Chapter 223: Frog Hospital (XV) Original Sin

In the dream, Qi Si waited for Lin Chen to resolve the crisis. Relying on his memory, he replicated the English song he had heard at the beginning of the instance and finally obtained the translation.

“Abortions, abortions…”

(Abortions, abortions)

“Frogs crowded the pond…”

(Frogs crowded the pond)

The language was incredibly straightforward; it practically told the players that the frogs in the pond were the vengeful spirits of dead infants.

Frogs formed from the vengeful spirits of dead infants feeding on dead infants—it was bizarre and abstract from any perspective. Realistically, it was cannibalism; humorously, it was eating what you need to supplement… What Qi Si found interesting was that when he asked, Lin Chen claimed his college entrance English score was 146 points.

When Qi Si was in middle school, his scores in Chinese, Math, Science, and Social Studies were all good, but he had never ranked in the top ten for English.

He felt that if he had attended high school, he could have fantasized about other subjects, but for English, even scoring 130 would have required him to dig up an ancestral grave before the exam… Well, Lin Chen’s academic performance was genuinely excellent, even better than expected.

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Lin Chen held nothing back, starting to tell Qi Si about the out-of-instance information regarding the world view.

This information primarily came from his miscellaneous accumulations in reality.

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Lin Chen hesitated at this point in his explanation.

He felt the knowledge he was sharing was too simple, something Qi Si surely already knew, and continuing might be akin to teaching a fish to swim.

His voice paused, but he heard the young man laugh and say, “Tell me whatever comes to mind; I’m listening.”

Encouraged, Lin Chen continued to muse aloud: “The main quest mentions the Holy Mother and the Holy Son. I guess this instance might also contain a layer of religious allegory.

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Qi Si noted the information, smiling as he praised him, “Your knowledge base is good. This information is very useful to me.”

Lin Chen laughed happily, then ramblingly recounted various clues he could associate with the instance until Qi Si pretended to have a bad signal and cut off the connection.

It must be said that top students from prestigious universities truly excelled at collecting and memorizing information.

Many supplementary materials provided by Lin Chen were things Qi Si had either overlooked or vaguely heard of but didn’t know the specific details.

The utility person had become more useful, which was good news in a sense.

While sorting out the new clues, Qi Si verified some of the information’s authenticity with Cheng An, who was still tied to the chair.

He then tried to glean information from Cheng An about the Dean, the hospital, and the curse of the frogs, but the man was either evasive or simply claimed ignorance.

It seemed the Eerie Game would not allow players to use overly cheating methods to prematurely decipher the entire world view.

Although Cheng An’s refusal to say anything was quite unreasonable given the context Qi Si had constructed… Time passed minute by minute, and the edges of the dream gradually showed cotton-like white, which eroded the continuous darkness in clumps.

Cheng An suddenly became agitated, his writhing body causing the iron chains to clatter loudly.

He looked at Qi Si and spoke rapidly, “Quickly, help me untie this. Use that pendulum on your wrist; it can cut through this easily…”

Qi Si ignored him and turned to leave.

Behind him, Cheng An let out painful screams, though it was unclear what he was encountering.

“I am not Cheng An,” Qi Si muttered silently, his tone decisive.

Players engage in role-playing primarily to prevent NPCs from noticing anything suspicious, and to make the disguise convincing, they even have to inherit the original symptoms.

—But if the original host still exists, is role-playing necessary?

On the system interface, a line of text quietly refreshed.

【Partial severance from the identity “Cheng An” has been completed. You will temporarily not be troubled by the effects of “Hemophobia.”】

White threads chaotically covered the dreamscape, and the darkness was instantly replaced by light.

Dawn broke.

Qi Si opened his eyes, staring at the stark white ceiling, reviewing the known information in his mind.

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Without evidence, Qi Si did not intend to make assumptions.

He silently said “Good morning, Lin Chen” in his heart.

Two seconds later, Lin Chen’s joyful voice rang out from the depths of his mind: “Good morning, Brother Qi!”

Excellent. The connection established in the dream still existed after waking up, which would make subsequent actions much more convenient.

Qi Si sat up, catching sight of the blood pool in the corner where the bisected frog corpse had been replaced by a single, intact Blue Frog.

The newly appeared frog squatted neatly, its red eyes staring fixedly, as if monitoring the movements in the entire ward.

Sure enough, the Blue Frog refreshed every day. Even if killed by a player, it would reappear intact in the corner the next morning, regardless of whether anyone opened the door during the night.

Qi Si grabbed a towel from his backpack and tossed it over the frog’s head, ensuring it couldn’t see anything before taking out the candy jar containing tadpoles.

Sun Dekuan, in the adjacent bed, had also woken up, and when he turned his head, he saw a bizarre scene.

The black-haired young man slowly peeled back the candy wrapper, extended his fair, slender fingers into the jar, and picked out a tadpole.

The tadpole, still faintly alive, struggled restlessly but was summarily rolled into a ball and wrapped inside the soft candy.

The young man rewrapped the candy, restoring it to its unopened appearance, and methodically processed all the tadpoles in this manner.

Finally, he placed the wrapped candies back into the jar one by one and twisted the lid shut. Visually, there was no longer any clue.

Sun Dekuan pointed at the candy jar and clicked his tongue, “Brother Cheng, what… what are you doing? Feeding this to that Ghost child?”

Qi Si hummed in acknowledgment and put the candy jar back into his backpack. “If he can’t finish it, he can share some with the patients in the other rooms.”

Upon receiving the affirmative answer, Sun Dekuan almost instantly understood the reason.

It was common knowledge that eating tadpoles incurred the curse of the frogs. So, use magic to defeat magic: let the Ghosts eat the tadpoles and challenge the curse themselves.

As for whether Cheng Xiaoyu would discover the candy was problematic beforehand, that was not his concern.

After all, Qi Si was the one adding the ingredients to the candy; he wouldn’t suffer any loss.

Huang Xiaofei was the third to wake up.

She covered her mouth while yawning, slowly climbed out of bed, and reached over to pat Lu Zimo awake in the adjacent bed, squinting teasingly, “Zimo, why are you still lying in bed even inside the instance?”

Lu Zimo’s eyes were sleepy, carrying the blurriness and confusion of just waking up, but this was quickly replaced by a distinct look of terror.

He leaped up from the bed, staring intently into the void ahead, as if a terrifying monster were there.

Two seconds later, he recited in a trembling voice:

【You must insist on eating fourteen tadpoles every day for five consecutive days to see results, that’s what they said.】

【You have always been cautious. Fearing that forgetting to take the medicine would lead to failure, you even put a label on the medicine bottle.】

【Yet you did not take your medicine the entire night yesterday, nor did you once remember to take it.】

【Role-playing failure rate +20%】

This was undoubtedly a prompt refreshed on his system interface, which he read aloud in front of everyone, transmitting palpable terror.

Huang Xiaofei’s expression was no longer relaxed.

She sat down by Lu Zimo’s bed and gently patted the young man’s shoulder. “Calm down first. Tell me slowly, one thing at a time. What exactly happened?”

Lu Zimo seemed not to hear her words, hunching over and muttering, “My failure rate is 60% now. It increases by 20% each time; there are no other options. Two more times and I’m finished… “Going out yesterday morning, searching the Archives in the afternoon, not eating tadpoles at night… just these three simple things, and my failure rate increased so much. I could die at any moment in the next few days…”

His voice carried an accusation. Huang Xiaofei wrapped her arms around his back, stroking it repeatedly. “Why be afraid of something that hasn’t even happened yet? We’ve gone through so much over the years; which time wasn’t a close call? For now, you stay in the ward and don’t move around. I’ll go look for the clues.”

“Mhm, thank you, Sis.” Lu Zimo’s face remained pale.

Huang Xiaofei comforted him for a while longer, then abruptly asked, “How are the red rashes on your body?”

Lu Zimo paused, then said hesitantly, “They don’t seem as itchy as yesterday.”

Huang Xiaofei lifted his shirt, exposing his abdomen, which was patchy with red and white, and reached out a finger to touch it.

Sun Dekuan couldn’t be bothered to interfere in the domestic affairs of this brother and sister pair, having already sidled up to Qi Si as soon as Lu Zimo woke up.

Now, the fat man was whispering incessantly, “I’m just saying, even if they were biological siblings, they shouldn’t be so indiscreet, let alone cousins…”

Qi Si said nothing, got up, and walked to the aisle beside Lu Zimo’s bed, looking down at the young man’s abdomen.

The area that had been covered in large patches of red rash last night had darkened, showing a scabbed, brownish-black color. The affected area had shrunk considerably, leaving only a patch of fresh red spots about half the size of a palm.

“Skipped one dose, and the illness got better instead?” Sun Dekuan leaned closer and slapped his own fat face. “Oh my god, I remember now, those tadpoles weren’t meant to treat the rash…”

Qi Si said calmly, “It currently looks like the rashes on Lu Zimo’s body were likely caused by eating tadpoles. Whether it’s parasites or triggering the curse of the frogs, to completely cure the illness, he must stop eating tadpoles.”

Lu Zimo’s gaze passed over Huang Xiaofei and fixed gloomily on Qi Si. “If I don’t eat the tadpoles, my failure rate will increase. Plus, they’ll bring tadpole soup for breakfast…”

“Ding-a-ling—”

The meal service bell rang outside the door at that exact moment, accompanied by the sound of the food cart’s wheels rolling closer.

The nurse’s sharp voice came through: “Breakfast is here! Someone come get it—”

The door of Room 404 was knocked “dong dong dong,” carrying an impatient, urging tone.

Frustration clouded Huang Xiaofei’s eyes and brows, whether directed at the current complicated situation or a specific person was unclear.

She seemed unwilling to linger, uncharacteristically walking over to open the door, and quickly returned carrying four bowls of tadpole soup.

She placed the bowls of tadpole soup one by one on each player’s bedside table, kept one bowl for herself, and sat back on the bed holding it.

This time, she silently unwrapped the bowl of soup, tilted her head back, and drank it all in one gulp.