constantly reminding everyone to keep the last thread of their nerves stretched taut.

Forced to accept the [Morgue Guard Duty] quest, Hu Zibiao dragged his battered body into a corner he believed was safe and huddled there, his eyes stretched almost to bursting as he stared at the scattered comments drifting through his livestream.

[I bet this is tonight's most entertaining stream. This place gets lively after midnight. Can't wait~ Can't wait~]

[Streamer, come on, show some courage! Weren't you planning to molest a nurse earlier today? That thing was a ghost, and these are ghosts too. You're not doing anything anyway, so why not pick one you like and fuck the corpse?]

[Oh-ho, yeah, yeah! That's so exciting. Do it, streamer! Go on! If you do, we'll send you tips. Then you'll have points to buy a potion and heal yourself, won't you?]

Whether driven by the evil in his heart or egged on by the viewers, Hu Zibiao hesitated for a moment, then actually worked up the nerve to approach a reasonably pretty female corpse, slowly.

It's been quiet all night. The corpse... probably... won't fight back, right?

As he moved, his viewer count began climbing, and the audience grew increasingly excited.

[That's right! That's more like it! Yu Qing was teleported here right at the start and cleared it easily!]

[Hahaha, Yu Qing got out of the morgue in just a few minutes. We believe you can do it too!]

Hu Zibiao's entire body hurt terribly, the searing, crackling pain leaving him frantic.

He had never known that being injured could be such an ordeal.

He really wasn't in the mood for this!

But his wounds were far too severe. Without points, he wouldn't survive either.

His Adam's apple bobbed. After thinking for a moment, the man could only slowly reach out to undo the female corpse's clothes. He was planning to get it over with quickly, but before he was even halfway done, suddenly-bang!

The light overhead abruptly went out, and the smell of blood around him grew stronger and stronger. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the female corpse sit bolt upright and turn her head, an eerie smile spreading across her face. "Heehee, I'm a rabbit, a rabbit that didn't make the cut..."

"Aaaaaah..."

Hu Zibiao immediately collapsed to the floor in terror. He was beginning to fall apart, repenting for the evil he had committed and kowtowing to his livestream viewers.

Yet no one pitied him. Wave after wave of mocking laughter rolled in, all of them taking pleasure in his misery.

[Tch, how useless can you be? What can you do besides cry? If Yu Qing weren't asleep and nothing interesting was happening over there, I wouldn't come here to subject my eyes to this!]

[You think you're worthy of lusting after my wife? Pah! Take a good look at yourself!]

[Everyone, everyone! Something new is happening over at Yu Qing's! Aaaaaah, it's! So! Exciting! Hurry, let's go!]

That single comment sent his viewer count plummeting. Without even showing his face, Yu Qing had stolen his last few hundred viewers...

Tick, tick, tick...

The diligent second hand kept turning without pause until midnight finally arrived. Tick!

At twelve sharp, every corpse turned its head in unison, fixing its gaze on him.

Then the morgue's main lights went out, and eerie chewing noises sounded one after another. In the darkness, Hu Zibiao's little livestream window flickered a few times, then vanished completely!

The next second, a loud system announcement rang in everyone's ears.

[Ding-dong-]

[Breaking news: "Angel Psychiatric Sanatorium" instance. Current survivors: 5.]

[Six days and one night remain until the game ends. Keep up the good work, streamers~]

Five?

There had clearly been ten of them when they signed up together that morning. With six days and one night still remaining, half were already dead!

The death rate was somewhat higher than he had expected.

The system didn't announce the causes of other players' deaths, so Yu Qing had no way of learning the details. But he saw his viewer count soaring, comments flooding the screen.

[Wife, Hu Zibiao was so useless. He couldn't even make a corpse happy!]

[Wife, Chen Qimin was so useless. He couldn't even make his eyes turn red!]

[Wife, Zhang Si was so useless. He couldn't even turn into a Golden Needle. You're still the best~]

At that moment, disbelief gradually filled Yu Qing's eyes as he stared at the doorway.

What had entered wasn't a little girl at all. It was...