Chapter 231: Frog Hospital (Twenty-three) The Dead Revive

By the time the three of them returned to the ward, it was already half past six.

The floors and corridors they passed through were empty, shadows blurred in the thin morning light, and they didn’t encounter any patients or nurses along the way.

Sun Dekuan placed Lu Zimo onto the hospital bed, then went back to his own bed and sat down heavily.

The two of them looked at the empty bed by the wall that Huang Xiaofei had left behind, and a moment of disorientation arose in them simultaneously.

Three days into the instance, the first death had finally occurred—not killed by Ghosts, but due to infighting among the players… Although everyone had participated in the conspiracy to some extent, the feeling of sadness for a fallen comrade was still irrepressible.

Qi Si hadn’t slept all night, and the moment he entered the room, the full weight of his exhaustion finally hit him.

He yawned listlessly and walked straight to the corner of the room.

In the corner where several Blue Frogs had died before, a new Blue Frog had appeared again, sitting quietly and gracefully. The two palm-sized pools of blood beneath it had congealed into an eerie black-purple mass.

Qi Si casually tossed a towel over the frog’s head, covering its eyes.

After waiting two seconds and seeing no reaction, Qi Si, using the towel, stuffed the whole bundle into a backpack within his inventory. He then held the Pocket Watch of Fate and counted for a full minute before taking it out again.

The frog’s belly was heaving, and its round, bulging eyes glared angrily at the black-haired youth gripping its back.

Excellent. Full of energy. It seems the backpack can store living things.

Satisfied, Qi Si tossed the frog back into the backpack and stored it in his inventory.

“Treasure your food, eliminate waste, and finish your breakfast!”

In the corridor, the nurse’s shouts gradually grew nearer and clearer; following closely was the rumbling sound of the food cart being pushed and the disorganized footsteps.

Just two minutes earlier, when the players had entered, the hospital was utterly silent and deserted, but now it was operating quickly, like a colossal creature awakening from slumber.

The people and objects moving back and forth seemed to have sprung out of the ground from thin air.

Sun Dekuan patted his chubby face: “I’m telling you, this meal delivery isn’t punctual. Yesterday, it was delivered just past six, but today it’s already half past six…”

Qi Si walked toward the door, which hadn’t been closed yet, and looked down the corridor with half-closed eyes.

Streaks of white shadows rushed back and forth in the steamy corridor, inexplicably reminding him of neon lights flitting across the night sky of a city.

Qi Si suddenly recalled a theoretical hypothesis he had read before: the state of certain objects collapses the moment they are observed, and the state of some things depends on the observation of a conscious entity.

During the conversation in the Game Space after the Shuangxi Town instance ended, Qi had mentioned quantum mechanics in passing.

Although the tone used was joking, Qi Si couldn’t help but pay extra attention to the related information, only to find… he couldn’t understand any of it; he couldn’t grasp it at all.

Such highly sophisticated knowledge was still too advanced for him, a middle school dropout.

However, this didn’t prevent Qi Si from classifying similar problems within the Eerie Game’s mechanisms and focusing on them.

For instance, how to fix the instance time and the live broadcast time without consuming real-world time flow; or, in instances like Red Maple Boarding School and Frog Hospital, which combine multiple times and spaces, what determines the timeline and event nodes.

In the dream the previous night, what principle did Cheng An use to help him and Lin Chen establish a consciousness link… “Brother Cheng, speaking of which, what if they find Huang Xiaofei is gone and ask us about it? If we don’t answer well, will our failure rate collectively increase?” Sun Dekuan was still rambling incessantly.

The nurse pushing the food cart had reached the doorway, stacking three plastic containers filled with Tadpole Soup and handing them to Qi Si.

Qi Si took them steadily, stepped back into the room, and placed the bowls of soup one by one onto the bedside tables.

“First, they didn’t ask.”

He picked up his bowl of soup, opened the window, and poured it out.

“Second, they only prepared three bowls of soup for us, which is enough to prove they already know something happened to Huang Xiaofei. Finally, since the failure rate hasn’t increased now, there’s no reason for them to settle accounts later.”

It is known that the failure rate is a mechanism imposed by the Eerie Game, linked to whether the Dean detects anything amiss with the players, yet the provided narrative information is all inferable from the players’ perspective… Combining this with Cheng An’s mention of the transaction with the God, Qi Si could essentially confirm that the purpose of the failure rate is less about punishing players and more about urging and warning them.

It prevents players from exhibiting inappropriate behavior that might interfere with the plan of a certain existence; it gives players a sense of urgency, prompting them to explore actively; it provides players with hints, interfering with their decisions to a certain extent… and even cultivates players’ hostility and apprehension toward the Dean.

Inciting players to assume the Dean is a “malicious NPC” without having met him is a justifiable and beneficial approach.

All things in the world are driven by profit and loss. No matter how complicated the situation, analyzing it from the perspective of self-interest can always clarify the myriad threads.

If the entire Frog Hospital is treated as an away game, rather than a world controlled by the Eerie Game; and if the Eerie Game and the Dean are viewed as two sides in a confrontation, with the players being pawns of the Eerie Game, then there is no need to worry about many things.

—How could a chess player willingly sweep their own pieces off the board?

Of course, Qi Si wouldn’t tell anyone else these deductions.

“Huh? My failure rate really hasn’t increased?” Sun Dekuan looked at his unchanged failure rate, counted the time on his fingers, and felt slightly relieved.

He asked again: “How do you think they knew Huang Xiaofei was dead? I reckon nobody else went near the pond area besides us…”

“This means the Dean’s control over the hospital is stronger than we imagined.” Qi Si sat on the bedside table and put the empty bowl aside. “The worst-case scenario is that our every move is under his observation.”

“What should we do then?” Sun Dekuan clapped his hands. “We’re making trouble on his turf, and he knows everything. We’re in deep trouble…”

Qi Si suddenly stood up, walked to Lu Zimo’s bedside, and casually pulled the towel out of the latter’s mouth.

Before Lu Zimo could speak, he grabbed the soup bowl and poured all the Tadpole Soup inside into the youth’s mouth: “It’s already the third day, and no difficult Ghosts have come knocking, which strongly suggests the Dean is happy with our actions.”

Lu Zimo’s eyes were wide open, and he struggled violently.

Qi Si pinned him down with one hand, immediately feeling that his physical fitness had increased by more than a notch, and he couldn’t help but curve his eyes into a smile.

Sun Dekuan couldn’t bear to look directly at Qi Si’s atrocious behavior, and his gaze drifted toward the gray-white sky outside the window: “Huh? He’s happy with it? What do we do next? Should we still cause trouble?”

“Continue the plan. Today, we’ll try to enter the Dean’s Office to search. There’s a high probability of finding important clues there.”

Qi Si let go, allowed Lu Zimo to spring up, then pressed him back down onto the bed board with his arm, and then released him again… It was… quite fun.

“Huh? How do we get in?” Sun Dekuan blinked twice. “I don’t recall seeing any place like an office along the way…”

“We haven’t, but there’s a piece of information I forgot to tell you.” Qi Si turned his head to Sun Dekuan, his tone low and reminiscent. “Yesterday, the system informed me that the Dean would actively come to see me today… I thought, instead of waiting for him to find me, I should go find him.”

As Qi Si said this, his mind inevitably touched upon a problem.

If the Frog Hospital truly isn’t under the jurisdiction of the Eerie Game, then predictive hints might not be reliable.

The content written in black and white could very well be a deliberate deception by the Eerie Game, intended to induce players to make a specific choice.

The world is inherently uncertain; one can never know the absolute truth.

Nothing is reliable, and any piece of information could be false; even what is seen with one’s own eyes may not be real… Qi Si was a skeptic, and he knew his paranoia was appalling.

It was unwise to waste energy on internal conflict where definite answers were unobtainable. He suppressed his chaotic thoughts, lowered his eyes, and continued: “As for how to find and enter the Dean’s Office… we already demonstrated it yesterday and the day before—Cheng Xiaoyu is quite easy to fool, isn’t he?”

After being tormented by Qi Si for a long time, Lu Zimo lay motionless on the bed like a dead fish, tilting his head to stare into the void on one side.

He saw something; a flicker of horror flashed in his eyes, his pupils fixed rigidly on the doorway.

Qi Si noticed, released the hand gripping his neck, and followed Lu Zimo’s gaze toward the door.

At some unknown point, a tall, slender figure in black clothing had silently appeared, rigidly framed in the doorway. On the pale face, the eye sockets were deeply sunken, containing two pools of vacant confusion.

“Sis?”

“Huang… Huang Xiaofei!”

Lu Zimo and Sun Dekuan cried out in surprise simultaneously.

Lu Zimo couldn’t move, only able to stare intently at the dead person not far away; Sun Dekuan, however, turned deathly pale, scrambled off the bed, and leaned against the window.

Qi Si straightened up, his right hand silently covering the Pocket Watch of Fate, and the Cursed Pendulum slowly emerged from his cuff.

The “Huang Xiaofei” in the doorway was clearly not alive; she emanated faint traces of coldness, giving rise to palpable white mist.

She walked into the room stiffly, turned, and headed toward her own bed. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead the entire time, never lingering on any of the people present.

She seemed to have no memory of death, nor any desire for revenge. She lay down on the bed without a word, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

Sun Dekuan asked with a trembling voice: “W-What exactly is going on here? How… how did she come back?”

Qi Si gripped the Pocket Watch of Fate, walked step by step to Huang Xiaofei’s side, and looked down for a moment, unable to see the wound left by the pendulum piercing her chest.

Obviously, this Huang Xiaofei was not the corpse of the Huang Xiaofei he killed last night, but more akin to a replica projection created by this world.

“If my guess is correct, this should be a refresh at six in the morning, similar to the principle behind the Blue Frogs appearing. As for whether it truly is…”

Qi Si spoke calmly as the Cursed Pendulum pierced Huang Xiaofei’s throat, the splattered blood soaking the sheets: “We’ll know tomorrow if she refreshes again.”

In a sense, Huang Xiaofei repeatedly killing the Blue Frogs over the past few days, and Qi Si killing her twice today, truly felt like some absurd destined cycle.

The underlying humor and dramatic irony were considerable. Qi Si pulled at the corner of his mouth in a smile, but then recalled the Frog’s Curse, and the nascent smile vanished.

Two players have already died over at Green Frog Hospital, so why didn’t Lin Chen mention anything about refreshing?

The sight of the dead returning to the world is bizarre and strange, impossible to overlook unconsciously. Did Lin Chen conceal something, or is the mechanism different?

Last night’s attempt to find a passage at the bottom of the pond was fruitless, indicating that a critical piece is still missing from the completed deduction.

Every inconsistency might be part of the puzzle.

Sun Dekuan hadn’t thought that far ahead.

He first saw Huang Xiaofei return to the world, then realized she was an ignorant Ghost, and finally watched Qi Si kill the woman once more. His emotions fluctuated wildly and uncontrollably, nearing numbness.

He stared lifelessly at a point in front of him, watching Qi Si retract the bloody pendulum, flick the droplets of blood off the bob, turn toward the door, and wave him over.

He shuffled along, his soul seemingly having flown out of his body, with only his physical form being dragged along by inertia.

The two passed through the Surgery Area, filled with constant wailing and corpses, winding through the corridors. They fast-walked along the route they had taken twice before, stopping on the floor that housed the Morgue and the kitchen.

Just like at this time yesterday, Qi Si pulled some candy out of his backpack and held it up high: “Cheng Xiaoyu, if you don’t come over now, Uncle won’t give you any candy.”

The bloated boy emerged from the shadows, tilting his head as he asked, “Who are you? Why do you know my name?”

“My name is ‘Cheng An,’ and I’m a colleague of your father. He’s busy with work and doesn’t have time to play with you. Since I’m on sick leave and have free time, he asked me to come and play some games with you.”

“My dad never mentioned you. You’re also named Cheng, and my dad and I are named Cheng…”

“Oh, what a coincidence. Your dad used to joke that we were distant relatives. He really never mentioned me? It seems he doesn’t bring any work matters home…”

“Hehe, I want to eat candy now. Can Uncle give me this candy?”

“The candy was bought by Uncle himself, but I can give it to you. How about you play a game with Uncle first?”

“Okay! You promised, as long as I play a game with you, you’ll give me the candy.”

“This game might be very difficult, but you must play it seriously and try your best until the end, alright?”

“Yes, yes! Quickly tell me what the game is.”

The development of events was exactly the same as the previous day, like a simple replication of a clumsy script.

On the system interface, the familiar prompt text smoothly popped up.

【Use the skill “Soul Contract” on Cheng Xiaoyu, asserting that he seriously and diligently participate in the upcoming game】

Two golden ten-sided dice were thrown down from the void, spinning rapidly within the pitch-black Hall of Thought.

Ten seconds later, the dice stopped, revealing “8” and “3.”

83 points, greater than 74. The exact same result.

【Contract signed. This Contract is guaranteed by the rules of the world, and no existence may violate it】

Qi Si casually waved away the long, crimson Contract scroll and gave Cheng Xiaoyu a gentle smile: “The game I want to play with you is ‘Playing the Dean.’ The first task—take us to the Dean’s Office.”