A Survival Game Where You Have to Fall in Love with a Madman - Chapter 8

As Director Klein’s mechanical arm tore straight through the concrete floorboards, He Yanqing’s wild laughter erupted through the air, mixing with the flying debris.

“Theoretician, your facial expressions are truly priceless,” he remarked, tilting his torso to dodge a jagged shard of flying shrapnel as the tip of his short blade sparked violently against the Director’s metallic knuckles. “You look exactly like a corporate wage slave forced to pull uncompensated overtime.”

The shockwave whipped the hem of You Yan’s lab coat upward, exposing an array of seven surgical scalpels strapped securely to his waist.

Without a trace of emotion on his face, he depressed a concealed button on his wristwatch, causing the glowing blue symbols across Subterranean Level 1 to flow like a liquid current.

【System Command Overwrite in progress… Override Denied: Insufficient Clearance.】

“Tsk.” For the very first time since the instance began, You Yan flashed a look of genuine irritation. With a swift flick of his wrist, he unleashed three scalpels, pinning the advancing experimental subjects firmly to the ground. “He Yanqing, how much time is left on your serum antibody?”

“Hmm?” He Yanqing slammed his blade directly into the Director’s mechanical eye socket. Hearing the query, he casually licked a smear of engine grease from the back of his hand. “Two hours and forty-three minutes—are you finally willing to play with me?”

Director Klein’s mechanical arm suddenly deformed, expanding to deploy six pneumatic injection syringes.

As He Yanqing executed a sharp backbend to evade the strike, You Yan’s scalpels struck with absolute mathematical precision, shattering three of the vials. The violet fluid inside sprayed across the masonry, instantly corroding massive holes into the structural walls.

The live chat interface suddenly reconnected, scrolling at a frantic pace:

[User ID: Unholy Chemistry]: Holy hell, this coordination is absolute gold!

[User ID: System Lies]: An NPC executing predictive throws of that caliber is a level zero capability rating? System, get out here and take your beating!

[User ID: Shippers Unite]: God He, stop flirting with your wife! If that fluid touches skin, it’ll dissolve him completely, ahhh!

[User ID: Anti-Cringe Alliance]: To the user above: stop projecting romance onto pure violence!

“Player parameters have been restored,” You Yan noted calmly, catching the shift on the system overlay. He reached out, grabbing He Yanqing by the back of his collar and yanking him backward with immense force.

The exact millisecond the two men tumbled back into an open morgue refrigeration cabinet, the floorboards where the Director had been standing collapsed into a bottomless abyss.

Within the suffocatingly narrow metallic confines of the cabinet, He Yanqing’s warm breath fanned against You Yan’s neck. “Do you know what I absolutely despise the most in this world?” Even in this position, his grip on his weapon remained rock-steady as his eyes tracked the outside environment through the narrow seam of the cabinet door.

“Labor,” You Yan supplied indifferently, his fingers already busy carving a fresh sequence of command strings onto the inner metallic wall with his scalpel. “And you.”

He Yanqing chuckled softly, the blood-stained tip of his index finger drifting up to trace the beauty mark nestled beneath the corner of You Yan’s eye. “Wrong. It’s boredom.”

The exact instant his heavy boot kicked the cabinet door open to launch himself back into the fray, You Yan executed the final stroke of his engraving.

The glowing blue symbols across Subterranean Level 1 suddenly restructured themselves. In perfect unison, the 132 experimental subjects froze solid, the red light inside their chest cavities pivoting simultaneously to lock onto the Director.

“Magnificent!” He Yanqing twisted his frame mid-air, crossing his short blades into a lethal X-shape to execute a dual-strike against the back of the Director’s neck.

Yet, a deafening ring of metal-on-metal echoed through the room, and he found himself violently repelled backward the Director’s lab coat had torn away, exposing a gleaming spinal column forged entirely from reinforced silver alloy.

Suddenly, You Yan materialized dead center in front of the Director. Without a hint of hesitation, he drove his necrotic right hand straight into the entity’s chest. “So, it was hidden here.” His fingers dissolved into the digital space within the chest cavity, violently tearing away half of a pulsing crystalline heart.

The live chat detonated into sheer pandemonium:

Ripping out a core with bare hands?!

You’re telling me this guy is a janitor?!

System, update this NPC’s capability metrics right this instant!

Can everyone stop calling him ‘the NPC’? The powerhouse has a name, alright?

The Director unleashed a synthesized electronic screech, his mechanical limbs discharging a blind, erratic volley of suppression fire.

The ensuing shockwave launched You Yan into the air, but He Yanqing intercepted him mid-flight, the two rolling securely behind the reinforced chassis of a destroyed CT scan machine.

“The nurse was concealing the right hemisphere,” You Yan explained, tossing the fragment of the crystalline heart straight into He Yanqing’s hand as his necrotic right arm began to visibly turn to carbon. “The left hemisphere was anchored inside his own chest cavity.”

He Yanqing slammed his hand down onto the youth’s wrist, driving the remaining payload of the serum antibody syringe entirely into his bloodstream. “Don’t go dying on me now, theoretician. You haven’t even witnessed me dismantle this wretched hospital to the ground yet.”

You Yan knitted his brows. “A waste of resources.”

Despite his critique, the carbonization process ground to an immediate halt.

As Director Klein obliterated half the structures in the room to close the distance, He Yanqing suddenly slammed the two halves of the crystalline heart together.

Amidst the brilliant, blinding ignition of crystalline light, he looked at You Yan with a wild smile. “Care to make a wager?”

You Yan let out a heavy sigh, yet his fingers operated in perfect, unchoreographed harmony to depress the key on his wristwatch. The dual inputs triggered simultaneously, causing the fully integrated heart to unleash a catastrophic wave of absolute white light.

【Instance Core Restructuring: Complete.】

【Ultimate Defensive Protocol: Initiated.】

Every single experimental subject swarmed the Director, their combined mass dragging him down into the depths of the collapsing abyss. 132 crimson lights ascended from the chasm, converging along the ceiling to form a brilliant galaxy of starlight.

“They… are smiling…” He Yanqing noted, tilting his chin upward to watch the departing souls, suddenly finding the resolution entirely lacking in entertainment value.

Turning his head, however, he found the sharp edge of a surgical scalpel pressed firmly against his own throat.

“Explain yourself,” You Yan demanded, his gaze razor-sharp and ice-cold. “You knew perfectly well that fusing the core components would trigger an absolute purification protocol.”

He Yanqing allowed the blade to nick his skin, his smile remaining utterly unbridled. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

The live chat scrolled at a terminal velocity:

Merciful heavens, what kind of unhinged flirting is this!

Look closely! You Yan’s wrist carries an identical marking to the Director’s!

So, You Yan’s true identity was originally…

You Yan retracted his scalpel with absolute abruptness, turning on his heel to walk toward the exit corridor. “Time to go back and work overtime.”

He Yanqing pursued him immediately, casually throwing an arm over the youth’s shoulder. “Hey there, NPC janitor, in the next instance—”

“No.” You Yan slapped his hand away, though his footsteps faltered slightly at the corner of the corridor. “…Unless you learn how to remain silent.”

A final, blood-red official broadcast scrolled across the top of the interface:

【Player You Yan: Identity Certification Updated.】

【Capability Metric: Hidden Parameters Successfully Unlocked: ■■■■■】

The silver moonlight poured through the fractured roof, casting long silhouettes behind their retreating forms. He Yanqing hummed a thoroughly out-of-tune melody while the hem of You Yan’s lab coat fluttered in the wind, their shadows stretching along the ground  one erratic and wild, the other as flawlessly straight and sharp as a blade.

The exact moment the system’s cold, mechanical voice officially broadcasted the words “Instance Cleared,” You Yan’s knees finally gave out entirely, and he sank heavily onto the blood-soaked floorboards.

His white lab coat had long since been stained a deep, oxidized crimson; the edge of his surgical scalpel was completely notched and warped, and a fine web of fractures across his palm bled a steady stream of crimson beads.

【DING-DONG! Congratulations to Players You Yan and He Yanqing for successfully clearing the Rank-A Instance: St. Maria’s Charity Hospital.】

【The trapped souls anchored to St. Maria have finally attained absolute liberation. They shall offer their prayers and blessings unto you, with the sincere hope that you manage to survive a fraction longer in the upcoming instance.】

【Surviving Player Metrics: 2 / 5.】

【Primary Objective: Locate the heart concealed by the nurse (1/1) — Complete.】

【Secondary Objective: Secure the Viral Serum (2/2) — Complete.】

【Instance Clearance Rating: 80 Points.】

【Assessment Notes: Due to your failure to utilize conventional clearance methodologies, you have bypassed a significant volume of highly entertaining narrative plot points. The system expresses its deepest calculations of regret on your behalf.】

【Clearance Rewards: 3x Panacea Serum (Note: Capable of curing any terminal pathology. Expiration window: 24 hours).】

“Giving up already?” He Yanqing asked, squatting on his haunches right in front of him. His moonlight-blue hair was heavily matted with the viscous fluids of some unknown biological anomaly, and the beauty mark beneath his eye gleamed with an exceptionally lethal charm against the dim light.

He extended his index finger, tilting You Yan’s chin upward. “We’ve only liquidated a single boss entity, after all.”

You Yan slapped his hand away with absolute indifference, leveraging his weight against the structural wall to pull himself back into a standing position. “Explain.”

“Explain what?” He Yanqing tilted his head, resembling a feline meticulously toying with its prey.

“Everything.”

You Yan’s gaze swept across the environment. The familiar escape room parameters had transformed beyond recognition; the walls were now completely blanketed in a network of pulsing, vein-like crimson textures. “Those monster anomalies, that automated broadcast system, and…”

The image of Xiao Lin’s corpse resting in the corner of the corridor suddenly flashed through his mind, causing his throat to constrict with a heavy tightness. “…The body count.”

He Yanqing let out a low chuckle. “You still haven’t illuminated me on how exactly you managed to override those system command strings back there.”

“A lucky guess,” You Yan replied, casually brushing imaginary dust from his garments, a subtle trace of icy provocation flickering deep within his eyes.

The familiar, evasive retort left He Yanqing momentarily tongue-tied. He hadn’t expected that the very conversational trap he had dug for others would ultimately become his own burial ground.

You Yan raised his gaze toward the ceiling. He distinctly recalled the moment He Yanqing had cleanly severed Ciyu’s head, yet the automated system had never triggered a death announcement for her. By that calculation, if the surviving player count was strictly two, then the other remaining participant besides He Yanqing had to be…

Suddenly, He Yanqing closed the distance between them, leaning in so close that You Yan could distinctly register the metallic scent of iron mixed with the sharp fragrance of pine wood radiating from his skin. “Then allow me to illuminate the situation for you, my dearest Mr. NPC welcome to the Infinite Game Universe.”

He took a theatrical step backward, throwing his arms wide in an exaggerated gesture. “In this realm, death is absolute, the monsters are exquisite, and as for us—” His blade suddenly materialized, anchoring itself firmly against You Yan’s throat. “—We are merely its playthings.”

You Yan didn’t flinch. He merely stared back at him with absolute, freezing tranquility. “Why choose me?”

“That is a question you ought to ask yourself.”

The tip of He Yanqing’s blade drifted downward, flicking open You Yan’s blood-stained collar. “Why exactly can a common, run-of-the-mill NPC perceive raw system command code? How is it that you can breathe effortlessly within a fluid data stream?” The sharp edge of his canine tooth gleamed with a dangerous light. “I am profoundly curious.”

Suddenly, a massive wave of vertigo crashed over You Yan, and the perimeter of his field of vision began to dissolve into a chaotic matrix of static white noise.

He reached out to anchor himself against the wall for support, but his hand met absolutely nothing his fingers drifted straight through the solid masonry, turning entirely translucent.

“Oh?” He Yanqing’s eyes narrowed into a razor-sharp slit. He lunged forward, grabbing the youth firmly by the wrist. “It appears we need to evacuate this coordinate immediately.”