After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

A small human figure lay in a pool of blood.

It was so small that one almost wondered: could so much blood really flow from that short, thin body?

Gu Xiaoying was like an animal that had been skinned, disemboweled, and gutted, and then made into a live specimen using the crudest methods, nailed to the ground by invisible nails.

Don't forget, the dungeon is the real entity of the eerie boss.

Players are trying to open up a path between the dungeon and the original world, but every stab aimed at each key node is simultaneously piercing through Gu Xiaoying's body.

He no longer had the strength to stand up; the back of his head and earlobes were soaked in blood, and the earphone barely escaped death, hanging precariously above the pool of blood.

Empty eye sockets gazed up at the sky, where the imagery—the large hand about to grasp the hospital building—had long since vanished. The sky, devoid of sun, moon, and stars, presented a beautiful blue hue, with a hint of white appearing on the horizon, as if dawn was approaching.

Gu Xiaoying used his last bit of strength to grab the tip of the black mist tentacle.

The black mist, wanting to go out and seek out its "enemy" to take its own life, struggled in his hands, unable to understand its master's suicidal behavior.

"Old friend," Gu Xiaoying murmured, "be good, consider it granting me one last wish."

The black mist miraculously stopped struggling, like some silent little animal, quietly lying on the chest of the little eagle.

The area around his heart felt warm. It was as if someone was placing their hand over him.

Old archives room.

Tang Li had found a suitable place to make the cut based on Jiang Hui's instructions, and she gently placed her hand on the ground.

"Gu Xiaoying," Tang Li looked down at her hand, "does it hurt a lot?"

She recalled what Gu Xiaomei had said, and the almost tangible pain in her eyes: the dungeon is the Boss's body.

"Are you badly injured? So badly injured that you're about to die?"

Tang Li asked him, her voice trembling slightly.

As always, he was very perceptive.

Gu Xiaoying closed his eyes, no longer wanting to deceive her. The dungeon boss finally let out a few unsteady breaths and said, "Yes."

"However, many times before, I felt that I wouldn't make it through and that I would die at any moment."

"I wrote countless versions of my will for this, and at the most frequent times, I would update it before each surgery," he said, a soft chuckle escaping his throat. "But none of them were ever used. So, I guess I'm still pretty hard to kill."

Tang Li was silent for a moment: "Then, this is the last surgery. After it's done, you'll be completely healed."

Gu Xiaoying chuckled softly, "Okay, I trust Dr. Tang."

That simple sentence suddenly brought tears to Tang Li's eyes.

You still choose to believe, Gu Xiaoying.

How can I be afraid of you? How can I be terrified of you? You haven't changed at all from beginning to end!

Tang Li silently blinked away the tears welling up in her eyes. It was an ominous sign; she hated the atmosphere of life and death.

So she deliberately acted relaxed.

"Actually, let me tell you a secret." Tang Li raised the curved surgical scissors, her eyes shattering into a magnificent kaleidoscope of thousands of petals. Each eyelid trembled, reflecting a shimmering scene as they tracked the red snake swimming beneath the floor, the flow of Gu Xiaoying's blood.

Tang Li smiled and raised the surgical scissors higher and higher.

"I specifically consulted Qiu Wanting, and I even considered adopting you, Gu Xiaoying."

"Who will you adopt?!" Gu Xiaoying's surprised voice came through his left ear.

"I beg you not to," Gu Xiaomei pleaded stiffly in her right ear.

Tang Li smiled.

King of Peeping, I knew you were here too.

"Gu Xiaomei's been eavesdropping on our conversation." Tang Li's smile deepened as she locked onto the red snake, its body pulsating like a heart and its crimson color resembling a sun. "Gu Xiaoying, if you can't hold on any longer, I'll adopt Xiaomei, okay?"

"Don't even think about it!"

"Don't even think about it!"

The father and daughter shouted at the same time in both ears, their tone and voice were exactly the same.

Tang Li laughed loudly, and with a 360-degree surround sound, she used all her strength to swing down the surgical scissors.

Like a shooting star that crashes into the world.

At this moment, filled with unwavering hope, as dawn was about to break, she had never felt so confident in her life as she did in this instant.

This is the privilege of energetic young people.

If a bizarre world can turn college students into players of horror games, then it must bear the consequences. They are reckless and passionate, capable of giving their all to anything that doesn't concern them. They firmly believe that hard work pays off, and that as long as they participate wholeheartedly, there shouldn't be a bad ending in this world.

You took them away as much as you could, and so they never stepped out of that ivory tower in their entire lives. Thus, Tang Li saw darkness and bloodshed, yet she remained convinced that everything in this world would eventually turn out as she wished.

The surgical scissors pierced the red snake's body.

The world is fractured, the universe is screaming.

Eighth floor.

One after another, the little children stood in a row.

Opposite them, tall, swollen human bodies squatted down, burying their heads as obediently as possible into their laps.

Those were twisted yet tender embraces.

Qiu Wanting crossed his arms and watched everything unfold before him.

"Are you ready to settle in the original world of this instance?" he analyzed calmly. "You are now completely untouched by anything supernatural, so escaping the instance's control will be a piece of cake."

"But Lu Qisheng and the others are not native to the world, and their bodies have been under strange control for many years, leaving them with little intelligence."

Qiu Wanting's tone was merciless, like a sharp knife directly cutting through the reality that the children were still deceiving themselves: "When the instance and the original world reconnect, whether they go to the original world with you, or are rejected by the original world as low-level, bizarre derivatives of the instance, no one can say for sure."

"So, have you made your decision?"

The warm and tender atmosphere was abruptly shattered, and the children fell silent.

Zhuge Jiajia finally tidied Liu Anbang's somewhat long hair.

"Boss Qiu," she called out, mimicking how other players addressed him, "the idea of ​​connecting the eerie dungeon with the original world was ours. Do you think we didn't consider this even more cruel possibility during our research?"

"But even death is better than letting them live a life of humiliation in the hospital pool."

The girl, whose face was half-distorted like a vengeful ghost, turned around and looked at Qiu Wanting: "Instead of worrying about us, you should worry more about your little friend in the old archives."

"Didn't you plan to blow up the basin before?"

"Why haven't we heard any explosion yet?"