Taking You Somewhere Nice

Zheng Xun came to the Seventh Hospital in a dream.

As expected, this was his next instance, but what struck Zheng Xun as strange was that it did not look like an instance at all.

The little white building before him was bright and welcoming, its green ivy bursting with life. Children played and chased one another on the grass in front of the hospital, while an elderly patient in hospital clothes sat in a wheelchair, slowly pushed along by a young nurse.

The scene had nothing remotely thrilling, horrifying, or eerie about it.

How could this be an instance?

Zheng Xun stood outside the front gate as a red rubber ball bounced on the ground, rolled through a gap in the gate, and came into his hands.

A little girl with pigtails pattered over and reached a small hand between the bars.

"Big brother, that's my ball. Thank you."

Zheng Xun held the ball in one hand and could even feel the sun's lingering warmth on its rough surface.

He held it out, intending to return it to the girl.

The instant the little girl's soft fingertips touched the ball, the scene abruptly changed, flickering twice like a badly edited film.

The warm afternoon vanished. Everything around him turned dull and colorless, and the ivy swiftly withered and fell away, cutting across the walls like congealed blood vessels.

The doctors and patients were gone, as were the children who had been playing.

Only the girl remained before him. She reached out a withered claw and clamped it tightly around Zheng Xun's hand.

The features on her face were completely misplaced, growing where they did not belong.

"Outsider," she said, her mouth set where her left eye should have been. "You shouldn't have come here. Leave!"

That last word shook the entire space. Zheng Xun's hair was blown into disarray, but he did not budge.

He vaguely remembered hearing those words before.

"What's the matter?" Zheng Xun was somehow still perfectly calm. "Do you have to buy a ticket to get into this place?"

He did not know what switch he had triggered, but after he asked that question, the girl disappeared, leaving only a purplish bruise around his wrist.

Zheng Xun rubbed it with his other hand, but it would not come off. Apparently, it was real.

He paid it no mind, nor was he afraid. He did what he had to do.

He was already here, so what was he waiting for? It was time to start the simulation.

Early the next morning, Cheng Jie got up and went to knock on the transmission room door.

But when he pushed it open, he found Zheng Xun already awake and packing his things.

"Where are you going?"

"Into an instance. I'm ready."

"Forget it." Cheng Jie swept his whole pile of stuff aside. "Even a man of steel couldn't push himself like this. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours, and you want to go into a second instance?"

"Why not? I cleared one seventy times for your Songbird before, and I was fine."

"Then stand up and walk a couple of steps."

"Fine." Zheng Xun braced one hand against the floor and got up, only to start swaying after two steps.

He stopped and held his forehead.

"Does Songbird's transmission room have a vibration mode? Fancy."

"What nonsense are you talking about? Counting that marked instance you forced your way into before, look at how much sleep you've had these past few days. Keep this up, and I say you might as well stop staying at Songbird and move straight into a hospital."

Zheng Xun sat back down on the floor and irritably raked his hair into a bird's nest.

"I can't sit idle. I get antsy when I have nothing to do."

"Looking for something to do? That's easy. I'll take you out for some fun."

When Cheng Jie said he was taking him out, Zheng Xun thought he was going to use him as free labor for Songbird again.

To his surprise, Cheng Jie brought him somewhere he had never been before.

"This is the Blue Tower." Both men wore sunglasses and hats that thoroughly concealed their faces. Cheng Jie explained excitedly, "Unlike the White Tower, the Blue Tower is funded and sponsored by the major guilds. It's a place specifically for players to compete."

Zheng Xun stood in the second-floor stands, listening to the cheers around him and looking at the broad arena in the middle. No matter how he looked at it, it did not seem like a respectable place.

"What are the rules?"

he asked.

"There are no rules. You lose if you get knocked off the platform."

A match was underway in the center of the arena. The two contestants, a man and a woman, were vastly different in size. The man was tall and muscular, while the woman was very slender. Everyone around them was betting on the man to win.

But the woman put him in a chokehold and nearly snapped his neck. The referee had to step in and stop the match.

"It's sponsored by the guilds, after all," Cheng Jie said beside him. "They try not to let anyone die, or it would be hard to deal with the aftermath."

"Oh. Can anyone go up?"

"Of course. The biggest attraction here is that anyone can step into the arena. Men, women, young or old, they can all go up and trade a few moves."

As Cheng Jie spoke, he looked to the side and was so startled he nearly revealed his identity.

"What are you doing!"

Zheng Xun already had one foot on the railing and was preparing to jump down. Cheng Jie grabbed him, but he was still puzzled.

"What? Didn't you say anyone could go up?"

"You... you obviously can't." Cheng Jie lowered his voice and quickly explained, "I brought you out to relax, not to tire yourself out even more!"

"Then you go down. Their fighting is so boring it's putting me to sleep."

"Of course I can't either! Team members aren't allowed to fight in the Blue Tower! It's against the rules."

Zheng Xun was displeased.

"Can't do this, can't do that. This is boring. I'm leaving."

"Hey, hey, wait." Cheng Jie suddenly urged him to stay. "That guy started an Infinite Round!"

Zheng Xun's ears perked up, and he came back to watch.

He saw a tall, slender youth standing in the center of the arena. The youth was young, with a look of apprehension on his face, and kept glancing toward a certain spot below the platform.

Zheng Xun followed his gaze. The person standing there also wore a baseball cap, probably a team member deliberately hiding his identity like Cheng Jie.

The youth in the arena seemed to be somewhat famous, and people around them gradually began discussing him.

"Isn't that Shen Guanyu from Silver Snow?"

"That castoff?"

"I heard his father was one of Silver Snow's higher-ups, but he died of illness not long ago."

"Lost his backing? No wonder he's here..."

"He started an Infinite Round? Isn't that a fight to the death?"

"They must have something on him."

An Infinite Round, as the name suggested, meant one contestant had to face challenger after challenger until no one else stepped up.

Compared with an ordinary match, a contestant who chose this format would receive substantial rewards and might even have a chance to gain entry to a major guild.

But the drawback was just as obvious: once it began, the contestant could neither voluntarily forfeit nor fight halfheartedly. It continued until a challenger knocked them off the platform or they died of exhaustion on it.

Cheng Jie had naturally noticed who was on the platform too.

"Holy shit, Shen Guanyu? What's he doing here?"

"What, is he that good?" Zheng Xun had no idea.

"Come on, he was Silver Snow's child prodigy! He's a powerful fighter, practically undefeated. How did he end up here? And he started an Infinite Round? He really is going to fight until he dies..."

That was what Cheng Jie said too.

For someone particularly weak, an Infinite Round was manageable. The stronger they were, the more they suffered.

Many powerful fighters refused to believe it and insisted on starting an Infinite Round. Without exception, they all met miserable ends.

"This is going to be rough..."

Soon, the first challenger stepped onto the platform, a man as big as a small mountain.

The moment both his feet landed on the platform, the whole thing shook twice, and Shen Guanyu could not help shrinking back.

Zheng Xun frowned.

"Can he really win?"