But the footsteps weren’t the same as before—not the sharp click of heels. These were rushed. Disordered.
Panicked.
The five of them scattered behind different pieces of equipment, wary of being caught in a surprise ambush.
“Huff… huff…”
“Help! Somebody help—!”
A boy’s terrified voice rang out from the corridor. Something heavy and loud was chasing right behind him. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like the heel-clicking creature from before.
And it was getting closer—racing straight for the instrument room.
Lulu signaled with her hands—What do we do? Risk it?
There was a 50/50 chance. It might be a creature using sound to trick them… or it might be a crucial NPC.
They had to move eventually.
Fu Changxun tapped Dong Zi. The latter gave a small nod, and the two of them burst out through the door, flashlight beam cutting through the dark.
A boy.
A normal-looking teenage boy, face full of panic, clearly not faking it. The moment he saw the door open and light streaming out, hope lit up his expression. He sprinted toward them without hesitation.
But right behind him was a towering, faceless monster. Snow-white skin. Arms outstretched, closing in fast.
Fu Changxun shouted to Dong Zi, then surged forward without waiting—drawing the “Extremely Sharp Knife” from his inventory and slashing down hard on the creature.
Caught off-guard, the monster lost an arm in an instant.
But Fu Changxun hadn’t expected what came next—jet-black blood sprayed from the wound, arcing straight toward his face.
Who knew what kind of poison that blood might carry?
There was no time to dodge.
“Watch out!” Dong Zi lunged and pulled him back by the waist.
The reeking blood splattered across the floor, narrowly missing them.
But the creature, now enraged by the pain, stopped chasing the boy. It turned instead—its head swiveling—and split open its “mouth” at Fu Changxun.
Its mouth wasn’t even on its face. It was on its neck.
The visual was horrific.
The grotesque, lamprey-like maw gaped wide, and Fu Changxun froze. Mind blank.
He’d been fine slashing at the thing from a distance—but now, face to face, he could hear his SAN value dropping.
Dong Zi yanked him fully behind and took the knife. Without hesitation, he struck again.
“You dare scare him?!”
If Fu Changxun’s blow had severed an arm, Dong Zi’s cleaved the creature’s head clean off—and followed it with a full dismemberment.
The scene was a bloody mess.
Lulu, who’d watched the whole thing, quickly turned and clapped her hands over Xiaoxiao’s eyes.
“Oh god—totally not kid-friendly. Xiaoxiao, don’t look!”
Of them all, Lu Qi had the weakest mental fortitude.
Not only did he lose SAN—he actually vomited on the spot.
Even though the monster’s blood wasn’t red, the sheer look of it was sickening enough to make anyone’s stomach turn.
Meanwhile, Fu Changxun, who’d been shielded behind Dong Zi the entire time, didn’t have a single drop of that black blood on him.
And in that moment, he realized something.
Whenever Dong Zi was nearby, his emotions always felt more… stable.
It was becoming a habitual dependence.
The hallway was now littered with severed limbs and thick, viscous black blood. The five of them retreated back into the instrument room, dragging the rescued boy along with them.
Once Dong Zi confirmed there was only one monster, he shut the door and locked it tight.
The creature had been too intense. They needed time to breathe—before they could even begin thinking about the instance again.
As for this strange NPC…
Who exactly was he? And what role did he play? Patient, nurse, doctor? Or could he be the core “resentment” of the instance?
In the first instance, the central NPC wasn’t a [ghost]—it was the Black Cat. In the second, it had been the General herself. And this time?
What was the connection between the hospital and the family portrait? Were they meant to find the portrait—or somehow reunite the people in it?
They had no idea.
After a long silence, Fu Changxun was the first to speak.
“What are you?”
The boy trembled. “I… I’m a patient at this hospital. But I can’t remember much.”
He rubbed his temples, mumbling disjointedly. “I’m a patient. Right, I’m a patient. What illness did I have again…? I think… it was hysteria? No, no, I wasn’t diagnosed—they just threw me in here. And gave me those pills… I don’t want to take them. Once you do, you forget everything…”
His words were jumbled—swinging from “hospital” to “not sick” with no clear logic.
Lulu’s head began to ache. “Okay, but at the very least, you should know why you’re out here at this hour?”
You don’t just sneak out at night with no reason at all.
“I… I’m looking for my friend.”
That question seemed to jog something in him. “My friend… he’s downstairs. But I can’t go there. It’s too bright where he is.”
“Downstairs? Too bright?” Lu Qi, already pale from vomiting, nearly fainted. Is this guy really not a ghost?!
Fu Changxun glanced at his SAN value—still stable at 85. Silently, he reached out and touched the boy’s arm.
Warm. Solid. Alive. A real human.
He let out a small breath and asked, “You mean your friend is downstairs? But it’s too bright to reach him…”
He paused. “Can you only appear at night? You can’t see him during the day?”
The boy immediately looked up at him, eyes wide with hope. And in that moment, Fu Changxun knew he’d guessed right.
This NPC only appeared at night—and was hunted by that white creature.
While the person he wanted to find… only showed up during the day. They were completely out of sync.
“You sneak out every night to look for him, but always end up running into that monster, right?”
The boy shook his head.
Fu Changxun frowned. “No? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not… it’s not always the same,” the boy stammered. “Sometimes it’s not white—it’s black!”
Everyone stiffened. There was more than one.
The one they’d just killed wasn’t the only monster—others might be lurking, maybe even just outside.
“Okay, stop scaring yourselves,” Dong Zi said calmly. He could tell everyone was on edge—and noticed Fu Changxun’s slight tension. “I already checked. There’s nothing in the hallway. Maybe the one he saw was the high-heel creature.”
Right. Lulu quickly asked, “The black one—does it walk with click-clack sounds?”
The boy struggled to remember, then nodded.
Everyone let out a quiet breath. Until Xiaoxiao’s soft, innocent voice cut through the silence:
“Then why are you still alive?”
It was a sweet voice. But right now, it sounded like a ghost’s whisper.
Yeah… why? With all these monsters, how was he still alive?
In an instant, Fu Changxun ran through dozens of possibilities, muscles tensing instinctively. But the boy didn’t lash out. Instead, he just looked confused.
“Yeah… why am I still alive? I’ve never died. Not once…”
His gaze drifted toward the twisted instruments in the room, like something was surfacing from the depths of his memory.
“I always come in here. I… I come in… and then… then…” His expression twisted with fear. “They don’t kill me. They tie me up here! It hurts so much! But the next day, I never remember anything!”
Fu Changxun had been watching him closely the whole time, but didn’t spot any signs of lying. He gave Dong Zi a slight nod.
The two of them frowned in unison—unable to make sense of it all, but clearly growing more concerned.
They pressed the boy for more information—his name, his age, who his friend was, what he looked like.
Nothing. Not a single answer.
At this rate, the night’s operation had been a total bust.
Fu Changxun pulled out his phone to check the time.
Phones in the game were mostly useless—no signal, no calls, no internet. But basic functions like photo albums, alarms, clocks, and timers still worked.
He looked up. “It’s past 3 a.m. We need to head back.”
“What about him?”
Lulu pointed at the boy, who was still staring at them, visibly uneasy. “Are we just going to leave him here? What if another one of those things comes after him?”
She looked genuinely worried. He seemed too pitiful to abandon.
Dong Zi replied seriously, “He can’t die. But if we take him with us—we might.”
Lulu: “…You’re not wrong.”
The boy looked at them again with pleading eyes. These people had saved him and even killed the monster. He didn’t want them to leave. But if he didn’t let them go, he had no way of finding the friend he’d been looking for. After a long hesitation, he asked, “Can you help me look for him? During the day, when it’s bright.”
He couldn’t go downstairs. He couldn’t appear in daylight. All he could do was pin his hopes on them.
Fu Changxun answered, “We’ll try our best. Let’s meet here again tomorrow. If we find him, we’ll bring him to you. When that happens, you’ve got to tell us everything you remember—no holding back.”
The boy’s eyes lit up, and he immediately nodded, beaming with joy.
He didn’t realize these cunning players had played a little word game—there was no actual promise to bring anyone back, and no penalty if they didn’t.
It was time to leave.
Around three or four in the morning, people were usually in their deepest sleep, lying still in their beds.
The corridor outside was completely still, deathly quiet. But it also felt safe.
They said goodbye to the boy.
The three men escorted the girls back to the fourth-floor ward before returning to their own room on the third floor.
Everything inside was exactly the same as before—but Fu Changxun immediately noticed something was off. The paper report that had been on Lu Qi’s bedside table was now gone without a trace.
But the three of them had been together the entire time. None of them had had a chance to sneak back here and take it.
What use did that thing have?
And what would happen, now that it was gone?
Before he could find an answer, Dong Zi made a quiet “shhh” sound. The other two immediately fell silent.
He reached into his pocket and, without a sound, pulled out a pair of surgical forceps—he had no idea when he’d picked them up. With a swift motion, he pried something small out of the power socket near the bed.
It wasn’t flashing red, and it was tiny—easy to overlook.
“What is it?” Fu Changxun mouthed.
Dong Zi silently shaped the words: “Wire. Tap.”
A bug in a supernatural monster instance was almost too normal by comparison.
