The blue sea erodes the coast littered with corpses, where the souls of the deceased wander toward a realm wrapped in black mist, heading to the world of the dead.
Weak and sick people hiding in the air raid shelter stumbled out, staring at the bodies strewn about and the surviving trio, Jiang Yan, who cried out in grief.
At this moment, Jiang Yan's condition had worsened slightly. He looked at the weeping people before him, unable to hear their cries over the buzzing from the sky and ocean.
"Jiang Yan, Jiang Yan!" Tao Shi noticed something was off with Jiang Yan. "Are you okay?"
Jiang Yan shook his head.
"You should have brought your medication," 663 said. "We don’t know how long you'll be here."
"What is this place?" Jiang Yan asked, his mind a jumble as he looked at the mountain of corpses before him.
"1942," 663 replied with what felt like a meaningless answer.
Tao Shi patted Jiang Yan's shoulder, his expression serious, a patch of grime on his face from who-knows-where, making him appear even more defiant.
"I think I understand why that woman sent you back," Tao Shi said.
Jiang Yan looked at him in confusion.
"Do you remember you said the beach outside the hospital was a graveyard?" Tao Shi asked.
Jiang Yan nodded.
"When we arrived, there were no graves or lighthouse here, but... soon there will be," Tao Shi said before stepping forward to rally the survivors to collect the bodies of the deceased.
It must be said that Tao Shi, as a leader of the Dawn Guild, had a strong charisma over the aimless crowd.
He gathered everyone to dig, collecting and identifying the identities of the deceased from the bombed hospital’s ruins to the shattered boards, using the bayonet on his gun to etch inscriptions for them, ultimately forming small mounds of earth.
During this time, they saw Dr. Lu, who used to buy them candied hawthorns; his left arm was missing, and he had several bullet holes in his back.
They also saw the little nurse with two braids; her braids had come undone, and she clutched a gun tightly in her hand, holding a patient’s medical records, with Tao Shi’s information placed on the first page.
The people who emerged from the air raid shelter were mostly sick and disabled. Together, they dug for three full days before they could bury everyone.
The sea swallowed the bodies of the invaders thrown into it, gently caressing the shore, as if comforting the innocently suffering people.
Thus, a graveyard was established outside the hospital.
Jiang Yan gazed at the graves, feeling a sense of daze; scenes from his dreams reappeared in his mind.
He understood that perhaps soon this place would be looted again, and people would once again face slaughter.
At that moment, a middle-aged doctor in a dirty white coat, limping and disheveled, emerged from the grieving crowd. His hair had streaks of gray, and he wore old-fashioned round glasses.
He looked around in confusion and asked Tao Shi, "Have they… have they all been buried?"
Tao Shi nodded.
The doctor appeared anxious yet... a bit ingratiating: "Um, have you seen my son?"
"Who is your son?" Tao Shi asked.
"I’m the director of this hospital. My son just came out too, but… I couldn’t find him just now." As he spoke, the director's glasses fogged up.
He removed his glasses and wiped them clumsily on his dirty white coat, trying to conceal his discomfort.
"He's about the same age as you, with a pair of green eyes."
Jiang Yan’s eyes widened instantly!
**
The news that Jiang Yan and the others had disappeared into the walls of the hospital was unknown to the other players, except for Ding Wanyu and Shen Hua, who helped Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng divert the "medical personnel."
It was still before lunchtime, and the "patients" were wandering around the main building, investigating its structure and looking for ways to the outside world.
Meanwhile, the "patients" in non-active hours obediently stayed in their rooms. After all, in a "rule-based" dungeon, following the rules and not acting recklessly was the best way to survive.
However, the main system's announcement had not stopped, with the last one ringing out just a minute ago:
【Main System Announcement:】
【Dungeon: "Jianshe Road Private Hospital," Dungeon Progress: 40%】
【Side Quest Progress: 40%】
【Players: Tao Shi, Cao Youfeng, NPC Jiang Yan, Escape Progress: 30%】
The announcement left everyone dumbfounded; it seemed that Tao Shi really intended to cover for Jiang Yan?
But weren’t both Tao Shi and Jiang Yan from the psychiatric department? It wasn’t even the active time for the psychiatric department!
How did they unlock the side quest and escape progress?
As the main system continued to announce updates, the three's side quest and escape progress repeatedly refreshed. The other players went from shock to a mix of jealousy and disbelief.
The object of their jealousy was naturally Jiang Yan; they believed he was simply lucky to benefit from being with the big shots.
Among them, the most dissatisfied were Shi Yin and Li Yun, who was too afraid to leave Jiang Yan's "husband's" room.
Shi Yin was so furious that he picked up the hot water kettle in the room and smashed it to the floor. The suited man quickly caught it: "Boss, calm down."
The suited man, holding the kettle, looked at the man whose eyes were red with rage, his brows tightly furrowed.
According to hospital regulations, their water-fetching time was only half an hour, and the room had only this one thermos; if it broke, he wouldn’t need to wait for the NPC to come and catch them; he could die in the room in three days.
"Please calm down," the suited man said seriously, starting to think that this person wasn’t as reliable as he had imagined.
Among the newcomers, he was indeed quick to act, but sometimes rushing too fast wasn’t a good thing.
[What to say? Shi Yin was still too impulsive.]
[I don’t understand why he hates Jiang Yan so much. Is it just because the Dawn Guild only wanted Jiang Yan and not him? That’s too petty.]
[His skills are good, but his temperament is lacking.]
[How ridiculous! Luckily the Dawn Guild didn’t want him; Jiang Yan is now with the big shot to do the side quest while he can only rage here.]
[Exactly! His temperament is too small!]
[The one above must be Jiang Yan's blind fan, right? Small temperament? When someone would rather choose a useless person over you, can you endure that?]
[Useless? Your "useless" Jiang Yan is ranked 50 in mental strength? Fun fact: Jiang Yan's current mental strength total ranking is higher than Shi Yin’s.]
...
[Does a high mental strength ranking prove anything? Right now, doing the side quest still relies on hitching a ride on the big shot's experience?]
[Hitching a ride on the big shot’s experience? Are you talking nonsense? It’s clear that Jiang Yan triggered the system NPC first, and then Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng followed Jiang Yan into the side quest. Who is hitching whose experience?]
Meanwhile, hiding in the room of Jiang Yan and the director's son, Li Yun was starting to feel restless.
That person had clearly broken the rules; why hadn’t he died or faced any punishment?
Was the note Tao Shi just handed him some sort of secret signal to communicate with Jiang Yan?
Why was Tao Shi taking Jiang Yan to do the side quest but not him?
Jiang Yan was just...
Li Yun held a monkey doll, frowning tightly; to him, Jiang Yan and the monkey doll in his hand were no different.
Why? Why did Tao Shi seem to value Jiang Yan more?
Clearly, he had joined the Dawn Guild first, so he should have been the one to enter the core position of the guild. Why did Tao Shi seem closer to Jiang Yan?
Li Yun tried to convince himself to think more broadly; after all, it seemed that Ding Wanyu and Shen Hua were also not around Tao Shi.
However, thinking this way, he felt unbalanced again.
It was one thing for Ding Wanyu not to take him, but why did Shen Hua not take him yet chose to take Jiang Yan?
Li Yun tightened his grip on the monkey doll until his fingers turned white.
He knew he shouldn’t think like this, shouldn’t be so petty, but his mind just couldn’t help but conjure the three words—"Why him?"
Outside the window, the blue, dim sea coldly crashed against the shore, and all the monkey dolls in the room slowly turned their heads, their large, hollow eyes fixated on Li Yun.
---
The director's son was missing, and no matter how people searched, they couldn’t find the boy with green eyes.
Jiang Yan felt that the man before him seemed to age instantaneously, becoming an actual old man.
In just one day, his hospital had been destroyed, his lifelong work lost, his colleagues and subordinates dying before his eyes, and the patients he had hoped to save fell victim to ruthless gunfire.
Many of them were about to be discharged in just a couple of days.
This was a hospital, a place meant for saving lives, yet it had been replaced by a graveyard.
And his son, his only son, was still unaccounted for.
"When his mother gave birth to him, she passed away. I promised her I would take good care of him..."
The director looked at the rows of graves, his gaze clouded and a bittersweet smile on his lips, as if he were mocking the outcome he had long suspected.
At that moment, a disheveled old woman approached him, speaking in a slightly crazed manner to comfort him: "Your son may have been invited by the gods."
"God?" The director turned back, puzzled.
"God!" The old woman's tone was tinged with a hint of excitement.
She stretched her arms out toward the sea as the waves surged onto the shore, deep blue crashing into white, as if blooming for her.
"Our gods come from the sea and dwell in the heavens!" The sea breeze tangled her hair into disarray, and her eyes held an indescribable madness.
Heaven?
Everyone looked up at the sound. In the dim sky, there seemed to be some huge creature slowly writhing, though it might just be an illusion created by the wind stirring the clouds.
“Did you see it?! Did you see him?!” The old woman laughed excitedly, almost frantically, against the sea breeze. “He will bring punishment! Those sinful people will ultimately face the wrath of our gods!”
At this moment, a patient with a cast approached Jiang Yan and his companions, whispering, “This old woman is from the psychiatric ward; she has always had mental issues. Just now, with the noise outside, she was inside mumbling and doing some ritual.”
Jiang Yan, along with the others, exchanged glances but didn’t say anything.
Perhaps due to the intense emotional strain he experienced today, the director looked up at the sky and muttered, “I... really want to see him.”
The man with the cast was startled by the director’s words: “You saw him? What did you see?”
“God... my son...” the director murmured.
Under the vast sky, deep ocean waves surged and crashed against the rocky shore.
A sound, reminiscent of a whale's mournful song, echoed, seemingly coming from the sky or the ocean.
The director chose to stay and rebuild his hospital. In his words, he wanted to watch over those who had died.
Naturally, Jiang Yan and his friends stayed to help.
This hospital was originally the director's private facility, and he naturally had accumulated a great deal of wealth and capital.
Additionally, the news spread that “people in the hospital fought desperately against their enemies, suffering heavy casualties, yet none surrendered or were captured.”
Thus, when people heard that the director was planning to rebuild the hospital, various individuals came forward to sponsor and support him. Within a few months, an identical hospital rose again by the sea.
However, this time, there was an additional cemetery and a lighthouse.
The director said that the ocean is the resting place for the departed, and by building a lighthouse here, they wouldn’t get lost if they wanted to return to land.
Jiang Yan, Tao Shi, and Cao Youfeng had to stay in the hospital again because their conditions hadn’t fully improved and hadn’t reached the “discharge standard.”
The director was particularly concerned about the three of them, perhaps because his son had gone missing during the bombing and slaughter. He began to transfer his emotions onto these three kids, who were around the same age as his son and were helping him rebuild the hospital.
It was unclear whether the trauma from the bombing, slaughter, and his son’s disappearance was too great, but the director started studying theology.
However, this theology was not from any religion they were familiar with; it was a bizarre and unheard-of belief.
Moreover, the director gathered a group of people who shared his faith to work at the hospital. The old woman who had been speaking crazily by the sea became a central figure among them.
Every day, they researched and discussed the “classics” they had mysteriously acquired, inscribed the newly built lighthouse with inscriptions to serve as the god’s altar, and prayed to the ocean.
They supported their “god” in their own way.
Yet, this “god” was something Jiang Yan and his companions had never heard of or seen before.
Even now, they had never seen it, as the director and his group of fervent believers didn’t even have a picture of their “god,” only a bizarre symbol.
As the sun set, the director and the old woman gathered all the “believers” in the hospital at the lighthouse in the cemetery for prayers.
They stood in circles around the lighthouse, arms outstretched, gazing up at the dark night sky, motionless, like scarecrows planted in the cemetery.
Jiang Yan and his friends sat by the window of their ward, looking at the people in the cemetery who were gazing at the sky, illuminated by the lighthouse's light.
Jiang Yan’s blue eyes deepened in the night sky. “Do you believe in the existence of gods?”
“Yes,” Tao Shi replied without hesitation. “Otherwise, how could there be a game like ‘Jian’? How could we enter this game and see a group of hopeless people come to worship the gods?”
Jiang Yan had started taking the medication the hospital had prescribed him again, but he occasionally felt a buzzing sound in his head, possibly due to the inconsistent medical conditions of the time.
The sound was akin to a whale's song from the deep sea but was even more penetrating, as if it came from deep within the soul of a person.
“You make a good point,” Jiang Yan said, feeling somewhat uncomfortable as he rubbed his head and gazed at the ocean outside. “But I think if there really were gods in this world, they wouldn’t intervene in human affairs, at least not grant human wishes just because of worship.”
“Are you saying their efforts are in vain?” Cao Youfeng asked, holding a skewer of candied hawthorn.
“Are they useful?” Jiang Yan coldly retorted. “Has the war stopped? We know it will end in three years, but is that a gift from the gods? It is humans who drive away the invaders.”
“Since worshiping the gods has no effect, it means the gods do not interfere in human affairs or the matters of the universe. If that’s the case, then the gods might as well not exist in this world,” Jiang Yan said.
He remembered that Yu Xiu had asked him this question more than once: “Yan Yan, do you believe in the existence of gods?”
Jiang Yan had naturally said he didn’t, but it seemed Yu Xiu was quite interested in the concept of gods.
The person was not only interested in gods; he seemed curious about everything in the world, from the sun and moon to ants and fallen leaves.
He had an inexplicable enthusiasm and curiosity for all forms of life in this world, which was why they had a specimen room at home.
Yu Xiu respected every life; he liked how they looked alive and also appreciated their appearance in death.
Suddenly, the whale’s song in Jiang Yan's mind became more intense, causing him to furrow his brow.
“However, when people are in despair, they always need a bit of hope to keep going,” Tao Shi said, looking at the crowd outside. “Those who can fight have gone to the front lines. They can’t go, so they decide to curse those bastards instead.”
“Although I don’t think it’s useful, curse away! It’d be even better if it could really kill a couple of them,” Cao Youfeng said bluntly.
Saying this, his gaze darkened, and he turned to Jiang Yan and asked, “Do you think the slaughter you saw will happen tonight?
Jiang Yan leaned against the glass window, his blue eyes seemingly melting into the night where the sea and sky intertwined. “It shouldn’t be. In my dream, I was standing in the room of my ‘husband.’”
“Is that after you married the director’s son?”
“Probably.”
“But now the son is missing. We don’t know if he’s alive or dead,” Cao Youfeng said. “He should be coming back soon, right? But will he return in that… state?”
The three of them frowned in unison; they had all seen the monster’s form.
Just the pitch-black figure, shapeless and that bizarre mask resembling a doodled paper face, was enough to make their hair stand on end.
Fortunately, Jiang Yan had a high tolerance for fear, and after looking at it for so long, he had grown accustomed to it.
However, this issue was worth delving into.
Jiang Yan spoke up, “I remember that the main system stated in the copy’s plot that the director’s son died four years after marrying ‘Jiang Yan’ and only then turned into this monster.”
“Why did the director suddenly have a son eighty years ago? Or maybe the current director isn’t the same as the one from eighty years later, so their sons aren’t the same?” Jiang Yan felt confused.
The main system wouldn’t lie about the script. Moreover, he was an NPC, not a player. The main system might manipulate the “copy background” that players received to increase the difficulty, but it absolutely wouldn’t tamper with the “copy script” of an NPC. After all, if an NPC didn’t play their role well, it sometimes actually lowered the difficulty for players.
But what was the connection between these two sons?
“He told me that we’ve been together for eighty years. Doesn’t that prove he actually lived until he met ‘Jiang Yan’ again, married him and then died unexpectedly, becoming a monster afterward?”
Jiang Yan lowered his eyes and rubbed his chin, analyzing seriously, “But if he lived until he met ‘Jiang Yan’ again, he should be at least a hundred years old. How could ‘Jiang Yan’ possibly marry him?”
After speaking for a while, Jiang Yan noticed that Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng weren’t responding.
He instinctively looked up and saw both of them staring at him in disbelief.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something odd?” Jiang Yan asked, loosening his grip on his chin.
Tao Shi nodded and then said, “In the ‘story background’ we received, that monster didn’t die unexpectedly after marrying you…”
“It has always been the monster of this hospital.”
Jiang Yan stared wide-eyed in disbelief. How was that possible?
Suddenly, the sea wind outside howled violently, and a torrential rain accompanied by dark, rolling clouds swept in, churning the ocean into chaos!
At this moment, the people around the lighthouse in the cemetery didn’t retreat to the hospital to avoid the rain; instead, they danced their bizarre ritual for the gods in the rain, laughing all the while.
The old woman stood in the center, raising her arms and crying out in wild laughter, “The god has heard our call! It has heard us!”
“My… my son…” The director, drenched by the rain, squinted against the downpour, his glasses foggy, but he still struggled to look up at the sky.
Beneath the roiling clouds, it seemed as if a giant beast was stretching its body, and the ocean followed suit, surging like the sky.
Jiang Yan felt the whale calls in his ears become piercing; the ethereal sound seemed to come from a distant past.
The old woman’s unruly, frizzy hair was plastered against her face by the rain, resembling mysterious totems. She looked up at the sky and said, “The book says today is the day it takes a bride…”
“But… we haven’t prepared a bride for it?” The director’s expression became somewhat flustered.
“The god’s bride is chosen by it!” The old woman extended a finger to her lips, speaking sternly to the director, “We have no right to choose a bride for the god.”
After saying this, she looked up again at the lofty sky.
Beneath the endless expanse, the deep blue ocean seemed to be boiling.
Suddenly, the old woman’s eyes widened: “It! It’s coming!!”
As the rolling clouds met the horizon, a black object appeared, discernibly just a small part of its body, looking as though it was even larger than the ocean itself.
The overwhelming pressure from the giant beast and the ancient, unknown terror froze everyone in place.
The old woman stared wide-eyed in the rain, her eyes filled with fear and reverence, looking at the distant giant: “It… has come to take its bride.”
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