Chapter 244: Frog Hospital (End) — The Plague Doctor

“It’s time to end this.”

Li raised his left hand, his black-clad figure blurring into a translucent stream of light. Golden vine phantoms stretched out from every corner, their brilliant golden light dispelling the dark gloom.

The steaming mist in the corridors, the looming Ghosts in the woods, the flesh floating on the pond water, and the mold scraped onto the walls—all traces symbolizing the eerie, the decayed, and death were gently brushed away by the vines, leaving behind a clean and blank whiteness.

Lin Chen leaned against the cold stone wall of the pond, tightly gripping the handle of the Black Umbrella, holding the massive canopy defensively in front of him.

A strand of vine-like golden light descended from the high heavens. All living beings fell into instant stillness, and the world held a moment of silence for it.

The fully armed attendant, who was only a step away from Lin Chen, froze in place. His outstretched claws stiffened mid-air, and his outline flickered like a TV screen with poor reception, disappearing after two or three flashes.

Not only that attendant, but other NPCs dressed as medical staff and Ghosts resembling patients all flickered as if electrocuted, then vanished instantly, as if someone had flipped the switch on a holographic projection.

Lin Chen felt the ground shaking violently. It first rose rapidly, then lurched sideways, and finally plummeted quickly after reaching a certain point.

The feeling of weightlessness made him dizzy. Earth-shattering dust flew through the air, and shattered stones and wood splinters scattered in all directions, refusing to settle.

Across the hazy void, Lin Chen saw a corpse in a white coat that was no longer recognizable as human. Except for the intact upper body, the lower half had been completely replaced by fluid tentacles.

The corpse’s cheeks were covered in small, granular eyeballs, and fine, sharp fangs lined its mouth. Based on the facial features that weren’t severely distorted, its identity could barely be discerned—

Cheng Ping!

“Cheng Ping seems to have turned into a monster… but he’s already dead. I don’t know who killed him.” Lin Chen reported calmly to Qi Si.

He took one step forward, but the foot he stepped with was immediately pushed back to its original position, as if he hadn’t moved at all.

The hospital was shrinking. The flat ground, which had been relatively spacious, narrowed down to an area where only three or four people could stand close to the edge. The already dense trees pressed in like walls, forming a semi-circular fence around the perimeter of the pond.

Lin Chen was trapped between the fence and the pond, unable to move his feet.

He turned his head with effort and saw a pile of shattered stones on the stone platform in the center of the pond, their original appearance unrecognizable. They looked like fragments of a complete statue.

A scepter-like item was slanted into the shattered stones. After looking at it for two seconds, a large amount of illegible text appeared. This wasn’t due to lack of knowledge, but because the characters themselves were wrong, their original strokes scrambled and reassembled, making them impossible to read.

Lin Chen suddenly felt an immense sorrow, yet he couldn’t understand its origin. He felt as if he were wearing a waterproof raincoat, immersed in an ocean of emotion, only able to observe but not intervene.

After an unknown period, the golden vines that filled the entire space shattered into specks of light, melting away like snowflakes upon hitting the ground.

The shaking subsided. Lin Chen looked back and saw the wide-open hospital gate behind him, embedded in the gap of the fence formed by the trees.

Behind the door was no longer a pitch-black staircase, but a bright and narrow hospital corridor, where the morgue, Kitchen, Operating Room, Archives, Office, Duty Room, and Ward 404 were distributed from near to far.

And closest to the doorway sat a dying man covered in blood.

It was Qi Si!

…Inside the Blue Frog Hospital, Qi Si leaned against the wall, slumped down weakly.

Thin, smoky blood seeped from his wounds, uniformly dyeing his white shirt a solid crimson. The folds of the fabric were stuck together, resembling skin and flesh turned inside out after a knife cut.

Qi Si saw himself reflected in the steel door. Two pure black Surgical Knives were pinning his left shoulder and right palm, making him look crumpled and pathetic, clearly not long for this world.

He thought for a moment: if he insisted on raising his left hand to pull out the knife pinned in his right palm, he should be able to succeed.

But there was no need. Since he had nothing else to do, just sitting there was fine.

The feeling of pain, however, was like being separated by a thin veil, light and distant.

Qi Si easily ignored the minor discomfort and began contemplating the information the Puppeteer had given him.

First was the function of the Identity Card.

The Puppeteer claimed it was a ticket to enter the Final Dungeon, and also a historical fragment containing the authority of a deity.

The former was impossible to verify, but the latter was something Qi Si had long suspected.

The Puppeteer also said that the Final Dungeon was not a single instance, as most players believed, but rather a world where all players competed together, and it was related to the sealed Black Tower in the center of the Ruins of the Sunset.

This also couldn’t be verified.

What Qi Si cared about more was the “cooperation” mentioned by the Puppeteer. The terms were too grand and empty, essentially boilerplate about not deliberately harming each other’s interests, prioritizing forming an alliance with Sera in instances, and teaming up with Sera members more often in the future.

This level of “cooperation” definitely wasn’t the Puppeteer’s true goal.

“He clearly controls enough puppets to easily gain a numerical advantage in various instances, yet he still seeks collaborators; he could easily kill all threats, yet he left behind many promising players… Is it related to the Final Dungeon?”

Qi Si strained to twist his left arm, reaching his left hand into his pocket and pulling out two Team Rings.

The blood-colored rings had an antique design. They were precisely the two he had peeled off the fingers of Huang Xiaofei and Lu Zimo, and their origin could be considered clean.

“The Final Dungeon, surely we don’t need to team up to participate, do we?”

The space suddenly began to shake violently. The floor plummeted several meters before shooting back up.

Dispersed dust and pebbles flew wildly through the space. A few particles entered Qi Si’s nasal cavity, provoking bursts of coughing.

At the bottom of his mind, Cheng An’s voice rang out excitedly: “The Dean is dead, Cheng Ping is dead… The Frog Hospital will be mine from now on…”

Qi Si had long known that Cheng An was no good either. His high-sounding deals with players were merely an attempt to use them to eliminate the Dean.

Even so, he asked with interest, “In your deal with the Eerie Game, did it say that the Green Frog Hospital would belong to you after Cheng Ping died?”

Cheng An was stunned.

Two seconds later, he blustered, “In the Frog Hospital, besides the Frogs, only I am left. Once you return my body to me, everything Cheng Ping left behind will be mine.”

Qi Si curled his lips. In the consciousness space, his Spirit Body bent over, clutching its belly and laughing heartily.

“Comrade Cheng An, when have you ever seen a plot where a Ghost possesses a body and then returns it to the original owner?”

Ignoring Cheng An’s wary gaze, the red-clad youth slightly moved his fingers. The blood-colored Cursed Pendulum flew back from outside the door, wrapping around the youth’s wrist. The sharp bob plunged heavily, sucking up streams of fresh blood.

【Effect 1: Upon seeing blood, the injured entity will randomly acquire one of the following statuses: amnesia, hallucination, or high fever.】

The randomly acquired effect was hallucination.

Qi Si, now a Ghost, looked at the phantom of his mother appearing before him, smiling faintly: “If you want, I can stab myself a few more times. We’re bound to randomly get a more severe effect like amnesia.”

“Anyway, this is your body, I don’t feel bad about it.”

The boundaries of vision were closing in. In just a few seconds, the large door at the bottom of the Flat Level was right in front of him.

Outside the wide-open door was no longer a hazy mist filled with shadows, but a pond shaded by trees. The statue in the center was shattered, and the Sea-God Scepter was slanted into the broken stones, quiet and solemn.

Qi Si saw Lin Chen standing by the pond. He immediately suppressed all his expressions, looking as weak as a patient about to be buried.

He commanded via consciousness connection: “Lin Chen, that scepter on the stone platform is my item. Can you bring it over for me?”

Qi Si was covered in blood and looked like he struggled just to move, so asking for help running an errand was understandable.

Lin Chen didn’t doubt him. He turned and stepped into the pond, pulled out the Sea-God Scepter inserted into the stone platform, and held it upright beside him.

There seemed to be two Cards hidden among the shattered stones, which Lin Chen casually pulled out.

The first Card was black and white.

On the Card face, a figure wearing a white robe and a white turban held a white scepter, leisurely and casually leading the way, followed by a team composed of black phantoms.

【Identity Card: Undead Shepherd】

【Effect: You can control any undead or Ghost in the instance.】

The second Card was predominantly black.

A black-robed figure stood solemnly and deathly still, holding a Raven Mask. Behind him floated countless black human faces, appearing to weep or scream in terror.

【Identity Card: Plague Doctor】

【Effect: In the upright position, you can resurrect one dead person in the instance; in the inverted position, you will become the deceased, falling forever into the abyss.】

If the first Identity Card gave a feeling of peace and tranquility, the second one was filled with ominous dread.

The Female Teacher’s words echoed in Lin Chen’s ears: “’The Door’ has opened, and the opening of ‘The Tower’ won’t be far off. If you have ‘Cards,’ it’s best to form a new faction from scratch.”

—Were these what she referred to as “Cards”?

“Lin Chen, come here.” Qi Si looked at Lin Chen, who was standing still, and urged him indifferently.

Lin Chen barely snapped back to reality and quickly took a few steps to reach Qi Si.

The strong smell of blood filled his nostrils. He clearly saw the Surgical Knives pinned into Qi Si, immediately triggering empathy for the pain.

He reached out his hand, but ultimately didn’t dare to pull out the Surgical Knives, merely placing the Sea-God Scepter near Qi Si’s hand.

Looking at the bloody mess that was Qi Si, even though he knew he would return to normal after leaving the instance, his voice involuntarily sounded nasal: “Brother Qi, just hold on a little longer. The system prompt is stuck for some reason right now. Wait a bit… it will be fine soon…”

Qi Si was almost possessed by the Sea-God’s remnant soul in the Sea-God Scepter, which is why he ‘kindly’ lent it to Cheng Ping.

This way, the Sea-God had a body, Cheng Ping had divinity, and he obtained a safe Sea-God Scepter—a win-win-win situation.

Lin Chen calmly retrieved the Sea-God Scepter, while Cheng Ping died, turning into a pile of grotesque tentacled monsters. Although the Sea-God’s whereabouts were unknown, it was enough to show that his plan had succeeded.

Name: Sea-God Scepter

Type: Item

Effect: Grants you the ability to role-play a god. (The more sin absorbed, the stronger the effect.)

After absorbing all the sin from the Frog Hospital, the Sea-God Scepter’s effect changed.

Qi Si gazed at the black wave pattern on the scepter’s head, and the meaning behind it automatically formed in his mind.

He learned that in the future, establishing an anchor point would no longer require a specific eerie item; he would only need to let the scepter fully absorb the sin of a certain area to establish a connection with it.

For example, he had now established an anchor point in the Frog Hospital through the scepter, gaining initial control over the place.

Qi Si did not immediately put the Sea-God Scepter back into his inventory; instead, he slightly tilted his head to look at the two Identity Cards Lin Chen held in his right hand.

Lin Chen understood, squatted down, and placed the Identity Cards into Qi Si’s left hand.

The bloodstains automatically reversed direction just before touching the Cards, not staining the Card faces in the slightest.

Qi Si glanced over the effects of the Identity Cards and said softly, “Identity Cards are fragments of history imbued with divine authority. Each player can only choose one to bind, and unbinding is very troublesome.”

“The Undead Shepherd Card focuses on combat strength. Since it can control the undead, its self-preservation ability won’t be too weak. If I remember correctly, you’re ranked 85th on the rookie rank. With the effect of this Card, you might even break into the top fifty.”

“The Plague Doctor’s positive effects are very strong, but its negative effects are deadly; it cannot be used until the very last moment. If you possess the power to revive the dead, you will become a target of contention for major guilds, and your fate will no longer be your own. You might be forced into dangerous situations…”

Qi Si paused for a moment, then said in a joking tone, “If you bind the Undead Shepherd Card, and if I can still leave this instance, then the next time you encounter me, you’ll have a chance to control me. That would just cancel out the Soul Contract I signed with you.”

Lin Chen listened to Qi Si’s analysis, somewhat bewildered, but keenly caught the heavy death aura in his words.

He quickly comforted him, “Brother Qi, don’t talk nonsense. We’ve already completed the main quest; it’s just stuck… You’ll definitely leave this instance alive…”

“No chance,” Qi Si gently shook his head. “Feel my heart. Is it still beating?”

Lin Chen was startled, raising his hand to cover Qi Si’s chest—it was utterly still, without the slightest beat.

He withdrew his hand, his fingertips touching Qi Si’s arm; it was too cold, cold as ice, and the touched area developed dark blue scorch marks within a few breaths.

“Brother… Brother Qi, what exactly happened?”

Qi Si laughed self-deprecatingly, “It’s my skill. I miscalculated the number of uses and used it one too many times, suffering a backlash and being mutated into a Ghost.”

Skill? Soul Contract?

How could someone as meticulous as Qi Si miscalculate?

A flash of lightning crossed his mind, and Lin Chen’s eyes saw the various events when he was controlled by the Puppeteer, sought help from Qi Si, and Qi Si signed the Contract with him.

‘So, this time, are you willing to gamble your life?’

At that time, Qi Si’s tone when he said that was helpless and compassionate.

He had originally thought it was only a question for him, but now it seemed, wasn’t Qi Si also asking himself the same question?

Qi Si couldn’t have made such a basic mistake as miscalculating the number of uses, unless the situation was urgent and sudden, forcing him to activate the skill even after the uses were exhausted.

The answer was obvious.

It was because of him; Qi Si had forcefully activated the Soul Contract skill to help him escape the Puppeteer’s control, which led to the backlash… Lin Chen opened his mouth, wanting to apologize for his carelessness, wanting to say that he wasn’t worth it, that if he couldn’t escape control, he could just die, and there was no need to take such a big risk for him… But he couldn’t utter a single word.

“You don’t need to feel guilty. I’m not a good person; I’ve killed many innocents. Now, I’m just tired of playing and want to find a place to rest. You also don’t need to belittle yourself. Compared to a scumbag like me, whose death is insignificant, it’s clearly more valuable for you to live.”

Qi Si sighed, “Take the Sea-God Scepter with you. It’s related to divine-level secrets, and it might help you clear the Final Dungeon in the future.

“I don’t have many relatives in reality. I’m afraid I’ll have to rot in my room before anyone discovers me… If it’s not too much trouble, could you go to Riverside Estate in Jiangcheng to collect my body?”

Qi Si’s voice was as faint as a wisp of smoke, completely in the tone of making final arrangements.

Lin Chen knelt beside him in a daze, haphazardly wiping the bloodstains from his body with his clothes.

His hand brushed an Identity Card inadvertently. In the illusion triggered by his inspiration, a black-robed doctor slowly put on a Raven Mask, and the undead behind him grew living skin at a visible rate.

Lin Chen gripped the Identity Card, his eyes lighting up. “Brother Qi, as long as I bind the 【Plague Doctor】 Card and draw the upright position, I can revive you!”

Qi Si lowered his eyes and said, “If you draw the reversed position, you’ll die. Going from one death to two deaths is a great loss.”

Lin Chen seemed not to hear him, pressing the 【Plague Doctor】 Card in his hand to his chest.

A huge, black Card phantom flickered behind him, then scattered into rhomboid black fragments and merged into his body.

Two face-down Cards floated between Lin Chen and Qi Si.

Lin Chen casually flipped open one of them—

【Upright Position】.

Lin Chen smiled. “Brother Qi, my luck has always been pretty good.”

A warm white light caressed Qi Si’s body, but no heat remained.

Ghosts are not necessarily the dead, and the process of mutating into a Ghost also seems irreversible.

Qi Si had anticipated this, subtly controlling the Cursed Pendulum hidden in his sleeve to stab his arm several times until it randomly produced the effect of a high fever, making his complexion slightly rosier.

“Thank you, Lin Chen.”

He looked at Lin Chen, smiling genuinely, as if he had truly just been saved from death.

Becoming a Ghost didn’t matter. The Shuangxi Town and Dialectical Game instances had already proven that players mutated into Ghosts could also leave instances.

All of Qi Si’s actions just now were merely using the situation to force Lin Chen to bind the 【Plague Doctor】 Card and abandon the 【Undead Shepherd】 Card.

The ability to revive the dead could be used as a bargaining chip, even if the risk was great, since he wasn’t the one bearing the cost.

At the same time, he didn’t want an ability that could unconditionally control him to exist in the world; the 【Undead Shepherd】 Card had to be sealed.

If the 【Soul Contract】 skill hadn’t been sealed, Qi Si would have unhesitatingly controlled Lin Chen to directly bind the 【Plague Doctor】, without going through so much trouble to induce him to make the choice voluntarily.

However, the current development also had its benefits. Lin Chen seemed to genuinely trust him, so he wouldn’t have to constantly manage him with a Contract, nor worry about complications when the skill was sealed.

Lin Chen was unaware of Qi Si’s thoughts, worriedly examining the Surgical Knife stuck in the young man’s wound. “Brother… Brother Qi, do you need me to pull it out?”

Qi Si knew he was still in his Ghost state, and another touch from Lin Chen would expose him. He immediately refused without changing his expression: “No need, it’s almost over, isn’t it?”

He pushed a red ring in his hand towards Lin Chen, smiling as he asked, “In future instances, are you interested in teaming up?”

Lin Chen picked up the ring, nodding his head like a chick pecking rice. “Yes! I’m interested! I’d love to!”

At the same time, the system interface finally recovered from its lag, and the silver-white text refreshed as expected.

Congratulations, Player, for clearing the team instance Frog Hospital.

(404 not found)

Frog Hospital True End – “Cycle of Suffering” has been recorded.

Automatically teleporting out of the instance in three minutes.

Outside the iron gate, a long-haired woman in white, stained with blood and dragging an umbilical cord, emerged from the woods. She tiptoed to Cheng Ping’s corpse, slowly squatting beside him as if afraid to wake him.

The woman gently embraced Cheng Ping’s head, which was covered in eyeballs and sharp teeth, and bent down to softly kiss the ugly corpse with fondness and reverence.

Cheng Xiaoyu also appeared, throwing himself onto the corpse and wailing. A moment later, he looked up and glared at Qi Si, “Bad guy! You’re a bad guy!”

“Yes, I am a bad guy.” Qi Si smiled, his eyes curving, and gripped the lower handle of the Sea-God Scepter with his left hand, leaning slightly forward.

Golden rain fell from the sky, striking the family of three—Cheng Xiaoyu, his mother, and Cheng Ping—like meteoric lava, igniting a blazing fire.

Cheng Xiaoyu and the woman screamed in agony. The two figures, one large and one small, swayed like rags, twisting, curling, and shrinking in the flames. In just half a minute, they turned into two small mounds of ash.

Qi Si watched the miserable state of the two Ghosts with great interest, his right index finger tapping out a rhythm on the ground.

Catching sight of Lin Chen, who was frozen in place, his smile uncharacteristically held a hint of compassion.

“Who said good people live long lives, anyway…”