Rong Yi looked at the patient NPC rolling down the stairs, her heart pounding. She tentatively gave a light tug on the silver sword in her hand.
“Clang—”
The blade easily slipped from the male nurse’s fingertips, trembling slightly.
That’s it?
NPC glitched?
Or did she trigger some hidden condition herself?
Rong Yi could hardly believe it. For a moment, the powerful aura emanating from the male nurse almost reminded her of a random boss from the last game—a creature that inexplicably crushed a player’s head before her eyes!
The male nurse seemed not to notice Rong Yi had snuck into the restricted area. After tossing the patient down, he stood by the fence, his plastic-like face emotionless, resembling a dormant robot.
Rong Yi shrank into the shadow behind him.
Seemingly intimidated by him, even the nurse avoided getting close and disappeared after giving medication to the patients.
She carefully moved a few steps away from the male nurse’s suffocating aura. Suddenly, a figure fell from above.
Rong Yi looked up to see a young man with a skull-like pale face staring at her!
The man was thin, skin clinging to his bones, his large bulging eyes looking like they could pop out with a sneeze, even more terrifying up close.
Rong Yi gasped, suppressing the urge to scream.
“Hehe, hehehe—” the skeleton-like figure drooled and stupidly smiled, reaching out his twig-like arm to grab Rong Yi’s.
She instinctively grabbed his arm, feeling something poking her palm. Rolling up his sleeve, she found a light green plastic bracelet on his bony wrist.
The bracelet bore his patient ID and the words “General Ward.”
As she felt the pain in her arm from his grip, Rong Yi used the back of her sword to hit his hand, causing the skeleton to cry out in pain and release her.
She silently continued to sneak towards the area with fewer patients, her brow furrowed.
The bracelet read “General Ward.” Did this mean there were different wards in Gikas Castle Hospital, and they were currently in the “General Ward”?
She had a sudden hunch. But how could she confirm it?
“Come!”
His voice was like a cello, resonating in his chest, deep and magnetic, attracting the male nurse who was originally on standby to look over.
“Hush!” Rong Yi frowned, gesturing for him to be quiet, and slapped his outstretched hand, whispering, “Cut the nonsense. I want you to bring that sign over.”
Raymond, albeit flirtatious, was an experienced expert and immediately understood, “A clue?”
Rong Yi nodded.
Without further ado, he swiftly reached out with the vines, deftly maneuvering behind the nurse who happened to turn his head, entangling the wall-mounted sign.
“Snap!”
The sound of the sign being removed from the wall caught the nurse’s attention. One of the nurses’ beautiful faces immediately transformed, eyes turning black like ink, a wet, slender tongue protruding from the giant mouth split open at the back of their head, roaring as it chased after the sign entwined by the vines!
Rong Yi clenched the rope, focusing intently as the sign flew closer. It read:
↑f3 Special Ward
———————
↓f2 General Ward
Just as expected!
Accompanying the sign was the imposing mutant nurse sister. Rong Yi quickly told Raymond, “Put it back!”
Raymond: “…Huh?”
“The sign! Put it back! It’s no longer useful!”
Although he couldn’t grasp her reason for doing so, Raymond followed her instructions and awkwardly placed the sign back on the wall.
The nurse sister then resumed her elegant and gentle demeanor, walking back to the staircase in her high heels.
“What was that about?” Raymond approached, asking her across the rope.
Rong Yi raised her palm.
After a moment of hesitation, Raymond lightly tapped her palm.
“Well done,” Rong Yi praised. “Now we know what we’re looking for.”
Perking up, Raymond asked, “What is it?”
“Credentials to access the special ward.”
Listening nearby, the man with finger armor sneered, “Obvious.”
Rong Yi, unfazed, inquired, “After collecting so much from patients, did you find any similar credentials?”
The man with finger armor eyed her warily, coldly asking, “Why should I tell you?”
Raymond then rummaged in his backpack, producing some cards and signs—lock-picking ads, queue jumping cards, even a bubble tea shop discount card.
Glancing at them, Rong Yi shook her head.
“From the sign we just saw, we understand that the second and third floors house two wards: the general ward we are in and the special ward above.”
“Credentials come in various types, depending on one’s status.”
“Our current status,” she tugged at her hospital gown, “is as patients.”
Zhang Haiyang, exhausted and sweating profusely, almost unable to withstand the attacks from the dual-section staff of the patients, panted and called out, “Sister! Just tell us what you’re looking for!”
“A patient ID bracelet,” Rong Yi said. “The patients here wear bracelets for the general ward. Check the patients’ wrists in your area.”
Luo Huayue promptly used a staff to push aside the sleeves of a recently knocked down patient, “Rong sister, none here!”
The doctor also tore open the opponent’s sleeves, “None here as well!”
The man with finger armor scoffed, “Such a mess. Just wild guesses.” His backpack was already filled with patients’ items as he agilely passed by Raymond, “I’m not playing with rookies anymore!”
He dashed towards the staircase, dumping all the items from his backpack in front of the nurse sister.
The two nurses glanced at the jumbled mess on the ground, their expressions turning from anger to mutated rage as they opened their bloodthirsty mouths!
Luckily, the man with finger armor was nimble, dodging the attacks of the two mutant nurses by weaving left and right. However, they pursued relentlessly, despite wearing high heels, swiftly closing in like maggots on bones!
Rong Yi looked at the male nurse standing by and remembered the nurse who had just delivered the medicine hesitating to approach him. She also thought of the previous episode, “bo made by bo.”
“Move aside!” she said to the other players in the room, then shouted at the male nurse, “Come over!”
He watched Rong Yi standing next to the male nurse, waving firmly. With a grit of his teeth, he and two mutated nurses behind him rushed towards the male nurse!
The nurse’s long nails brushed past the back of the male nurse’s neck several times. He felt a mixture of cold and hot sweats, feeling jittery like he had grown fur on his back as he exerted all his efforts to sprint!
30 meters… 20 meters…
Finally, less than ten meters away from the male nurse, the two mutated nurses stopped in their tracks.
Their terrifying faces showed a hint of fear, only daring to glance at the male nurse before turning away. As they walked back, their faces returned to normal, continuing to guard their stairway.
The male nurse was panting heavily, while Rong Yi was observing the unmoving male nurse.
Stiff, but high in strength, exuding a powerful aura, a “dummy” feared by NPCs –
“Oh my god…” the male nurse panted heavily, “Almost… almost got killed by those two women…”
He was less cautious towards Rong Yi, but still not very friendly. “Thanks. How did you know it was safe here?”
“Because I guessed that this male nurse is probably a ‘random boss.’ The other NPCs are afraid of him,” she said.
The male nurse’s face changed suddenly, taking three steps back abruptly, far away from the male nurse. “Damn! And you still let me come over? How reckless are you? Don’t you know how dangerous random bosses are?!”
“It’s just a guess,” Rong Yi shrugged. “And he didn’t attack me before, instead targeting the level NPCs. So I guess, he might currently be safe for players.”
“Besides, you were about to be killed. Trying a way out is better than being chased to exhaustion, right?”
The male nurse fell silent.
Raymond chuckled lightly.
Calculative yet bold and direct.
This woman was too extraordinary, making him develop an irresistible conquering desire.
“Gulu gulu -”
It was the sound of wheels rolling on the ground, as the nurse sister pushed the cart to deliver medicine again.
Rong Yi quickly hid in the male nurse’s shadow, while the male nurse, to ease the earlier embarrassment, nonsensically commented, “Haha, these mental patients really can’t stop their medication. They’ve taken it twice in fifteen minutes.”
Yes, Rong Yi also thought that these patients were taking medication too frequently.
This idea intertwined with countless chaotic clues in her mind:
The patients inside the room didn’t have patient ID bands; the patients outside wore regular wristbands; the patients inside had multiple lives and were fierce; the patients outside had various symptoms and were physically weak…
The patients outside needed medication, while the patients inside didn’t.
Why was that so?
What were the differences between the patients inside and outside the room? Were they patients from a special ward? Then what about their wristbands?
Looking at it from another perspective, this was a game where nurses could mutate, and going up the stairs could be like in a turn-based game. Situations that couldn’t exist in reality could exist here!
Suddenly, she came up with a bold hypothesis –
It’s not that the patients inside didn’t need medication, but perhaps they had already taken their medication in another way.
This could also explain why they didn’t have wristbands!
Rong Yi quickly looked at the small cart. The medicines were divided into small white plastic cups, labeled with patient numbers and some English letters on top.
Her gaze followed the slow-moving cart, carefully observing which cup was handed to which patient, muttering to herself, “…Come, let me see what kind of mental illness you really are…”
Finally, she saw a small cup labeled “did” being handed to a girl in a corner, who had a very weak presence.
Rong Yi’s eyes lit up. “Caught you!”
