Chapter 15: A Conversation Between the Big Shots of Xincheng Hospital
12 noon.
A "ding-dong" sound rang in everyone's mind.
[Game time is over!]
[Exploration progress calculation in progress...]
Congratulations to the player for clearing the beginner dungeon [Xincheng Hospital]!
As the game completed its level, Xia Wanwan's vision went black.
When Xia Wanwan opened her eyes again, she found herself standing by Lotus Lake.
It was evening, and Lotus Lake was still the same Lotus Lake, with groups of people strolling along its shore... Everything was exactly the same as before entering the game.
If it weren't for the semi-transparent game panel floating in front of her, she would have thought she was dreaming.
The game panel also displayed scrolling text:
[In the game instance [Xincheng Hospital], you gained 37,976 followers, and the peak viewership in your live stream was... In summary, you earned a total of 125 game coins in the [Xincheng Hospital] instance. Game coins can be exchanged for the player's local currency at a ratio of 1:100.]
At the very bottom is a bright red warning line—
Players are prohibited from disclosing any game-related information in their world in any form.
She's out!
She's finally out of the game!
She beat the game! And there were even rewards?! And the rewards can be exchanged for money!!!
However, her excitement was short-lived. After calming down, Xia Wanwan looked at the scene before her and suddenly couldn't laugh anymore.
Liu Yang stood beside her, looking somewhat bewildered. Not far away, Lin Yarong and Cheng Jianshu noticed them. Lin Yarong waved to her, and the two of them came over.
The sunset glow reflected on the lake, and the emerald green lotus leaves in the center of the lake stretched out as one.
The four of them came out.
But only the four of them came out.
.
Shi Yu and Shen Su, who were being thought of by Xia Wanwan, were having a great time in the game.
The system suddenly stopped working during the calculation process.
[Exploration progress calculation in progress...]
[Exploration progress calculation in progress...]
[Player Shi Yu's exploration level is detected to be below 80, therefore a penalty is imposed... sizzle... penalty... sizzle ...
After about ten seconds of buzzing, the system returned to normal.
[System detection indicates that player Shi Yu has accepted the hidden side quest "[Upside-down Xincheng Hospital]" at Xincheng Hospital, therefore no penalty will be imposed at this time.]
[If players successfully complete the hidden side quest, the penalty will be waived and the reward will be doubled.]
Best of luck!
After reading the system information, Shi Yu looked up and her gaze met Chen Su's. Chen Su had probably just finished reading the information as well.
Since it was just the two of them in the ward, neither of them felt awkward.
They stared at each other for about five seconds before speaking at the same time.
"Shall we go to the small garden tonight?"
"I plan to go to the small garden tonight."
About two more seconds passed.
The two simultaneously looked away and went about their own business.
The live stream chat was filled with question marks:
So what? And then what? What were you doing in the little garden? Why did you stop talking? Tell us!
[Is the kind of conversation between big shots something you can understand?]
[Didn't they have a bad relationship?]
[Does their bad relationship and unspoken understanding have a direct connection to this? No! Just like knowing they're about to die, does that affect my shipping them? No!]
...
Shi Yu's thought was that since they saw the ghost in the ward and triggered the hidden side quest, it meant that the game required items to trigger certain tasks. They hadn't found any key clues after playing the game for so many days, so could it be that they had been looking in the wrong direction? All they found in the hospital were Lin Qinghe's personal belongings.
To learn about Lin Qinghe's story, perhaps you should go to him in person.
Of course, you can't find the person; you can only find his ghost.
Lin Qinghe's ghost isn't in the office; it's more likely at the burial site.
.
The nurses only brought two meals at noon today and told Shi Yu and Shen Su, "The four of them have recovered and been discharged. Your condition has also improved, so you don't need to undergo daily rehabilitation treatment anymore. Observe for three more days, and you can be discharged if everything is fine."
Xia Wanwan and the other three completed the game and left, which the nurse described as "recovery and discharge." The other two accepted a side quest that extended their game time by three days, which meant they were now "under observation for another three days."
Hmm, not bad, very meticulous, these NPCs have been trained.
As the nurse was leaving, Shen Su called her back.
"Miss." Shen Su's eyes crinkled, and a smile revealed two small tiger teeth. "Now that our condition has improved, we'd like to go out and get some sunshine and take a walk, is that alright?"
The nurse thought for a few seconds and said, "Okay, but you can't stay out for too long. You need to get plenty of rest."
Shen Su nodded and said okay, then thanked him, looking very well-behaved.
They could now freely enter and exit the ward, and it seemed like there were fewer restrictions, but the conditions for passing through still puzzled them.
Survive until the instance ends?
Currently, there doesn't seem to be any danger in the hospital, and surviving until the dungeon ends shouldn't be difficult. However, considering the exemption from punishment and double rewards, this side quest won't be easy.
Therefore, neither of them let their guard down.
Although they no longer needed exploration points, they still wanted to figure out some things.
After lunch, the two left the ward. Their plan for the day was to go to the small garden at night to encounter Lin Qinghe's ghost, and during the day to try their luck in the dean's office to see if they could meet the current "Dean Lin".
I thought it would be difficult to see the dean, but when I got to the dean's office, the dean happened to be there.
A man in a white lab coat and silver-rimmed glasses sat upright behind a red solid wood desk, exuding a refined and scholarly air. He was signing some document with a royal blue fountain pen in his right hand. Hearing the noise, he looked up and smiled at them: "Hello, what can I do for you?"
Shen Su was better at chatting, so the conversation with "Dean Lin" was left to Shen Su, while Shi Yu listened in.
At this moment, they were patients, and Shen Su asked Lin Qinghe some questions about his condition.
Lin Qinghe answered all the questions, and his answers were flawless.
Furthermore, throughout the process, this "Lin Qinghe" was almost identical to the Dean Lin Qinghe that Shi Yu had met before, in terms of his smile, tone of voice, and demeanor.
I must say, the acting was incredibly realistic.
She has a firm grasp on the aspect of temperament.
As she left, Shi Yu pretended to casually glance at the calligraphy and paintings on the wall.
“The moon is bright, the wind is gentle, what a cool night!” Shi Yu recited the poem softly, then casually asked, “Did Dean Lin write this calligraphy himself?”
Lin Qinghe shook his head, his face still bearing a gentle yet warm smile: "No, this was written by my father." His answer would have ended there, but for some reason he added, "It was given to me and my brother."
He spoke these words rather quickly, and Lin Qinghe's expression changed slightly for a moment, but he quickly put on a perfect smile again, making the change seem like an illusion.
Shi Yu and Shen Su were surprised that this "Lin Qinghe" would bring up his family. Shen Su followed up by asking, "Dean Lin has a younger brother?"
"Yes, this poem contains my name and my brother's name. My name is Lin Qinghe, and his name is Lin Fengbai."
"Qinghe? Fengbai? What wonderful names! With Dean Lin being so outstanding, his younger brother must be equally remarkable." Shen Su nodded with admiration and casually asked, "May I ask what Dean Lin's younger brother does?"
“He’s abroad, so he can do whatever he wants…” Lin Fengbai paused here, a subtle change in his expression, before speaking faster as if someone was urging him on, “He’s also a doctor.”
"Both brothers are doctors?" Shen Su suddenly realized, then looked on with envy. "That's great, being a doctor is wonderful. Dean Lin looks so young, the two of them are truly accomplished at such a young age. Dean Lin's family must be very happy."
Lin Fengbai relaxed, put down his pen, crossed his arms, and slowly smiled, as if pleased by a certain remark.
"Yes, I'm very happy."
.
After their chat ended, Shi Yu and Shen Su said goodbye to Lin Fengbai. Back in room 305, Shi Yu said, "He gave me a strange feeling."
Shen Su filled two disposable paper cups with water and handed one to Shi Yu: "What do you mean?"
Shi Yu took the water and took a sip: "He played Dean Lin Qinghe very well, but during our conversation just now, he also gave me a feeling of incongruity."
Shi Yu took another sip of water, and belatedly realized that the water wasn't cold; it was lukewarm.
Is Shen Su starting to focus on health at such a young age?
He glanced at Shen Su and continued, "Of course, that's understandable. After all, no one can truly become another person. Even if they look exactly the same, even if their behavior and temperament are imitated perfectly, you can still see the difference in some details."
"This also proves that Lin Qinghe is indeed Lin Fengbai in disguise."
"What I find strange is..."
Shi Yu is usually very quiet, only becoming more talkative when analyzing things. Shen Su, who is usually very talkative, sat quietly in a chair by the window, listening to him. Sunlight cast a silhouette on the wooden floor.
“I can’t understand some of his actions. He killed his own brother to take his place in order to prevent the truth from being exposed. He should have hoped that his original identity and his family would never be mentioned again. But he took the initiative to bring it up, and even deliberately steered the conversation to the identity of ‘younger brother’, which was no longer useful and was very easy to expose.”
"When asked 'What does your younger brother do?' he seemed reluctant to answer at first, but then suddenly changed his mind for some reason. Lin Fengbai is also a doctor, and the same profession allows for better disguise. Isn't that essentially giving us information? What's even stranger is his last sentence. A pair of estranged twins saying they have a happy family is very strange, isn't it?"
Shen Su nodded after listening: "I feel the same way."
But Shi Yu had already said what he wanted to say, so he changed his perspective: "Do you think it might be a game setting? No matter how crazy Lin Fengbai is, he's still an NPC in the game and has to obey the system. And the system gives us some hints through the NPC's words?"
Shi Yu suddenly opened her eyes wide, slightly opened her mouth, and her expression was a little blank.
Shen Su stopped drinking water and fixed his gaze on Shi Yu's face.
However, this expression only lasted for a second.
"Your perspective is quite novel." Shi Yu regained her normal expression and nodded approvingly. "Indeed, we are in a game, and sometimes we have to set aside some logic."
The screen was flooded with question marks again, this time with a prefix:
[Game Design Team: ? ? ? ? ? ? ]
[Game Design Team: What did you say? Say it again?!]
Although they didn't say anything, the game design team felt like they had been criticized.
[I'm happy the planning team got scolded, it's so exciting and hilarious!]
...
As night fell, two figures emerged from Ward 1 and headed towards the small garden.
The hospital was brightly lit at night, but shadowy figures lurked around it.
However, the ghosts still couldn't see them, so Shi Yu and Shen Su traveled smoothly without any obstacles.
Before going to the small garden, they went to the tool shed to pick up hoes, shovels, and flashlights. They were able to find the tool shed smoothly thanks to the hospital map drawn by Cheng Jianshu.
The small garden was more eerie at night than during the day, and the chill went straight to your head.
This also explains why they felt cold in the small garden when they went out for fresh air during the day.
How could it not be chilling with corpses buried underneath?
They didn't dig aimlessly. The land that was dug up was different from the surrounding land; the soil would be softer and the color would be different from the soil that hadn't been disturbed.
They dug out a leg bone by hoeing the soft soil.
The meat had rotted away, leaving only bare bones. And the bones weren't even intact; they had been chopped off, with uneven cuts, showing that the person who chopped them wasn't very skilled.
The two men split up and dug out more than a dozen pits, finding twenty hand bones, twelve leg bones, a pile of chopped ribs, and two incomplete skulls... and they had only dug less than half of the small garden.
More than one person is buried here.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com