hapter 209: Frog Hospital (Part 1) Hemophobia

“Croak, croak, croak…”

The continuous croaking of frogs echoed, coming from all directions, merging into a single sound that shot straight to the sky.

The sound was muffled by buildings and distant, distorted by the reverberation, making it sound more like a baby’s cry.

Qi Si, annoyed by the noise, opened his eyes to a mold-stained ceiling.

The distinct smell of hospital disinfectant, which he had smelled a few days ago, filled his nostrils. This time, however, the smell was even more unpleasant, mixed with faint traces of blood, urine, and the putrid stench of decaying flesh, almost making him vomit.

He lay on a cold, hard iron bed without a mattress, making it particularly uncomfortable; moving his gaze to the side, he saw a low iron stand with a pair of black, flat-rimmed glasses on it.

Qi Si sat up, his head suddenly spinning as if from low blood sugar, his vision a blur of white.

He almost fell back onto the bed.

【instance Name: Frog Hospital】

【instance Type: Team Survival】

【Pre-requisite Hint: “Life” is born from “death,” and “death” ends in “life”】

As the instance information refreshed, the croaking gradually softened and then fell silent after half a minute. Qi Si’s dizziness also eased.

The pre-requisite hint was as vague as ever, but new text quickly refreshed:

【This instance is a high-level role-playing instance. You must strictly play your role in this instance to avoid arousing suspicion from instance NPCs.】

【Note: If NPC suspicion is aroused, the failure rate will increase by 5%~20% depending on the situation.】

A role-playing instance? It was almost as if it was tailor-made for him… Qi Si looked at the Rose Heart and Human Skin Mask in his inventory and didn’t believe the Eerie Game would be so kind.

Throwing him, who had a clear advantage in role-playing, into a multiplayer instance was very unfair to other players. He didn’t believe other players would have similar proficiency in role-playing.

Unless, some troublesome negative effects were imposed on him to balance the strength… The 【Failure Rate】 column refreshed in the upper left corner, with a value of 【0%】.

Below it was a line of annotation: 【The higher the failure rate, the easier it is to be repelled by the instance world; once the failure rate reaches 100%, it is judged as a instance failure.】

This meant that failing to role-play in this instance couldn’t be salvaged by external operations, unlike in normal instances.

Once the failure rate was full, even with the Pocket Watch of Fate, Cursed Pendulum, or Crimson High Priest, he would still be doomed.

Qi Si asked, “What exactly does ‘repelled by the instance world’ manifest as?”

【You will be more susceptible to hostility from NPCs and targeting from Ghosts.】

Qi Si thought for a moment, then asked, “Can you provide me with specific information about the character I’m playing? Like their identity, personality, and characteristics?”

He waited for two seconds but received no response. It seemed he would have to discover all this information himself.

Qi Si noticed that he was covered by a white lab coat that had already pilled from washing, but the cuffs and hem, areas prone to getting dirty, were spotless.

It seemed the character he was playing was very clean, which was good news.

If he had to play a slovenly person, he felt he would immediately stab himself in the eyes with the Cursed Pendulum and end his miserable life.

He picked up the lab coat, shook it twice, and put it on. He saw a plastic badge pinned to the right side of his chest, also polished to a shine.

On the business card inside, the name field was blank, the organization was 【Blue Frog Hospital】, and the position was 【Doctor】.

It was unclear what department the doctor belonged to; the preceding characters were blacked out with a neat black rectangle, perhaps intentionally by the game to increase difficulty, or perhaps hinting at something.

A fountain pen was inserted into the pocket next to the plastic badge. As Qi Si’s gaze swept over it, a line of text popped up in the void:

【Please write down your name.】

It seemed the character’s name could be set by the player. The game still had some bottom line, not setting hurdles in such a trivial place as a name.

Qi Si wasn’t in a hurry to write his name. Instead, he got out of bed and observed his surroundings.

This was an operating room, clearly abandoned for a long time, with various mops, brooms, bedding, and washbasins piled in the corners. The walls and edges, however, were still quite tidy, suggesting regular cleaning.

The door was ajar, and lights were on outside, a line of white light leaking through the crack and falling diagonally across Qi Si.

He pushed the door open and saw rows of patient rooms packed together like cold storage units in a funeral home, with a banner hanging from the ceiling that read, “Humans must control themselves.”

Iron benches were embedded in the corridor walls, with men and women in patient gowns sitting sparsely.

Without exception, they were all sallow and emaciated, with prominent blue veins on their bony arms, sunken and hollow eyes, and pale lips revealing teeth stained with a muddy yellow, like zombies freshly dug from graves.

They were mostly patients of this Blue Frog Hospital; it was unclear what diseases they had, but their poor condition was evident to the naked eye.

Upon seeing Qi Si, the patients exchanged glances, and a sense of awe mixed with hostility spread through the air.

Qi Si noticed it and subtly tightened his grip on the pendulum on his right wrist.

Fortunately, due to some unknown deterrent, these patients remained silent and showed no intention of causing trouble for the medical staff.

Qi Si also pretended not to see them and looked at the propaganda posters on the wall.

The most striking poster featured a middle-aged man in a white lab coat, wearing black-rimmed glasses, smiling kindly. Small text below revealed his name was “Cheng Ping,” and he was the hospital director.

The other posters were certificates and banners the hospital had received, typically about saving lives, bringing people back from the brink of death, or meeting hygiene and medical qualification standards. The spaces where dates should have been were blank.

Not just the dates, but the detailed descriptive text was blurred like smudged ink, as if written and then immediately wiped away, leaving only a few key phrases visible.

However, knowing the director’s name was enough.

Qi Si retreated into the room, avoiding the patients’ gazes, picked up the pen, and wrote “Cheng Ping” in the name field on the badge.

The next second, the character “Ping” dissipated like ink dropped into a bucket, and a line of prompt text popped up:

【You cannot have the same name as an important NPC in the instance.】

Hmm, it seems the director is a key figure.

Qi Si, ever adaptable, wrote the character “An” after “Cheng” in the blank space—【Cheng An】.

This name looked like it had a close connection to Director Cheng Ping. Although he didn’t know if it would affect the NPCs’ perception, there was no harm in trying.

Then, he picked up the glasses from the iron stand and put them on.

The prescription wasn’t high; he only felt dizzy for a moment before getting used to it, even feeling that the world became much clearer.

He adjusted his appearance in front of the fire door, the reflective iron sheet showing his face wearing the Human Skin Mask.

He looked refined and scholarly, with a hint of dark red swirling in his pupils, not lacking in intelligence, like a liberal arts college student.

Ready, Qi Si pushed the door open again.

A masked nurse walked from another corridor, her eyes lighting up when she saw him, and she quickly changed direction and walked towards him.

The nurse wore an old white uniform stained with unwashed bloodstains. If she stood on the street, she would definitely not be associated with “saving lives and helping the injured,” but rather with a perverted killer cosplaying as a nurse.

Qi Si looked at her, and his head inexplicably started to spin again; the low blood sugar feeling returned.

The nurse stopped in front of Qi Si and asked with concern, “Doctor Cheng, are you feeling better after resting? You suddenly fainted on the operating table; we were all very worried about you.”

Qi Si then understood that he had been sent to the abandoned operating room to rest after fainting.

Judging by the nurse’s attitude, the character he was playing had good interpersonal relationships, but he didn’t know if he was outwardly cold but inwardly warm, or consistent in appearance and reality.

Considering he had just fainted once, he held his forehead and smiled palely and weakly: “I’m better, thank you.”

The failure rate hadn’t increased, meaning he was playing his role well.

The nurse said with some hesitation, “The director already knows about your condition. He suggests you stop working for now, receive treatment with peace of mind, and only return to the operating table after you’ve recovered.”

Qi Si bowed his head in silence.

It seemed he didn’t faint from exhaustion or low blood sugar, but from some illness. Recovering from an illness in reality only to get sick again in the instance was quite humorous in a way.

However, what was his illness in this instance?

The nurse didn’t get a reply and assumed Qi Si was dissatisfied with the director’s arrangement. She raised her right fist and encouraged him, “Comrade Cheng An, we all know you work hard, but’sharpening the knife does not delay the woodcutting.’ Only by taking care of your body can you continue to fight on the front lines.

“The director has already made the decision, and a bed has been cleared for you—the one from before.”

【Current task refreshed】

【Current task: Check into a patient room as a “patient.”】

Qi Si’s words of refusal stopped on his lips. He really wanted to ask, “Which ‘one’ is ‘that one’?” but if he did, the failure rate would definitely increase.

“Alright, thank you for your trouble.” He nodded, as if suddenly remembering something, and asked, “Have all my duties been handed over?”

“The surgery has been transferred to Doctor Wan. You just need to focus on recovering.” The nurse’s voice took on a smile. “If you really can’t stay idle, you can join me on rounds.”

This was exactly what Qi Si wanted.

He smiled and said, “Okay,” then walked directly to the orderly who was mopping the floor in a corner of the corridor, and politely said, “Excuse me, when you’re done mopping, could I trouble you to put the mop by the door of my patient room? I’d like to clean up a bit myself.”

The orderly smiled apologetically, “Doctor Cheng, you’re too kind. I’ll just help you mop it up when I’m done.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the nurse said cheerfully. “Doctor Cheng is just like that; he only feels at ease if he takes care of the hygiene himself.”

Qi Si added with a smile, “If possible, could I trouble you to hang the rag on my bed rail as well?”

After the orderly agreed, he also joked a few words.

With limited information, saying more meant more chances of making mistakes.

Qi Si feigned the appearance of someone who had just woken up and was still very weak, maintaining a peaceful silence.

He always felt that the style of this instance was different from the previous ones he had experienced. The NPCs’ behavior was too natural, too real; it didn’t feel like an Eerie Game design, but rather like living people.

If he showed any flaws, he likely wouldn’t be able to easily muddle through as before, under the Eerie Game’s cognitive distortion effect.

The nurse, holding a yellowed white registration book, entered each patient room for rounds.

Qi Si followed closely behind her, taking the opportunity to investigate the environment and the condition of the personnel.

The patient rooms were simply decorated, lacking facilities like showers, toilets, and televisions, though some rooms had radios on their bedside tables, models from the last century.

Most patients looked sickly and seemed to have been hungry for a long time. Along the way, he also saw many pregnant women whose bellies were only slightly distended, far from their due dates, and he wondered why they were there.

At the end of the corridor was the operating room. Rust-stained doors bore grayish-black smudges, and the tiles at the edges were broken and peeling, exuding an unsettling sense of age.

A gaunt man, likely a patient’s family member, sat on a chair outside the door.

As Qi Si approached, the noisy croaking of frogs sounded again in his ears, but upon closer listening, it resembled a baby’s cry.

The sound seemed to be coming from the operating room.

He frowned slightly, stopped beside the bench, and was about to strike up a conversation with the man when the iron door of the operating room suddenly opened before his eyes.

A gurney wrapped in a human-shaped sheet was pushed out, accompanied by words like “massive hemorrhage” and “death,” creating a suffocating sensation.

And Qi Si could no longer hear anything else.

He saw large patches of bright red bloodstains seeping through the white sheet, spreading across his vision like free paint, quickly consuming everything.

The croaking exploded, his brain felt as if filled with countless iron shards, constantly colliding and making noise. His vision flickered with red and white patches, like a malfunctioning electrical screen, before plunging into complete darkness a few seconds later.

Qi Si fell forward, finally realizing what illness—or rather, negative status—he had in this instance.

Hemophobia.

A doctor who performs surgery having hemophobia was truly quite comical.

Unfortunately, Qi Si couldn’t laugh at the moment.

In the last second before his consciousness bottomed out, he had only one thought: From now on, if he wanted to kill someone, would he only be able to consider bloodless methods?