Chapter 3019: The First Batch of Missing People
Seeing the obedient patient, the long-haired nurse finally smiled with satisfaction. She turned to Zong Lanzhi and the others, "You've just moved in. You need to protect yourselves. Don't get hurt by these people, and don't let them corrupt you. Their minds are all abnormal."
What else could Zong Lanzhi and the others say? They could only nod obediently. Otherwise, they would likely be tied up and given injections and medicine.
Perhaps they weren't necessarily real injections or medicine, but psychological suggestion has a strong deceptive power. Over time, they might really confuse imagination with reality.
The rooms were quickly assigned. Players who received rooms had to stay on their respective floors immediately. So the higher they went, the fewer people there were. By the eighth floor, only Zong Lanzhi, Jiang Ke, Xiao Yue, and Zhuang He remained.
The four of them were in four different rooms, as if they had been deliberately separated. Each ward also had other patients.
Zong Lanzhi's ward had two people. One was tied to the bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling without blinking for a long time. The other sat on the bed, facing the wall, constantly muttering nonsense that no one could understand.
The long-haired nurse didn't close the door when she left, but patiently advised him, "You can walk around during the day, but don't come out at night."
Zong Lanzhi smiled and agreed.
The nurses quickly left. The floor, which had been quiet for a while, became noisy again. Jiang Ke and the other two came out of their respective rooms. They had already tested things out. The patients in the wards felt completely real. If they hadn't sensed that these buildings were empty when they first arrived, they might have really thought this was some real mental hospital.
"Mr. Xu hasn't appeared yet," Zhuang He said in a low voice. "Could it be that he deliberately tricked us into coming here but didn't come himself?"
"With his strength, there's no need for that," Xiao Yue said. "He might have already arrived, just hiding somewhere in the hospital. He's already at the top among A-class players. A C-class mental instance can't stop him."
"We should focus on how to clear the instance," Zong Lanzhi said. "Since we haven't been in the instance long, let's first check the location of the morgue."
"Based on the hospital's floor plan, the morgue is most likely in the laboratory building, the third inpatient building, or the comprehensive building in the back. We need to look underground."
"As for the first clearance task, we'll have to wait until night."
"Although the third clearance task is not under consideration for now, it might arise in unexpected situations. It's best to act in groups of multiple people."
Xiao Yue nodded. "We have enough people. Let's just split into three groups and go."
After all, they were operating in a hospital. It was impossible for dozens of people to move together. So they each sent six people, divided into three groups to head to the laboratory building, the third inpatient building, and the comprehensive building.
Of the remaining people, some stayed in the first inpatient building to observe the activities of the nurses and security guards, checking if they strictly followed the duty schedule. The rest wandered around the hospital to see if any hidden characters would appear.
The players quickly got moving. Zong Lanzhi led a group to the comprehensive building. The main door of the comprehensive building was made of reinforced metal and was usually closed. It wasn't easy to get in through the front door, but fortunately, some windows were open. Additionally, they could use their items, so getting in wasn't difficult.
However, as soon as they entered, Zong Lanzhi regretted it. Because opening any random room revealed that it stored and cultivated various unknown bacteria and toxins. Some were even openly cultured in an entire room or an entire floor.
Even though they put on protective suits immediately, Zong Lanzhi and the others inevitably inhaled trace amounts of bacteria.
Unsure whether this was real or fake, the four immediately injected antidotes. Only after confirming their bodies were fine did they continue moving.
There were no security guards patrolling this building. They took the stairs down and easily found a door on the first underground floor with a sign reading "Morgue."
But the door couldn't be opened.
Zong Lanzhi nodded to Jiang Ke. The latter activated a silencing item and then used a micro bomb outside the door. However, after the explosion, the door, which seemed to be made of a thin layer of metal, remained completely unmoved. They couldn't see the situation inside from the outside either.
"Brother Zong, what should we do?" Jiang Ke asked.
The other two were from Xiao Yue's side, named Xiang Min and Zhao Ze. The former said, "Maybe it can only be opened at a fixed time."
Zong Lanzhi remembered the duty schedule at the outpatient building. The night security patrols had fixed times. Their inspections of each building were time-limited. During the day, there was no one in the comprehensive building. Perhaps the morgue only started working at night when the security guards were there.
This also fit the stereotypical impression of some irregular procedures.
Did they really have to wait until night?
Since they couldn't open the door no matter what, Zong Lanzhi made several more attempts without success and had to leave first.
But when they returned, they found that Xiao Yue and Zhuang He's group, who had gone to the third inpatient building, hadn't come back.
The group that went to the laboratory building had returned. Although the laboratory building was marked "No Entry for Non-Medical Personnel," it was actually a place for treating patients. The players who went there saw many "special tools" specifically for treating mental illnesses, which looked like places for coercive measures.
To avoid letting their thoughts affect the hospital's situation, they only checked the stairwells and elevators. Not finding any underground floors, they came back.
"The communicator can't connect," Xiang Min said, turning to the others. "Try yours."
Jiang Ke also tried. They couldn't contact the two who had gone with them.
"We've only just entered the instance. It can't be that they've already fallen into an illusion, right?" said another Super Evolver, Xie Xiao'an. She was a Mental Super Evolver, though she had only recently started.
Under normal circumstances, as long as they hadn't completely fallen into an illusion without realizing it, even if they were trapped somewhere, they could use items to escape. If all else failed, they could just blow up the hospital building!
"They couldn't have walked into an invisible prison, could they?" said a young man named Meng Junyan from Xiao Yue's side.
"Can you not jinx it?" Xiang Min shot him a look.
Meng Junyan shrugged. "I'm just raising a reasonable question. If you think I'm wrong, you can refute me."
Hearing this, Xiang Min and several other players showed impatience, clearly disliking this person.
But Zong Lanzhi nodded. "That's not impossible. There's no detailed explanation of the invisible prison. We don't know when or where it appears."
"But for now, it seems the third inpatient building is temporarily off-limits."
"How can that be?" Zhao Ze immediately said. "Sister Xiao and the others are trapped there. The longer it takes, the more dangerous it gets."
"We also lost two people. Don't you think we're worried?" Jiang Ke said. "Impulsive actions won't solve anything. Only by figuring out the hospital's rules can we possibly find them. That's better than rushing in blindly and getting ourselves killed!"