After the nurse left, a deathly silence fell around.
Sunlight seeped in through the window on the right wall, with dust motes swirling around on the mottled wall, illuminating the words "I am mentally insane " in a sticky sheen, as if they were about to drip down.
Jiang Yan silently hugged himself as he sat on the bed, understanding that all he needed to do now was nothing.
After a while, a man’s anguished scream came from outside the door:
"Let me go—! Ah—!!"
The man screamed with a heart-wrenching intensity, and faintly, a sound resembling a beast devouring something could be heard.
Crimson liquid oozed in through the gap at the bottom of the hospital room door, accompanied by a nauseating stench of blood.
At that moment, Jiang Yan noticed something rolling in through the crack of the door—it was a human pinky finger.
Jiang Yan couldn’t help but turn his head to the mottled iron door of the ward, feeling that this door wouldn’t even withstand a kick from a little girl.
This made him gasp, fearing that whatever was outside would burst in and flay him alive.
This time, he was no longer the "sheep"; there was no "hunter."
Just then, the main system's voice finally sounded:
[Instance: “Private Hospital on Jianshe Road,” Instance Progress: 0%]
[Instance Completion Task: Survive in the hospital for 7 days]
[Completion Task Subject: All players and real NPCs]
[Instance Level: S]
S level?!
Jiang Yan’s eyes widened in an instant. This was an S-level instance?!
"663!" There was a hint of panic in Jiang Yan's voice. "Didn’t you say the main system allocates instances based on personal scores and mental strength?"
Why was he in an S-level instance?
"You misunderstood," 663 explained. "Only those with higher scores and mental strength are more likely to be assigned to high-level instances, but it doesn’t mean that players with low scores and low mental strength won’t be assigned to high-level instances."
"There were all newbies in the last B-level instance! There are newbies in this S-level instance too," 663 continued.
"By the way, you’ve received your instance script."
As soon as 663 finished speaking, a transparent control panel appeared in front of Jiang Yan, displaying his bodily data, the instance script, and the character he needed to portray.
[Instance Background:]
[1. This hospital is located at No. 48 Jianshe Road, Shangrao District, Zhoutai City, established before World War II, with a history of over a hundred years. Its psychiatry and infectious disease departments are leaders in the industry.]
[2. Recently, Zhoutai City has experienced a large-scale outbreak of plague and tuberculosis, and this hospital has taken in many related patients. To facilitate treatment, the hospital has implemented strict control over patients in various departments.]
[Real NPC Character Script:]
[Name: Jiang Yan, Age: 25, Identity: A psychiatric patient and tuberculosis sufferer at this hospital]
[Character Background: Your husband is the son of the hospital director and died in an accident four years ago. After his death, you lost your mind due to the inability to accept his departure, but he continues to return to your side often.]
Jiang Yan carefully read through his character script for this instance.
At that moment, he noticed an additional line on his panel: [Remember, you are mentally insane.]
The sudden addition startled Jiang Yan!
He abruptly looked up, and the four bloody characters on the mottled wall crashed into his vision—I AM MENTALLY INSANE.
**
"Zii... zii... Please, please... pay attention..."
The old broadcast echoed through the empty hospital again, mixed with the strong smell of blood and disinfectant, enough to cause confusion.
The sweet mechanical female voice announced again: “The activity times for patients in each department are as follows: 1. Patients in the oncology, internal medicine, pediatrics, and orthopedics departments may engage in activities before 6 PM daily. 2. Patients in the infectious disease and psychiatry departments may engage in activities after 6 PM.”
“Note: Please remember which department you belong to. Nurses will ask you about your department during the activity period. If you answer incorrectly, the consequences are your responsibility.”
“Zii... zii...”
Jiang Yan sat quietly on the bed, listening as if he were a small puppet abandoned by its owner.
Newly granted forum players who entered could see such a scene; the atmosphere in Jiang Yan’s hospital room was clearly different from that of other rooms:
[I almost thought I clicked on the wrong thing. How come there are people without clothes?]
[Don’t say that; the body isn’t bad...]
[This young man doesn’t look too old and seems calm, much better than the one hiding under the bed next door.]
[Is this a player or a real NPC? Looks somewhat familiar.]
[Jiang Yan? Isn’t this Jiang Yan?!]
[Jiang Yan? The one who survived after failing his personal quest?]
[Yes, yes, yes! That’s him, that’s him!]
[Awesome! Let’s pay our respects!]
[Pay what? Last time it was just a B-level instance; he only survived by luck due to a bug in the main system!]
[Exactly! This is an S-level instance! With his mental strength and scores, he’ll probably only last a few days.]
[I heard the S-level big shot Tao Shi from the Dawn Guild is also in this instance?]
[Didn’t all the major guilds just search for Jiang Yan? Maybe he’s lucky and is riding on Tao Shi’s coattails to get through?]
“Zii... zii... If you need help, please press the emergency button at the head of the bed...”
“Zii—”
After a shrill sound wave, the entire hospital fell silent again.
Jiang Yan quietly sorted through the information he had just heard in his mind. First, he was a psychiatric patient infected with tuberculosis and had a dead husband.
As he thought, he noted down things he needed to pay attention to on his personal system panel: 1. He needed to take his medicine at 8 AM and 8 PM. 2. He could only go out to engage in activities after 6 PM. 3. From 6:30 to 7 PM was the time to fetch water.
“663,” he softly called to his personal system, “How many players are currently in this instance?”
“The main system hasn’t announced it yet.”
“By the way, I obtained an item,” Jiang Yan casually mentioned.
“Although you’ve hidden it, as your personal system, I can still see it. But...” 663 looked at the item in Jiang Yan's inventory with confusion, “What is this thing?”
“Right? I think it’s pretty useless too,” Jiang Yan replied.
He wanted to say more, but a dull ache in his chest felt like a heavy stone pressing down on him, leaving him speechless, and his head began to spin.
“663... I... cough cough! Cough cough cough!”
He lay on the bed, curling up and starting to cough violently!
In the empty room, his coughing sounded as if he were trying to cough up all the organs in his chest.
Of course, he did end up expelling something from his mouth—
A mouthful of bright red blood.
Looking at the thick blood splattered on the pillow, Jiang Yan felt a bit helpless. His face turned pale, a sharp pain pierced his chest, and it felt like something was blocking his throat, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.
The sudden pain in his body sent Jiang Yan into a panic: "663... cough cough cough..."
"You are currently a tuberculosis patient; this is an enhancement to your character," 663 explained.
Jiang Yan curled up on the bed, clutching his chest. The blood stained his lips a vivid red, accentuating his already pale face. Under the weak sunlight, he looked almost transparent.
He rarely got sick; throughout his life, he could count the number of times he caught a cold on one hand.
The only time he remembered having a fever was on the first birthday of Yu Xiu after they got married. He gifted himself to Yu Xiu, who was very excited. They got carried away, and as a result, he caught a cold and had a fever the next day.
Yu Xiu was anxious to take him to the hospital, but Jiang Yan stubbornly refused.
Although Jiang Yan had always lived a very "self-centered" life, he still cared about his pride! After the wild night they had, how could he let others see the marks on his body?
In the end, Yu Xiu couldn't convince him and had to agree to let him recover at home.
Fortunately, Jiang Yan had a good constitution, and his fever subsided in less than half a day.
However, Yu Xiu made a big deal out of it, treating Jiang Yan as if he had suffered a miscarriage, and ended up nursing him for more than half a month.
So when Jiang Yan finally felt well enough to go outside for some fresh air, he was met with his friends' ruthless teasing: "Oh! General Jiang, you've finally come out of confinement?"
"Cough cough cough... cough! Cough cough cough..."
Jiang Yan coughed up another mouthful of blood, this time a dark red, with clots forming.
A fine layer of cold sweat covered his forehead, and sunlight flickered on his face. He felt pain even when breathing, every inhalation tainted with a strong metallic taste.
Water...
Jiang Yan struggled to lift himself off the bed, remembering that there was a water jug in the cabinet beside him.
Predictably, he fell to the floor with a thud; he didn’t have the strength to support his own body.
One had to admit, the character enhancements given to players and NPCs in this scenario were truly terrifying. In just a few minutes, Jiang Yan had transformed from a healthy, handsome man into what seemed like a fragile porcelain doll that might shatter with the slightest touch.
He trembled as he opened the nightstand, but the moment he grabbed the hot water jug, the light in his eyes dimmed.
It was empty.
"Cough cough cough cough... cough cough cough... cough..."
The hot water jug rolled out of Jiang Yan's hand and into the corner of the bed, the pale, clean boy collapsed on the floor like a wounded white bird.
He no longer had the strength to hold up his body.
The sunlight was blocked, and Jiang Yan instinctively looked up. In his daze, he thought he saw a pair of emerald green eyes peering through the window.
Jiang Yan laughed self-deprecatingly; he must be truly going crazy to have such hallucinations, thinking he saw him.
However, the next moment, reality proved to Jiang Yan that this was not a hallucination—he saw a head wearing a pale paper mask completely blocking the window, the mask crudely drawn with features and two strange red blushes.
Those green eyes, eerie and devoid of life, stared straight at him.
"Cough—"
Jiang Yan was so frightened that he didn't even dare to cough!
Knock knock knock!
The door to the hospital room was knocked on, and Jiang Yan looked up at the paper-masked face above him, torn between retreating and staying.
Struggling to prop himself up, he cautiously curled back into bed, a few spots of blood staining his pale chest, making him look like a small animal injured while being chased by a predator.
At this moment, he had nowhere to escape.
"Mr. Jiang Yan, do you need help right now?" A sweet voice from the nurse sounded outside.
"Cough... no!" Jiang Yan replied weakly.
There was a pause from the nurse outside, as if Jiang Yan’s response had deeply stimulated her!
Her voice turned sharp and piercing: "Are you sure? Are you sure you don't need help?!"
She began to kick the hospital room door furiously, the loud banging shaking the entire room.
"You don't need help?! You don’t need it?!!"
Jiang Yan huddled in the corner, holding his knees. He had no strength to stand up, feeling helpless as he stared at the masked face in the window, listening to the nurse's insane kicking outside.
The frail and damaged door to the hospital room couldn't withstand such assaults.
With a sharp sound, the doorknob was kicked off, falling into the sticky pool of blood—she was coming in!
Jiang Yan curled up, his bare back exposed to the air, accentuating the beautiful curve of his spine. The boy's pale skin shone with a plaster-like hue.
He closed his eyes, waiting for death to come.
In the foggy depths of his mind, he replayed the scenes of Yu Xiu cradling him when he had a fever, as if he could still hear his voice: "Get out."
Huh?
Jiang Yan snapped awake for a moment. When he looked up again, he saw that paper-masked head squeezing through the small window.
"Get out." The paper mask didn’t move its mouth, but the voice came from behind it.
It was a clear male voice, but it wasn’t Yu Xiu’s.
Jiang Yan lowered his eyes, his long lashes hiding the moisture in his eyes. One had to admit that when one is sick, the heart can sometimes feel more fragile than the body.
The nurse had already opened the door a crack; hearing the command to "get out," she immediately stopped.
Then, her voice returned to its initial sweetness: "If you need assistance again, please press the emergency button by the bed."
After saying this, she left, her heels clicking away.
Jiang Yan looked up, surprised as he gazed at the paper-masked head that had squeezed in through the window. Though it looked strange, the longer he stared, the more it seemed to carry a strange humor.
He thought of something and tentatively asked, "Are you my... husband?"
"Yes! Yan Yan!" The paper-masked head became extremely excited upon hearing Jiang Yan's words.
It spun its head 360 degrees on its neck before slowly crawling into the window.
The small window clearly wasn’t wide enough for an adult man to fit through. Jiang Yan heard several cracking sounds and watched as a grown man slithered through the window like a snake.
One could visibly see his bones being crushed, unable to fully support his body in a human shape.
He climbed onto the wall, blocking the sunlight from the window, resembling a giant human gecko, while the head wearing the paper mask twisted around on his neck.
The smell of blood and disinfectant filled the hospital room. The naked youth had no strength to escape and could only watch as this strange monster approached him.
The monster twisted its head with a crackling sound, excitedly saying to him, "Yan Yan! I’ve come to help you take a bath!"
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