Ever since their last encounter had ended on bad terms, Shen Ru had shut himself in his room for an entire week without once going out.
He had slept like the dead, sleeping off all the exhaustion that had built up lately.
Mo Yu was a mentally unstable lunatic. The two of them were much of a muchness; neither was any better than the other.
Naturally, he hadn't taken the other man's words seriously, dismissing them as the ravings of a madman.
Shen Ru lay on his bed, quietly staring at the ceiling until his gaze lost focus. The walls gradually twisted and warped, and finally, the pungent smell of disinfectant rushed into his nostrils.
A new game had begun.
"Ding. All Players detected on site. Opening Instance: Upside-Down Mental Hospital." "Time limit: 3 days." "Friendly reminder: this is a mystery-solving Instance. Players must independently deduce and explain the illogical phenomena within the story. Final ratings and rewards will be based on the extent of their deductions." "Game start."
Shen Ru lay quietly on the bed, doing his best to steady his heartbeat and breathing. He took stock of the changes in his body: a foggy head, numb limbs, difficulty breathing, and dry, cracked lips.
He had probably taken or been injected with a drug containing a sedative before falling asleep.
The young man lifted his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. It was a single room.
It was nighttime, and the clock showed eight.
Only a few sparse shafts of moonlight filtered into the room. Everything was deathly quiet, with no sound apart from his breathing.
Darkness seemed to envelop every corner. By the moonlight, he could just make out a slogan on the opposite wall: overcoming your animal nature is the first step toward becoming a normal human being.
Judging by the Instance title the system had given him, Shen Ru could be certain that he was currently in a mental hospital ward. There were no visible abnormalities on his body, so he couldn't yet determine his condition.
He waited a little longer, but nothing unusual happened. Shen Ru gently moved his hands beneath the covers. Once he confirmed they had returned to normal, he slowly sat up.
He wasn't sure whether this Instance's illogical phenomena would emerge as the story progressed or whether he needed to explore on his own to trigger them.
Either way, he was looking forward to it.
In the livestream chat:
[Guys... isn't a nurse going to come check the room in a minute???]
[Yeah, and I remember a Player getting too clever for their own good and leaving the room last time. What happened after the nurse caught them was horrific...]
[???? Then what is my gorgeous wifey doing???]
[Obviously, my wifey is getting too clever for his own good...]
Shen Ru couldn't see the livestream chat and had no idea what was about to happen.
He slipped out of bed. The eerie silence and the thrill of not knowing when danger might strike left the young man feeling utterly at ease, body and mind.
His trembling red eyes gleamed in the darkness, and excitement sent a faint heat through his cheeks and even his brain.
As he approached the wall, Shen Ru discovered that the white walls all around him were covered in marks gouged and scratched by human hands. Many of the scratches were even stained with blood.
More than half the wall's surface had peeled away, leaving it mottled and ragged.
Yet in the faint light, Shen Ru spotted a hole that had been forcibly gouged into the exposed brick.
Just as he was about to reach out and touch it, evenly paced footsteps echoed through the empty corridor.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound was forceful and resonant. Every step felt like a heavy iron fist slamming into his heart, making him shudder.
The young man didn't panic. Instead, he quickly found several pillows and stuffed them beneath the covers, then curled up in a corner and quietly waited for that thing to come in.
Creeeak-
The battered door was pushed open from outside, and someone entered the ward, humming a horrifying tune in a shrill, distorted voice.
Light from the corridor streamed through the open doorway into the dim ward, clearly casting the thing's grotesque silhouette across the floor.
Contrary to its heavy footsteps, the figure was extremely slender. Its proportions were somewhat off, though, with a large head that looked as if it wore an animal-shaped headband.
As the footsteps drew closer and Shen Ru finally saw its face clearly, his pupils abruptly contracted.
Its face was crimson, its pitch-black eyes the size of eggs, bulging out into the air in horrifying curves. Blisters of every size densely covered its face, seemingly coated in a sticky film. Clear mucus dripped from them onto the floor.
Most importantly, it wasn't a human face.
It was a pig's face.
As the pig head panted heavily, the sticky fluid kept falling with a drip, drip.
Shen Ru immediately thought of the Instance's name.
Upside-down.
Did that mean humans and animals had switched places?
Then were the people kept here used for anything besides receiving treatment?
Before the young man could react, the system's mechanical voice abruptly rang out in his ears:
"Ding! Player Shen Ru has discovered an illogical anomaly: the Strange Nurse." "One day, I suddenly discovered that everyone had turned into beasts. Was the fault mine, or was it this world's?"
The system announcement ended without giving a time limit. Apparently, resolving it before the Instance ended would count as completing the task.
The monster huffed and puffed, laboring for breath. Shen Ru remained motionless in the darkness, staring fixedly at it.
Suddenly, a red light flashed at his right ear. The mucus dripping from above hung suspended in midair, then immediately fell to the floor.
The sharp blade in the young man's hand gleamed coldly. Just before it pierced the skin, he abruptly changed its direction, bringing the hilt down hard against the monster's neck.
The thing swayed, then slowly turned around, still panting heavily. It was plainly a pig, yet Shen Ru saw its bulging black eyes brimming with malice.
It hadn't passed out?
He'd put all his strength into that blow, and this thing was completely unharmed?
Shen Ru curved his lips into a nasty little smile. His eyes were scarlet, and a strange, dark gleam flashed through them.
He had changed his mind.
He had intended to knock it unconscious. Now, Shen Ru wanted to kill it.
He wanted to see just how thick this damned thing's hide was.
With a soft chuckle, the young man seized the monster's collar in his right hand and plunged the blade in his left straight into one of its bulging eyes.
The malice vanished as the eyeball burst. A foul, rotten stench filled the entire room, rushing into his nostrils.
The surveillance camera in the upper right corner glowed red. Someone had been watching the young man's every move.
Bzzzt-
A cold, mechanical sound abruptly rang out from all around the room.
It felt as though something had violently jolted Shen Ru's head. An intense wave of dizziness sent him dropping to his knees, but the floor was empty.
There was nothing there.
No knife.
And certainly no grotesque, terrifying pig head.
In the livestream chat:
[Holy shit... what the hell? I saw that thing with my own eyes...]
[An illusion??? This Instance has a part like this???]
[No... I swear that pig head exists. I've watched this Instance 800 times.]
[Could it be that no Player has ever tried to kill the pig head right off the bat, so he triggered a different plotline...]
[...That makes so much fucking sense.]
[Now that you mention it... my wifey is hardcore...]
Shen Ru looked at the clearly visible bloodstains on his hospital gown, absolutely certain that everything just now had really happened.
The scene before him suddenly changed.
Shen Ru felt himself sink into a soft bed, his limbs turning numb and stiff again.
The clock now showed eight.
Before you continue