Miraculous Healing (3): Medical Records

When his afternoon shift began, Li Qing followed the nurse to his office.

An hour passed, and Li Qing saw only one patient. Being assigned to the day shift really was an incredible stroke of luck.

As for how to treat them...

Li Qing had initially wondered how players without any medical knowledge were supposed to cope, until he saw the patient information and prescription options on the computer-

[Patient: Granny Liu.]

[Condition: The patient has suffered a stroke. Her condition worsened after she took one of four medicines at home: red, yellow, blue, or purple. Further treatment requires pills and liquid medicines, each available in red, yellow, blue, and purple.]

[Additional note 1: The patient is suspected to be allergic to one or more of the ingredients.]

[Additional note 2: The patient also has dementia. One out of every three statements she makes is false.]

The prescription options were simply things like red liquid medicine and purple pills.

A simple logic problem. As long as he wrote down the correct answer, his life would not be in danger. No wonder this was only a D-rank dungeon instance.

Granny Liu introduced herself as usual, but just as she was about to describe her symptoms, Li Qing had already handed her the prescription.

Granny Liu: "..."

Li Qing tilted his head slightly. "Do you have any other questions?"

Granny Liu left, puzzled (and disappointed).

Li Qing waited ages without a second patient showing up, so he simply opened the office's previous consultation records to see how the earlier medical records had been produced.

"Jumped from the thirteenth floor and broke a leg... yesterday... the doctor's signature is... Spring Renewal Clinic?"

He flipped back a few more pages. They were all signed "Spring Renewal Clinic," rather than with a doctor's name.

Only when he reached a page from half a month earlier did the printed name of Spring Renewal Clinic finally give way to a human's handwritten signature.

...Was this a player from the previous run of the dungeon instance?

Li Qing flipped back through the medical records, and his gaze suddenly stopped.

The prescription on this page was wrong.

He turned to the next page, automatically generated by the system... wrong again.

In this dungeon instance, a doctor's prescription could produce only two outcomes-

Correct: the patient recovered from this episode, and everyone was safe.

Incorrect: the patient would die that day and become a nighttime emergency patient.

Yet this stack of system-generated prescriptions prescribed nothing but red liquid medicine and red pills. The odds of guessing correctly were even lower than picking C for every question on a multiple-select test.

...Was this where all those nighttime emergency patients came from?

Then the more teammates died in this dungeon instance, the more dangerous it became.

Li Qing continued looking through the earlier records and found more names from ten days ago. They were probably teammates from the same batch as that last player.

Their names appeared in the records for no more than seven days. The whole team had probably been wiped out.

He put the records back on the desk and picked up another volume.

This volume had been on the far left of the shelf and looked quite old. It must have dated back to long before the dungeon instance developed its problems.

The first record's description of the patient's condition read: chest tightness, stomach pain, and difficulty breathing.

...That sounded a little familiar.

Li Qing thought back for one second and remembered that these were the symptoms he had made up on the spot when describing his condition to Yuan Shiyan.

However, the patient in this record was not Li Qing. Apparently, it was just an amusing coincidence.

Li Qing skimmed the patient's account of their symptoms and quickly worked out the answer to this simple logic puzzle-

Blue liquid medicine combined with purple pills.

Exactly what the prescription below said. The first person to start the game in that round had been clever.

At the very bottom was that person's name, a bold, sharp handwritten signature:

Gong Yao.

"..."

Li Qing's brow twitched involuntarily.

Why was it Gong Yao again?

He adjusted his posture and went through the volume page by page.

Eight people had entered the hospital at the start.

A few names disappeared midway through, but not a single night-shift prescription had been wrong from beginning to end.

They most likely had not died, but had gone to other departments.

It was practically a perfect answer sheet, very likely representing a hundred percent survival rate.

Generally speaking, the expected survival rate for a D-rank dungeon instance was eighty percent. But this bizarre hundred percent...

"Destroy this roller coaster completely so more people can survive. Help me do it, okay?"

"I just... don't like seeing people die in front of me. Even if that person is you."

"This man is different from the venomous creatures bred by the other 'arenas.' He protects his own kind in a way that runs deeply counter to human nature."

Li Qing closed the records.

Without a doubt, this group's hundred percent survival rate had to be Gong Yao's doing.

But the system had detected no trace of rule-breaking on his part.

Could intelligence and strength alone achieve this result?

Once I get out, I should ask Zhang Qin to pull up the records from that run and check them again...

...No, forget it. That would be pointless.

Li Qing closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his temple with his index finger.

Zhang Qin was right. Anyone who fought their way to prominence in the world of death instances was no ordinary person.

That Gong Yao seemed capable of drawing other people's attention with effortless ease.

And as an Administrator, it was perfectly normal for Li Qing to be wary of him.

All the more reason not to let it throw him off and expose his identity to more players.

If that man doesn't cause any trouble that draws the monitoring system's attention in the future...

I'd be better off having nothing to do with him.

Just then, a notification sounded from the Administrator Console:

[Loading player data [5(?)/4]...]

[Loading successful. Dungeon instance commencing.]

"?"

Li Qing frowned slightly.

This dungeon instance with abnormal settlement results had loaded more players, making his job even more troublesome.

The sound of a vehicle came from downstairs.

Li Qing parted the blue curtains just enough to look down-

A bus marked "Medical Support" had stopped at the entrance.

The bus doors opened. A young woman with short hair stepped out first, followed by a thin man.

The man stared at the hospital before him with a grim expression. He was clearly a player who had only just entered the dungeon instance.

"Two... the system says there are currently five players. Excluding Yuan Shiyan, whose data is abnormal, and me, with my disguised identity, there should be one more."

Li Qing lowered his gaze and considered it slowly.

Then, for no apparent reason, his heart suddenly lurched.

Next, he saw a long leg clad in black cargo pants and an ankle boot step out of the bus, landing on the ground with agile ease.

The man wore a black tank top. He was tall and well-built, with firm muscles and black hair that curled slightly at the ends, his fringe hiding his left eye.

He came to an easy halt, a gentle smile on his handsome face, and looked up at the hospital building-

-Gong Yao.