Chapter 620: Things That Move at Night
After receiving their wristbands, the patients were herded upstairs to the wards by the nurses, who told them they could move around the hospital's public areas during the day, but fighting was prohibited—otherwise, everyone would be punished.
A total of over sixty people were assigned to different floors, most concentrated on the third and fourth floors, with a few on the fifth. When they entered their rooms, the hospital's time turned to night. The corridor's broadcast announced that patients must return to their rooms to rest and were not allowed to wander outside.
"If I remember correctly, when we first came in and looked out from the hospital, the sky was bright," Gu Yu said. He and the others had been assigned to the same room. They checked the items inside and then looked out the window.
This room's window faced the hospital entrance. Now, standing upstairs, they could see not only the lawn in front of the hospital but also the outer railings and streets in the distance, where thick fog had previously obscured everything. The scenery didn't look much different from an ordinary street.
"If we just climbed over the wall and escaped from the hospital, could we clear the instance?" Zheng Liang asked.
"How could that be possible?" Wen Xuelin said. "We definitely have to complete the instance tasks. Besides, it looks like a street outside, but who knows what it'll turn into once we step out there? If the security guards catch us and lock us up on the seventh floor, we'd be screwed."
"Of the three tasks, the first one looks simpler, but this is obviously a psychiatric hospital. A lot of things here could be misleading or suggestive. Let's just skip it and go for the second or third task," Brother Liang suggested.
"The hospital gate is right downstairs. Can we clear it just by wiping the door?" Guan Zuhong looked around.
"Who cares if it's right or not, let's try it first," Gu Yu said. "Do you have any protective items? Use them now. There might be contaminants on the door."
The group put on protective suits or took out defensive items, then quietly opened the door.
"Not a single person came out?" Zheng Liang looked at the empty, silent hallway. "That can't be right. Those cannibal players are that obedient?"
Suppressing their doubts, they headed downstairs. The door to the stairwell was locked, but Guan Zuhong used an item to open it. When they reached the lower floor, they found only a flickering, dim light in the third-floor corridor. As the light pulsed, both ends of the hallway seemed to stretch visually.
Wen Xuelin stared at the left corridor. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she instinctively covered her mouth. As the light flickered off, she whispered hoarsely to the others, "Did you see that?"
"See what?" Gu Yu turned around. At that moment, the corridor light flickered rapidly on and off again. But in the instant it lit up, a woman with long hair covering her face stood facing them about twenty meters away.
"Holy crap!" Zheng Liang was the first to speak. "Let's go! Let's get out of here!"
They quickly jumped down the stairs. But when they looked back, they found that the woman, who had been at a certain distance, had now appeared at the stairwell entrance with another flicker of the light.
Wen Xuelin let out a low scream and said in terror, "Are there horror instances in the game? I've never heard of that! Don't follow us! Go find someone else!"
The light flickered again. When their vision returned to normal, the long-haired woman hadn't followed them.
Gu Yu and the others were a bit shaken. Brother Liang said, "Maybe it's another player using an item to scare people. I haven't heard any other players mention horror instances. Ghosts probably don't exist in the game."
"Are you sure?" Wen Xuelin's lips trembled slightly. "I'm most afraid of these things!"
"I'm sure," Brother Liang said. "If horror instances existed, there's no way the forums would be completely silent about it. Our country already has quite a few D-level players. Even if they haven't experienced it themselves, they'd have learned about it in other districts. No one's mentioned it, so it doesn't exist. Don't scare yourselves."
Wen Xuelin calmed down a bit and comforted herself, "Then it might really be another player. Let's hurry up."
They quietly made their way to the first floor. The head nurse and security guards weren't around. In the bright lobby, there were a few other players—the delicate-looking female player who had spoken earlier, along with her three companions.
These four were now standing in front of the door, not moving.
"What are you doing?" Zheng Liang cautiously approached.
The female player and her group were clearly also here for the third task, but now they stood motionless in front of the door.
"I'm worried there might be germs on the door," the female player said. "The Seventeenth Hospital has a dedicated infectious disease research building. Germs might appear in unexpected places. Just wiping the door to clear it? I don't think it's that easy."
Then why are you here?
Gu Yu and the others found it quite speechless, but the next second, they saw the female player pull out a gun and fire several shots at the door. The glass door shattered with a crash. She glanced at Gu Yu and the others, then left the hospital with her companions.
"Is this person crazy!" Zheng Liang stared at the door shattered all over the floor. "How are we supposed to clean this up now?"
Wen Xuelin, however, took out cleaning tools from her item slot and swept the fragments into a pile. Unfortunately, nothing happened.
They stood in front of the door for a while but ultimately didn't muster the courage to go out. Brother Liang suggested checking Building Two, since it wasn't time for psychological treatment yet.
Gu Yu was cautious. "There must be other players who've gone there. Let's observe from downstairs first."
So they groped their way through the dark to the transitional lawn in the middle. But before they even reached the entrance of Building Two, a piercing scream suddenly erupted from inside. Someone shouted in terror, "Don't come near me! Don't come near...!"
The voice cut off abruptly. The prolonged silence made everyone's heart race involuntarily. Gu Yu and Brother Liang exchanged glances and silently began to retreat, planning to return to Building One. But when they turned around, they noticed some changes on the outer wall of the outpatient building.
In their haste, they didn't look closely and hurried back into the building. However, when they tried to go upstairs, they found the entire building plunged into an eerie darkness. Only faint daylight filtered through the windows and corridors, and they vaguely heard a sound like chains dragging across the floor, approaching from a distance.
Zheng Liang, who was in front, quickly stopped and signaled the others to climb up the outer wall and return to their rooms from outside.
Given what they had encountered in the corridor earlier—the "female ghost"—the others didn't object. They each used their own methods to climb up to the fourth floor.
The ward looked the same as before. Gu Yu and Brother Liang pressed their ears to the door to listen for sounds outside. They found that the dragging noise had stopped nearby, followed by a knock.
After a brief silence, a door opened. Then came another period of quiet. Two minutes later, the sound of chains dragging resumed in the corridor, and the knocking continued.
That sound was definitely not something good. The fact that there was no noise after the door opened didn't mean the player was safe. And the fact that it could still wander outside meant the player couldn't handle it.
Gu Yu and Brother Liang exchanged glances. They moved a bed to block the door. When they were about to call the others for help, they realized Zheng Liang and Guan Zuhong were both leaning against the bedside, their eyes closed.
(End of Chapter)