“Oi! Wen Shi, long time no see.”
Xu Jie blocked the door with one foot and barged in uninvited, entering just as the second hand was about to pass 59.
Wen Shi took a few steps back: “It hasn’t even been ten minutes.”
“For me, every day feels like a year,” Xu Jie said truthfully.
He wasn’t teasing Wen Shi.
It really did feel like every day was a year.
As a Divine Official, Xu Jie had discovered that this Instance was at least S+ grade—a High-Risk Instance.
Before coming here, he had been inspecting the wards in his capacity as a doctor.
The patients in each ward suffered from all sorts of bizarre and strange illnesses.
Outwardly, they looked like ordinary patients, but in reality, they all showed signs of mutation.
Ordinary F Rank Instances don’t contain Aberrations.
Players either idle away their time until the Instance ends and then leave,
or they diligently follow the Strategy to earn Points.
In this Instance, even the paintings hanging on the clinic walls were S-Class or higher Aberrations.
There were also disappearing doors and inexplicably appearing walls.
Xu Jie had nearly been attacked by these Aberrations outside, and every step he took felt like treading on thin ice. Saying it felt like every day was a year was no exaggeration.
Not a single movement within the clinic escaped Wen Shi’s eyes. He knew Xu Jie was looking for him.
“Boom boom boom—Ah—”
A deafening noise came from next door.
Wen Shi took out his phone, and the screen displayed the scene of Gu Hua in Room 207 being chased by a Mosquito Monster.
Gu Hua had several broken ribs and was covered in blood. He had to throw out one precious Artifact after another just to barely force the monster out of the room.
Gu Hua lay in a pool of blood, tearing off pieces of his clothes to stop the bleeding.
“Wasn’t that monster supposed to go kill that pretty boy?” Gu Hua gasped in shock:
“Did it already eat the pretty boy and come to me because it wasn’t full?
But my door was closed!”
Ten o’clock had already passed. As long as you stayed obediently in your room, there shouldn’t be any problems.
Gu Hua’s door was closed.
But Wen Shi knew how to open doors.
If the mountain won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain.
The Players in the other rooms were still relatively normal for now. What surprised Wen Shi was that there were actually two New Players who hadn’t taken any lives.
“The commotion next door is intense. They might not even last the night,” Xu Jie remarked. Although he couldn’t see, before barging into the room, he had seen a patient entering Room 207.
Wen Shi sat on the bed: “Aren’t you the Dungeon Boss? What are you doing here?”
“Patrolling your area,” Xu Jie leaned against the wall. “As a Player, don’t you want to strategize against me?”
This was the simplest way to clear the Instance.
As long as Favorability reached 100%, you could achieve a Perfect Clear.
Wen Shi glanced at the blood-soaked Xu Jie and fell silent.
He was a serious person.
He couldn’t develop a sense of belonging toward a stranger within seven days.
Family bonds, friendship—these require time to accumulate before they can erupt.
The only shortcut was romantic love.
This…
Xu Jie was covered in blood. Wen Shi, with his cleanliness obsession, could barely stand to look at him, let alone fall in love.
“The bathroom is over there,” Wen Shi pointed in a direction. “The smell of blood on you is too strong.”
“Is it?” Xu Jie walked while sniffing himself.
When the Crimson Mist descended at night, Xu Jie had fought his way through it. His white coat was completely stained with blood.
This was actually the cleanest he’d ever been.
He hadn’t expected to be disliked.
As a Divine Official, Xu Jie never followed Instance rules.
Wherever he went, it was an Instance where the Boss awakened.
In his wake lay the corpses of Bosses and NPCs, and the Instances themselves were utterly destroyed.
But in this Instance, Xu Jie was being unusually patient.
He needed to find the Dungeon Boss and ask about the origins of that door.
Entering the bathroom, Xu Jie turned on the switch. Crimson blood gushed from the showerhead, splattering everywhere and dyeing the bathroom a bloody red. The lights flickered on and off, casting an eerie, sinister atmosphere as dark shadows lurked.
Suddenly, a blood-red eyeball fell from the ceiling.
The cold, slimy eyeball pressed against Xu Jie’s left eye, its white pupil spinning wildly.
Staring into the eyeball, Xu Jie instantly felt dizzy, his vision blurred, and his legs weakened, causing him to stagger.
The Aberration hidden in the pipes seized the moment when the lights dimmed, opening its jagged mouth and lunging at Xu Jie.
The next moment.
The Aberration was grabbed by the neck by Xu Jie and yanked out of the pipes.
The lights returned to normal.
In Xu Jie’s hand was an Aberration with a snake’s head but a thick mane of black hair.
Strangled by the neck, the Aberration’s crimson eyes turned pale, and its body twisted frantically. It had never imagined it would be caught so effortlessly.
“Biting people isn’t nice. Let me give you something else to bite.” Xu Jie drew a Short Blade from his waist and, with a smile, plunged the blade into the Aberration’s throat.
Like slicing a sausage, he dragged the Aberration out while cutting open its body with the Short Blade, dissecting it alive.
It was an Aberration from next door, just hungry and wanting to sneak into the clinic for a meal. It thought that as an S Rank Monster, it could wreak havoc in the clinic.
Little did it expect to encounter Xu Jie. Not only did it fail to eat anyone, but it also ended up dead.
“Spare… spare me!” The Aberration writhed in pain, blood pooling on the floor, its throat squeezing out a desperate plea for mercy.
Xu Jie: “Alright, I’ll ask you a question. If you can answer it, I’ll let you go.”
Aberration: “Ask away.”
“Bo Yikao’s father became King Wen of Zhou, and his younger brother is King Wu of Zhou. So, who is he?” Xu Jie asked with a smile.
Aberration: “I know this one—the Great Emperor of Ziwei!”
“Congratulations…” Xu Jie released his grip with a smile.
Before the Aberration, granted a reprieve, could even flee, the Short Blade pierced its skull, pinning it to the wall.
“Congratulations, wrong answer.” Xu Jie shrugged as he looked at the Aberration’s corpse, which nearly filled the entire bathroom. “Bo Yikao is the Burger King.”
On the bed, Wen Shi watched this scene through the surveillance feed: “…”
The monster resembled some kind of Stitched Abomination between a Rainforest Giant Python and a human.
It was massive, pitch-black all over, yet it had hair and limbs less than twenty centimeters long—deformed and eerie.
Wen Shi took out his phone and silently observed how Xu Jie handled the monster’s corpse.
His Scalpel could make monsters die completely, turning into Blood Mist.
If Xu Jie couldn’t handle it, the monster would revive next door.
After tonight, he would have to visit the neighbor’s house to intimidate the monsters relentlessly harassing the clinic.
Barging into the neighbor’s house recklessly would surely provoke an attack.
Wen Shi planned to go there carrying the neighbor’s head.
“I’ll search for the head in the Medical Waste Bin after daybreak.”
Thinking of that ugly head, Wen Shi suddenly recalled Xu Jie saying that ugliness was also a kind of illness, and he couldn’t help but curl his lips into a smile.
“If you die, don’t come looking for me. If you revive, don’t come looking for me. Whether dead or alive, don’t turn into a Vengeful Specter and come looking for me.” Xu Jie took out a stick of incense, lit it, and muttered, “Otherwise, I’ll only get more excited.”
Wen Shi: “…”
Green smoke rose, and the monster that had clogged the entire bathroom seemed to dissolve into the smoke, vanishing without a trace.
After finishing, Xu Jie pinched out the burning incense with his fingers and turned on the faucet, ready to take a shower.
At that moment, he suddenly looked up toward the corner of the bathroom, his deep gaze sharp as a blade, fixed intently on the camera.
Wen Shi’s heart skipped a beat.
Had he been discovered?
Xu Jie drew out his Short Blade and hurled it fiercely toward the direction of the camera.