Turning slowly, Wen Shi saw clearly the person who had hooked their finger around his.
It wasn’t a patient.
It was Xu Jie.
“I’m just a Player,” Wen Shi sighed in relief. “Doctor Xu, you’re a doctor—you can treat yourself.”
He knew Xu Jie was looking for him.
So, Wen Shi had interacted with the patients and all the Players, hoping to dispel the other’s suspicions.
As a Divine Official, Xu Jie could see the Players’ names through the System and had deliberately tried to trick Wen Shi.
“This is a matter of the heart. Matters of the heart require a cure for the heart.” Xu Jie took a step forward, pulling Wen Shi’s hand and pressing it against his chest. “Feel this—my heart is pounding so fast. Is it broken?”
Wen Shi withdrew his finger. “…If something’s broken, cut it out. I can help you dig out your heart and lungs.”
In the literal sense.
Xu Jie looked at Wen Shi, dressed in a suit, refined and handsome, and leaned against the wall, laughing loudly. “What if I die?”
Wen Shi: “Watch a 30-second ad to revive.”
Xu Jie froze for a moment, then doubled over laughing.
Having lived for so many years, this was the first time Xu Jie had met someone who made his heart flutter.
He never expected them to be so interesting, with both looks and personality perfectly aligned with his tastes. Wen Shi seemed tailor-made for him—the perfect beloved.
As a Divine Official, Xu Jie’s mission was to eliminate those Dungeon Bosses whose consciousness had awakened.
Wen Shi’s Instance was extremely inconspicuous in the Divine Descent because it was too weak.
That was precisely the problem.
An F Rank Instance was a freebie for Players.
Yet, there were no records of any Players clearing this Instance.
Either the game’s matching system was faulty, or the Dungeon Boss had awakened and killed the Players.
That was why Xu Jie was here.
“You’re so cold,” Xu Jie sighed. “You’ve shattered my heart. Watching an ad won’t bring it back.”
Wen Shi looked down at him. “Then how about shattering your bones?”
Xu Jie: “Why?”
Can’t we just live peacefully?
Do we have to break something?
Wen Shi: “There are 206 bones.”
Bones: In the end, we lost because there were too many of us.
Xu Jie smiled faintly. “So… you want to get into ‘orthopedics’ with me?”
“I can break your legs and help you meet your orthopedics KPI.” Wen Shi glanced at his watch. “It’s almost ten. I should sleep.”
One of the rules was not to go out after ten at night.
“Good night,” Xu Jie waved.
Wen Shi turned and went up to the second floor, choosing the room closest to the neighbor.
The number of rooms was determined by the number of Players.
With Little Yellow Hair dead, the number of rooms automatically decreased.
Now there were seven rooms in total.
As a Player, Wen Shi wouldn’t stay in his usual place. He had taken over one of the Players’ rooms.
If any Player failed to find a place to stay, they would die.
As soon as Wen Shi entered the room, he took out an alcohol spray and thoroughly disinfected everything, then went into the bathroom to wash off the smell of blood.
“Boom—”
A deafening crash accompanied by a violent tremor echoed through the building.
Wen Shi took out his phone and checked the surveillance footage to see what was happening at the door.
“Damn it! Why only bite me and not anyone else?!”
It turned out Gu Hua was being chased by a mutated patient. The two were locked in a fierce struggle, slamming against the door with loud clangs.
After using an Artifact to repair the clinic door, Gu Hua checked the time and hurriedly went upstairs to find a room, determined to survive the first night.
While going upstairs, Gu Hua saw the patient who had bitten off his finger. Rage surged from his heart, and malice rose in his guts. He pulled out a knife to take revenge on the patient.
The starving patient strictly adhered to the rule of not actively attacking Players before ten o’clock.
If a Player attacked a patient, the patient naturally had to fight back.
Thus, this scene unfolded.
“Room 208?” Gu Hua remembered Wen Shi had chosen this room.
Looking at the Monster relentlessly chasing him, he steeled his heart, took out the precious Artifact [Universal Key], opened Wen Shi’s door, and redirected the trouble.
Better the priest perish than the parishioner—if Wen Shi died, he would offer incense for him every Qingming Festival.
The Universal Key was a single-use Artifact that could open any door below the SSS+ Rank Instance.
It was a precious escape tool.
The moment the door to Room 208 opened, Gu Hua had already opened the door to Room 207.
The patient, covered in festering sores and pus, underwent a terrifying mutation. His lower body remained human, but his head transformed into a mosquito head the size of a washbasin.
Blood-Red Compound Eyes bulged on both sides like two crimson heads. A meter-long sucking proboscis stabbed into the room, instantly extending to five meters and embedding itself directly into the wall.
“Bang—”
As the proboscis pierced the wall, spiderweb cracks spanning one or two meters immediately appeared on the surface.
While swiftly dodging, Wen Shi drew his Scalpel and sliced through the air.
“Ah, it hurts!” The Mosquito Monster screamed in agony.
The Scalpel, made of unknown material, sliced through the seemingly indestructible proboscis as easily as cutting through melons and vegetables.
Half remained embedded in the wall, while the other half retracted back into the Monster.
“Eager to join my Monster Exhibition Hall, are you?” Wen Shi’s voice was calm, yet it carried an overwhelming pressure that left the Monster breathless and unable to resist.
Both Monsters and humans came to his clinic.
Monsters sought treatment to maintain their human form and sanity.
Those who couldn’t be cured often caused disturbances—there were many of them, and they came in a rich variety.
Wen Shi had specifically built a Monster Exhibition Hall in the basement, where he dissected and studied them in his spare time.
Wen Shi couldn’t remember when this mutated patient had been admitted.
It had no teeth because it only possessed a sucking proboscis.
Upon clearly seeing who was in the room, the Monster’s Blood-Red Compound Eyes instantly lost their luster. Its distorted head returned to normal, and it stood in the room, as helpless and awkward as a child.
Monster: Gu Hua, you bastard!
Where the hell have you brought me?!
You’re screwing me over!
“D-Doctor Wen… I… I didn’t know it was you,” the patient stammered. “I was just hungry, and the Player provoked me.”
The patient’s legs went weak, nearly kneeling to beg for mercy.
“Understood. For the next seven days, you will cooperate with the arrangements of the fake doctor.”
Wen Shi lowered his gaze, looking at the Monster whose mouth he had sliced in half. He opened the bedside drawer, cleaned the wound with iodine, and bandaged it with gauze:
“You’ve worked hard to regain your sanity and human form. If you lose control again, go mad, and lose yourself, you’ll turn into a Monster completely.”
Most Monsters who came to him for treatment still retained some sanity. They had turned into Monsters for various reasons but wished to regain their human form.
As a doctor, Wen Shi could only do his best to help them control themselves.
Whether the patients ultimately recovered depended on their self-control and luck.
The lucky ones returned to normal and left the clinic.
The unlucky ones turned into Monsters and became Wen Shi’s specimens.
The patients in the clinic had self-awareness. As long as they didn’t rebel, Wen Shi paid no attention to how they treated the Players.
The Players who entered here were all vicious and depraved scum.
The patient was moved to tears. “Dr. Wen, you’re so kind.”
As if remembering something, the patient handed Wen Shi the mission watch he had picked up, which belonged to the little yellow-haired guy.
“Go ahead,” Wen Shi instructed. “Don’t get the wound wet until it heals, and come back regularly for the nurse to change the dressing.”
The nurse was one of Wen Shi’s employees.
No sooner had the patient left than Wen Shi heard the wall clock chime.
Ten o’clock.
Wen Shi had just put away the iodine and gauze and was about to close the door.
Suddenly, a foot thrust its way inside.