Players, Please Board the Train

Sima Xiao Er acted with high efficiency, immediately calling his teammates from the third floor. It was currently nighttime, and the five of them moved quietly, avoiding the nurses on duty as they gathered in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors.

”Listen carefully, it’s best not to alert the medical staff, but if we’re discovered, restrain them immediately,” Sima Xiao Er whispered to his companions. ”Also, don’t believe what the other patients say. Our daily medication and food have been laced with hallucinogens. They’re using special items to interfere with us. If you believe them, you might be trapped here forever!”

The convictions of the Special Defense Department members traveling with him were already hanging by a thread. Especially after hearing that the tall dark man escaped only to reach the First Research Institute and discover it didn’t actually exist, and that Ting City wasn’t really Ting City but just a location name in a game - who could handle that?

So now they simply followed whatever Sima Xiao Er said, since they had been partners before their memories became scrambled.

Besides those who knew each other from the Special Defense Department, Xu Huo also brought along several people he had seen in the abandoned building. Anyone willing to come with them was brought along, while the rest were ignored.

”Are these patients real?” Sima Xiao Er couldn’t help asking Xu Huo. ”If they’re also trapped here, won’t they go completely insane if they don’t get out?”

Xu Huo was systematically checking rooms and glanced at the floor tiles beneath his feet upon hearing this. They were now on the fifth floor, where all the patients in the wards were tied to their beds, wrapped in cloth with their mouths gagged. If not for their open eyes, you wouldn’t be able to tell they were alive, though they were almost like corpses - some didn’t even blink.

”Who exactly are we looking for?” Little Yang couldn’t resist asking. ”These people give me the creeps. Are you sure they won’t come out...”

”Shut up!” Sima Xiao Er snapped sharply. ”I told you not to overthink things! Just pretend they don’t exist!”

Little Yang gritted his teeth, dropping the patient topic as he looked at Xu Huo. ”Can you really get us out?””If you don’t want to follow, you can leave.” Xu Huo didn’t waste words with him, instead speeding up his room inspections because the fifth floor walls were beginning to hatch, with the wall surface peeling off. This Mental Pollution Area was rapidly deteriorating.

”Woo—woo—woo—” A sharp, piercing alarm sounded as red warning lights flashed on every floor. Nurses ran past the stairwell, screaming, ”The patients have escaped! Come quickly, catch them...”

Sima Xiao Er and the others paled, their first instinct being to rush forward and stop them. But before they could act, a human head suddenly flew back from the stairwell, smashing ”bang” against the wall before rolling into the corridor coated with thick blood—it was that nurse’s head!

Then a bandage-wrapped foot stepped onto the fifth floor, while a hand reached out from over two meters up to grip the wall edge.

”Run!” Xu Huo shouted sharply, and the twenty-plus people sprinted forward. Sima Xiao Er glanced back while running and saw the bandaged monster actually chasing them while clinging to the wall surface. He screamed in terror, ”Holy fucking shit, that thing has four legs!”

Before the bandaged monster fully revealed itself, judging by the placement of its feet and hands, it stood at least three meters tall. But when it pressed against the wall, they realized it wasn’t actually that tall—it just had two additional legs and two extra hands attached to its body, which explained why it could ”stand” in the stairwell in that posture. Now the monster crawled along the wall surface like a spider, moving even faster than a normal person could run!

”I told you the hospital was conducting human experiments! That’s a monster they created!” The tall dark man pounded his own head as he ran forward like a madman, but he hadn’t gone far before shouting wildly, ”There’s no way forward!”

Both sides of the corridor were dead ends, with the only option being to hide in the wards. But as the bandaged monster appeared, the people in the wards began waking up one after another, some even leaving their rooms to rush at them like zombies!

A Special Defense Department member at the rear got bitten, with toxins spreading from the wound. In the blink of an eye, his body turned blackish-gray, his limbs twisting as he turned around.

”Who the hell imagined zombies into existence!” Due to time constraints and fearing that more explanations would further confuse the Special Defense Department members’ minds, Sima Xiao Er hadn’t fully explained what Xu Huo told him, instead fabricating a story about hallucinogens and special items. But seeing his companion turn into a zombie with his own eyes, he desperately caught up to Xu Huo. ”Did Little Gao really become a zombie? Is he dead?”

Having completed checking all the rooms on the fifth floor, Xu Huo no longer delayed. Without answering the question, he said, ”Go to the sixth floor.”

”There’s no floor... there are stairs!” Sima Xiao Er stared at the stairs that had suddenly appeared at the corridor’s end, quickly urging his companions behind him to follow.

But after he went up, the zombified Little Gao, along with several fifth-floor patients and the bandaged monster, all pursued them. Particularly the bandaged monster, which leaped past the people in front to land on the stairs.

Xu Huo glanced back, and the walls on both sides of the stairs automatically closed together, squeezing the bandaged monster between them!

”Little Gao!” Sima Xiao Er shouted because after the walls closed, all the zombie-like people were blocked behind the bandaged monster.

”Hurry!” Little Yang pushed him. ”The stairs are disappearing!”

The bandaged monster being embedded in the wall lasted only a moment. The walls continued closing without stopping, steadily advancing from the stair tail upward, chasing after them. The only way to avoid being sealed into the wall like the monster was to reach the sixth floor first.

In this race against time, the group ironically had no opportunity to overthink things. Instinct drove their minds as they rushed up to the sixth floor in one breath, immediately taking defensive positions against potential dangers.

But unexpectedly, the sixth floor was sunny and bright, vibrant with colorful flowers and filled with cheerful laughter.

”I must be dreaming,” Sima Xiao Er said.

In this beautifully arranged, harmonious medical environment, Xu Huo found Yan Jiayu. He called out from a distance, ”Let’s go!”

Yan Jiayu was currently sitting on a flower bed swinging her feet, clearly quite bored. The moment she saw Xu Huo, she immediately jumped up, running toward him with a beaming smile.

”You’re patients from downstairs! How did you get up here?” A nurse spotted them and immediately called security to capture them.

”I can’t fight monsters, but mere security guards...” Sima Xiao Er, who was organizing people to fetch Yan Jiayu, didn’t finish his sentence when he saw the monster crawling out from around the corner. He swallowed his remaining words and looked pleadingly at Xu Huo. ”Brother Xu! Quick, think of something!”

Xu Huo swiftly turned toward the nearest door, reaching out to push it open. But behind the door lay a crimson expanse, and as he opened it, something squirmed within the blood clots.

Without hesitation, he shut the door. As he turned back, a bandaged monster pounced at him. While dodging, Yan Jiayu leaped out from the side, grabbing a tabletop and smashing the thing away!