Chapter 225

Chapter 225: Chapter 222: "Dong Xue, Yang Xia

He received such a prompt.

That bit of light was still slowly approaching him, maintaining its extremely slow speed just like usual, and not pouncing over crazily like the previous night.

He stepped out the door, the floor creaking under his feet.

The wooden door closed behind him, and due to the Doctor’s Glasses, he could still make out the general view of the hallway—it was like night vision was turned on. Although it wasn’t as bright as day, at least he wasn’t completely blind.

Clutching the scalpel, he walked slowly through the corridor, carefully checking for clues he might have missed the previous night.

He had no plans to "execute" Locker.

In his opinion, a person’s poverty could be caused by various factors—natural disasters, human agency, social elements... These factors combined to create a person’s circumstances.

Their basic instincts conflicted with society, leading to their difficulty in adapting to the current social environment.

Because of poverty, a person might be driven to desperation, live a difficult life, and even breed evil. These make "poverty" carry a negative label, but being poor in itself is not a mistake.

Poverty is hardship, not a sin.

Therefore, he believed that Locker was innocent.

So, tonight was his free time.

His gaze swept over the grey-white walls on both sides, but no new clues were seen.

At the end of the corridor, a round dot of light was slowly moving towards him.

But this time, he wasn’t afraid and walked straight over.

The halo came closer and closer, and as he looked carefully, he suddenly saw a blood-red figure.

Behind the light halo that floated autonomously like a firefly, a girl in a red dress suddenly appeared.

She was wearing white dance shoes, making no sound as she stepped on the floor, and as she followed the light, she raised her head and met Su Ming’an’s eyes.

"Doctor," she nodded to him and then swept past him.

This time, Su Ming’an, completely enveloped in the light, didn’t hear the instant-death warning.

"Dong Xue," Su Ming’an called out the name.

The girl in the red dress turned around, her eyes dim and lifeless.

Su Ming’an knew that this person was Dong Xue.

But Dong Xue, numbered 29, was one of the thirty students. Logically, if she wasn’t a "doctor," she should be staying in her own room like the other students at this time.

Yet at night, he saw her here, almost merging with the light.

"Where are you going? What are you doing at night?" Su Ming’an asked.

"..." Dong Xue looked at him, her expression calm and unchanged.

The light stopped with her stillness.

As if she was the light itself.

If Su Ming’an’s guess was right, Dong Xue had been following this light all along, only he hadn’t been able to see her hidden presence the night before without the Doctor’s Glasses. After he made that strike at the light the previous night, Dong Xue, who had merged with the light, died with it.

And then, the instance restarted.

Dong Xue was definitely a key figure.

"I am looking for someone," Dong Xue replied.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Xia Luoyang,"

Su Ming’an immediately caught the key point: "Xia Luoyang? He’s on the fourth floor."

He saw Dong Xue shake her head.

"... I have always been looking for Xia Luoyang, night after night," she sighed softly, "But he will grow up, mature, and he will drift away from me. The Xia Luoyang that becomes that way isn’t the Xia Luoyang I want."

"Doctor," she looked at him earnestly, "can you not heal him? If he gets healed, he will grow into what everyone expects, and I don’t want that Xia Luoyang..."

Su Ming’an frowned, about to speak, when he saw Dong Xue in front of him swaying.

...And then he realized, it wasn’t Dong Xue who was shaking, but his own vision that was spinning wildly.

The crisp sound of a water droplet followed by an extremely fast breeze arose from behind him, as though something was rapidly approaching him.

He turned abruptly, and the Sword of Yarman was instantly in hand.

"Shua—!"

He didn’t see any damage numbers pop up.

The dry, cold air flooded his trachea, carrying the scent of disinfectant, and he tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, looking ahead—where there was nothing.

Above the empty corridor, only a series of tomb-like, silent lockers stood.

He tightened his hand and looked back again.

...Still, it was a quiet corridor.

Darkness, dead silence, stillness.

The girl in the red dress talking, the glowing spots like fireflies, seemed as if they had never appeared at all.

With one glance, he could see the door he had just closed behind him.

Darkness shrouded his sight, and the darkening corners of his vision, tinged with blood, expanded further.

As if in a long iron pipe, with clear passage left and right, he stood within, easily able to see to either end.

Like a wooden stake driven into the ground, he stood in place, as if fixed there, hearing only the faint sound of wind by his ear, like someone whispering.

...Where was he?

He looked up again and saw his own door across the way.

Above the door, the number thirty was clearly visible.

...Right, he had just stepped out of his room, onto the corridor, to check for any clues that might have been overlooked.

Then... he encountered that light, and behind the light... followed a girl in a red dress.

She said, she said...

He carefully recalled what Dong Xue had just said; he remembered the content. But her face became increasingly blurry, and so did her voice, like the sand in an hourglass, unavoidably slipping away bit by bit.

Memory disappeared like grains of sand, his thoughts like rusted gears, and even his vision was close to solidifying.

...What did she say?

He paused for a moment, then realized that he had forgotten most of what she had said.

She said... Xia Luoyang.

She said she was looking for Xia Luoyang.

She said... that Xia Luoyang, who would grow and mature, was not the Xia Luoyang she wanted...

What else did she say?

He raised his hand, but it was as if he were tied with a weight of thousands of pounds, his arm movement sluggish.

The darkness thickened bit by bit, gradually enveloping him, and the corridor became even quieter, the almost imperceptible sounds by his ear disappearing as well.

He felt a strange emotion beginning to take root in his chest.

That emotion, bit by bit, grew from a speck to a mass, spreading out, slowly wrapping around him.

...Desire.

He was desiring something.

Desire for what?

...Right.

He looked down at the mirror-like blade of the sword, seeing behind the glasses a pair of eyes that became increasingly indifferent.

That look was so alien he felt alarmed. It was as though the person behind those eyes wasn’t him, but someone else controlling his body.

...He was Doctor White Sand.

He closed his eyes.

His hand touched the left wall, its rough surface scraping, the sound constantly in his ears.

The barrage was going mad:

Su Ming’an remained with his eyes closed.

In the pitch-black field of vision, he sensed something flickering wildly in the upper right corner.

The silvery surgical scalpel spun in circles in his right hand, and he took deep breaths of the air scented with the smell of disinfectant before raising his right arm.

A long, blood-red gash burst open on his left arm.

This was his usual method for snapping himself back to reality.

He was aware of his abnormal state, like a person who has taken sleeping pills cannot help but fall into sleep. He had to wake himself up before he completely lost his sanity.

The absolute sharpness of the surgical scalpel was indeed special; he didn’t even feel too much pain. Seeing bright red blood flowing down his arm, he even felt a bit numb, as if someone else was bleeding.

But fortunately, under this cut, he felt that the menacing dizziness was gradually fading away.

He glanced at his san value, 43 points.

He had nearly forgotten that facing that light would greatly reduce his san value.

...So, after the reduction of his san value, he was seeing hallucinations again.

But hallucinations were not necessarily purely negative.

Dong Xue’s words slowly resurfaced in his mind:

He recalled what Dong Xue had said.

If the hallucinations brought on by low san values were not purely negative, then Dong Xue’s words could be a critical clue.

He gradually made his way to the first floor.

The second floor was always quiet, nobody wandered out at night, nor did any abnormal creatures attack him; he didn’t even see any of his doctor colleagues.

Besides, there seemed to be several new staircases that went straight up and down along the hallways, probably so the students could evade and not be trapped by having only one way out, easily cornered by the doctors.

When he descended to the first floor, he suddenly heard several piercing sounds from the floorboards.

...Someone was running!

He immediately picked up his pace, dashed to the first floor, and then saw a closet door quickly closing right in front of him.

...Hiding in a closet openly.

Perhaps this nocturnally roaming player didn’t realize that doctors aren’t like sources of light; they wouldn’t conveniently turn a blind eye just because a player hides in a closet right in front of them, they wouldn’t refrain from pursuing the player.

He stepped forward and mercilessly opened the closet door.

"Ah—"

An extremely frightened scream rang out as a foreign female player with a golden ponytail sat inside the closet. The shock on her face made it clear she never expected someone to actively open the door.

"Oh God, don’t come any closer!"

Her hands began to glow, and in a flash of light that illuminated the closet door, she saw a person in a white lab coat standing outside. This immediately reminded her of the "Doctor" from the daytime rules.

She just wanted to sneak out at night to see if there were any clues but never anticipated getting caught in the act.

—Weren’t closets supposed to be totally safe?

How could someone still be pulled out after hiding in one!?

Without a teleport skill and too scared to just run out with her head down, she could only prepare to fight desperately, to see if there was a chance to escape.

If it so happened that this "Doctor" was just a low-level player, with low combat power...

If she killed the doctor...

Blood-red light flowed between her fingers, quickly coalescing into the form of a core, while a white protective shield faintly appeared around her, and a red mark surfaced on her forehead, as if she was ready to give everything she had.

The next moment, the closet door closed right before her eyes.

"Bang!" A sound echoed.

It was as if the doctor in front of her had merely checked to see if anyone was inside the closet—opening the door, and then closing it again, seemingly oblivious to her attack charge-up.

The attack the blonde woman had been brewing dissipated from her hands.

She stared with wide eyes, puzzled—why had the doctor voluntarily closed the closet door again?

Did he decide not to attack her?

Should she... go out or not?

Biting her lip, she hesitated.

But the next moment, the air around her began to churn as if boiling tumultuously.

Watching the forewarning of the attack, she suddenly realized what skill was being unleashed.

Spatial Vibration.

And there she was, trapped inside a cabinet, with the doors tightly shut, no place to flee.

She reached out her hands, pushing the cabinet doors with all her might, trying to quickly escape this place that had become extremely dangerous.

However, her hands’ force, separated by a layer of cabinet door, met with another force.

...The other was also pushing the door.

Yet, while she was desperately fighting for survival, the other intended to completely cut off her escape route.

Her mindset began to crumble, and she immediately thought of the Number Thirty Player who had suddenly gone mad in the cafeteria during the daytime.

"—Wait, Number Thirty! I beg you, spare me—"

She pleaded with a hoarse voice, exhausted.

The cabinet doors before her remained tightly closed, and everywhere she looked was engulfed in pitch black; she pushed against the door with all her might, but found only despair in return.

"I beg you—I beg you—I promise I won’t reveal your identity! I won’t affect you! Just please, spare me—"

In utter darkness, tears rolled down her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen, like a flower on the verge of withering.

"...Please... I beg you..."

"Boom—!"

The power was fully charged.

Su Ming’an withdrew his hand.

The cabinet door, losing the opposing force, swung open due to inertia, and the person inside tumbled out.

Blood blossomed over a vast area beneath her, dim golden locks drowning in a sea of blood, her body riddled with intersecting vertical and horizontal cracks.

Tears dried at the corners of her eyes, open wide, her eyeballs nearly bursting.

The azure panel unfolded before him, lines of text becoming visible:

Su Ming’an dragged the item into the temporary props column.

If his guess was correct, eliminating each student should drop an item related to that student’s identity.

This could be a side quest that could be completed within this instance.

He didn’t look at the corpse on the ground again and kept walking deeper along the corridors of the first floor.

...And it seemed his guess was not off the mark.

A doctor executing innocent children would be deemed "negligent," referring to each student with a record every night.

As for those without records, randomly wandering at night, killing them wouldn’t result in any punishment.

This woman had seen him, and something unexpected might occur; he wouldn’t allow these errors to persist. Reducing the number of useless people in the instance would also help narrow down his task.

He continued moving, suddenly feeling that the dizziness wasn’t as strong anymore.

He glanced at the upper left corner.

It had recovered.

He suddenly realized something.

Could it be... eliminating students helped him recover sanity points?