Chapter 84

Tiger

The heavily built "mutant edition" Wan You noticed Qi Shi whispering to Curly Hair and You Jiu. "Are you talking about me?"

Why hadn't You Jiu asked about Jinghua University yet?

If he didn't ask, how was he supposed to let them know how exceptional Jinghua was?

You Jiu: "..."

Who had done this to Wan You.

The old Wan You had been soft-spoken and pale, and when something upset him he simply stood there, eyes shining, waiting for someone else to intervene on his behalf.

The current Wan You opened conversations with what are you looking at and closed them with are you talking about me, with no visible trace of who he had been.

"You—" You Jiu hesitated, unsure how to begin.

"Are you trying to ask me about Jinghua University?" Wan You didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave. He crossed his arms, leaned against the wall, and began a detailed account of Jinghua University's distinguished history and its position of excellence among institutions of higher learning.

You Jiu's expression, for the first time, showed undisguised bewilderment.

What was he talking about.

One thing was certain, at least: the Wan You in front of him was categorically not a copy the instance had produced to confuse players.

Because a copy couldn't generate behavior this confusing.

What was actually occupying You Jiu's attention was Curly Hair's attitude toward Wan You — she didn't seem at all surprised that he was alive, and the extent of the change in him hadn't produced any visible reaction from her either.

Had she already known Wan You was still alive?

But she'd entered the instance with the rest of them and hadn't left the hospital. How could she have known in advance?

Thinking of how the Chen Garden NPCs had turned up collectively in this hospital instance, he had a sudden, bold hypothesis.

Chen Garden and this hospital — were they in the same world?

Things that hadn't happened before didn't mean they couldn't happen now.

"We get off shift in an hour. Will you wait?" You Jiu's instincts told him Wan You had the answers he was looking for. "I have some things I want to ask you."

"No." Wan You declined without hesitation. He looked at the cleaning gloves on You Jiu's hands. "You don't have a career to worry about. I have work to do. I'm saving up for Jinghua."

Jinghua University, Jinghua University — was that all he could talk about?

You Jiu took a breath. "What's your work tonight?"

"Didn't I already tell you — I run a barbecue stall on the pedestrian street opposite Kunlun Tower?" Wan You looked genuinely puzzled. "I remember you being fairly sharp. What's happened to your memory?"

"A barbecue stall isn't exactly a career." You Jiu couldn't help it. "Can't you start a bit later?"

"How is barbecue not a career?" Wan You made a dismissive sound. "You don't know what I make each month. These past few months have earned me enough to study at Jinghua without worrying."

"I need to set up in less than an hour. If there's something you want to know, come find me during the day." He made a small concession for Curly Hair's sake. "Curly Hair has my contact and knows where I am."

*

"What does he mean by that?"

When Wan You was gone, You Jiu picked up Curly Hair's garbage bag and took it for her. "Curly Hair — how about helping us understand?"

Even the normally reserved Qi Shi picked up a mop and started doing her section of floor.

"I'll take you to find Wan You tomorrow morning. You'll understand when you get there." Curly Hair sighed. "I hope you can receive the truth with open minds."

"Curly Hair — this is a hospital instance." You Jiu heard something unusual in her tone. He was quiet for a moment. "Players can't leave the instance boundary."

The knuckles on the hand Qi Shi had wrapped around the mop went white, but he said nothing.

"I have a way to take you out."

"What way?"

Both You Jiu and Qi Shi stared.

The instance can't hold you, Wang Xiaojuan. Are you planning a revolution?

*

Chao Musheng's dinner had graduated from pumpkin congee to lean pork congee, with a few mild side dishes.

He ate without much enthusiasm. He looked up to find Xu Chenzhu sitting across from him eating the same hospital congee, and felt awkward. "Mr. Xu — you don't need to eat patient food with me."

"Light meals in the evenings are good for the body." Xu Chenzhu added a dish to his bowl with the serving chopsticks. "The doctor said — if you don't have another fever tonight, you can have something else tomorrow."

"Should I have the chef make chicken soup for you tomorrow?"

Chao Musheng ate two bites of spinach and had the distinct sense of being humored like a child. "Anything is fine — I'm not fussy."

"Mm." Xu Chenzhu smiled. Chao Musheng probably didn't notice himself, but he'd been frowning while eating the spinach. Xu Chenzhu redirected the serving chopsticks and added carrot instead. "I'll have a fish soup made too. Ink Blob likes it."

Chao Musheng looked at the carrot that had appeared in his bowl and put on an expression of suffering. "Mr. Xu — tell me after I finish, not before. I won't be able to eat otherwise."

"All right. I won't say." Xu Chenzhu set down his chopsticks, stood, and picked up the sun jacket from the sofa. Two red strings fell out.

"What are these?" He picked them up from the floor.

"These are—" Chao Musheng was at a slight loss for how to explain.

Zeng Ning's gesture had been entirely well-intentioned. Just somewhat misdirected.

"They're strings Zeng Ning gave us." He sighed. "She misread the relationship between us, so she had a friend pick up matching love-cords from a Taoist shrine."

From the end of each string hung a small peach-wood heart.

"The carving is quite good." Xu Chenzhu took one and handed the other to Chao Musheng. "A child's kind thought. Keep them."

Chao Musheng looked at the string in his palm.

Xu Chenzhu could find something nice to say about this.

The hearts were roughly made — they looked like mass-produced merchandise. But Xu Chenzhu wasn't wrong. Whatever they looked like, they were given in genuine affection.

*

After dinner, a problem came up with a branch company's system. The programmers couldn't resolve it; Chao Musheng opened his laptop and solved it remotely in short order.

Secretary Liu: "Xiao Chao — you're a genuine talent."

The problem that had the branch general manager running in circles had taken Xiao Chao fifteen minutes. No wonder the development team prized him.

He glanced at his boss and began worrying about something.

If the boss's pursuit failed — would Xiao Chao leave to avoid the awkwardness?

No. Absolutely not.

The company cannot lose someone like Xiao Chao.

Boss. You have to win.

*

After two days on the ninth floor, Qi Shi had noticed that the nurses here showed remarkably stable emotional readings — no one's anger value had ever crossed 50.

That changed in the evening, when one of the players attempted to get in their good graces by bringing them drinks.

"Hard at work tonight, ladies — I got you something." The male player set several cans on the nurses' station counter. "I didn't know your preferences, so I got three flavors."

Want Want milk, mango drink, dragon fruit drink.

The nurses who'd been bent over patient notes looked up at the cans. Their brains hummed.

With an entire hospital convenience store to choose from, he'd managed to find those.

"We don't want them — take them back." The nurse closest to the cans threw them back into the player's arms. "Nobody asked for your drinks. Out!"

Writing nursing notes was already miserable enough without people adding to it deliberately.

The player clutched his chest where the cans had hit him. How did a woman generate that kind of force.

Fine, don't drink it — but was there any need to get angry?

At that moment, the call bell panel on the wall lit up.

Ding ding ding—

"Room eleven calling."

"Room eight calling."

"Room fourteen calling."

The bells went off almost simultaneously, as if by arrangement. The nurses were on their feet and running to their respective rooms before the sound finished.

The sound of sprinting in the corridor woke the other players in the break room. They looked out at the frantic hallway, completely lost.

Qi Shi watched the numbers above the nurses' heads: anger 95, exhaustion 75.

He quietly took several steps back and tried to put more distance between himself and the nurses.

Curly Hair watched the male player return to the break room looking dark, arms full of rejected beverages, and said nothing.

"When I'm out of this instance, I'm going to deal with every one of those ungrateful women." His chest was genuinely hurting. He suspected he'd taken an iron mallet rather than a can.

"What happened?" His closest ally among the players looked concerned. "Did they give you trouble?"

"I went out of my way to bring them drinks, and they threw them at me." Among the top two hundred players, it was routine for NPCs to go out of their way to please him in any instance he entered.

When an NPC in an instance dared to humiliate him, he always found a way to make them regret it after the main mission was cleared.

Curly Hair looked at the drinks in his arms, then at the nurses still rushing through the corridor outside, and moved further away from him.

Bringing Want Want milk and mango and dragon fruit drinks to working nurses in this world. Only someone with a grudge would do that.

This one was finished. No saving him. Just wait.

*

Through the night, the call bells ran without stopping. Qi Shi watched the nurses' anger value climb from 95 to 99, and then, at dawn when the shift changed and the bells finally quieted — it jumped straight to 100.

A hundred?

Run — they were going to turn supernatural and start massacring people—

"You worked hard through the night. This is breakfast." Several neatly packaged bags appeared in front of the nurses. "Mr. Chao and President Xu were concerned you'd be too tired to drive home safely — they've arranged cars for everyone."

The commotion on the ninth floor the previous night had been audible across the whole floor. Anyone who saw these nurses — barely able to straighten up — would say: that looked terrible.

The nurses, who had nearly lost the capacity for coherent thought, processed what the bodyguard had said and gradually surfaced.

"Thank you, Mr. Chao."

"When a wealthy person sends breakfast, you're moved to tears, but when I bring drinks—"

"Be quiet." Qi Shi cut him off, voice flat and cold.

The male player swallowed the rest of it. He was still composing a face-saving response when his system chimed.

Ding — player has angered one NPC. HP -10.

Ding — player has angered two NPCs. HP -20.

Player HP has reached zero. Regrettably, you have failed to clear the instance. The system will proceed with elimination when the countdown expires.

Within 5 minutes, if a substitute is found, elimination may be avoided. Only a patient in the ward may serve as a substitute. Life or death — be true to the choice in your heart.

Using a patient as a substitute.

He came back from the shock of the notification. He had four minutes and thirty seconds.

Room seven had the elderly woman — frail, no bodyguard at the door. Easiest target.

"Stop him!" You Jiu and Curly Hair both saw the change in him at the same moment and moved to block him.

But the other male player stepped in front of them. "We're all players here. What exactly are you two doing?"

"You Jiu — he's going for room seven." Curly Hair said. "You take him. I'll deal with this one."

Fear of death gives a person strength beyond their ordinary limits. To avoid the system's elimination, the player deployed every speed and evasion tool he had. You Jiu couldn't get close enough to touch his sleeve.

"Evil Tiger — Devour!"

He summoned the tool that had taken lives for him in countless instances — a small toy tiger. It looked harmless. It had no limits on what it could swallow. Anyone touched by its teeth had their soul consumed.

In the moment before the tiger plush could be thrown through the door of room seven, You Jiu lunged instinctively toward the entrance, trying to put himself between it and the door.

In the moment he moved, he already regretted it.

He must have damaged his brain from sleep deprivation. What was he doing, sacrificing himself for someone else?

"What a sweet little tiger." A clean, unhurried hand caught the palm-sized toy mid-air and placed it back into the frozen player's grip. "Be careful not to lose it."

You Jiu, braced for impact, looked at what had just happened in front of him and felt as though he might be dreaming.