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

The 30th floor.

"And what about this prediction post?" the young man asked, pointing at the computer screen, his jaw dropping.

"Discussion on the gender of [Ancient]... Suspecting that [Ancient] biological sex was male, but later psychological gender awakened to female?"

The middle-aged man's lips twitched twice. "This inference may be far-fetched, but it's not entirely unfounded."

"At some point later, the style of [Gu] did indeed undergo some changes, including its word choice and sentence structure, becoming more refined, and its aesthetics also changed to some extent."

The young people couldn't understand: "He was a masked man to begin with, how much change could he possibly make?"

"You don't understand, that kind of change is very abrupt," the middle-aged man sighed. "In fact, many people suspect that under the ID 'Gu,' a different person has taken over."

The young man suddenly looked up: "Impossible!"

"Yes, back then, his fan base was all over the world, and they refused to believe the cruel truth that might be hidden beneath the sudden change. But this change was hard to ignore, which led to this far-fetched 'gender awakening' theory." The middle-aged man shook his head. "However, the most reasonable explanation is still..."

"Sigh, after the 432 incident, [Gu] never appeared in the online world again. So many years have passed since his last appearance, what's the point of investigating these things now?" The middle-aged man turned to look out the window, his expression wistful. "Sometimes, I just wish [Gu] could see the world as it is now. We've all done a good job; we shouldn't have wasted the information he released for free..."

"I don't believe it!" the young man declared firmly. "The ancient god is so powerful; his knowledge has helped so many people escape the strange phenomena. How could he himself have fallen before him?"

"He has surely already gracefully retired, leaving without a trace, his merits and fame hidden!"

Beyond several worlds.

The last node has been connected.

The hospital building was shaking.

Every place damaged by the curved surgical shears overflowed with a dazzling white light, so brilliant that it was impossible to look directly at it.

It was like a strong wind and a tsunami hitting flat ground; everything was shaking violently, and the sound of various objects falling was like a dense rain. The curtains had been torn down at some point and were fluttering and swirling near the ceiling.

Doctors and nurses, like helpless ants in the face of disaster, ran busily and futilely through the corridors, shouting loudly.

The children clung to their swollen bodies for balance. They shouted at each other, but in the chaos, they couldn't hear each other. Qiu Wanting had also lost his footing, but Jiang Hui rushed over and steadied his arm, remaining as steady as a mountain even then.

Qiu Wanting turned to look at Jiang Hui, and the two exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with barely concealed anxiety.

According to their plan, Tang Li should have detonated the bomb by now.

The bomb should be detonated before the last node is cleared, because Gu Xiaoying will be completely weakened after clearing it. Dean Lei Hong must be weakened before then to prevent him from taking over the dungeon boss position.

What happened? Why didn't Tang Li do things in the order they agreed upon?

The white light continued to expand, like molten lava overflowing from the depths, surging and spreading, eager to engulf everything.

Outside the hospital building, a red sun suddenly leaped out on the horizon, like blood cells, like a heart.

On the rooftop, Gu Xiaoying used his last bit of strength to turn his head, letting the sun enter his field of vision.

Ominous black spots had already appeared at the edge of my vision, and my whole body was cracking, as if the slightest movement would shatter into a pile of bright fragments.

It's like someone who has accidentally fallen off a cliff and can only hold onto a rock with one hand to keep their whole body afloat, watching helplessly as their fingers are slowly and painlessly falling off that rock.

He couldn't hold on to it; he was powerless to do anything about it.

The instance was a malignant tumor that was maturing rapidly in the original world, and also a ripe, rotten purple-black fruit in his palm. No matter how much he hated it before, it had always obediently stayed in his hand, but now, he was finally powerless to control it.

Just then, a burst of hearty laughter suddenly erupted deep within the hospital, piercing through the noise and echoing throughout the entire hospital, even amidst the chaos.

"Great! Great! The dungeon is mine! Gu Xiaoying! The dungeon is mine!"

The high-pitched voice was filled with excessive joy, and by the end, the last note was almost a cry.

It is Lei Hong, the director of the shady private hospital.

Inside the intact cricket fighting bowl, on the red sand, lay a layer of twisted, wriggling, colorful worms. Some were covered with dense, poisonous hairs, some had triangular heads at both ends, and some had black eyes covering every segment of their bodies, densely packed and terrifying to behold.

Amidst the laughter, they grew smaller and smaller, their numbers increasing. One split into two, two into four, and within seconds they transformed into a bowl of wriggling, colorful particles, burrowing deep into the original red sand in the bowl. After that, they emerged from the barely visible cracks at the bottom of the bowl.

Colorful particles danced in the wind, gradually spinning into a familiar human shape.

Rooftop.

Gu Xiaoying calmly pressed the earphone deeper and called out the name: "Tang Li".

"I can hold on a little longer. What do you need me to do?"

Now that things have come to this, he knows Tang Li well enough. He knows that she couldn't possibly have overlooked this matter, and she couldn't possibly have been completely unprepared.

The other end of the earphone.

"No need to hold on." Tang Li looked at the gradually forming humanoid shape and smiled from the bottom of her heart. "Gu Xiaoying, give him the dungeon."

A few minutes ago.

As Tang Li carefully filled the basin with bombs, she bent down to pick up the curved surgical scissors on the ground.

Before my fingers even touched the core item of this dungeon, a sharp alarm rang in my ears.

System pop-ups flooded her vision, almost filling her entire field of vision.

[Warning: This player's action will cause the instance to leave the eerie world, causing significant losses to the eerie lord. This is not permitted and will be terminated immediately!] [Warning: This player's action will cause the instance to leave the eerie world, causing significant losses to the eerie lord. This is not permitted and will be terminated immediately!] [Warning: This player's action...]

A mysterious lord? That "Lord Li" is so powerful, why would he look down on such a lowly one-star dungeon?

Tang Li remained unmoved and stubbornly tried to pick up the surgical scissors again.

The burning sensation bit her fingertips.

[Player behavior remained unchanged; manual intervention has been initiated.]

[The Department of Mysterious Events Management in the Bizarre World has been connected.]

[Hello, player Tang Li. The instance you are in, "The Ghostly Private Hospital," has a boss, Gu Xiaoying, who has signed a contract with our company. The instance now belongs to the Ghostly World.]

[If the warning is ignored and the player forcibly leaves, our company will take necessary intervention measures, including but not limited to closing the player's normal exit channels and forcibly terminating the instance.]