A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

"Don't go near those 'patients'," Fang Xu said in a low voice. "I glanced at it when I passed by, and the thing on the bed had its neck twisted up, its face facing the bed board, but its eyes were rolling upwards—brother, my legs went weak at that moment."

Shen Yue added from the side, "There's a pharmacy at the end of the corridor on the second floor, but it's locked."

"You veteran players?" Lu Chen asked.

Fang Xu waved his hand: "I've been here a few times, I'm not old."

Han Yingying noticed a detail. On Fang Xu's wristband, besides the number, there was a line of small gray text printed on it. Her own wristband didn't have that text.

"What's that writing on your wristband?"

Fang Xu subconsciously withdrew his hand and chuckled awkwardly, "It's nothing, it's just... the level marked by the system."

"What level?"

Fang Xu glanced at Shen Yue. Shen Yue remained expressionless, seemingly indifferent.

Fang Xu scratched the back of his head: "S-level certification. Both Brother Shen and I have it."

Lu Chen was stunned: "S-rank? Isn't that the highest? How come you guys are still stuck in normal dungeons?"

"It's different," Fang Xu said. "Being qualified doesn't mean you have to participate. The death rate of S-level dungeons—let me tell you, of the people I've seen who have gone through them, three out of ten who come back alive are considered lucky."

Shen Yue suddenly spoke up: "Two."

"Yes, there were two in the last batch," Fang Xu corrected himself. "So we're not going. We can survive in normal dungeons."

Han Yingying didn't press the matter. Zhou Lang didn't say anything either. However, the two exchanged a glance, conveying a similar meaning—it's absurd for an S-rank qualified person to be holed up in a normal dungeon, but everyone has their own choices.

The five people temporarily formed a group and found an empty clinic room on the first floor as their base.

Fang Xu was a restless person; he kept talking even while organizing supplies. The conversation eventually veered to a particular topic—

Have you heard of 'Ying'?

Han Yingying was checking the windows for being sealed when she paused. "What?"

"That's the top player!" Fang Xu perked up. "One of the top three players in the community. Rumor has it that she soloed two A-rank dungeons in the first month after the strange event, and then cleared an S-rank dungeon in the second month. She single-handedly saved sixteen teammates. Isn't that amazing?"

"Your name is 'Ying'?" Lu Chen asked curiously.

"Her game ID is 'Ying,' and nobody knows her real identity. She never appears in public channels, and you can't find her on social media. Everyone who's ever teamed up with her says the same thing—'You don't need to use your brain when you're with her; she knows the rules better than the system itself.'" Fang Xu said animatedly. "I've always wanted to meet her in person, but she never shows up in regular dungeons; she's the kind of person who leaves as soon as she's done something."

Han Yingying was a little distracted while listening.

It wasn't because these feats were exaggerated, but because of the details Fang Xu described—the route selection when soloing an A-level dungeon, the reaction to ghosts, the thought process for identifying loopholes in the rules—she felt something was off.

It's not the unfamiliar kind of something that's off.

It sounds so pleasing to the ear.

It's like encountering a question on an exam that you haven't reviewed, but you can still write it as soon as you pick up a pen.

Zhou Lang listened without interrupting. He was flipping through a duty log he had found in a drawer under the nurses' station counter.

"Ying's most ruthless act was in the 'Ebb Flow' dungeon," Fang Xu said in a low voice, adding a touch of underground gossip to the story. "That dungeon was officially rated A+. There were thirty-two players who went in, and by the second day, only seven were left. Of the remaining seven, three suffered mental breakdowns, two were seriously injured, and only she and one other person were still able to move. Anyone else would have run away by now, right? But she went back and dragged those five half-dead players to the safe zone."

Lu Chen was astonished: "That's incredible!"

"That's not all," Fang Xu said enthusiastically. "What's even more outrageous is what happened later—well, it wasn't really an interview—when someone asked her why she didn't run away. Guess what she said?"

"What?"

"There's no hurdle you can't overcome, it's just a bit troublesome."

Han Yingying's fingertips trembled.

She had heard that phrase before.

It wasn't something I heard from someone else; it was something else entirely—

She pressed her temples, trying to grasp the fleeting thought, but grasped nothing. Her mind felt like it was stuffed with cotton, hazy and indistinct.

"Are you alright?" Zhou Lang's voice came from the side.

"It's nothing, just a bit of a headache." Han Yingying put her hand down. "It's probably because the disinfectant smell is too strong here."

Zhou Lang looked at her for two seconds and then said nothing more.

After nightfall, Yong'an Hospital takes on a different look.

During the day, the atmosphere was gloomy and oppressive, but at night, sounds began to appear in the corridor. At first, it was the sound of footsteps, unhurried and slow, like someone making rounds in the wards. Later, the sound of cart wheels creaking and groaning was mixed in, echoing from one end of the corridor to the other.

At 11:45, Fang Xu listened for a while by the door, then pulled back and reported, "The trolley is parked in front of the fourth ward."

"Dispense the medicine," Shen Yue said.

Rule number three – You must take the medication when the nurse dispenses it.

At exactly twelve o'clock, there was a knock on the door of the consultation room. Three knocks, neither too loud nor too soft.

Zhou Lang opened the door.

A woman in a white nurse's uniform stood outside the door. Calling her a "woman" isn't quite accurate anymore—her complexion was paper-gray, and her left eye socket was larger than her right, causing her left eyeball to dangle in its socket like a loosely fitted glass ball.

She was pushing a stainless steel cart. On the cart were five paper cups, each containing a different colored pill.

"Medication time." Her lips moved, but the voice sounded like it was being squeezed out from a hole in the back of her throat.

Each of the five people took a cup.

Lu Chen stared at the dark green pill in the cup, his expression as if he had been fed a mouthful of bitter herbs. He looked up at Zhou Lang.

Zhou Lang had already put the pill in his mouth.

"Swallow it," he told the nurse.

The nurse tilted her head and looked at him for five seconds, nodded, and then turned to the next person.

Han Yingying swallowed it too. The moment the pill went down her throat, it had an extremely strong bitter taste, like chewing raw herb roots.

After all five people took their medication, the nurse pushed the cart away. The sound of the wheels gradually faded into the distance, and the corridor became quiet again.

"Is this medicine poisonous?" Lu Chen was the first to speak.

"The rules state 'must be taken,' which means it's safe only if taken," Han Yingying said.

Fang Xu licked his lips: "Mine was sweet. What did it taste like?"

"It's bitter," the other four people said in unison.

"...Should I start to worry?"

Shen Yue glanced at Fang Xu and said, "You always seem to have a tough life, so don't worry about it."

Fang Xu remained silent, but the unease on his face was genuine.

The hospital in the early hours of the morning was harder to endure than I had imagined. The rules said that patients could not leave their rooms after midnight, so they treated the consultation room as a ward, locking the door from the inside, but the noise in the corridor never stopped for a moment.