A Survival Game Where You Have to Fall in Love with a Madman - Chapter 5

“So, he really is the autonomous, high-tier NPC you were talking about,” He Yanqing remarked, casually spinning his gleaming cleaver through the air a few times.

He opened his personal status interface. Since players with lower capability ratings could not view his profile, he was completely unconcerned about anyone seeing it.

【Player He Yanqing’s Status Panel】

• Gender: Male
• Age: 24
• Height: 191 cm
• Length: 20.1 cm *
• Capability Evaluation Rating: 82+
• Pre-Game Identity: Admiral
• Weapon: Inventory too vast to calculate; primary preference is a short cleaver blade.
• Personal Skill: Rule-based offensive abilities. Possesses absolute operational speed and explosive power; optimized for close-quarters combat.

Ciyu stared blankly at You Yan in sheer disbelief. This person was actually the high-tier NPC who had handed them the key when they first entered the instance? What exactly was he a player or a monster anomaly? And why on earth did the instance Boss keep a photograph of him inside the executive office?

“Are you absolutely certain your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you?” You Yan asked, walking back over after thoroughly scanning their immediate perimeter. He cast a clinical glance down at Ciyu’s abdominal laceration, consciously maintaining a safe, tactical distance from both of them.

He was inherently self-serving; he did not trust anyone in this environment, including himself. If circumstances demanded it, he would sell out a teammate without a fraction of a second of hesitation to ensure his own survival.

“I’m certain,” Ciyu verified, her gaze locked firmly onto his. For a split second, You Yan felt his brain stall, experiencing a subconscious, overwhelming urge to trust her words unconditionally.

You Yan inwardly analyzed the sensation. Could Ciyu’s personal skill be linked to some form of psychological charm or manipulation?

“Right,” he murmured, calmly shifting his gaze away toward the stairwell landing at the far end of the corridor, dropping the subject entirely. If her skillset involved charm attributes, it would be an absolute waste of time to interrogate her, as distinguishing lies from reality would prove near impossible.

You Yan tapped the air to pull up his own system interface. This was the first time since entering the instance that he had bother to review his personal metrics. His eyes drifted downward, settling on the identity field.

【Player You Yan’s Status Panel】

• Gender: Male
• Age: 24
• Height: 178.5 cm
• Length: [REDACTED]
  • System Note: We wouldn’t want to damage our player’s self-esteem by putting it into print! ~
• Capability Evaluation Rating: 0
• Pre-Game Identity: Escape room NPC / Work-hating corporate slave / ???
• Weapon: A specialized scalpel equipped with cosmetic light effects [Decorative Item Only].
• Personal Skill: Undiscovered.

You Yan frowned slightly at the sight of the triple question marks. What was that supposed to mean? It implied he carried three distinct identities, one of which the system was currently entirely incapable of evaluating.

The system’s playful notification chime rang out across the silence:

【Remaining Instance Timeframe: 4 hours.】

【Players are advised to clear the instance and evacuate the facility as soon as possible. Alternatively, you are more than welcome to remain behind at the hospital to keep our adorable little monsters company!】

The moment You Yan closed out his interface and turned his head, he caught He Yanqing staring intently at the empty air directly behind his back with an unreadable expression. Specifically, the man’s gaze was pinned dead center onto the exact coordinates where the [Length] metric had just been displayed.

Naturally, Ciyu had caught sight of his panel contents as well. Realizing she had been busted snooping, she awkwardly jerked her head up, staring mindlessly at the ceiling. She couldn’t help but marvel internally: Wow, the air in this corridor is incredibly… airy. A bit pungent, though.

You Yan: “…”

“What’s on the second floor?” You Yan inquired, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred as he walked toward the stairwell.

“I honestly have no idea what’s down there,” Ciyu replied, her fingers tapping nervously against her wrist as her gaze tracked the door handle You Yan had touched earlier. “My teammates and I blundered our way directly to the third floor. It felt like we didn’t even… pass through the second floor?”

“Oh? Miss Ciyu, how exactly did you manage to bypass the entire second floor to reach the third?” He Yanqing asked casually. He effortlessly matched You Yan’s pace, deliberately bumping his shoulder against the youth’s side.

Ciyu tugged her clothing downward to cover herself, but the motion caused several fragments of charred, black flesh to drop from her hollow abdominal wound. “I’m not entirely clear on the mechanics either…”

The corpse of the monstrous doctor they had slaughtered earlier was no longer resting where it had fallen. Even the hemostatic forceps he had been utilizing had vanished into thin air.

Suddenly, the emergency lighting illuminating the entire corridor burst into a shower of sparks, plunging the area into darkness as the wet, squelching sound of rushing liquid echoed from all directions.

“Upstairs,” He Yanqing commanded, flicking his wrist to deploy three glow sticks. In the dancing, vibrant light, they could see the walls crawling with thousands of dense, miniature infant handprints, each actively oozing a pale yellowish fluid.

The trio dashed frantically toward the second floor landing. Suddenly, the step beneath Ciyu’s foot turned entirely soft, sinking like quicksand as her ankle was instantly submerged into the staircase structure, locking her movement down.

From the staircase banister, a dense swarm of black wriggling maggots surged forth, crawling aggressively toward her exposed ankle as they parted their microscopic, razor-sharp teeth to bite down.

“Save me!” Ciyu shrieked in absolute terror, looking straight toward You Yan ahead of her. She knew all too well that He Yanqing wouldn’t lift a finger to assist her. But You Yan was a green rookie who had just entered his first instance; surely, he wouldn’t stand by and watch someone die. She bet everything on his basic human decency.

He Yanqing casually twirled the crimson string wrapped around his fingers, thoroughly amused and eager to see how You Yan would handle the situation.

“Sir, please, I beg of you, save me,” Ciyu implored, her eyes wide with a fragile, helpless terror as she locked eyes with You Yan. Her words seemed to reverberate within You Yan’s psyche like an ethereal echo, as if countless phantom voices were repeating a singular command in his mind:

Save her…

Hurry up and save her…

You Yan deliberated for precisely three seconds before extending his right hand. A massive, relieved smile broke across Ciyu’s face as she lunged forward to grab his wrist.

The very next millisecond, the smile froze solid on her lips, and her outstretched hand hovered awkwardly mid-air.

With a swift, fluid motion, You Yan’s hand had darted straight past her arm, dipping directly into her breast pocket to yank out a blood-stained key. Without a fraction of a second of hesitation, he spun on his heel and continued up the stairs, refusing to grant her another look.

He Yanqing was somewhat surprised by this turn of events. Casting a brief glance back at the deathly pale Ciyu, he didn’t waste any time lingering either, quickly following close behind the youth.

“Wait!” Ciyu screamed, but the silhouettes of the two men vanished past the stairwell threshold within moments. An agonizing sensation of thousands of tiny teeth tearing into her flesh rippled up from her ankle.

She couldn’t comprehend how You Yan had remained completely unaffected by her personal skill. Before she could process the thought further, a rustling swarm of black maggots began to burrow out from the interior of her abdominal wound. A sequence of shrill, agonizing shrieks echoed throughout the first-floor corridor, slowly dissolving into absolute silence.

Each floor within the hospital functioned as an isolated dimensional pocket. Standing on the second-floor landing, the two men could not hear a single sound originating from other players (with the exception of the monster anomalies).

You Yan halted before a reinforced iron door. The plaque mounted beside the frame read: Pediatric Ward.

“Mr. NPC, when exactly do you plan on acknowledging your arm?” He Yanqing asked, leaning lazily against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, a half-smile playing on his lips.

You Yan lowered his gaze, only to discover that the skin across his right hand the one that had made contact with the door handle earlier had begun to rot. Beneath the surface of his pale blue veins, an active, moving lump had materialized, slowly migrating up his forearm.

Yet, he hadn’t experienced a single shred of physical pain.

The gleaming surgical scalpel spun in a blinding wheel through his fingers. Without a trace of emotion on his face, You Yan drove the blade straight into the shifting mass on his arm, applying a brief flick of leverage to gouge the entity out. The creature dropped onto the floor, writhing briefly before dissolving directly into the floor tiles.

A grotesque, hollow crater was left behind on You Yan’s right forearm, causing bright crimson blood to pump out from his skin in steady, rhythmic spurts.

“Wow. You really don’t pull any punches when it comes to yourself, do you, theoretician?” He Yanqing remarked, licking his back molar. His expression remained entirely unreadable, but as he stared at the blood pouring continuously from You Yan’s wound, an indistinguishable sensation welled up in his chest.

Tsk. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I paying this much attention to a common rookie?

Before he could dissect the thought any further, You Yan had already pushed open the door to the Pediatric Ward. The interior was completely choked in shadow, unleashing a wave of suffocating, sinister dread into the corridor. The heavy crimson curtains were drawn completely shut, entirely blocking out the window screens.

Inside the room, roughly twenty rusted bed frames were lined up, though every single one was completely vacant of patients, occupied only by foul, mildewed bedding.

The faint, ghostly sound of children laughing echoed intermittently through the space. You Yan’s focus shifted toward a tarnished metal desk sitting in the corner, where dozens of baby bottles were scattered haphazardly across the surface. The interiors of the bottles were caked in a thick, black, flocculent substance. As You Yan took a few steps forward, a heavy, sulfuric acid mist began to evaporate outward from the glass containers.

“My dear, high-tier NPC, which room does that key belong to?” He Yanqing asked. He was systematically lifting the foul bedding from the frames one by one. Suddenly, his fingers froze. Resting upon one of the mattresses was a fleshy mass that had completely lost any recognizable shape.

The small tissue clusters across the organic mass were pulsing rhythmically; through the thin, translucent pink skin, one could clearly map out the network of capillaries and exposed nerves.

“The basement,” You Yan replied, his eyes tracking the man’s discovery. He instantly recognized the mass for what it truly was a human embryo that had been interrupted mid-development.