CHAPTER 1 : X City First People’s Hospital (I)

The bus glided smoothly through the late autumn afternoon, sunlight streaming through the windows to warm Qi Leren. If it weren’t for the girl beside him, sobbing and arguing with her boyfriend on the phone, this would have been a pleasant ride—not that it mattered.

 

No one enjoys lugging a laptop to the repair shop. What puzzled Qi Leren was that his computer had inexplicably blacked out while he was playing a game with minimal system requirements. It was absurd—he’d only bought it a few months ago!

 

Still, that game… it really was quite terrifying, Qi Leren thought.

 

The game’s name was generic: *Nightmare Game*. He’d downloaded it casually while browsing a gaming forum a few days earlier. With its plain name and lack of screenshots, he’d braced himself for a trashy experience. Instead, the game had delivered a surprisingly immersive experience.

 

As a casual horror game enthusiast, Qi Leren hadn’t played many horror games, but he wasn’t a complete novice either. He possessed a basic ability to discern quality. Aside from the engaging storyline, what impressed him most about this game was the abundance of save slots. Embracing his inner “Save Maniac,” he left no save point untouched, meticulously saving his progress from beginning to end—likely creating over a hundred separate save files without overwriting any. Yet, despite his efforts, he still ended up with the Bad Ending. A notification popped up in the upper right corner of the screen: “Achievement unlocked: Save Maniac.”

 

Qi Leren’s face darkened. *What kind of twisted achievement is this?*

 

The game then prompted: “Restart? YES OR NO?”

 

Without hesitation, Qi Leren clicked “YES.” The screen went black, and no amount of restarting could revive it. Frustrated, he shoved his laptop into his bag and trudged toward Computer City for repairs, inwardly questioning if downloading a pirated game had somehow cursed his luck.

 

The girl next to him was still crying. Her boyfriend on the other end of the phone seemed to snap impatiently, and she finally exploded, screaming hysterically, “Fine, break up then! Do you think I’m going to miss you? I’ll abort this pregnancy and send it to you! I won’t let you and that bitch be happy!”

 

She slammed down the phone, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed uncontrollably.

 

The atmosphere in the bus was excruciatingly awkward. Qi Leren felt trapped, unsure whether to stay or leave. He pulled a pack of tissues from his bag and offered them to the girl, but she glared at him fiercely. “Keep your fake kindness!”

 

Stung by her hostility, Qi Leren awkwardly withdrew his hand and stared out the window, silently cursing himself for getting involved in a couple’s drama when he was just a lonely single guy.

 

The scenery outside the window blurred past. Suddenly, Qi Leren’s vision flickered. A truck seemed to materialize out of nowhere, hurtling toward them at breakneck speed! It slammed into the bus, which had no time to brake.

 

A deafening crash erupted as the passengers were thrown forward. Qi Leren, having spotted the danger moments earlier, instinctively gripped the seat in front of him. But the force of the impact was too great. His head slammed into the seatback, and amidst the screams, darkness swallowed him whole. He lost consciousness.

 

Qi Leren woke to the insistent beeping of an ambulance siren. Groggily opening his eyes, he found an enlarged face leaning close, scrutinizing him.

 

“Whoa—!” Both he and the doctor exclaimed simultaneously, then quickly clamped their mouths shut.

 

Qi Leren sat up abruptly, a throbbing pain still pulsing in his forehead. A doctor, likely the emergency physician who had arrived with the ambulance, sat beside him. “Are you alright?”

 

“Fine, just a bit dizzy,” Qi Leren replied, touching his forehead, which had already been hastily bandaged.

 

“The bus you were on was in an accident. You hit your head and might have a concussion. It’s best to get checked out at the hospital,” the doctor advised.

 

Qi Leren hesitated. Going to the hospital meant expenses, and he figured it was just a minor head wound, nothing serious. He glanced at the doctor and was startled by his youthful appearance.

 

“…Can minors even be doctors? Have you graduated from university?” Qi Leren asked hesitantly. The person before him looked no older than a high school student, and some might even mistake him for a middle schooler.

 

The doctor glared at him, a hint of anger in his voice. “I’m twenty-seven! I have a doctorate and I’ve been working for three years!”

 

Qi Leren felt a surge of respect. *So this guy’s a real overachiever!*

 

Still dizzy, Qi Leren lay back down and chatted idly with Dr. Lu. Dr. Lu had started school early, skipped grades, and earned his doctorate at twenty-four. He joined X City First People’s Hospital, rotated through departments for two years, and finally settled in internal medicine. His youthful appearance and soft voice had made him the hospital’s unofficial mascot, beloved by the nurses—yet he remained single, a fact that seemed to bother him deeply.

 

*We’re in the same boat,* Qi Leren thought sympathetically, feeling a pang of kinship.

 

A wave of drowsiness washed over him. Qi Leren yawned, and Dr. Lu, as if catching it, leaned back in the ambulance seat and yawned too, muttering, “So tired.”

 

Amidst the rhythmic beeping of the ambulance, Qi Leren closed his eyes, drifting into sleep.

 

He slept soundly, without a single dream. When Qi Leren woke up, he was surprised to find himself lying on a row of metal chairs. A chill radiated from the cold metal, making him shiver.

 

He sat up abruptly, his head throbbing and his vision swimming. It took him a few seconds to realize he was in a hospital.

 

Yes, a hospital.

 

But the words “Infusion Hall” on the opposite wall told him he was in the infusion hall, not a patient room. How had this happened?

 

The hall was eerily quiet, without a single person in sight. Qi Leren stood up and wandered aimlessly. The service desk was deserted, pens, notepads, and infusion equipment scattered across the surface. A steaming cup of tea sat on the desk, as if someone had just been there.

 

This was too strange.

 

Qi Leren had never seen X City First People’s Hospital so empty. It was usually packed with people, day and night. Every time he visited, it was a sea of faces. Unless the world had ended, this place was never deserted.

 

“Hello? Is anyone here? Where has everyone gone?” Qi Leren called out, his voice trembling as it echoed through the infusion hall. He glanced around before heading straight for the exit, determined to leave this unsettling place.

 

It was too cold here. When there were people around, he hadn’t noticed, but now that he was alone, the eerie chill of the hospital made him deeply uncomfortable.

 

To make matters worse, the glass doors at the exit were locked. Through the glass, the corridor beyond was equally deserted, its whitewashed walls and ceiling exuding an oppressive, unnatural emptiness. Despite it being daytime, the energy-saving lights in the corridor stretched to the far end, creating the illusion of a deserted midnight.

 

Qi Leren turned to leave, rolling up his sleeves to climb out the window. As he glanced at the full-length mirror on the wall, his heart skipped a beat—a white figure sat on one of the metal infusion chairs, barely a step behind him!

 

He whirled around, but the chair was empty.

 

Rows of metal chairs stood in neat formation, some littered with patients’ belongings and discarded items, but none were occupied. The unnatural emptiness only amplified the oppressive, eerie atmosphere.

 

Sweat trickling down his back, Qi Leren slowly turned back to the mirror. His pale face stared back, a bandage wrapped around his forehead. Behind him, the empty chairs stretched out like silent spectators awaiting an unseen commander’s inspection.

 

*No one. It must be my imagination.*

 

Forcing himself to resist the urge to look back again, Qi Leren reached the window. He pried it open, only to find the security bars sealed shut. There were no operable panes, and no one outside—just a thick, impenetrable fog, so unnervingly dense it sent shivers down his spine.

 

Qi Leren couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

 

The door was locked, the windows sealed shut, and an unsettling eeriness permeated the air. He forced himself not to dwell on the white figure he’d seen in the mirror, even though he kept telling himself it was just a hallucination. Deep down, a persistent voice of doubt lingered.

 

*This is like some kind of horror-themed escape room!*

 

Just as he began to suspect he was caught in some supernatural event, several lines of text suddenly appeared in his mind:

 

[Player Qi Leren, completed the first step of the Newbie Village quest: Awakening.]

 

[Unlocked 2 card slots.]

 

[Second step of the Newbie Village quest: Escape the Infusion Hall.]

 

[Reissuing the “Save Maniac” Achievement reward. Skill Card “SL Great Art” has been granted.]

 

[Data synchronization countdown: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Synchronization complete.]

 

A sharp pain shot through Qi Leren’s eyes, as if countless tiny needles were pricking his eyeballs, forcing tears to well up. When the pain subsided slightly, he forced his eyes open. Through the blurred, watery haze, he vaguely made out a white figure sitting quietly in that seat…

 

It was watching him!