Chapter 1183: The Familiar Figure Behind
As Lin Sanjiu cautiously approached the door, it closed automatically.
She crouched down as soon as she caught a glimpse of the transparent window on the door. After waiting two seconds and hearing no unusual sounds from behind the door, she straightened up slightly and looked through the window.
Since she entered the lower levels of the hospital, her vision had been shrouded in stubborn mist. Now, the clarity was almost nonexistent with another layer of foggy translucent material. Even if she squinted her eyes and looked carefully for a while, she could only make out a faint shadow that seemed to be a person, but she couldn't see any clues.
Since the half-hearted exclamation, Red Face seemed to have vanished into thin air, not making a single sound.
Aren't horror movie protagonists usually like this?
Lin Sanjiu placed her hand on the doorknob, hesitating for a moment. She knew something was amiss, yet she still wanted to enter. The most sensible thing to do now would be to turn around and leave.
However, the wise wouldn't have ransacked the payment counter in the first place.
After covering herself with a [Defense Forcefield], firmly planting one foot on the floor outside the door, and tearing off a piece of an old-style gas mask from the [Penguin Children's Pop-Up Book], Lin Sanjiu felt like she had employed almost all the defensive measures she could think of. She wouldn't walk in like Red Face; she would just glance inside. If anything was wrong, she would immediately retract her head.
The door crack gradually widened. Even if the room was illuminated, the light would certainly be dim. The dark fog stubbornly entangled and swirled in her vision, refusing to yield to her gaze. A faint chemical smell hung in the air, and the silence was absolute.
Lin Sanjiu gently closed the door and stood outside, patting her gas mask. The sweat on her back had dried, making it sticky, and her muscles were sore, but apart from that, she was fine.
She opened the door again, this time pulling it halfway open so that the light from the laboratory would illuminate the dim, medicinally scented room. Only the internal lights of the hospital could disperse the dark mist, and her vision became a bit clearer. A face full of black holes emerged from the fog, floating straight toward her, staring intently.
Lin Sanjiu nearly released a low exclamation and almost bumped into the door while stepping backward.
The face remained motionless in the dim light, its features and contours eroded and indistinct. But something about it grabbed her attention and froze her in place.
She waited a few seconds, and when she saw that the guard remained motionless, seemingly unable to see her, she managed to control her heartbeat. She leaned in to take a closer look.
Red Face lay not far from the entrance, with his limbs twisted and splayed open. There were no visible injuries on him. The guard stood in front of his head in a peculiar posture, as if someone had fallen and was trying to get up, but the process was frozen. He bent his knees, leaned forward, and slightly raised his head as if his attention had been drawn to the person who pushed open the door. However, even after locking eyes with Lin Sanjiu for several seconds, the guard remained like a specimen with no response.
It was as if he was dead.
For some reason, something about this guard made Lin Sanjiu's stomach churn uncomfortably, causing cold sweat on her forehead. She wanted to enter and look closer but couldn't take a single step inside. After considering it for a while, she made up her mind.
She couldn't go inside, but she could pull the guard out. If she deactivated [Defense Forcefield], her Higher Consciousness should be enough to serve as a rope. However, before pulling him out, she needed to open the door completely and use something to keep it open, leaving enough space.
Lin Sanjiu thought about it and looked back at the narrow, quiet laboratory. The long metal countertops embedded in the floor were dimly arranged in the dim field of view. Several X-ray machines stood silently, not far behind her, still in the positions where Red Face had pushed them.
"They're too big; they could block the doorway," Mrs. Manas said. "Why is there not even a chair here?"
In the end, she had to use a corpse. She dragged the guard's body from under the metal countertop, opened the door, and used this person, who had once been hopeful, to block the door. Throughout the process, she avoided standing in front of the room's entrance and not making direct eye contact with the guard.
She stood by the door and deactivated [Defense Forcefield] when everything was arranged.
Higher Consciousness peeled off her body's surface as if she had stood up from the sea, and the water splashed off her. Lin Sanjiu felt a hand on her back as the tide receded.
"It's deactivated," a soft, sigh-like voice said in her ear.
The moment those words entered her ears, it was already too late. That hand suddenly erupted irresistibly, pushing her into the room. The door opened to the right, and after the corpse blocked it, she naturally stood on the left side of the door frame. When she was suddenly pushed inside, she didn't even have time to grasp the door frame with her left hand and stumbled inside.
In that split-second, Lin Sanjiu's only reaction was to reactivate [Defense Forcefield]. The door closed heavily behind her with a loud 'thud.'
"Get out quickly!" Mrs. Manas screamed. "Something is continuously corroding the [Defense Forcefield], and your Higher Consciousness can only hold on for a few more minutes!"
Lin Sanjiu rolled and crawled up from the ground, almost stepping on Red Face's shin. She lunged toward the door, and her body made a muffled sound upon impact, but she couldn't find the doorknob, no matter how she groped for it. When she looked again, she couldn't help but hold her breath.
The interior of the door was smooth and seamless with the wall, without even a gap that could fit a fingernail. She shouted and used her metal gauntlet to hit the door several times, exerting all her strength, but there were only a few scratches on the door.
"Is the door too strong?" A moment of suspicion flashed through Lin Sanjiu's mind, but Mrs. Manas shouted, "It's not because of the door!"
What was going on?
"I'm sorry."
Inside the half-transparent window on the door, a blurry face appeared. Lin Sanjiu widened her eyes and looked outside. At this moment, only a door separated her and the person outside. The hot breath they exhaled slightly fogged up the window. Despite the poor visibility, she recognized the person's identity.
"It's you?" she said.
Like a water-soaked photograph, Gardenia's appearance, color, and facial features were slightly blurred in the white fog. Even though she was the one who pushed Lin Sanjiu inside, and even though her expression was unclear, she still seemed somewhat melancholic as her sigh penetrated through the door, "I'm sorry."
"Why?" Lin Sanjiu said, unable to understand. "Why?"
Gardenia didn't answer her question. "In a little while, the gas will enter your body. I... I don't know for sure, but the process might be uncomfortable. I'm sorry."
"What gas?" Lin Sanjiu pounded on the window with all her strength, but the material, like acrylic, remained unmoved; her fist felt hollow, like an empty shell. "What process?"
"You won't die," Gardenia said, seemingly oblivious to her question, like a child desperately trying to explain that the mistake they made wasn't that serious. "You won't die, just change forms."
Those words made Lin Sanjiu break out in a cold sweat again. She quickly turned around and rushed back into the room, pouncing on the guard who made her feel extremely uncomfortable. At such a close distance, she finally saw clearly—he had a face covered in large and small black holes, and his body seemed to be withering like a dead branch. He was wearing Hei Zeji's clothes.
Cold sweat, tears, and a wave of stomach acid surged forth, and for a moment, everything in her vision was blurred. Lin Sanjiu stumbled back to the door, and [Defense Forcefield] continually tingled on her skin like being pricked by needles. With each tingling sensation, it felt like her resistance was draining away.
"It's you," Lin Sanjiu said through the doorway, looking at Gardenia, who had just turned her head. "You let that Red-faced Man in?"
"I didn't mean to, but who told him to catch me?" Gardenia replied, forcing a bitter smile and stopping in her tracks. "Originally, this was good news for you... I was glad to replace you. Who knew you would barge in and become a fugitive?"
She had to persuade Gardenia to let her out before the gas completely controlled her, but how could she possibly agree?
"Wait, I don't understand," Lin Sanjiu exclaimed, her mind racing. "How did you trick him into coming in?"
While asking the question, she had already pieced the fragments together. Why would Gardenia consider bribing a female NPC and eagerly want to enter the hospital's lower level to "visit" the female NPC? It was all to make other players—Lin Sanjiu—believe she had discovered a shortcut through bribery.
If Red Face hadn't caught Gardenia, then the two of them would have been surrounded by several players, unable to leave the payment counter. Coupled with the fact that they had already established a relationship with the female NPC, the best choice was undoubtedly to enter the hospital's lower level!
"It took me a lot of effort to convince him that I had a good relationship with the NPC since he didn't witness the scene where I bribed the NPC, unlike you," Gardenia said, sighing. "If you weren't here... after confirming that he entered the room, I could have turned around and left. But you came out at that moment."
Left?
She followed her inside?
However, when Red Face entered the room, Lin Sanjiu stared at the doorway and never saw a third person enter the laboratory. No, that was not right.
Upon careful consideration, after a certain moment, she couldn't recall seeing if anyone had entered.
It was because Red Face had pushed several X-ray machines aside, blocking a lot of her field of view. This also meant that Gardenia had been quietly standing behind the X-ray machines, watching her open the door, peep inside, and block the door with the corpse.
"I don't understand," Lin Sanjiu said anxiously, trying to buy herself some time. "Why did you do this?"
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