Right now, it wasn’t just Dong Zi—Fu Changxun’s own heart was racing a little too fast.
He had thought about this possibility in the past few days.
Back in high school, Dong Zi used to follow him around constantly—from the second year all the way to graduation. Then they lost touch.
The next time they saw each other was inside the rookie instance. Dong Zi, now taller, had pulled him into a firm embrace.
At the time, that strange gesture hadn’t made any sense. But now, after the confession—it made perfect sense. Just the possessiveness and protectiveness of someone in love.
Even the whole “forcing his way into Fu Changxun’s apartment” thing? Yeah. That tracked now.
Fu Changxun had actually harbored some doubts about him during the last instance, but for one reason or another, he’d always dismissed them. Not until now—until Dong Zi said it himself.
“You… wait, I haven’t even processed this yet.” Fu Changxun took two steps back.
A flicker of regret crossed Dong Zi’s face. He probably wished he hadn’t confessed so soon.
He’d planned to do it slowly—take his time over a year or two and gradually bring him home. But things had gotten out of hand. His pounding heartbeat had given him away.
“There are three things in this world that can’t be hidden,” he said. “A cough, poverty… and love.” He couldn’t help it. Now that he’d said it, there was no taking it back. “Ah Xun,” he asked softly, “what’s your answer?”
Fu Changxun’s mind was a mess. He glanced away, eyes dodging, and deflected: “Uh… shouldn’t we focus on clearing the instance first? We can talk about this after.”
Dong Zi let out a quiet sigh. “Alright.”
Ah Xun had gone back into his shell. He couldn’t push too hard—otherwise, it would backfire.
“Then once we clear the game,” Dong Zi said gently, “give me an answer. No need to rush into a rejection. I’m not like Lu Qi. What he didn’t treasure… is what I love.”
That line hit like a straight-up pitch to the chest. Fu Changxun was stunned.
Was this some kind of second-chance fate? A reunion years in the making? Or had it always been a silent, one-sided crush since their school days?
He didn’t know. But what he did know was that, from this moment on, he and Dong Zi… were no longer just friends.
Maybe they’d become lovers. Maybe they’d drift apart.
But neither Dong Zi nor Fu Changxun were the type to “just pretend nothing happened” after breaking through the line between friendship and something more.
And deep down… Fu Changxun didn’t want things to end with Dong Zi either.
***
When the two of them walked out of the ward together, the air between them had shifted—visibly so.
Xiaoxiao and Lulu, having finished their rounds on the fourth floor, had come to meet up with them. The moment they saw the two men, they sensed something was off.
Something had changed.
Xiaoxiao frowned, trying to figure it out—ah, that was it. Dong-ge wasn’t glued to Fu-ge like usual!
Did they… have a fight?
The little girl instantly entered “mom mode,” watching them nervously.
Fu Changxun cleared his throat. “Everyone done asking around? I went ahead and checked before coming up to rest.”
The second the words left his mouth, he regretted it—it sounded way too defensive.
“Anyway, what I found was… apparently this ‘friend’ came into the hospital on purpose. Faked being sick. All the other patients were brought in, but he checked himself in voluntarily…”
He trailed off, then tried to redirect. “Anyway, what did you all find?”
Lulu, as oblivious as ever, didn’t sense anything strange and said cheerfully, “Pretty much the same. They all say… they’re not sick.” She looked a little conflicted. “In real life, it’s pretty common for psych patients to deny being sick. But this is a game instance—you can’t judge by normal logic.”
Lu Qi, on the other hand, had been watching the two closely from the start. He’d even paid attention to their lips—no signs of kissing. He cursed himself silently for overreacting.
So they had fought, huh? And somehow… that made him secretly, shamefully pleased.
“I found out—”
But just as he stepped forward to speak, Fu Changxun moved away like he was dodging a plague.
Lu Qi deflated instantly. He opened his mouth to say something more, but…
“Aaah!”
A sharp scream echoed from downstairs.
Fu Changxun’s head snapped around instantly. That kind of scream usually meant one thing: a player was dead.
The five of them rushed down without hesitation. But when they arrived, there was no gruesome death scene. The one screaming was an NPC.
The hospital entrance, which had been tightly sealed since they arrived, was now being pounded on—bang bang bang!—by a teenage boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen. It looked just like the animated cutscene from the beginning of the instance. The front desk nurse was panicking, yelling helplessly.
The boy was yelling too, furious: “I—I want to save him! I want to bring him back!”
He kept kicking the door, shouting at the front desk: “You won’t let him leave, so I’ll check myself in! I’ve got money! Why won’t you let me in?!”
He was just about to break down the hospital doors. The nurse’s shrieking echoed through the lobby like a blaring siren.
Xiao Li and Xiao Zhang had been sucking up to the doctor in the office, trying to fish for clues, when the scream startled them out of their act.
The doctor… had frozen in place. Motionless. With no choice, the two of them went outside to investigate.
And they weren’t the only ones. The patient NPCs had also gone still—dozens of them lined up in the corridor, eerily frozen. The only sound was the continued screaming from downstairs.
Xiao Li broke out in goosebumps. Forcing a smile, he said to his livestream, “Haha, it’s fine, don’t panic, everyone. We’re gonna go take a look now.”
His voice was steady, but his legs were shaking on the way down. By the time all the players had gathered on the first floor, the “cutscene” was still looping.
Mr. Zeng had to raise his voice over the wailing. “Shouldn’t we do something?!”
Mrs. Hu shouted back, “Right? She’s so loud!”
Lulu joined in, covering her ears. “Seriously! My ears are about to explode!”
Fu Changxun yelled, “The front desk nurse can’t stop it. Our focus should be that boy outside the door!”
The group rushed toward the scene, hands clamped over their ears—but even with nine players surrounding him, the boy didn’t react at all.
He was still trapped inside the loop—just a pre-rendered part of the story, unaware of their presence.
“Do we need a specific keyword to trigger it?” Fu Changxun guessed aloud.
As soon as he said it, Dong Zi caught on. “Let me try.”
“Do you know a boy about your height and age? Really pale, with a tiny red mole on the tip of his nose?” His voice wasn’t loud enough to drown out the nurse’s shrieks, but the teenager clearly heard him.
“You know Liao Xing?” the boy exclaimed, delighted. “Where is he? Take me to him—now!”
So the boy on the fifth floor was named Liao Xing.
Then who was this one in front of them…?
Dong Zi hadn’t even asked when the boy eagerly said, “I’m Wang Fan, Liao Xing’s best friend. We made a promise to go to the same college, but then his parents sent him here, and I couldn’t find him anymore. Do you know where he is? Or did he leave anything for me?”
Liao Xing hadn’t given them anything last night, so Dong Zi simply shook his head. “No.”
Wang Fan looked visibly disappointed. “Ah… I see.”
Once he stopped pounding on the door, the nurse’s screams faded away. Yet the frozen NPCs remained still, as if time itself had turned into a silent film reel.
Fu Changxun thought for a moment, then said to Wang Fan, “But it seems like Liao Xing lost his memory. The only thing he remembers… is you.”
Wang Fan immediately brightened. “Really? He remembers only me? That’s… that’s so touching. But why did he lose his memory? Could it be affecting his health? Never mind, asking you guys probably won’t help. I got so excited hearing news about him, I forgot—I can’t even get inside.” His mood crashed again, shoulders slumping. “Could you help me give him something?”
His emotions flipped quickly, which was perfectly fitting for his age.
Fu Changxun gave him a warm smile. “Of course. Anything else you’d like to say to him?”
The young boy looked at his strikingly handsome face and stammered a little. “Uh, I… I’ve been waiting for him. Tell him not to give up.”
“I will. Word for word.”
Wang Fan nodded, then vanished outside the door.
Sound returned to the hospital. The front desk nurse went back to dozing, as if nothing had happened.
This whole sequence was practically the instance handing them a clue on a silver platter. Though Xiao Li and his group didn’t quite grasp it yet, the rest understood: the lead came from last night, when they went to the fifth floor and found the key NPC, Liao Xing.
If they had followed the old man’s warning and the message on the wall to stay in their rooms at night, this plot point would never have triggered.
Xiao Li finally caught on. “Wait, isn’t this part of your patient’s storyline? Then why the hell did the doctor freeze too? What does this have to do with us?!”
Fu Changxun remembered Xiao Li was livestreaming. When Dong Zi confessed to him earlier, both of them had reacted fast enough to shut it off—dodging the watchful eyes of thousands of viewers.
Back on camera now, he looked smug. “Jealous? Suck it up.”
Xiao Li: “You little—”
“What?” Fu Changxun replied, wide-eyed. “Our faction got a clue. Shouldn’t you hurry and find yours?”
Putting on an innocent face, he added, “Oh dear, my apologies. Looks like we’re ahead of you. Mr. Dong, don’t you think I owe Mr. Li an apology?”
Dong Zi said, “Apologize for what? You earned it.”
“Whew, that’s a relief. I really thought he was about to come punch me. Scared me half to death.”
Xiao Li, utterly provoked, roared, “Just you wait!”
With that, he dragged Xiao Zhang away. Mr. Zeng and Ms. Hu hesitated, but eventually followed—though not without sneaking a look at Fu Changxun on their way out.
Once the doctor faction left, the remaining group returned to Room 411.
On the way upstairs, Dong Zi’s hand seemed to brush against Fu Changxun’s. The latter flinched as if shocked.
Then he froze. “…Was that an overreaction?” Maybe he was just being too sensitive.
Shaking it off, Fu Changxun refocused, analyzing seriously: “Here’s what we know so far. One: Liao Xing on the fifth floor and Wang Fan outside are friends. Two: doctors turn into monsters at night. Three: the medication causes SAN value loss. Four: someone planted a listening device. So the real question is, why is this instance called Family Portrait? And what secrets is this hospital hiding?”
With everything laid out like that, the fog of the instance lifted. The premise became clear.
It was a faction-based scenario. The doctors represented the monsters, the patients were represented by Liao Xing and Wang Fan. The medication clearly belonged to the doctor side, and probably the bug, too.
But that would make the game horribly unbalanced—completely unfair to the patients.
And that had nothing to do with them getting early clues. It meant there was something wrong with the instance’s design itself.
Something wasn’t right.
There had to be something they were overlooking.
