After the lights went out, Saiki lit the candle.
But he didn't set out right away.
System: "Saiki, didn't you say you were going out tonight?"
[Wait a little longer.]
Saiki glanced toward the door. The dark undercurrents in the blackness outside were slowly growing stronger.
12 o'clock.
Saiki stood up, picked up the lamp oil bottle, placed the candle inside, closed the glass cover, and walked toward the door.
System: "Why wait until exactly 12?"
[Late night, the hours around midnight, are when clues are easiest to find. Normally two or three would be even better, but I don't want to wait that long.]
Creak... tap, tap, tap.
Saiki opened the door and stepped out, holding the candle. The flame cast a perfect protective sphere of light around him.
Saiki nodded in satisfaction, then headed toward the elevator. He decided to start from the 1st floor.
Thud, thud...
Thud thud thud...
Clear footsteps echoed in the corridor.
But
these footsteps didn't belong to just one person.
Behind Saiki, a faint glow was slowly approaching, as if someone was reaching out an arm to grab him from behind.
Right before it could touch him, Saiki chose to sidestep and dodge, then slowly turned around with an exasperated expression.
[Why are you here?]
"I can only say, what a coincidence!"
Lin Fan laughed it off and walked over, holding an identical lamp oil bottle: "Actually, I was just about to go to your room and call you. I even prepared a lamp oil bottle. Didn't expect you already had one. If I'd known, I wouldn't have bothered getting an extra."
[No... how did you get this thing so easily?]
"It was pretty easy. A bunch of us have them!"
[Who else is "a bunch of us"?]
"These two behind me."
Lin Fan turned and gestured toward the two people slowly walking up behind him.
"This is Xiao Chen. You know him—the chainsaw maniac from the cafeteria who went nuts hacking that one-eyed ghost."
Xiao Chen walked over coldly, holding his lantern, and gave a nod.
(This name feels off too.)
"And this one—you've seen him, right? The blue-haired general from our same floor. General Blue."
Lin Fan paused here, covered his mouth, and couldn't help letting out a snort of laughter: "Still calling someone 'General Blue' these days, haha."
Saiki glanced over. It was indeed the blue-haired teammate of yesterday's unlucky guy.
(Yeah, definitely blue hair.)
General Blue said coldly: "Had enough laughs? Shut up if you're done."
Lin Fan waved his hand: "Okay, okay, got it."
(Yare yare daze, what a weird group.)
[So seriously, how did you guys get these lamp oil bottles so easily?]
Saiki looked doubtfully at the ones in their hands, recalling that he'd gotten his by talking to the old man in his own ward and triggering an NPC dialogue.
(They probably had some contact with patients or triggered a task too. Yeah, that makes sense.)
"Oh, these? Nah, they're sold on the 1st floor!"
Lin Fan said it so casually that it shattered Saiki's assumptions.
[Wh... what?! They're actually sold in the hospital?]
"Yeah, they are."
Saiki looked at the lamp oil bottle in his own hand and suddenly felt like it was kind of cheap.
General Blue glanced at Saiki with a hint of disdain in his eyes: "Kid, if you're teaming up with us, don't drag us down."
[When did I agree to team up?]
Lin Fan stepped forward and whispered: "Saiki, just come with us. We're on the same floor, and these guys seem to have some stuff. Teaming up is better than going solo."
(This rule is actually pretty useful for normal people, but for me, going solo might be better.)
While Saiki was hesitating, the system quietly spoke to him: "Saiki, agree to it."
[Why?]
"..."
System: "Did you forget my original goal? I wanted to make a guide. But following you feels like a vacation—no pressure, no tension at all. These guys should act pretty normally, and normal people would choose to cooperate in a situation like this."
[...]
In the end, Saiki decided to go along with them for now.
[Just so we're clear, I'm planning to start from the 1st floor and look for some traces.]
Lin Fan shrugged, indicating it was fine with him, then turned back to the other two: "What do you guys say? If you want to stay here, I'll head down with Saiki."
The two nodded, saying it didn't matter.
General Blue: "But let's get one thing straight—you pink-haired kid better not drag us down. If something happens, I'm not saving you."
General Blue [I seriously don't get why Lin Fan picked this scrawny guy. Looks like a totally useless newbie. If it were just me here, I could take down ten weaklings like him without breaking a sweat.]
(Brat, wanna fight one-on-one?)
Lin Fan smoothed things over: "Don't underestimate Saiki. He's really strong, General Blue."
Hearing the nickname again, General Blue's eyes flashed with anger as he growled: "Damn it, don't call me that!"
"Shh, shh, shh."
The three turned at once, fingers to their lips, signaling General Blue to be quiet.
Xiao Chen: "You idiot, don't be so loud. What if you attract trouble?"
General Blue immediately clamped his mouth shut in panic, glanced behind him at the suddenly colder darkness, and tensed up.
The group stood frozen in place for two minutes. Once the temperature rose a little, they all let out a breath of relief.
(This guy—if anything goes wrong, he'll be the first to die.)
Later on the way, during conversation, Saiki learned something strange from them.
He and Lin Fan weren't even in the same game—or rather, not quite. Their maps were different.
From what they explained, Lin Fan's map had started right inside the hospital, and his task wasn't to find Medusa but to uncover all the mysteries of this hospital within 15 days.
Xiao Chen said he had originally been on the "Cabin in the Woods" map but was suddenly reassigned here to investigate a Minotaur.
General Blue was the same—he'd been in a "Blue Castle" and got pulled over here to look into a Werewolf.
Hearing all this, Saiki's mouth twitched.
(This is seriously just a chaotic mash-up!)
"Going to the 1st floor—better take the elevator, right?"
"Yeah, the elevator's just up ahead."
They could see the elevator in the distance, its high-up red light glowing. Saiki watched the surroundings suspiciously while Xiao Chen's steps gradually slowed.
"What's wrong?"
Xiao Chen asked with an odd expression: "Don't you guys think this hospital corridor is way too long?"
General Blue: "Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah, it kind of is."
Lin Fan nodded in agreement and walked over to Saiki, who had been observing everything: "What do you think?"
Saiki pulled his gaze from the darkness and nodded at Xiao Chen.
[He's right.]
General Blue: "You mean..."
[The hospital gets bigger at night.]
[I already scouted around this afternoon, but the distance we've walked just now is way too far. By night, once you leave your room, this hospital probably isn't the same place as during the day at all.]
"..."
Though it sounded creepy, no one backed out. They reached the elevator, pressed the button, and waited.
Ding.
The elevator doors slowly opened. A familiar elevator lady came into view.
It was the human elevator lady.
The group's tense hearts relaxed a little.
They stepped inside. General Blue went to the very back, Lin Fan and Xiao Chen in the middle, Saiki at the front.
The elevator lady smiled politely: "Which floor, please?"
[1st floor.]
"Okay."
The elevator began descending slowly after the request for the 1st floor. Saiki stared intently at the floor display buttons above.
General Blue: "Man, elevator lady, you really work hard. Still here at night."
"It's fine. I only handle the night shift until 6 a.m. anyway."
"Oh..."
"Then what about mornings!"
(Don't ask. Don't say anything. Better to stay quiet right now.)
The others' slightly relaxed nerves tensed up again. Of course they knew the elevator lady—there was only one elevator in the whole hospital.
And they had confirmed she was 100% human.
They'd seen her plenty of times in the mornings. Though this was the first time seeing her at night, she was saying she only worked nights!
How could that not make them nervous? If she only worked nights, then who had they been seeing during the day?
A ghost?
That wouldn't be too strange—this hospital would be weirder without ghosts. But the key point was: how could a human turn into a ghost at night?
"The one on the morning shift isn't me."
"Oh, I see."
(Yes, just like that. Don't say more.)
General Blue: "So the morning one is your sister? You two look so alike."
(You still dare to ask!)
"Oh, that one? Ah, what's up?"
Just as the elevator lady started to speak, the lights inside began flickering wildly.
The elevator reached the 1st floor but didn't stop. It kept descending, heading straight to B2.
Everyone steadied themselves against the walls. When the doors opened, a burst of cold air rushed in.
A harmless-looking little girl stood at the elevator entrance, barefoot, holding a stuffed doll in one hand, a red string tied around her right wrist.
"Big brothers and sisters, I'm lost. Can you take me to find Grandpa?"
As soon as the girl spoke, her voice was sweet and soft, sounding completely normal. Most people seeing a little girl like this would feel pity.
But these four didn't think that way—or rather, didn't dare to. What did they see?
Behind her, in one of the rooms, a hand was sticking out, but it wasn't moving at all. The hand looked extremely aged—at least 60 years old.
A bone-chilling feeling surged up. Saiki looked at the elevator lady, whose expression had turned slightly panicked.
The next second.
The elevator lady slammed the 1st-floor button hard. The doors closed quickly, and the elevator began ascending.
The elevator lady patted her chest: "That was terrifying. Remember—underground is all morgues. The dead people down there all have red strings tied on their right wrists. Be careful. Good thing she didn't get in just now."
As she spoke, the elevator lady raised her right hand to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead.
Saiki kept his poker face while staring at the elevator lady. Xiao Chen and Lin Fan were staring too. The difference was that Xiao Chen's brows were tightly furrowed in tension, while Lin Fan forced an awkward smile.
Why? Because when the elevator lady raised her right hand to wipe her forehead sweat, there was a red string tied around her wrist too.
Seeing the others staring, General Blue instinctively looked over.
When he noticed the red string, he couldn't stay calm like the rest. His mouth fell open in shock as he pointed at the elevator lady.
"You..."