Chapter 1085: Vanished Into Thin Air
"It's Kang..." Miss Ma instinctively wanted to say that name, but stopped herself midway. She took a deep breath. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but if you keep this up, you won't get a single word out of me!"
Xu Huo's expression remained unchanged as he continued recording unhurriedly. Miss Ma's forehead veins bulged, and she reached out to knock the notebook away, but stopped when her hand touched it. Because defying the doctor or attempting to attack others would result in being tied up or injected with sedatives—in this illusion, she simply couldn't resist.
People with simple, crude thinking often fell into two extremes: one type was extremely easy to brainwash, having few thoughts of their own and preferring others to serve as their mental guides; the other type was stubborn, refusing to change once they set their minds on something.
The former seemed more suitable for mental manipulation, but being easily influenced by Xu Huo also meant being easily influenced by others. The latter, once successfully influenced, couldn't be changed in a short time.
Miss Ma didn't seem like a wanted criminal, but rather a pitiful person who had missed her ticket instance and was forced into a high-risk instance.
"Miss Ma, look outside." Xu Huo changed the subject, pointing out the window. "The sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are fragrant. There are still many beautiful things in life. Don't dwell on the past."
Miss Ma's expression was numb. "So what?"
Ever since she arrived in this three-year period, the sky had been gloomy, raining almost every minute, with only the intensity varying. And whenever new players were teleported here, whether they lived or died, whether they found Xiaohe City or not, Xiaohe City would suffer an instance attack.
"Why not start over?" Xu Huo said. "Cooperate with the treatment, and you have a high chance of recovery. Even though you've lost the ability to bear children, you can adopt a child once you're out. Walking freely in the sunlight is a basic human right."
"As your attending physician, I hope you can leave the hospital happily."
Miss Ma's eyes reddened slightly, and she suddenly looked at him with hatred. "Do you think I can start over? If I could start over, what about all the suffering I've endured these past few years?"
Xu Huo was silent for a moment, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it on the table.
"You're very clear-headed. You just don't want to accept reality." He said. "Tomorrow, I'll have Dean Kang conduct an evaluation for you. If it confirms your condition is stable, I'll recommend your discharge. You can contact your family or friends to come pick you up."
Miss Ma's expression was cold. "I'd like to see who you'll find to pick me up."
That night, Zeng Shangping did not return to his room.
The next morning, Miss Ma overheard Qian Zi chatting with other nurses, mentioning that Zeng Shangping had seen Dean Kang and had already been discharged, never to return here again.
The commotion outside rose and fell, as regular as it had been for many days. Hearing that Zeng Shangping had been discharged, Miss Ma suddenly felt disoriented. The room across from her was empty now—was the person she had seen real or not?
"Room 23, Ma Chunchun, follow me to the dean's office." Qian Zi walked over and opened the door.
Miss Ma instinctively resisted, but after hesitating for two seconds, she followed.
---
"Are we really going to play cards here until dawn?" Chi Minghong glanced at the items placed beside him. "What's up with those people? Not a single one has come out."
Xu Huo didn't speak. Although he had learned from several players that Xiaohe City was unsafe, no one could accurately describe what the danger was.
In other words, they didn't know the real reason for the players' disappearances. It might be speculation, or wild guesses. Perhaps some players in Xiaohe City genuinely believed it was some strange mutated creature at work—otherwise, it was hard to explain why staying in their rooms kept them safe. Of course, he hadn't verified this and wasn't sure if staying in a room truly guaranteed safety.
Zhou Yuanzhu contacted Chi Minghong to ask about their situation. Chi Minghong was too embarrassed to admit he was playing cards, so he simply said, "No discoveries yet. What about you?"
The fourth and third floors were similar. Even the Xiaohe City players who had been on patrol earlier were gone. They checked some empty rooms but found nothing, only confirming that these two floors had only three players. Contacting them was just to confirm whether they really needed to make a move.
"It looks like a trap," Zhou Yuanzhu said. "The second floor is quiet too. No one even came to probe."
"There's a special situation," Xu Huo said, briefly explaining that Xiaohe City experienced mysterious disappearances whenever new players appeared. "It's not just about leaving the room or not. The duration of the disappearances varies, sometimes even occurring during the day. There should be a pattern."
The players' accounts of whether the disappearances all happened at night were inconsistent. Among Miss Ma's group, except for Qian Zi, everyone believed it was fixed at night. Qian Zi thought that disappearances occurring during the same time period in the daytime should also be counted, but such cases were too rare. Moreover, only one of the daytime disappearances was a player, and the Xiaohe City players were more inclined to believe it was an internal issue.
"So they're not in a hurry to act, not just to drain our energy, but possibly to use us as shields?" Chi Minghong was puzzled. "But if they know the pattern of the disappearances, they should be able to avoid them completely."
"Unless they can't avoid them," Xu Huo said. "Someone has to disappear in this process."
"Then what is it?" Zhou Yuanzhu asked from the other side. "This doesn't sound like something a xenomorph could do."
Unfortunately, Miss Ma and her group were the type to just muddle through. They hadn't recorded or studied the cause of the disappearances in detail—maybe they had studied it, but it had come to nothing.
Just then, Zhou Yuanzhu's panicked whisper came through the communicator. "Uncle You is gone!"
Xu Huo stood up and opened a door, signaling Chi Minghong to follow as he directly teleported to the third floor. Zhou Yuanzhu and Lin Qiao stood outside the bathhouse, looking at each other in bewilderment.
"What happened?" Chi Minghong asked, still amazed and impressed by the "door," but seeing Xu Huo teleport into the bathhouse, he spoke up.
"We have no idea..." Zhou Yuanzhu's words were jumbled. "We were just listening to you talk, and in the blink of an eye, Uncle You was gone. I mean, literally the blink of an eye. Before I closed my eyes, he was standing to my right. When I opened them again, he was completely gone!"
"If he had entered the bathhouse, my item would have detected it," Lin Qiao said to Xu Huo as he walked out, then grabbed his hair. "He vanished into thin air."
One update today.