Chapter 195: Red Maple Boarding School (32) “She Needs Medicine Too”

In the cafeteria of the Red Maple Boarding School, the remaining eight players sat silently around a dining table.

Dark green moss had already covered the entire school. Fern leaves obscured the narrow windows, and the cracks in the walls were filled with greenish-white mushrooms, constantly emitting a putrid stench.

Everything was growing rampant with vitality, except for the humans.

At noon on June 3rd, Ms. Medina announced in a solemn tone that because everyone in the school had contracted the insomnia syndrome, Mr. Thorson had sealed off the entire school to prevent the epidemic from spreading.

People inside the school could not leave, and outside supplies would no longer be delivered. Everyone was trapped in the dead silence of the concrete building, left to fend for themselves.

Compared to the timeline recorded in the archives, the instance’s timeline had accelerated significantly, immediately making the issue of basic survival resources the biggest crisis facing the players.

Although many players had prepared dry rations, surviving the next five days comfortably was utterly impossible.

Calculating all the dry rations collected from the player group, each person could only eat enough to be half-full per meal to barely last until the final day. This calculation didn’t even account for the energy lost during movement; if players needed to explore or fight, the consumption would only be greater.

The cafeteria only served some rotten vegetables at noon, the last remnants Ms. Medina managed to find hidden away.

The players miserably ate this final lunch, which was immediately followed by an entire afternoon of vomiting and diarrhea.

In the evening, the cafeteria stopped serving dinner.

Some players who had brought food carefully rationed their intake, consuming just enough dry rations to alleviate their hunger. Players who hadn’t brought food and lacked connections could only venture into the Maple Forest to search, hoping to find food according to the tropes of wilderness survival instances.

There was nothing edible in the Maple Forest, except for visibly poisonous mushrooms and pinecones covered in foul-smelling spores. The players returned empty-handed, their gazes directed at those with food, radiating palpable malice.

Under normal circumstances, they would have long since started fighting and snatching resources. But having just gone through a chaotic battle that morning, everyone was severely weakened and dared not cause new casualties.

In this place and time, with Jiang Junjue and his two companions maintaining order, the structure of public decency, though damaged, could still barely be sustained.

The group unhappily finished their dinner, having no intention of moving, and slumped awkwardly across the table.

In their state of hunger, the insomnia syndrome worsened. Half the players developed high fevers, their bodies burning hot like charcoal. They shivered incessantly when the wind blew on them, and had to stop and rest after walking just a few steps.

The other half of the players fared no better. Large patches of dirt covered their bodies, giving them the texture of mud golems. Various chaotic patterns flashed before their eyes, blurring the boundary between reality and illusion.

Despite extreme exhaustion and weakness, they still couldn’t sleep and began dreaming while awake. In this state of waking fantasy, their hallucinations linked together, visible to everyone.

The not-so-large cafeteria was suddenly overcrowded. Phantoms of countless people—white-haired elders, adorable children, and beautiful women—came and went, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real people and illusions.

Aside from the players themselves, no one knew the source of these hallucinations. Thus, the vines of thought materialized as blue or green branches, intertwining the hallucination’s owner with the hallucination itself, resembling the children’s game of matching pairs.

Someone saw a short male player connected to a voluptuous and charming beauty, while an earring-wearing male player was linked to the phantom of a muscular man. While marveling at this, they also worried about their own privacy, but the more they tried not to think of something, the more it uncontrollably leaked out.

The players quickly reached a consensus: they all closed their eyes, refusing to look at others’ hallucinations.

At eight in the evening, the players had to follow the rules and enter the bathroom to take cold showers.

During the showers, the three players whose bodies were most covered in dirt suddenly cried out, “It itches!” and frantically scratched their backs and other areas.

Large amounts of dirt washed away from the areas they scratched, flowing down with the water. They visibly weakened, as if it were their souls being washed away.

With the precedent set by the unlucky victim on the first day, they immediately realized what was about to happen to them. While uncontrollably digging at their own bodies, they screamed in terror and cast pleading glances toward Jiang Junjue.

Cries for help and wails rose and fell, filling the entire bathroom, the echoes lingering like a devil’s mischievous repetition.

Jiang Junjue quickly turned off the showers for the three of them, pushed them onto the dry floor, and told them to wipe the water off their bodies with towels.

They did as instructed, but it was useless. Their bodies became even itchier, and after reaching a certain extreme, the sensation turned to pain.

They screamed in agony, rolling painfully on the ground, and began turning into patches of dirt from the edges inward, scattering across the floor.

No one knew how to save them. The players, covered in water droplets, stood around helplessly, watching their companions die.

A person’s sorrow is finite. When one witnesses enough death, or when one is unfortunate enough oneself, it becomes difficult to spare sufficient grief for the deaths of others.

The players felt a sense of sadness for their kind, but more dominant was the relief of having survived. A few even felt a secret delight: this time, the dirt hadn’t been eaten by ghosts and was perfectly preserved. The living instantly had three portions of ingredients for the medicine… Chen Lidong had tested the potion on himself at the very beginning, and the players knew that the cruel recipe was indeed effective. What they lacked now were sufficient materials—or rather, dead people.

As night fell, the players, each preoccupied with their own thoughts, returned to their respective dormitories and lay down to rest.

The hallucinations were more severe than the previous night. Mixed among the existing ghosts of Indigenous children were the spirits of deceased players.

The dead were no longer lying quietly on the beds; they started walking toward the players. Some even stretched out pale, clawed hands to touch the players’ faces, their eyes filled with longing and jealousy toward the living.

Jiang Junjue saw Sun Lin.

The roommate who died on the first night sat on the edge of his bed, eyes streaming blood and tears, covered in yellow flowers and Yellow Butterflies, and grabbed his neck.

Although the light was dim, Jiang Junjue could see clearly, even noticing the wriggling of caterpillars hatched from insect eggs on the yellow flowers growing from the corpse’s flesh.

The dead man’s bloody tears dripped onto his neck, cold and itchy. The mouth, which lacked a tongue, opened and closed, seemingly questioning why he hadn’t helped.

Jiang Junjue did not reply. He pulled the Bixie Sword from his inventory and stabbed toward Sun Lin’s face, but missed.

The dead man quietly scattered into a pile of yellow flowers on the floor, the shattered dust sinking into the ground and vanishing.

Two seconds later, the same ghost condensed at the doorway, gazing sorrowfully and resentfully at the only human in the room.

Jiang Junjue coughed violently due to the fever and suffocation, but he still struggled to sit up, holding the long sword horizontally in front of him.

A drop of blood slid down his neck, soaking the bedsheet. He looked down and saw that the blood drop on the sheet had blossomed into a red flower, blinking continuously like an eye.

Jiang Junjue couldn’t tell if this scene was illusion or reality. Since he couldn’t sleep anyway, he simply sat up all night holding his sword until Ms. Medina arrived for inspection, her high heels clicking “da-da,” carrying a flashlight, at which point he finally lay down flat.

The other players had also experienced similar situations to varying degrees. When they appeared in the cafeteria early on June 4th, they all had heavy dark circles under their eyes and looked listless.

After a count, four players were found to have violated the rules out of fear and died at the hands of ghosts, with poisonous mushrooms growing on their bodies.

Another two players died from blood loss due to severe injuries sustained during the fight on the morning of June 3rd. Yellow flowers bloomed on their bodies, scattering the corpses of Yellow Butterflies.

The materials for the medicine were suddenly complete.

Faced with survival, no one was being sentimental anymore. Shouting the slogan, “We cannot waste our companions’ sacrifice,” the players removed the materials from the corpses, mixed them according to the ratio, and sent them to the kitchen for cooking.

After the Red Maple Boarding School was sealed off, Ms. Medina became elusive, adopting a hands-off approach toward the students. This undoubtedly facilitated the players’ actions.

At noon, all the medicine was finished brewing. Cement-colored pus rolled in the iron pot, looking as if a bubbled, Cthulhu-esque evil god had been cooked inside.

With success imminent, the players didn’t bother being picky. They rushed forward, clinging to the pot’s rim and gulping down the viscous paste inside.

Chen Lidong anxiously watched the countdown on the system interface. Only 32 minutes remained until the deadline for the task Ms. Medina had given him.

As long as he could leave the instance before the countdown ended, he still had a chance… He had to survive; he still needed to save his wife… 【Task Time: 30 minutes】

The players all finished their portions of the medicine, and the dirt marks on their bodies faded at a visible rate. The exhaustion accumulated over several days surged up all at once. Everyone’s eyelids grew heavy, and a few even started dozing off while standing.

Chen Lidong stared intently at the system interface. The notification for main quest completion hadn’t appeared, and the countdown in the task time column was still ticking down. The instance was clearly still ongoing.

Where did things go wrong?

【main quest: Prepare enough medicine to cure everyone’s “insomnia syndrome”】

Everyone… As his thoughts hit a blind spot, Chen Lidong felt a jolt run through his body: “That’s right, how could I forget? Ms. Medina also suffers from the insomnia syndrome; she needs medicine too…”

All the materials had been used up. To prepare another dose of medicine, he would need to kill at least three more people.

Chen Lidong looked at the nearby players who had lowered their guard and fallen asleep haphazardly, a hint of ruthlessness flashing in his eyes… Memorial Hall for Indigenous Victims, cafeteria.

The tour guide’s corpse lay on the ground. In just a few seconds, it scattered like wilting flowers into a pile of black and red color blocks splashed across the floor.

The color blocks began to fade, visibly fragmenting into smaller pieces. The moment the colors completely disappeared from the floor, the sudden sound of “da-da-da” footsteps echoed from outside the door, reaching the doorway within seconds.

The female tour guide, clad in black gauze, walked into the cafeteria with a smile. Her appearance and expression were identical to the one Chang Xu had just killed.

Holding a small red flag, she spoke with an enthusiastic tone, as if she completely forgot what the players had done: “Travelers, these meals are prepared according to the recipes of the old boarding school. We hope you can experience the life of the Indigenous children firsthand…”

Chang Xu had personally watched his Fate Poker slash the guide’s throat, his fingers even feeling the residual warmth of the blood, only to then witness the corpse’s disappearance and the dead person’s resurrection up close.

Reflexively, he manifested a card between his fingers, ready to strike the guide again, but his peripheral vision caught Qi Si shaking his head slightly.

Although he didn’t know the reason, he retracted the card and silently waited for the situation to unfold.

Whoever’s task it is is responsible for it; I’ll just quietly watch your performance.

Perhaps the guide didn’t sense the strange atmosphere, or perhaps she sensed it but didn’t care. Her smiling tone remained unchanged: “I will be getting off work soon, and you will likely have to spend the night alone in the Memorial Hall. Let me go over the nighttime precautions with you in advance.”

“There is no bathroom in the Memorial Hall. If you wish to wash up, you can draw water from the cafeteria. Our washbasin provides unlimited water 24 hours a day.”

“If any special circumstances arise, you can come find me in the Maple Forest. I live very close to the Memorial Hall, and I can detect any movement and rush over as quickly as possible.”

She paused and offered a standardized smile: “That’s all for now, travelers. I wish you a pleasant evening.”

The guide turned and walked out of the cafeteria, her black-clad figure swaying and receding like a phantom in the dark night.

Chang Xu looked at Qi Si.

The black-haired youth remained silent, staring quietly in the direction of the doorway.

It wasn’t until the guide’s figure completely vanished from the edge of their sight that he said weakly, “If my guess is correct, to complete the main quest, players who are burdened with a task must do the killing themselves. If anyone else kills Ms. Medina, she will just repeatedly respawn.”

He added, joking, “Hmm, in a way, she’s like a dedicated boss monster.”

Unfortunately, no one laughed.

Chang Xu uttered an “Oh,” and the tension in his back relaxed, clearly abandoning his attack posture.

Shuomeng glanced at the pale-faced Qi Si and couldn’t help but ask, “Friend, are you sure you’re up to this? I feel like in your current state, killing a chicken would be tough…”

Qi Si remained silent.

Just now, a question occurred to him.

Killing the guide posed no problem from a wordplay perspective, but considering the overall background and worldview of the instance, the disaster had already occurred, the culprits were gone, and the lives of those who came after were meaningless.

In the true history, Ms. Medina died in the great fire that swept through the Red Maple Boarding School. That fire might have been set by Mr. Thorson or by the Bad Kid.

So, in this spacetime formed by the projection of past history, what method should the players, acting as “students,” use to kill Ms. Medina, who acts as the “teacher”?

Direct confrontation offers no advantage, so should they set a fire, or summon an evil god?

Qi Si’s thoughts stretched boundlessly, touching upon Zhang Yiyu’s side quest. He felt a sudden realization and burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Shuomeng was startled and quickly asked, “Friend, what happened? I’m timid, please don’t scare me…”

Qi Si pressed his lips together, suppressing his smile until it lingered only at the corners of his mouth. His voice lifted at the end: “I’m thinking about who should dig Chang Xu out after we bury him in the coffin tonight.”