Chapter 215: Frog Hospital (7) Tadpole Soup

【Current Mission: Have the patients of Blue Frog Hospital consume one thousand tadpoles】

【Mission Progress: 154/1000】

Green Frog Hospital, staff dormitory.

Dawn was just breaking when Yu Kun woke everyone up, shouting orders: “Today, we need to figure out what the tadpoles do as soon as possible so we can call the other side and tell them to find a way to make more people eat them.”

Lin Chen clutched the wound on his waist and sat up with difficulty. He looked up and saw the fierce-looking man sneering at him: “Whether we can complete our mission depends on their cooperation. They know this, which is why they dared to tell us what to do over the phone.”

Lin Chen heard the hostility in Yu Kun’s words and internally muttered, “Judging a gentleman’s heart by a villain’s measure.”

In his impression, Qi Si’s goal had always been to work together to decipher the worldview. In Rose Manor, he repeatedly took risks and threw himself into the situation; he would never rely on his advantage to threaten others, as Yu Kun claimed… Moreover, strictly speaking, this instance is fair to both sets of players.

The opposing side holds the initiative to complete the mission, while their side holds the initiative to gather information and decipher the worldview. The true solution likely involves full cooperation, tackling both the mission and the worldview simultaneously.

Of course, Lin Chen, who had just been stabbed yesterday, saw no need to provoke Yu Kun now.

He slowly climbed out of bed and silently followed Yu Kun, adopting the attitude of a docile helper.

The Female Teacher retreated farther away from Yu Kun, brushing past Lin Chen. By her posture, she seemed intent on standing behind him.

Lin Chen subconsciously made a protective gesture, but felt his left hand lightly squeezed.

A note, cold and devoid of warmth, was slipped into his hand.

In the two seconds before Yu Kun pushed the door open and turned around, Lin Chen quietly unfolded the note and glanced at it.

It clearly read—

【Day Five, cooperate and kill him】

…Blue Frog Hospital, nurses pushed carts into every patient room, delivering breakfast to each bed.

Each player received two steamed buns and a bowl of soup.

The buns were ordinary, though the filling was unknown; the soup was in a plastic bowl, yellowish on the surface, with some unidentified black objects floating in it.

Sun Dekuan stared at the soup for two seconds before hesitantly saying, “This looks like Tadpole Soup. I’ve made this kind in my restaurant before.”

As a chef, his judgment was reasonable and convincing.

Tadpole Soup was definitely beyond the acceptance limit of ordinary people. Huang Xiaofei, who had just picked up her bowl, nearly dropped it, spilling the contents onto the floor.

Outside the door, a nurse just happened to shout at the top of her lungs: “Cherish food, eliminate waste! Breakfast must be finished!”

This was undoubtedly a rule on the same level as “No leaving after lights out.” If an NPC discovered a violation, it would likely increase the role-playing failure rate.

Lu Zimo looked at Huang Xiaofei: “Sis, do we really have to eat this stuff?”

Huang Xiaofei rested her chin on her hand and glanced at him: “Zimo, you already ate tadpoles yesterday. What’s a little more…”

Sun Dekuan covered his face, turned to Qi Si, and muttered quietly, “Oh my god, he has to ask about such a small thing? The legendary ‘Sister’s Boy’?”

Qi Si pretended not to hear, swiftly climbed out of bed, opened the window, and poured the entirety of his Tadpole Soup outside.

While pouring the soup, he seemed to hear something, and his body visibly stiffened. Two seconds later, he turned back to the other three and sighed helplessly: “Just now, my failure rate increased by 10%.”

The conclusion was logical, and Qi Si’s expression was especially sincere, making the players’ faces instantly fall.

Someone had tested the waters and proven that this path was blocked. It seemed the Tadpole Soup had to be consumed.

Yesterday, Lu Zimo was attacked by frogs for eating tadpoles, yet today the instance forced all players to drink Tadpole Soup. This seemed strange no matter how they looked at it.

Huang Xiaofei immediately pushed the soup bowl in her hand toward Lu Zimo, her eyes showing encouragement: “Let’s try again to see if we can get someone else to drink the soup for us. We still don’t know what impact eating tadpoles has on the upcoming plot, so we should keep two people from drinking the soup to serve as a control group.”

Lu Zimo: “…”

While Sun Dekuan and Lu Zimo were grimacing and diving into their soup, Huang Xiaofei analyzed clearly: “Compared to yesterday’s situation, we only need to ensure the frogs don’t see us eating tadpoles to avoid being attacked. Frogs can be killed and aren’t hard to deal with. The main threat to us is the Pregnant Ghosts in the corridor.”

“Last night, the Pregnant Ghosts were clearly preventing us from leaving the patient ward area. I suspect that at night, certain places inside the hospital hold secrets. As long as we figure out what those secrets are, we won’t be far from deciphering the worldview.”

“Next, we need to do three things: first, explore the entire hospital to prepare for future actions; second, find information about our illnesses and formulate a treatment plan; and third, interact with NPCs to understand the worldview, and ideally, probe the Dean—I suspect he knows something.”

It must be said that Huang Xiaofei lived up to her reputation as a Veteran Player, able to analyze valid information with limited knowledge and establish a complete strategy for the subsequent clearance route.

A person like this would be someone weaker players in any instance would be willing to follow and curry favor with.

The only drawback was that due to her foolish move of going out to explore last night, everyone’s failure rate had jumped significantly, and they were all currently harboring resentment, so no one was interested in playing the supporting role.

Huang Xiaofei didn’t feel awkward either. She pulled a cigarette from her pocket, lit it, and began smoking.

During the silence, Lu Zimo had already finished his portion of the soup and started on hers.

After a few sips, Lu Zimo looked up and reported: “My failure rate hasn’t increased.”

Huang Xiaofei, smoking her cigarette, smiled vaguely: “Mine hasn’t either. It seems the plan of having someone else drink the soup is completely feasible.”

Of course, the failure rate wouldn’t increase. When Qi Si poured the soup just now, the failure rate hadn’t moved at all.

As for the supposed 10% increase in failure rate… he made it up on the spot, just to prevent the other players from refusing the soup entirely and hindering his control experiment.

In any case, role-playing involves individual differences. Unless they could see each other’s system interfaces, no one could verify the specific situation.

Huang Xiaofei leaned closer to Lu Zimo, smiling warmly: “Zimo, I’ll rely on you for my soup over the next few days, okay?”

Lu Zimo, who was being taken advantage of: “…I don’t mind.”

After pouring out the soup, Qi Si sat quietly in the corner and ate his steamed buns. Now, he shoved the last bite of bun into his mouth and got up to walk out the door.

Sun Dekuan had already finished eating. He looked around and stood up too.

He had witnessed last night that Huang Xiaofei was both autocratic and limited in strength. Looking back, it was truly wise of Qi Si to draw a line between himself and the siblings early on through a minor conflict—at least he hadn’t lost failure rate points.

Thinking carefully, although Qi Si seemed aloof, he had genuinely led people to te clearance before, so he shouldn’t be as selfish as he appeared… In any case, establishing a relationship with him early was a good choice.

Qi Si stood at the doorway of the patient room, looking down the corridor.

Not far away, the nurse delivering meals seemed completely unaware that someone was watching her, calmly pushing her cart around the corner.

Qi Si muffled his footsteps, silently walking toward where the nurse had disappeared.

Sun Dekuan quickly followed, lowering his voice to ask, “Little brother, where are you going? Do you need my help with anything you plan to do?”

Qi Si continued forward without a word.

Estimating that they had walked far enough that the people in the patient room couldn’t hear them, he finally sighed: “There’s something wrong with Huang Xiaofei and the others.”

Sun Dekuan was merely indignant about losing 20% of his failure rate for no reason and couldn’t immediately grasp what aspect Qi Si meant by “something wrong,” so he looked at the young man in confusion.

Qi Si shook his head slightly and patiently explained: “As far as I know, only the Sera Guild possesses the mature technology for producing Team-up Items. In the last instance, I cooperated with people from Jiuzhou, and they told me their Team Ring were still in the testing phase and not yet considered for distribution.”

“I’m not saying Huang Xiaofei and Lu Zimo are definitely members of the Sera Guild, but I am certain that the way they obtained their Team-up Items must be shady, otherwise there’d be no need to deceive us.”

“Furthermore, you must have noticed that Huang Xiaofei never considers the lives of others. Your failure rate increased due to her wrong decision, yet she didn’t even apologize; even though Lu Zimo is her relative, she calmly forces him to drink the Tadpole Soup for her… I cannot agree with such behavior.”

Lurking in the shadows like a vulture, this was the moment Qi Si had been waiting for.

—Gathering specious evidence and sowing discord.

Chaos is far more conducive to the performance of a High Priest Who Cultivates Fear than stability is. Wave after wave of death points requires someone to personally test them. If you don’t want to be the experimental guinea pig, you can only strike first.

It could be said that the moment Huang Xiaofei displayed a desire for dominance and control over the situation, she became a dead person in Qi Si’s eyes.

Her teammate Lu Zimo deserved to die as well.

Qi Si looked at Sun Dekuan’s thoughtful expression, lowered his eyes, and said: “The reason I deliberately clashed with her yesterday was because I was suspicious of her and wanted to test her actions. Now it seems that both you and I are merely tools for her to test the instance mechanics.”

“I can sense that she is very powerful and ambitious. She is willing to do anything crazy to achieve te clearance and gain a higher rating. Going out against the rules last night was one example, and in the future, she will probably drag us along to take risks for her vanity…”

Sun Dekuan blinked twice and gave a dry laugh: “Anyway, no matter what, I’m not working with them anymore. I’d be thankful just to survive. If te clearance happens, great, if not, oh well. I never counted on it…”

This was the mindset of many ordinary people. They always believed that if they just stayed put, they could live a stable life, perhaps even picking up some scraps if they were lucky.

But if all their retreat routes were truly blocked, they might very well fight with all their might for survival.

Qi Si knew this and chuckled lightly, his gaze full of mockery: “How can you be so naive? This is a team instance. Whether we act collectively during the clearance process or not, the crises triggered and the risks incurred must ultimately be paid for by all of us.”

“They only need to trigger every possible event in advance, and then, at the very end, they can use the tactic of ‘You don’t want everyone to fail to clear the instance, right?’ to morally blackmail us and force us to follow their plans.”

“Of course, this is just the worst-case scenario; maybe I’m overthinking it. But you only live once, and no one can afford to gamble with that, right?”

The truth, combined with misleading guidance, successfully led the opponent’s thinking into the planned misconception—this was the rhetorical field Qi Si excelled in.

Sun Dekuan already had issues with Huang Xiaofei because of last night’s events, so he easily followed Qi Si’s words to deduce an even more terrifying conclusion.

As everyone knows, the minimum death toll mechanism always exists. Honestly taking the safer ne clearance route, protected by Veteran Players, might prevent the worst-case scenario.

But once they start down the te clearance route, the difficulty and danger index will skyrocket unpredictably. Even the most experienced Senior Players cannot guarantee they won’t fail in the end.

Undeniably, no matter how things go wrong, Senior Players have a higher chance of surviving until the end than ordinary players who have cleared fewer than ten official instances. Sun Dekuan believed that given Huang Xiaofei’s personality and ability, she would certainly not let him live until the end.

He subconsciously moved closer to Qi Si and asked hesitantly, “Then, little brother, what should we do? They are both Senior Players, and you specialize in puzzle-solving, but the two of us combined might not even be able to defeat one of them…”

“Therefore, we also need to find a way to take the te clearance route,” Qi Si said, smiling and coaxing. “The more events we trigger and the more clues we gain, the greater our advantage. As long as we hold the key clues, they will be hesitant to act against us, fearing we might take those clues to hell with us.”

Sun Dekuan stared blankly for a long time, then realized: “Isn’t that still risking te clearance?”

“But I am different from them.” Qi Si turned his head to look at Sun Dekuan, his eyes shining brightly. “Including the Novice Pool, I already have six te clearance records, and I have helped many strangers clear instances. I never force others to risk themselves for te clearance. I only offer suggestions; the choice of what to do is entirely yours.”

“Of course, you could also choose to tell them everything I just told you. I believe that would be an excellent pledge of allegiance. However—”

The black-haired young man stroked his fingers, smiling like a devil behind a negotiation table: “You are expendable to them, whereas I am alone and need a teammate. Adding flowers to the brocade is ultimately different from sending charcoal in the snow.”

“We are all adults. Learning how to maximize benefits is the simplest thing, isn’t it?”

The final weight dropped, and the situation became clear.

Both Huang Xiaofei and Qi Si wanted to follow the TE route to clearance; there was no other choice. Comparing the two, Qi Si, the intelligence-type player with six te clearance records, was clearly more reliable.

Sun Dekuan looked at Qi Si for a moment, gritted his teeth, and clapped his hands: “That woman has already ruined me. I absolutely cannot follow them anymore. Little brother, I trust you. If we can achieve te clearance, great, and if not, I accept it.”

Despite his words, a flicker of hope arose in his heart.

Since entering the game, he had never achieved te clearance even once, only managing to earn meager points. Achieving his wish would take forever.

How could he not yearn for the generous points and reward items that came with te clearance?

The young man in front of him clearly had the ability to lead people to te clearance. Perhaps his luck had finally turned, and he could achieve te clearance this time too?

The two had now reached the door of an operating room.

A crimson light flashed on and off above the door, and a bloodstained hospital bed was pushed out from inside.

Qi Si quickly turned his back, avoiding the bloodstains on the bed, only seeing Sun Dekuan, who was still facing the bed, gaping in shock.

“Severe hemorrhage. We did our best to save them, but failed. Please accept our condolences.” A cold female voice sounded from behind him; it was likely a nurse speaking.

A male voice began to wail, his broken words mixed in with the crying: “It’s all my fault, I should have insisted on eating the tadpoles, it’s all my fault…”

Qi Si quietly watched Sun Dekuan and asked, “Brother Sun, what did you see?”

Sun Dekuan froze for a long moment before snapping back to reality, stammering: “On the bed… a Red Frog jumped out… and disappeared…”