Chapter 240: Frog Hospital (31) Agnosticism

Green Frog Hospital, by the pond.

The Female Teacher’s body slammed straight down onto the muddy ground, crisscrossing bloodstains crawling across her bare wrists and neck, and her black suit was damp with blood.

The Shadow Ghost, having finished harvesting a life, curled up contentedly into an irregular mass about half the size of a person. The shadow’s area receded like a tide, shrinking and disappearing beneath the umbrella’s surface.

A suspicious “crunching” sound rang out beneath the umbrella, like a rodent chewing on brittle bone, sending chills down the spine.

Soon, this unsettling sound vanished, and the world returned to a silence where even the sound of wind was rare.

The item effect had entered cooldown. Fortunately, the greatest danger had been eliminated. Now, he only needed to be wary of Ghosts and death traps.

Compared to malicious humans, the Ghosts seemed much kinder and gentler.

Lin Chen folded the black umbrella, watching intently as a drop of blood flowed upward from the tip, becoming thinner and thinner until it completely seeped into the pure black fabric.

All the color of the blood was completely absorbed by the deep black. He belatedly shivered, his head throbbing and dizzy, and waves of intense nausea surged in his abdomen.

—He had killed someone, a player confirmed to be human.

He had just prepared himself mentally to embrace the law of the jungle in the Eerie Game, only to use an item to take a life without hesitation. It was too fast, too rushed.

Even if the opponent was Sera’s puppet, and even if it was self-defense, it still exceeded his limit of acceptance.

Just a month ago, he was just an ordinary, powerless university student… Lin Chen breathed rapidly, his gaze still fixed on the corpse on the ground, tracing every detail.

The tense environment caused his adrenaline to surge. Negative feelings like fear and nausea were quickly suppressed. What he felt more was a sense of bewildered unreality, as if he were just playing a holographic game and had defeated some humanoid NPC simulated by data.

Yes, the Eerie Game weakened players’ resistance to killing and cloaked it in a veneer of entertainment unto death.

Lin Chen knew that this flippancy towards life and death was wrong. Life deserved reverence, and death demanded awe.

Even if the opponent was unforgivable, it didn’t change the fact that he had used illegal means to strip them of their life.

He was not qualified to represent justice and judge others; finding more excuses for his actions was merely hypocrisy.

But he had no choice.

He wasn’t a saint who would sacrifice himself to feed the eagles; he couldn’t afford to be indecisive and pull his punches when danger was right in his face.

All he could do was remember the image of the deceased and treat the power that could determine others’ lives and deaths with caution and solemnity, hoping to retain his human integrity and prevent his personality from being warped by the Eerie Game.

Lin Chen stood for a while longer, put the dried black umbrella into his inventory, then took out a blade and fiercely cut into his pinky finger.

Excruciating pain pulsed at the severed point. The fair, rosy pinky fell to the ground, and after waiting for a full minute, it did not turn into wood.

He had escaped the Puppeteer’s control.

Lin Chen tore off a piece of clothing, wrapped his profusely bleeding right hand, and tied a knot at the base of his pinky, serving as a makeshift bandage.

The pain was slightly alleviated. He inexplicably calmed down and silently thought, “Brother Qi, I killed her. I succeeded.”

Qi Si’s voice said flatly, “You did well. Self-serving Slaughter-path players deserve death. By the way, I just killed someone too.”

He gave a deliberate laugh and continued speaking to himself: “Yesterday, Sun Dekuan and I went to explore the Directors Office. Something went wrong midway, and I was trapped in an illusion. It took a great deal of effort to escape, but I still got separated from him.

“After he returned to the ward, he was misled by Lu Zimo and planned to cooperate with him to kill me. If I hadn’t timely discovered a secret room where I could avoid the refresh, I probably would have been ambushed and killed by them at the spawn point.

“This morning, I had to return to the ward to retrieve something—a Blue Frog that could attract the frog swarm. It was crucial for clearing the instance, but unfortunately, it refreshed inside the ward at six in the morning.”

“I knew Lu Zimo and the others dared to attack me because of their absolute numerical advantage of two against one. For the smooth progression of the instance, I had no choice but to kill one of them to break that advantage.”

Qi Si’s voice was calm, and his narrative was disjointed.

Lin Chen knew, however, that this was intended to alleviate his psychological pressure.

The diffusion of responsibility effect: when a task is shared by many people, individuals feel a reduction in responsibility and relaxation.

When an individual in a group does something that violates public morals, they often experience great anxiety and confusion. At such times, if someone else who has done the same thing steps forward and expresses goodwill, the psychological discomfort will be greatly eased.

Humans are social animals; they need their own kind, or rather—accomplices, conspirators.

“But you don’t need to worry. Everything will go smoothly from now on. That kind of terrible situation won’t happen again.”

Qi Si sat on the hospital bed. Sun Dekuan, on the adjacent bed, had the Cursed Pendulum wrapped around his neck and dared not breathe.

He looked at Qi Si with the eyes of someone watching a monster, feeling that this person was colder and more perverse than the Ghosts, likely one of Sera’s Slaughter-path players.

Qi Si was always good at taking care of other people’s feelings.

While controlling the Cursed Pendulum to alternately relax and tighten, he reassured Lin Chen with a candid attitude: “See? All dangerous factors have been eliminated, and I also have some ideas about how to clear the instance. All that’s needed is verification.”

“Although this instance is perilous, three people will survive in the end, won’t they?”

Lin Chen nodded. Words of gratitude stopped at his mouth and turned into a meticulous recounting of the clues.

Qi Si had looked out for him too much along the way; any words of profound thanks would seem shallow and frivolous.

When he re-established contact with Qi Si earlier, the situation was urgent, and he only had time to talk about the information related to the Female Teacher. He hadn’t yet had the chance to mention the new clues found in the Directors Office.

He shared them with Qi Si right now.

Qi Si listened quietly, his tone turning serious: “Lin Chen, things might be more troublesome than I imagined. For the next twelve hours, don’t stay in the same place. Try your best not to get entangled with any NPC…”

The subsequent sound faded, replaced by a “hissing” static, like a phone call abruptly cut off in the night.

Lin Chen suddenly had an ominous premonition. Judging by Qi Si’s words, something like a Night Parade of One Hundred Demons might occur on his side soon.

And now, all his items were either out of uses or in cooldown. If he encountered danger again, he would have to rely solely on his raw strength.

If he had told Qi Si the clues earlier, he might have gotten an effective solution, but now it was truly like a clever housekeeper trying to cook without rice.

In the end, it was because he took too much for granted and was negligent once again.

However, if it was just a matter of ensuring he didn’t get trapped, it wasn’t too difficult—just a bit tiring, constantly staying on the move.

No matter what, he couldn’t mess up something so simple this time.

Lin Chen prepared himself mentally and quickly walked away from the pond, heading toward the main hospital building.

Yet, two figures wearing blue protective suits walked out from the thick fog behind the iron gate.

These two fully-equipped orderlies carried empty iron buckets and iron ladles, walking stiffly toward him.

Upon seeing Lin Chen, they said in unison: “Today you need to scoop up a full bucket of tadpoles…”

…Blue Frog Hospital.

After Qi Si finished listening to the clues Lin Chen relayed, he realized the situation was more troublesome than he had imagined.

Firstly, the Director had been maintaining contact with an entity whose identity was unknown but was likely ranked above a demigod. The possibility of that entity dishonorably interfering could not be ruled out.

Secondly, the Director’s control over the hospital was stronger than he had imagined. He was clearly aware of the players’ every move and explicitly harbored hostility toward him.

Finally, based on the Director knowing the big picture and harboring malice, the possibility that the clues players found were intentionally released smokescreens could not be ruled out.

Doubt, agnosticism, uncertainty… What he saw was only what they wanted him to see, what he heard was only what they wanted him to hear, and what he thought was only what they wanted him to think… Humans can never perceive absolute reality. Even the most rational consciousness is a subjective projection of the objective world, especially since this world is already filled with a strong sense of illusion.

The endless cycle, the conflict between frogs and Ghosts, the interspersed dreams, the blurry text… Who could distinguish the boundary between truth and falsehood?

Qi Si walked straight to the door and pushed it open.

No matter how the situation changed, it wouldn’t affect the next step of the plan. Some things remain constant despite all changes, such as interests, such as human nature… (404 not found)

In the corridor, an old, stale slogan was hoarsely broadcast by a radio. The “sizzling” static cut into the sentences, making them sound increasingly distorted the more one listened.

Gaunt patients walked out of their wards like zombies, sitting down in a row on the long benches embedded in the wall. Their sallow faces were pasted on like paintings, and their cloudy eyes rolled in sunken sockets, following the departing Qi Si.

No cries sounded from the surgery area at the end of the corridor. Compared to previous days, it was silent, like an ancient tomb underground. The pervasive smell of blood in the air was replaced by the scent of disinfectant, yet the aura of death still hovered overhead.

The doors of the once-busy operating room were tightly shut, and the electronic light indicating its working status had been off for a long time, signifying the area’s idleness and abandonment.

Qi Si thought of the corresponding statement in the clue Lin Chen had relayed:

【How to deal with Cheng An is a troublesome issue. Calculations that are too strict and precise are indeed detrimental to flexibility. The three extra people who died previously have already consumed most of the tolerance margin. If one more dies… that would truly be terrible!】

Just as he had predicted, the Director was deliberately controlling the number of deaths, whether to reduce his burden of sin or for some other purpose.

After one thousand corpses were collected, he naturally stopped performing surgeries to prevent anyone else from dying because of him.

Of course, the premise for all this to hold true was that—the clues were real.

Qi Si walked quickly through the labyrinthine corridor, hearing only his own footsteps, his breathing barely audible.

The further he walked, the lower the temperature became, which could be called a suitable environment for Ghosts.

The level floor at the end spread out before him. The iron gate was open as always, flanked by the morgue and the kitchen.

Qi Si stopped in the center of the floor, raised his head, and smiled as he spoke to the entity in the void: “Cheng Xiaoyu, do you want to eat candy?”

The ugly boy, swollen and pale all over, appeared in the thick fog behind the door. His head, covered in blue and purple veins, tilted toward Qi Si: “Yes, I love candy the most. Will you give me candy?”

“Of course.” Qi Si smiled, took the Candy Jar from his backpack, and handed the entire thing to Cheng Xiaoyu.

A thin layer of colorful gummies covered the bottom of the plastic jar, obscuring something faintly black beneath.

Cheng Xiaoyu snatched the Candy Jar, greedily reached his hand into the opening, pulled out handfuls of candy, and stuffed them into his mouth.

Qi Si subtly retreated a few steps, grabbing the frog wrapped in a towel.

The moment Cheng Xiaoyu pulled out the last handful of candy, Qi Si lifted the towel covering the frog’s eyes.

Under the Blue Frog’s blood-red gaze, the tadpoles wrapped inside the gummies in Cheng Xiaoyu’s hand were vaguely visible, their exposed tails still twitching intermittently.

Cheng Xiaoyu, oblivious, threw a handful of candy into his mouth and swallowed.

“Croak! Croak! Croak!”

The Blue Frog cried out furiously.

The next second, several similar croaks sounded in the distance, rising and falling as if in response, gradually merging into a tide.

Cheng Xiaoyu seemed completely unaware of what was happening. After stuffing his mouth full, he even tilted the empty jar, trying to pour out the sugar dust inside.

The wave of frog croaks drew closer, rushing toward the floor level from all directions.

The ground trembled. Amidst the loud croaking, swarms of Green Frogs leaped out from every corner, hopping toward Cheng Xiaoyu.

Cheng Xiaoyu finally realized something was wrong. He swung his umbilical cord to swat the frogs approaching him, piercing their abdomens.

However, it was too late. The first few frogs jumped onto him and fiercely tore at his flesh.

The Ghost’s bloated, rotting flesh was bitten off piece by piece, falling to the ground and turning into yellowish-white pus.

Qi Si smiled brightly and asked mockingly, “Cheng Xiaoyu, how do the tadpoles taste? Are they delicious?”

If Cheng Xiaoyu still didn’t know who the culprit was, he would be an idiot.

“You’re a bad guy! I hate you!” he roared furiously, rushing toward Qi Si. However, the weight of the frogs covering his body was like a boulder, dragging his steps to a snail’s pace.

Qi Si sighed and patiently reasoned, “Your father was the one who trapped me in the illusion first. He forced me to eat a jar of tadpoles just to escape. Since I can’t find him for now, I can only come to you.”

As he spoke, his gaze aimlessly swept every corner of the space, as if searching for an invisible entity.

At a certain instant, a tall, thin black shadow similar in shape to him appeared out of thin air, quickly stretching to the size of the sky and enveloping the entire floor level in lightless darkness.

The Blue Frog briefly lost its vision, and all the croaking on the ground fell silent.

Qi Si held the frog in one hand and the Pocket Watch of Fate in the other, a slight curve appearing at the corner of his lips: “Mr. Director, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time… Oh, and just so you know, I have a flashlight.”