Chapter 236: Green Frog Hospital (28) The Conspiracy Unveiled

【Name: Book of the Dead (Damaged)】

【Effect: Causes the holder to exhibit characteristics of an undead, gaining some abilities of the undead】

In the Directors Office, behind the secret door, Qi Si held the small, human-skin-textured booklet, lying quietly among the pile of corpses, pretending to be a dead body.

The item he had just obtained could be put to use immediately; in a way, he was lucky.

【Item effect is active, can be manually deactivated (Once deactivated, it cannot be reactivated in this instance)】

【This effect carries unknown risks; the longer it lasts, the greater the risks】

【Negative effects caused by the item to the player may be carried out of the instance】

Three lines of text refreshed on the system interface, presented in a manner similar to the instructions for traditional Chinese medicine, emphasizing uncertainty.

Qi Si finally understood why the Book of the Dead was still in an inactive state when it came into his hands.

“Unknown risks” sounded daunting enough, and negative effects that could be carried out of the instance… were even more off-putting.

Few people would be willing to risk their lives unless they were truly desperate.

“Looks like a bit of a scam. The effect description only refreshes after actual use. Is this some kind of business fraud?”

Qi Si silently complained, the scene of the invitation letter pulling him into the game flashing through his mind.

—It stubbornly refused to tell him the required points, nor would it let him gather more information, as if afraid he would back out.

After Qi Si pushed open the secret door, the corpses in the secret room wriggled towards the entrance like caterpillars. After a long while, failing to detect any signs of life, they fell silent again, lying back in their original positions.

A pool of blood spread beneath the corpses, forming a lake. Qi Si curled up in a rare clean spot, listening to the ticking of the Pocket Watch of Fate.

After emerging from that dream space, he was covered in frog slime and char, looking as disheveled as a towel crumpled and thrown into a fireplace.

There were no washing facilities in the instance. Fortunately, he was wearing a white lab coat over his white shirt, which somewhat covered the dirt.

And when he realized that to avoid the refresh, he would most likely have to hide in a secret room full of corpses, Qi Si was speechless.

Alright, it’s already dirty, a little dirtier won’t hurt.

Well, he’s always been someone who adapts easily. Let’s just forget about his Obsessive-compulsive disorder for now.

Time passed minute by minute. His nasal cavity gradually accustomed itself to the pervasive smell of blood and decay, and his skin adapted to the cold and damp temperature of the secret room.

Qi Si listened as his heartbeat slowly softened and slowed, merging with the surrounding dead silence. Even placing his hand over his heart, he could barely feel a distinct pulse.

He guessed this was one of the effects of the Book of the Dead, and he casually raised his hand to check his breath.

His fingers were already infected by the environment, cold as well water, but the air he exhaled was even colder, like winter ice.

“I didn’t expect the Book of the Dead to be quite effective.”

Qi Si thought happily, it would be more convenient to pretend to be an NPC to deceive people or a ghost to scare them in instances in the future. In his current state, anyone who saw him at first glance, besides himself, would think he was a cold corpse.

Of course, the immediate priority was to understand the hidden dangers and negative effects of the Book of the Dead. He hoped there wouldn’t be a terrible setting like “using it too much will lead to actual death.”

“I wonder if Lu Zimo will have more information. Maybe I can ask him after I get out.”

Qi Si plotted with ill intent, tilting his head to watch the hands of the Pocket Watch of Fate move slowly, and at the moment it passed six o’clock, the entire watch, along with the space, plunged into darkness.

No, it wasn’t the surface that darkened; accurately speaking, the entire space was plunged into darkness.

The candle flame that had been standing in the center of the room instantly vanished without warning. It wasn’t extinguished, but more like its existence had been hidden.

Everything disappeared, including smell, sound, and temperature. Qi Si suddenly felt a strange sensation, as if he were merely a consciousness, inexplicably suspended in a false conscious space, without substance, without past, and without future.

The sense of void lasted only a moment. Tens of thousands of silvery-white fragments appeared out of nowhere from the darkness, like a program being rewritten and rerun, rendering every detail of the scene from the corners.

Qi Si blinked, and when his vision settled again, the surrounding scene had returned to how it was before the refresh.

The dim candlelight cast flickering flames, painting the surrounding cocoon-like pale corpses with a dark yellow glaze.

The crackling of fire, the stench of decay, and the cold returned one after another. Green pus and fresh red clots flowed beneath the corpses, still not touching the spot where Qi Si was curled up.

He had gambled correctly; the secret room in the Directors Office was indeed unaffected by the world’s refresh.

Qi Si glanced at the upper left corner of his vision; the usage count of the Soul Contract had not reset.

‘Is it because I, as one of the contracting parties, didn’t participate in the refresh, so the Contract isn’t considered void? How fair…’

He shook his head to himself, slowly sitting up from the ground, trying not to make a sound.

Perhaps because he had been lying down for too long, his muscles were somewhat stiff. With every slight movement, his joints produced a sluggish feeling, like a machine that hadn’t been lubricated in a long time.

Qi Si took half a minute to sit upright, bending his legs and resting his elbows on his knees, propping his chin with his palm, lost in thought.

“Should I go out and explore, find another place to sleep, or just spend the night in the secret room?”

Going out to explore would give him an advantage, but he might run into Lu Zimo and Sun Dekuan, and in his current state, fighting two of them wouldn’t end well.

Finding another place to sleep… seemed unnecessary. If a program is still running, don’t mess with it. The Eerie Game is the same; it’s best not to change locations casually if there’s no danger.

Qi Si thought aimlessly, a wave of drowsiness washing over him.

He hadn’t slept all night yesterday and had experienced many things today, his mind already exhausted. His consciousness was hazy, and he soon lay down among the pile of corpses, falling into a dream.

This time, he didn’t dream of the strange creatures in the instance. Qi Si sat awake in the consultation room of the mental hospital he had visited twelve years ago, with a blurry-faced doctor opposite him and his clearly visible parents standing beside him.

The Ghosts that hadn’t appeared in his dreams for many years reappeared, bringing a sense of relief from a long-lost reunion.

Qi Si lay on the table, savoring the content of the dream with interest—or rather, the faded memories.

He was a person with little imagination or creativity; most of what he dreamed was what he had seen and heard.

In the illogical dream, fragmented scenes connected one after another. Qi Si somehow found himself in an electric chair, and opposite him, also in an electric chair, was his mother, who was ostensibly “accompanying him for treatment.”

Qi Si could understand her psychology but could never empathize.

So this time, he sighed with pity: “I have to say, my existence was truly a disaster for you. Fortunately, you died relatively early, so the duration of suffering wasn’t too long.”

The woman remained silent, only gazing at Qi Si with the eternal, unchanging smile from his memory.

Qi Si suddenly found it uninteresting.

A “rustling” sound pierced the dream. The scene, already floating in a haze, instantly collapsed, scattered fragments sinking into the corners of his mind palace, nowhere to be found.

Qi Si opened his eyes, looking at the blood pool and decaying corpses close at hand, and yawned leisurely.

The hands of the Pocket Watch of Fate pointed directly at nine o’clock.

The dimly lit candle illuminated his vision. Qi Si saw the corpses closest to the outside clumsily rise from the ground, bending their backs and hunching over as they moved towards the door.

Then came the corpses in the middle, standing up one after another in the same posture, walking out of the secret door in an orderly fashion.

After the first two batches of corpses had entirely left the secret room, the innermost corpses slowly crawled towards the door.

Qi Si’s position was along the edge of the secret room, not obstructing the path of any corpse.

He quietly waited for all the corpses to exit the secret door before following them readily.

All the corpses were female. Arranged in order, the leader was identifiable as the Pregnant Ghost named Xu Qing, who was the deceased wife of Director Cheng Ping.

Before, all the corpses were piled up, lying prone. If they hadn’t stood up, Qi Si wouldn’t have noticed the familiar face.

The Pregnant Ghosts formed a queue, winding like earthworms in the narrow office, resembling the night patrol teams in the corridors.

Qi Si trailed at the end of the line, his demeanor and posture perfectly blending in. Not a single ghost noticed a man had infiltrated the group.

At a quarter past nine, Xu Qing stepped into the dark doorway, followed by the other Ghosts. Qi Si, with downcast eyes, followed closely… At Green Frog Hospital, Lin Chen hung up the phone, a thin layer of sweat on his palm smearing the receiver.

It wasn’t Qi Si who answered the phone, but Sun Dekuan, who was evasive and refused to mention Qi Si’s whereabouts, clearly hiding something.

The consciousness connection had been broken for half a day. Combined with the clues obtained in the Directors Office, Lin Chen was absolutely certain that something had happened to Qi Si.

Moreover, he was likely not purely harmed by Ghosts, but rather, there was an element of players designing a trap.

Otherwise, Sun Dekuan could have simply told the truth.

Lin Chen remembered how he had previously criticized Qi Si’s ruthlessness. Now, it seemed he had been too naive and presumptive.

Slaughter-path players who profit at others’ expense objectively exist. Only by strictly guarding against and extinguishing every potential disadvantage can one avoid falling into a passive situation.

Jiuzhou Guild’s declaration of peace and cooperation was fragile in the face of bloody facts. Lin Chen swallowed, a hint of bitterness lingering on his tongue, and instinctively glanced at the Female Teacher beside him.

The latter remained calmly seated by the bed, watching him. At this moment, she adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses and asked calmly, “Is there anything you want to ask me? Perhaps I can answer some of your questions.”

Wh-what does that mean?

Lin Chen swallowed again, a tingling sensation rising in his heart, as if being rolled over by coarse felt.

The Female Teacher was not in a hurry, merely sitting elegantly and gracefully, hands resting on her knees, tapping lightly.

Thousands of thoughts flashed through Lin Chen’s mind, including whether the other party had discovered his communication with Qi Si, and knew of his suspicions.

Any one of these conjectures pointed to a terrible outcome, but it couldn’t get any worse.

He stood up, took a deep breath, and asked, “How did you know Yu Kun and Bai Xiaowei’s bodies were in the Directors Office?”

“I installed a tracking device on Yu Kun’s body,” the Female Teacher said with a smile.

Her light gray eyes remained emotionless: “After killing Yu Kun, I swapped his body with that of a pregnant woman and put the numbered bracelet from the pregnant woman’s wrist onto his hand.”

Is she not pretending anymore, is she revealing everything?

Lin Chen understood the meaning behind her words, his pupils contracting slightly.

He had watched many TV shows and read novels, knowing that when a Villain confessed their deeds, they either “died from talking too much” or were about to kill to silence witnesses.

Given the disparity in strength between him and the other party, she clearly wouldn’t die from talking too much… The Female Teacher looked at Lin Chen, who was sweating profusely, raised her palm, and then pressed it down: “Sit. I won’t kill you for now.”

Not killing him for now, does that mean she will kill him later?

Lin Chen was completely rigid, like a mouse targeted by a cat, but his body involuntarily retreated step by step, sitting on the edge of the bed.

The Female Teacher continued: “You may not have noticed, but along the way, many people were discussing rumors of pregnant women dying during surgery. I don’t believe such widespread deaths would be accidental; I tend to think someone needs to collect bodies to perform some kind of Ritual.

“It’s not your fault you couldn’t figure this out, because due to a lack of knowledge and experience, you are destined not to broaden your deductive thinking and find this line of thought. As for me, with more information, I determined after discovering the refresh mechanism that there is a place in this instance specifically for storing corpses, with different rules from other places.

“I needed a corpse to scout and find this place. Originally, I intended to use the already deceased Bai Xiaowei, but unfortunately, by the time I returned to her death location, her body had disappeared. I could only set my target on Yu Kun and used some rather complex methods to kill him.

“I wasn’t sure my plan would succeed, as male and female corpses differ greatly in scientific physiology and metaphysical attributes. However, things went more smoothly than I expected. Yu Kun’s body successfully stood up at night and followed the procession to a certain place.

“I also verified one point: this instance’s use of corpses only depends on their placement and the number on their wristbands. This also provided more room for maneuver in my subsequent plans.”

Lin Chen’s heart grew colder inch by inch with the Female Teacher’s words, everything that had happened since entering the instance flashing before his eyes.

The Female Teacher stayed alone to care for the frogs on the second day, and that same night, the players were attacked by Pregnant Ghosts; the Female Teacher returned to the hospital alone on the third day, and then Yu Kun died, leaving only a pool of blood… He wanted to retreat, but his body wouldn’t move. He could only ask dully, “You killed Yu Kun just to have his corpse scout the way?”

The Female Teacher tilted her head, as if wondering why he would ask such an obvious question: “Lin Chen, I know you are an ordinary person with a simple sense of justice, but do you really think—that anyone would be willing to seek justice for strangers without any personal gain?

“The definition and even examples of justice are pseudo-propositions filled with paradoxes, existing based on group identity and the need for stability. Delayed justice, or even justice itself, serves no practical purpose other than to deceive fools and domesticate groups.”

Lin Chen stared intently into the Female Teacher’s unfocused eyes, a strong sense of discomfort accumulating in his heart, as if his chest were filled with seawater.

He could understand the essence of universal values and public morality, but he never intended to become one of those who manipulated and exploited rules, becoming hideous in their self-serving schemes.

After a long silence, he asked, “Who exactly are you?”

Hearing this, the Female Teacher suddenly smiled, a distant, empty, and transparent smile.

She said in her unchanging, flat tone, “I am no one, and I can be anyone. Of course, you can temporarily think of me as—

‘Sera.'”

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