I Was Written as Cannon Fodder, Now I'm Rewriting the Genre

Cannon Fodder’s Intuition was triggered. Yin Zhen ”saw” herself fall heavily to the ground and die the moment she coughed, without even a chance to struggle. However, the urge to cough was so intense that it simply could not be suppressed.

Right then, a hand covered her mouth from behind. The knuckles were cold and stiff, and a patch of flesh between the thumb and index finger had rotted away, exposing the bone. Immediately after, several more hands slipped in between her arms and body, crossing over her collarbones and abdomen. They clamped her tightly in place, rendering her unable to move. The stench of rot rushed into her nasal cavity. It was the smell of a corpse!

In an instant, tears welled up and spilled from Yin Zhen’s eyes. This wasn’t out of fear. Instead, the moment the Ghost Hand touched her, she felt an immense wave of sorrow.

Seeing this, Ying wanted to rush up to save Yin Zhen but was stopped by her. This Ghost Hand hadn’t triggered Cannon Fodder’s Intuition, and it had even helped suppress the urge to cough in her throat. This served as an Explanation that the Ghost Hand did not want her life.

Yin Zhen’s tears flowed uncontrollably. The rotten flesh on the knuckles was soaked by her tears, turning even colder. She immediately thought of Wei Yang earlier that day, holding her phone and crying until her pillow was surrounded by tissues. However, the privacy curtain between them was still drawn tight, so she couldn’t see what was happening on the other side.

The sound of wheels rolling over the floor came from the corridor, sounding like a nurse’s cart.

SQUEAK— SQUEAK—

In the dead silence of the early morning corridor, this sound felt like it was tugging and stretching one’s nerves. It was far too quiet outside—so quiet that Yin Zhen could hear the person pushing the cart muttering as they walked.

”Patient... ward rounds... body temperature...”

As the squeaking drew closer, a burnt smell grew increasingly pungent. Just like the odor in the west stairwell, it smelled of charred flesh. The squeaking suddenly stopped at the door of Ward 414. A few seconds later, the doorknob began to turn slowly.

The Ghost Hand clamped down on Yin Zhen even tighter. A rotting head slowly peeked out from behind her right shoulder, pressing against her ear. Its exhalations carried the stench of an ancient, decaying corpse. Yin Zhen couldn’t see its face. From the corner of her eye, she could only glimpse a pale jaw protruding from a mass of black hair. The hanging strands swept across her neck—cold, clammy, and heavy.

The doorknob turned to its limit, the door opened, and that eerie voice entered her ears more clearly.

”Patient... ward rounds...”

Yin Zhen held her breath. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the situation at the door from where she was, as her view was blocked by the adjacent bed’s curtain.

The thing at the door didn’t come in. Yin Zhen heard the sound of the door closing again. With a squeak of turning wheels, it continued toward the end of the corridor.

”Patient... ward rounds... body temperature...”

The Ghost Hand on her body and the ghostly figure behind her vanished in an instant. Had the stench of the rotting corpse not lingered, Yin Zhen would have thought it was all a hallucination.

SWISH!

The curtain of the adjacent bed was yanked open. No one was on the bed.

Wei Yang stood on the other side of the bed wearing a hospital gown, her left arm in a sling across her chest. Her eyes were red and swollen, but her gaze was extremely calm. She assessed Yin Zhen from across the bed.

”You’re quite brave, kid. You actually didn’t faint from fright.”

Yin Zhen allowed herself to tremble. Wiping the tear stains from her face, she got out of bed and asked in a child’s voice, ”Miss, my mom is gone. Do you know where she went?”

Wei Yang replied in a tone used to brush off children, ”Your mom went out to the restroom. She’ll be back by the time you wake up.”

If not for the fear that this child’s crying would implicate her, Wei Yang wouldn’t have intervened just now.

Yin Zhen really wanted to curse at Wei Yang, asking if she thought she was an idiot. But right now, she was just an eight-year-old child, and this Wei Yang was clearly unusual. She could only react the way a child would. Glancing at the en-suite bathroom at the ward’s entrance, Yin Zhen asked, ”But we have a bathroom in our room.”

Wei Yang glanced back, not feeling guilty in the slightest. ”I broke the toilet. Your mom knows.”

Yin Zhen shifted her feet. The moment she showed the intention of going out to look for Bai Qiang, Wei Yang’s gaze immediately changed, her eyes narrowing with murderous intent.

”Kid, you’d better go back to sleep right now. Otherwise, I’ll have that ghost from earlier drag you away and eat you!”

Yin Zhen took a timely half-step back. She knew nothing about this world’s Strength and had no idea what her odds of winning against Wei Yang would be.

[Heavenly Dao Rewards Diligence]: I’m fine.

Seeing Bai Qiang’s reply, Yin Zhen finally went back to bed and lay down. It was 2:45 a.m. Glancing toward Wei Yang from the corner of her eye, Yin Zhen pondered inwardly. She thought that this Wei Yang was clearly someone who possessed Special Strength in this world, and she had to find a way to get Wei Yang’s blood.

***

Bai Qiang was awakened by the cold.

A freezing, hard iron plate pressed against her back, and the chill drilled all the way up her spine. The air reeked of blood and a burnt, charred smell. Bai Qiang suddenly opened her eyes. A blood-red surgical lamp hung overhead, casting a glaring light on her face that made her pupils shrink sharply. Aside from that, she couldn’t see anything clearly.

She tried to move, but her wrists and ankles were tightly clamped to the sides of the operating table by wide leather straps. The straps dug in deeply.

She cursed inwardly, ”Dog system, do you really want to kill me that badly?! You’re not even pretending anymore?!”

Bai Qiang cursed in her heart as she quickly observed her surroundings. In horror movies, it was perfectly normal to wake up in a completely different place. She told herself not to panic, absolutely not to panic.

A row of surgical instruments was laid out on an instrument tray nearby, every piece bearing old bloodstains. Soft tissue from god knows when was wedged into the teeth of the hemostatic forceps, dried fascia hung from the jagged edges of a bone saw, and a few strands of black hair were tangled around a pair of scissors.

Under the blinding, blood-red light, Bai Qiang saw a blood-soaked doctor standing by the operating table. His surgical cap was pulled down low, and a mask covered most of his face, leaving only his eyes exposed. Those eyes had no eyeballs—only two dark, empty holes. The skin around the edges of the holes was charred black and turned outward. He held an orthopedic Drill in his hand and was muttering something in a low voice.

”Patient Zhang Yueqin, fractured left leg, treatment... Patient Zhang Yueqin, fractured left leg, treatment...”

The sound of the Drill spinning at high speed exploded in the empty operating room, making Bai Qiang’s hair stand on end.

[Triggered Gray Card Event: You’re going to die.]

[Novel Law: In horror movies, doctors are either psychopathic serial killers or resentful ghosts. In any case, none of them actually treat patients properly.]

[Event Requirement: Escape from current danger.]

[Event Reward: Word count +300, Single-use Item x1.]

Seeing the Drill descending toward her left leg, Bai Qiang hurriedly yelled, ”My leg is already healed! Open your eyes and look!”

The doctor looked at Bai Qiang with those empty, eyeball-less sockets, then continued to aim the Drill at the tibia of her left leg.

Bai Qiang’s first thought was to use the Item ’I want to go to the toilet’, but she immediately dismissed the idea. The closest bathroom to the operating room was a public restroom, not a ward bathroom. When was a public restroom in a horror movie ever a good place? Mirrors, hands reaching out from beneath stalls, hair hanging from the ceiling—there were more ways to die in a restroom than anywhere else.

The Drill bit into Bai Qiang’s left calf. Blood spurted out, splattering onto her arm. The excruciating pain forced physiological tears from her eyes as she screamed desperately, ”Doctor! My brain is sick! It’s more serious than my leg! Can you look at my brain first?!”

The doctor stopped. The dark holes on his face aimed at Bai Qiang’s face for a moment. He then walked over to the head of the table, raised the Drill, and aimed it right at the crown of her skull.

As the high-speed spinning Drill pressed downward, Bai Qiang gritted her teeth and yelled, ”I am headstrong!”

The moment the Drill hit the crown of her head, it emitted an ear-piercing sound of grinding metal. The doctor paused, then increased the power and drilled even harder.

Seizing the opportunity, Bai Qiang used her spiritual power to lift a scalpel from the instrument tray. She was now extremely proficient at telekinesis. Cutting the restraints, the moment she broke free, she sat up and flipped the entire tray of surgical instruments—along with the blood-red lamp—smashing them into the doctor.

The surgical lamp hit the floor and shattered, and darkness swallowed the entire operating room.

Clutching the scalpel, Bai Qiang rolled off the operating table, slammed open the operating room door, and dashed outside. The corridor beyond the door looked as if it had been scorched by a raging fire. The blackened wall paint was peeling and curling. IV stands were scattered haphazardly across the floor, their metal poles bent from the heat. A wheelchair lay overturned in a corner, its seat cushion burned down to nothing but a spring frame.

Thick smoke still lingered deep in the hallway, hazy and obscuring whether the end was a solid wall or a turn. Dragging her injured left leg, Bai Qiang fled.

From the operating room behind her came the sound of the Drill restarting. She staggered down the charred corridor without even shoes on her feet. Cinders and shattered glass embedded themselves into her soles. She bared her teeth in pain but had no time to stop and heal herself. She couldn’t discern her direction at all, nor did she know which floor she was on at this moment.

Seeing Yin Zhen’s message in the team chat channel, Bai Qiang gritted her teeth, replied that she was fine, and continued to run. She didn’t even know where she was right now. Having Yin Zhen come to save her would be pointless and would only put Yin Zhen in danger for violating the hospitalization rules.

The sound of the Drill chased Bai Qiang from behind. Every time she looked back, those dark, empty eye sockets were a little closer than before.

Before Bai Qiang could even catch her breath, she saw a security guard with contorted limbs appear ahead. The clothes on his body were burned to rags, he had no hair on his head, and his skin was a rotting, charred red mess without a single intact patch. The guard was dragging a fire axe, chopping rhythmically at the chained stairwell door. Sensing someone approaching, he stopped and slowly turned his head to look at Bai Qiang.

A chill shot straight to the top of her head. Bai Qiang reached her right hand into her pocket and pinched the pack of tissues.

Just then, the fire alarm blared, and the corridor’s emergency lights instantly flared to life.

In the blink of an eye, Bai Qiang found herself back in the normal hospital corridor. There was no doctor wielding a Drill behind her, nor a security guard dragging a fire axe in front of her. The fire alarm was still ringing. Bai Qiang felt no relief at escaping danger; instead, her heart sank to rock bottom.