Chapter 66

When Xu Ming woke up again, she was already lying on the bed.

The unfamiliar bed was a little hard. The first thing she saw was the unfamiliar ceiling. The white painted wall looked a little dirty under the yellow light, and it seemed to be stained with spots of rust.

The pain in her body was gone, but for some reason, she felt more tired than before after sleeping. She lowered her eyes to look at her exposed arm, only to see that it was tangled with gauze in a mess, and there was a tube connected to the back of her hand. Looking up along the tube, it was a bag of medicine for IV drip.

Is this... a hospital?

Xu Ming thought uncertainly, and a strange smell entered her nose, causing her to frown involuntarily. She struggled to sit up and looked around, then she realized that she was lying in a fairly spacious room. There was a window on the left with swaying shadows of trees outside, and a partition curtain on the right.

There was a call bell and a bedside cabinet at the head of the bed, on which her bag was placed; at the foot of the bed, there was another bed, which was empty at the moment.

It really looked like a ward.

There was a familiar person sitting at the foot of the bed - Lu Yueling was sitting on a small chair beside the bed, with her head tilted, as if dozing off. There was an open novel upside down on her knees, and no one knew where it came from.

Just as Xu Ming was thinking about whether to wake her up, a faint sound came from the other side of the curtain.

"Director?" Lando's voice sounded from behind the curtain, "Are you awake?"

Xu Ming hesitated and responded softly. Lando asked again if he could come over. After getting an affirmative answer, he lifted the curtain between the two of them and looked over.

The curtain was drawn, and the light on Xu Ming's side suddenly became much brighter. The silver fox terrier following Lando was about to jump onto Xu Ming's bed with its tongue sticking out, but was ruthlessly driven down by Lando. After driving her away, he turned around and looked at her face carefully, as if relieved.

"Are you okay?" he asked Xu Ming, "How do you feel now?"

"...I'm okay, but I feel very tired." Xu Ming said in a low voice, and his eyes swept around again, "So we are in the hospital..."

Before he finished speaking, he suddenly paused.

The light was dim before, so she could only see clearly now - the medicine bag hanging on the bedside bracket was clearly empty.

Her line of sight followed the medicine bag to the tube below, and then slid along the tube to the back of her hand. It turned out that there was no needle on the back of her hand. She just stuck the head of the hose on the back of her hand.

...Looking more carefully, the stains on the wall and ceiling did not seem to be rust, but rather a bit red; the swaying thing outside the window did not look like a tree, but more like some kind of giant arthropod. There was no one on the bed opposite, but the mattress was slightly sunken, and the strange smell that penetrated into her nose was not the usual smell of disinfectant in the hospital...

but rather a bit fishy.

"..."Xu Ming was silent for a moment, then hesitantly added another possibility, "Or are we... still in that strange story?"

"That strange story? The one about Guo Shuyi?" Lando shook his head, "That's not it. We've gotten out of it."

Xu Ming heaved a sigh of relief.

"This is another one." Lando continued the second half of the sentence.

"..."Xu Ming held her breath again.

She looked up in disbelief, and met Lando's calm and clear eyes. She opened her mouth slightly, paused for a while, and finally one question jumped out from the question marks in her head: "How did we get in?"

"I called." Landuo said seriously, "I have the contact number here."

Xu Ming: "..."

"No, wait a minute, let me think about it." Xu Ming took a deep breath, raised his hand and rubbed his eyebrows, "I... Forget it, you should tell me from the beginning again."

Too tired, don't want to use your brain. Annoyed.

Landuo cooperated, nodded, and pulled a chair to sit next to Xu Ming. The sound of the chair being pulled finally woke up Lu Yueling who was dozing off. Seeing Xu Ming woke up, she hurried over. Thanks to her, Xu Ming also understood the previous situation in more detail.

First, just as she guessed, they got out of the strange story.

As for the way they got out, it was similar - Xu Ming himself was inexplicably pulled into another space, got on the bus with his memory affected, and left the strange story the moment he got off the bus; Lu Yueling was wandering around the B&B looking for her when she suddenly saw Bonnie. Under her guidance, she pushed open a door and stepped out, and returned to reality the moment she stepped out.

"It's strange." Lu Yueling mentioned this, and she still couldn't figure it out. "Obviously there were a lot of strange things in the B&B at the beginning, but then it became quieter and quieter, and in the end, the red light disappeared..."

Not only that, the whole B&B shook like an earthquake. The wall and bones were falling down. Lu Yueling was so frightened that she returned to the room to look for Xu Ming. Unexpectedly, when she arrived, the room was empty.

However, many footprints could be seen on the dusty ground, as if many people had appeared in this room.

"Really?" Xu Ming frowned, "I didn't see anything."

But after thinking about it carefully, it was strange that she could see anything.

As for Lando, the situation was more chaotic - he was in an open-air scene, surrounded by houses and people coming and going. He was trying to surround Tian Yiliang as much as possible, but the ground suddenly began to shake violently, causing the building to collapse, the crowd to get in chaos, and the several shadow dogs he had called out to get in chaos... The sound of howling hurts my ears now.

Tian Yiliang was almost hit by the collapsed building, so he had to cancel his invisibility. The first thing he asked Landor after canceling his invisibility was: "What on earth is your colleague doing?!"

Such a big commotion!

Landor was busy collecting the shadow dogs, and when he heard the sound, he turned to look at him. The wind wave lifted the strands of hair on his forehead, but his expression did not change. He just pressed the shrunken shadow dog harder into his arms.

"I don't know." He said honestly, "Maybe they are in a hurry, so they just demolished it."

Tian Yiliang: "..."

"Demolish?" He raised his eyebrows slightly and repeated the word as calmly as possible.

Lando nodded, and seeing that he still didn't believe it, he thought about it and added: "It should be."

Tian Yiliang: "...Should?"

"Yeah." Lando picked up the last shadow dog by the neck and said, "Since she said she doesn't want to touch the domain master, she will never touch it unless it is absolutely necessary."

So the current collapse is most likely caused by other behaviors. For example, changing the rules.

Tian Yiliang: "..."

Ah, so in your original action plan, was there really a plan to challenge the Domain Lord?

Tian Yiliang was a little confused. When he heard Su Ming say "It is not recommended to eliminate the Domain Lord", he thought he was lying.

In any case, at this point, it is not a good idea to just sit here and watch the situation. Tian Yiliang quickly made up his mind and took Lando back to the bathroom, intending to teleport to other worlds to see the situation. He hesitated for a moment before leaving, turned around, and quickly wrote down two numbers for Lando.

One is his own contact number. As he said before, he will contact them again to confirm confidentiality, and at the same time hope to continue to exchange information about this strange story-of course, the premise is that they can get out alive.

The second is the phone number of the medical institution that cooperates with Dali to eliminate weeds.

"...I don't know if your demolition office has its own emergency passage, but with such a big commotion, the cost must be high." He handed over a note with a number on it and said, "I may be nosy, but if you need help after you get out, you can go here. They are very professional and very strict."

After handing over the note, he asked Lando to leave first through the transmission point. Lando followed his instructions and passed through the compartment, and the result was the same as the other two people - he

came out directly the moment he passed through the door.

Xu Ming: "..."

"You actually got out like this?" She was still a little unbelievable, "This is too easy."

Without the pre-evolution ghost stories, you can only use the prescribed escape methods to escape; after the evolution of ghost stories, such as Hongqiang Company and Butterfly Building, it is more troublesome. They don't write out the escape routes at all, so people can only figure it out on their own, or even deliberately block the escape routes, forcing people to find another way.

But no matter what, there is always a designated "exit" in the ghost story, and if you want to leave, you can only go there.

It's the first time Xu Ming has seen a ghost story like Guo Shuyi's, where any door can be an exit.

Landor pressed the corners of the quilt for her, and he was not surprised: "This ghost story is different from other ghost stories. It's actually not fully formed yet, the boundaries are not so clear, and the rules themselves are not so solid..."

It is originally a product of humans blindly trying to imitate real ghost stories. No matter how similar it looks on the surface, the foundation is different. Especially after Guo Shuyi became the domain master, this ghost story was completely closed, and there was no chance to grow and improve.

Otherwise, Xu Ming would not have changed its core rules so easily - although there was a price to pay.

In fact, listening to Xu Ming's description, if Guo Shuyi had not been entangled in painful emotions and unable to break free, she might have mastered this strange story earlier.

"I see, that is to say, it is not regular, right?" Xu Ming nodded thoughtfully, feeling that the topic suddenly came to his familiar territory, "Because it is not regular, the rules of the escape route are not so strict, it is more casual... This is understandable."

Her modification helped Guo Shuyi get rid of the nightmare. In return, Guo Shuyi let them leave the strange story directly.

After saying that, he looked up at the ward and frowned again: "Then what? Is this the first aid point that Tian Yiliang mentioned?"

Recalling the last few sentences he heard before he fell into a coma, Xu Ming felt that he had finally sorted things out - she was released into a strange story by Guo Shuyi, but she still had wounds on her body caused by the forced change of the rules. Because such injuries would definitely arouse suspicion if sent to the hospital, Landor sent her to the first aid place recommended by Tian Yiliang. Because he knew that it was easy for her to confuse numbers, he specially asked Lu Yueling to dial the number...

Okay, it makes sense and makes perfect sense.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is why this place is actually a strange story. However, Xu Ming felt that he could understand it. According to Lando's retelling, those professionals could even cooperate with the mutant roots, so it seemed that it was not impossible for them to occupy a strange story as a base...

But Lando shook his head.

"No." He said, "This is my other contact."

Xu Ming: "?"

"I don't doubt Mr. Tian. But I'm not sure what will happen if I go there." Lando explained, "If they want to check your identity documents, you can't hide your real name."

Although he didn't quite understand why Xu Ming wanted to make up a new name for herself, "Shan Ming", but since Xu Ming did this, it meant that she didn't want Tian Yiliang to discover her identity. Lando could still figure this out.

So after a brief entanglement, he still contacted this "hospital" and asked them to send someone to pick Xu Ming up.

"Oh..." Xu Ming nodded in confusion, "That is to say, this is a strange ghost story..."

She looked at her right hand wrapped in gauze with some worry, and asked after thinking: "So where is this place?"

Lando answered smoothly: "Tianyu Eye Hospital."

Xu Ming: "..."

Such a formal name. It sounds much more formal than "Ghost Story Relocation Office".

However, why is it "Ophthalmology"?

Xu Ming didn't understand. After thinking about it, she shook the back of her hand that was against the hose: "Then this bit of playing house, what is..."

"Oh, that's playing house." This time it was Lu Yueling who answered. After she followed Xu Ming Landuo into the hospital, she had been watching Xu Ming's treatment process. "After the nurses treated your wounds, they were all planning to leave. One of them suddenly said that it was so hard to get a living person here, and it would be ungraceful to end the treatment like this..."

...So they pretended to put a soft tube on me, hung an empty medicine bag, and gave me an IV with their mind, right?

Xu Ming felt that he understood, but it seemed that he didn't understand. After a brief thought, she finally decided to give up understanding.

"But don't say anything." She touched the gauze wrapped around her shoulders and sighed, "Their bandaging technique is quite good..."

"Oh, that's also part of the ritual sense." Lu Yueling said mercilessly, "You'll know when you open one."

"......???" Xu Ming was startled when he heard this, and quickly pulled off the gauze wrapped around his right hand, and then his eyes widened in shock.

There were no wounds on her right hand. There was only a long red mark left, running diagonally across the entire back of her hand.

Blinking in shock, she tried to remove the one on her arm and found the same thing - under the gauze, there were long red marks all over, and the same was true on her legs and shoulders.

It was as if all the wounds had tried their best to close themselves when she couldn't see them. The process of healing, scabbing and growing flesh was skipped, and it went straight to the stage of blood scabs falling off.

... Although some scars may still be left, this was already a surprise enough for Xu Ming.

"Is the director of this hospital your friend?" She looked at Lando in surprise, "The treatment effect is too good."

It reminded her of the one-key restoration technique of the Rubik's Cube Building's supervisor.

Unexpectedly, Landor shook his head again.

"She is not my friend." He said, pursing his lips slightly, as if thinking of something unhappy. Then he said, "She is not 'treating' you."

Xu Ming: "?"

"She just made a replacement for you." Lando explained, "Using your future physical strength in exchange for the healing of the wound..." "

???" Xu Ming was even more surprised, "It can be like this?"

After thinking about it, he realized something was wrong: "Wait, what do you mean by 'future physical strength'..."

"That is, in the next month or so, you will be weaker. You may also be sleepy." Lando said, carefully observing Xu Ming's expression, "This exchange... do you think it's okay?"

"Your condition was very bad at the time, so I let her handle it first. If you think this is not good, then I will talk to her and ask her to change the replacement..."

Generally speaking, there is no room for bargaining or regret in such matters. But if it was Xu Ming, he should be able to change it once more.

"..." Xu Ming listened, but showed some thought.

According to Landor, he and this strange domain master should be old acquaintances, and he was able to get treatment this time because of his favor. But favors are consumables. Besides, it is hard to say what kind of personality the Territory Lord has and whether he has ill will towards me...

"Forget it." After a moment of silence, Xu Ming resigned himself to lying back on the bed. "It's good that it can be cured. Anyway, I don't have anything to do next, so I'll just lie down."

"By the way, when can we be discharged from the hospital?"

"We have to go through the procedures." Lando said immediately, standing up and picking up the silver fox terrier that had been clinging to the edge of the bed. "Wait a moment, I'll go ask."

After that, he walked out quickly with the dog in his arms, leaving Xu Ming with only his brisk back.

... I don't know if it was Xu Ming's illusion, but he seemed quite happy to hear that he proposed to leave.

Turning his head again, he met Lu Yueling's eyes staring at him again. Xu Ming asked in confusion why he was looking at me, but Lu Yueling just curled her lips.

"See if you're dead." She muttered softly, bent down and picked up a novel from the ground - the one that was on her lap before. She had just seen Xu Ming wake up, and she was so surprised that she moved too much, and accidentally shook the book to the ground.

After saying this, she pretended to look at Xu Ming for a few more times, until she was sure that he was really fine, she curled her lips, picked up the novel and continued reading, and while reading, she didn't forget to pull the chair closer to the bed.

Xu Ming looked at her with some amusement, and asked about the origin of the book. When he learned that she borrowed it from the sister at the nurse station outside, he raised his eyebrows in surprise, turned his head to look at the gloomy surroundings, and couldn't help feeling a strong sense of unreality.

Who would have thought that in my lifetime, I would actually recuperate in a strange hospital... Are you sure there is nothing wrong with this?

Looking at Lando wiping the floor for so long, Xu Ming asked himself that he still trusted him. But it's hard to say for his friend, the master of strange stories.

But no matter what, he's here. At present, it seems that he can only wait and see.

Xu Ming thought silently, sighed secretly, and his eyes passed over his empty wrist. Suddenly he thought of something and turned his gaze to the bag on the bedside table.

She tried to reach out, but it was still a little difficult to lift it with one hand. Fortunately, Lu Yueling had been paying close attention to this place, and when she saw this, she quickly took it for her. Xu Ming thanked him, propped himself up and leaned against the head of the bed, opened the bag and looked around, and was glad to find that all her things were inside, not a single thing was missing.

As a modern person, she naturally touched her mobile phone first - thankful for her good habit of carrying a fully charged power bank with her, at least this time, her mobile phone was saved.

It was probably because she had stayed in reality for a short time before entering this strange story, and her mobile phone was now full of unread messages. Anyway, she couldn't reply now, so Xu Ming didn't look at it carefully, and only paid attention to the time.

The date on the phone showed that it was three days after she entered Guo Shuyi's ghost story, and the time was two o'clock in the afternoon. I just don't know if it's accurate.

Putting down the phone, Xu Ming reached into the bag again. This time, what he took out was the book of rule number nine.

Without that person to serve as the cover. This book looks ordinary. With the cover of Lu Yueling, Xu Ming carefully opened the book, and after turning over several pages, he found the bracelet inside.

The bracelet that Guo Shuyi gave her, which was half toffee and half matches, was now presented in the form of a picture inside the book. Below the picture was a neatly written handwritten description:

[A gift from a certain private organization, a bracelet with two decorations. By touching different decorations on the bracelet, you can temporarily gain the following different abilities:

[Sleepwalker: You can separate your consciousness from your current body and move as a sleepwalker. When you are in this state, you will not be able to use other abilities in the rulebook except those given in this series, and your own distortion characteristics will be invalid.

[The characteristics of a sleepwalker are similar to those of a dead person. In reality, you will be ignored by most living people and can ignore most physical rules; in ghost stories, you can only move like a normal person and can be seen by all beings.

[You can set the physical qualities and appearance of the sleepwalker at will. If the sleepwalker is injured, in most cases it will not affect your original body. The sleepwalking state does not require any extra energy, but please take care of your body and remember to return in time.

[If the body is subjected to a strong impact, the sleepwalking state will be forced to end. ]

[Dream simulation: It can be used in the strange story area. You can choose the 'room' or 'traffic space' you are currently in to perform a one-to-one scene simulation. The simulated scene will completely replicate the original scene, including the rules within the scene and the changes that may occur due to the rules.

[You can simulate the dream alone or designate others to enter. But only one person can enter at a time.

[The longest duration of the simulated dream is fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, the simulated dream will be forced to end. The same scene can only be simulated once. If you want to simulate it again, you need to pay a random price. 】

"Hmm..."

Xu Ming looked at the densely packed lines of words and pursed his lips in thought.

She didn't need to look at the second simulated dream for now. Anyway, she wouldn't go anywhere in the next month, and she wouldn't lie at home and get into a strange story. As for the first one...

it seemed to be very suitable for letting go of herself.

Xu Ming looked at the one that said "You can pinch your body and face at will" and moved his fingers curiously.

I just don't know what Guo Shuyi and the others are like now.

Since Guo Shuyi is awake, will the strange story be closed again? But according to Landor's retelling, it seems that Dali Zhicao doesn't think that this solves the problem...

Thinking of this, Xu Ming felt a little worried again. Recalling what Guo Shuyi said to her on the bus, she couldn't help but feel confused - after all, the other party clearly said "goodbye" to her at that time.

It seems that there is also some mention of rent... What does that mean?

Xu Ming pondered for a while and shook his head in confusion. He lowered his head and casually turned the page of the notebook, but his eyes stopped again.

I saw that a pattern had appeared on that page at some point.

A keyhole-like pattern. Looking closely, it looks a bit like a match. It occupies a page alone and looks very conspicuous.

Looking at the match pattern, Xu Ming instantly thought of Guo Shuyi again. She reached out and tried to touch it, and her fingertips really felt a strange flow, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't trigger more feedback.

... So, what does this mean?

Xu Ming frowned in confusion, and was thinking about trying it in a different way, but she heard Lu Yueling's low "Huh" sound - Xu Ming immediately closed the book reflexively and quickly raised her head: "What's wrong?"

"No, nothing." Lu Yueling was startled by her reaction, and immediately raised her hand and pointed upwards, "

I just saw this..." "Look, there's a cat."

Xu Ming: ...?

Looking up, she saw a cat above her.

A silver-gray cat. It was hanging upside down on the ceiling, walking towards her step by step. The blue eyes were shining with a faint light.

...It was still a fairy cat.

Even from this weird angle, it was not difficult to see that the other party had round eyes, a big and beautiful face - it could be said to be quite beautiful.

I don’t know if it was Xu Ming’s illusion, but the moment their eyes met, the cat’s tail seemed to move.

Xu Ming: “...???”

For some reason, she had a familiar feeling.

Before she could figure out what that familiar feeling was, she saw the beautiful cat loosen its claws and fall straight from the ceiling -

halfway through the fall, it suddenly turned around beautifully, and the next second it landed steadily on Xu Ming’s bed. With a pink paw, a long tail, and a raised head, it called sweetly to Xu Ming:

"Meow——"