Chapter 82

A Bit Like

"Curly Hair — I've arranged a rest room with the hospital staff for our young guest. Sorry to ask, but could you stay with her tonight?" Chao Musheng saw that the girl was still sitting there holding the meeting gift Xu Chenzhu had pressed into her arms. He smiled. "Tuck that money away properly — you've handed over your bank card, so what will you do when you need to spend something?"

Zeng Ning thanked him quietly.

"Don't mention it. Don't stay up late — get some sleep." He was gentle with her. "When you wake up tomorrow morning, the professional aides will already be here."

"Goodnight, Uncle Chao. Goodnight, Uncle Xu." She stood, crossed to the door, and stopped. "Uncle Chao — my name is Zeng Ning. Thank you for believing me."

"Goodnight, Xiao Ning."

He waved to her. When the door closed, he turned back to Xu Chenzhu with a slightly embarrassed smile. "Mr. Xu — don't take anything the girl said to heart."

"She's warm and well-mannered. Ms. Zeng has raised her well." Xu Chenzhu turned to straighten the bed. "You should sleep too. Don't stay up."

Chao Musheng couldn't see his face, but he thought — Xu Chenzhu wasn't the type to be bothered by what a child said.

*

The players had stayed in the corridor rather than leaving. After nearly half an hour, they sat up when room four's door finally opened. Sudden events in an instance usually touched something important in the plot.

Unfortunately, before any of them could get close to the girl, a hospital staff member appeared and led both her and Curly Hair away.

"She gets everything." One player, after all that waiting and nothing to show for it, felt the unfairness acutely.

"If you can't handle it, cut yourself and see if you grow into a woman." You Jiu's tone was unhurried and pointed. "Everyone's working with what they have. Save the complaints."

"I was talking about her, not you. You call her Curly Hair — has she once acknowledged you? What's it to you what I say?"

"I'm talking about you, not her." You Jiu smiled pleasantly. "You bring her up every chance you get. If you want to be her loyal dog, she'd probably decline."

"You—" The player's expression cycled through several things. Remembering You Jiu's methods, he swallowed it, turned, and went back to the break room.

The other player smoothed it over with a mild smile. "He had a rough time with a patient earlier — he's in a bad mood. Don't mind him."

You Jiu made a short sound and didn't follow them back to the break room. He turned and walked toward room seven instead.

The elderly woman in room seven slept lightly. Her children were all abroad. He looked in through the doorway — no sign of a nursing aide, and the old woman was awake on the sofa, drinking something.

"Mrs. Wu — the doctor said no eating after hours." He knocked twice and stepped in.

"I couldn't sleep. I had the aide make a little bird's nest congee." The woman had silver hair that was, even at this hour, perfectly in place.

She set down her spoon. "You've come at just the right time, Xiao You. There's another bowl in the pot — have some."

The premium ward came with a small kitchen. You Jiu looked toward it and found the two aides eating inside.

He knew — as a player — that he should refuse food offered by NPCs. But Mrs. Wu's eyes made him think of his grandmother.

The bird's nest was smooth and silky. He took one mouthful and heard the system chime.

Ding — HP +2.

"Not to your taste?" Mrs. Wu saw him go still. "Or are you tired?"

"It's delicious." He finished the bowl without another word. "Thank you, Mrs. Wu."

"Don't thank me — go rest when you're done." She smiled warmly. "If the director asks, tell him you were cleaning my room."

He tidied the room in silence, helped her to bed carefully, then left room seven.

He'd lost count of how many instances he'd been through since entering the Main God's space.

He'd accidentally eaten NPC food before, in the early days. Each time had cost him badly.

After that he'd stopped trusting any NPC in any instance. However pitiable they appeared, their purpose was always to make players fail.

In an instance, restoring HP was nearly impossible unless you'd managed to acquire a recovery item before entering.

NPCs wanted players dead. Players needed to clear their way through NPCs to survive. The relationship was adversarial by design.

Only a very few players ever earned anything like genuine protection from the locals.

He'd known a player in the Main God's space who had something like a universal charm effect — in any instance he entered, the supernatural elements and bosses went out of their way to curry favor with him.

Even that player had died in an instance a while back.

In all his time clearing instances, this hospital was the only one where the NPCs showed goodwill toward players without a reason.

Mrs. Wu had poor eyesight. He'd read her two articles during a cleaning round. That was all it had taken.

Just like the thank-you letter he'd gotten without trying — things that took everything a player had to obtain in any other instance meant nothing here.

But fifty times the reward from the Main God. Was that really going to be easy to collect?

*

At five in the morning, the players' shift ended. They were housed in staff dormitories the hospital had arranged — two bunk beds in a room.

"Director — where is Curly Hair staying?" One player noticed there were only four beds.

"This hospital has always maintained a policy of separate accommodation for men and women. She's a girl — how would she possibly stay with you?" The director looked at him narrowly. This was the same one who'd argued with him earlier. "Show up, do your work, and keep your mind off things that don't concern you."

Shameless. Suggesting a girl sleep in the same room as him. Who did he think he was.

The player said nothing.

In the last hospital instance he'd cleared, players of all genders had been packed into one room, and no NPC had said a word about it. This instance was different in every direction — shifts ran as long as the supervisor could justify, rosters couldn't contain the urge to make staff work overtime, and yet in areas where no rules were explicitly written, things were unexpectedly principled.

"Director, he didn't mean anything by it." Another player stepped in. "We came in together, so we're concerned about where she's staying on her own."

"Oh." The director's expression cleared. "Well, that makes sense. I did wonder — what kind of person asks a question like that?"

The player: "..."

Sometimes he genuinely wanted to end this PUA machine and its constant moving goalposts.

"She's been given a room next to the ninth-floor nurses' rest area. No need to worry about her safety."

The ninth-floor rest area was considerably nicer than these half-worn staff bunks.

Hearing this, the player felt distinctly worse. He wished he hadn't asked.

The director, for his part, was faintly irritated — he'd answered the question generously, and not one of them had said thank you. He didn't keep ungrateful staff.

After he left, the four of them lay on their bunks. Through the window, faintly, came the sound of crying.

Unsettling — but not frightening. They all knew it was family members of patients somewhere below.

"That crying is getting on my nerves." One player climbed out of bed and yanked the curtain shut, the metal frame of the bunk groaning loudly.

"If you don't want to hear it, put something in your ears."

You Jiu opened his eyes. He was genuinely surprised the voice belonged to Qi Shi.

In his experience, Qi Shi was reserved to the point of invisibility — he didn't involve himself in other players' business and didn't comment on it. The other two were equally unprepared. The room went quiet.

*

Zeng Ning was too worried about her mother to sleep deeply. She was up early and reached room two to find two strangers already there — two women standing with the doctor, listening attentively to instructions.

Her father stood by the sofa with an expression that managed to be unhappy and unwilling to protest at the same time.

"Xiao Zeng-zong." The two women noticed her and introduced themselves directly. "We're the aides arranged by President Xu. Please let us know if you need anything."

Xiao Zeng-zong.

Zeng Ning stared. She'd never been called that in her life.

Her face went a little red. She went to the bedside and touched her mother's fingers carefully. "Thank you — but I'm not a Zeng-zong."

"President Xu mentioned that you're Ms. Zeng's successor. Xiao Zeng-zong is correct." The aide handed her two documents. "Here are our credentials for your review."

Zeng Ning looked at the dense pages of experience and qualifications and understood immediately that these were serious professionals.

Being treated with this kind of gravity left her flustered — and gave her a kind of courage she couldn't quite name.

Right. She was her mother's successor. She could protect her.

The man stood in silence watching, turning his cup around and around in his hands.

He couldn't work out why someone like Xu Chenzhu — that caliber of person — would lower himself to interfere in a domestic matter like this.

He exhaled slowly, stood, and walked into the corridor. At the far end, several uniformed police officers were coming this way. He went rigid.

They passed him without stopping and went to stand outside room eight. He unstuck his feet and moved casually toward the small cluster of onlookers who'd gathered, listening to their murmurs about the occupant of room eight.

The second young master of the Chen family, apparently.

The arrest of Master Chen had been circulating in certain circles for a while now — quietly, because of the family's reach, but circulating. The Chen family people kept their voices down. The Song family's situation, by contrast, had become something of a public entertainment. Online and in conversation, people were applauding Song Cheng's outcome with open enthusiasm. Predatory behavior belonged to the domain of fictional villains; try it in the real world and the iron-bar ending was entirely deserved.

*

Chen Fang was in poor condition. The police hadn't been with him long before a doctor came in to remind them their patient needed rest.

The lead officer cooperated. He closed his notebook. "Mr. Chen — rest well. We'll come back this afternoon."

Master Chen was implicated in multiple homicides and assault cases. Their team, like the colleagues next door handling the望月号 investigation, hadn't had time to drink water.

*

The officers left. A few of Chao Musheng's closer colleagues at Kunlun, having heard he was ill, came to visit. When they discovered the person sitting in his room was their boss, they stayed less than five minutes before finding pressing reasons to leave.

A weekday, during the lunch hour, sneaking out to visit a sick colleague — and walking straight into the boss.

The particular terror of the working life.

*

At three in the afternoon, the players' shift began again. By unspoken consensus, they arrived half an hour early, to avoid the director finding fault.

"Mm." The director checked the time and gave a satisfied nod. "This is more like it. We're expecting more visitors today — keep the corridors clean at all times. Let them see what this hospital stands for."

The players: "..."

They were cleaners. That was a great deal of institutional pride to ask of a mop.

You Jiu looked past the director's shoulder and saw a man who looked somewhat like the Wan You he knew from a previous instance, walking in the direction of room four.

Somewhat. Not overwhelmingly.

Because Wan You hadn't been this dark, or this built, or walked with this particular stride.

You Jiu was still working through the comparison when Curly Hair pulled her mask up and put her head down over the grout she was scrubbing.

"Look at Curly Hair — she sees what needs doing and she does it." The director's approval was unambiguous. "Learn from her."

Curly Hair?

Wan You heard the name — familiar enough to stop him mid-step.