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

Baby boy?

Qiu Wanting stood frozen in astonishment.

However, he had no time to think further. Lu Dapeng's sudden roar was enough to announce their arrival to the natives in the darkness.

Rushing sounds came from all directions. There was no need to turn off the flashlight anymore. Qiu Wanting cautiously looked around. At the end of the corridor, a small, white, fuzzy thing first appeared. It slowly swayed into the light of the flashlight.

In the dimly lit, dusty corridor on the hospital's basement floor, an infant dressed in a hospital gown appeared.

Perhaps only two or three years old, he swayed as he walked, his steps laborious yet steady. He wore an unusually small hospital gown, one small hand shielding his eyes from the glaring light.

At this age, Qiu Wanting could not confirm the baby's true gender, but the only thing she could be sure of was that he was not Meng Wanwan.

Lu Dapeng trembled, and the beam of his flashlight swayed wildly. He involuntarily took a step forward, about to speak, when Qiu Wanting alertly covered his mouth.

Lu Dapeng struggled angrily, and Qiu Wanting whispered in his ear, "Shh."

"Look at him."

Lu Dapeng stared in surprise, his gaze meeting the baby's fixed, dark eyes.

He covered his mouth with both hands and shook his head at them.

He was gesturing for them to be quiet.

Lu Dapeng trembled all over and nodded to indicate that he understood.

Qiu Wanting released her hand from his mouth, lowering her eyes to conceal the thoughtful look in them. Interestingly, compared to him, a fellow player, Lu Dapeng was clearly more willing to believe the suddenly appearing infant.

The baby put down its hand, opened and closed its mouth, and then pointed to its ears, as if reminding them to listen to a sound.

After running through many eerie dungeons, most players have developed a basic understanding of lip reading. Qiu Wanting slowly pieced together the infant's words in her mind: Don't... disturb it?

At that moment, the underground floor finally fell into a deathly silence, and even the sound of breathing was forcibly suppressed.

In the stillness, they finally heard what the infant had told them to hear: faint music drifting from afar.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...

The ethereal children's choir, like wind blowing through wheat fields, swept across the entire corridor. It grew clearer and closer, until finally, it almost enveloped them.

It was as if they were being invited.

But the sound was so close, yet there was only the figure of a baby around. Where did the sound originate?

Qiu Wanting understood. His gaze slowly fell to his feet.

the other side.

"It smells...not good," Jiang Hui wrinkled her nose and whispered.

A beam of light from the flashlight pierced the dark and gloomy room.

The lights illuminated all sorts of instruments and tools, covered in old, bloodstained marks that were mottled and gruesome.

"Are these medical instruments, or some kind of torture device that should have been abolished long ago?" Tang Li stared at a serrated knife, and the thought of it possibly being used on Gu Xiaoying made her voice, which she had been trying to keep soft, turn cold and hard.

"What's the difference here?" Jiang Hui replied in a low voice. After taking a few more steps inside, the flashlight beam illuminated the outline of the hospital bed.

The rusty hospital bed was covered with a yellowed sheet, stained with large patches of old blood, and covered in dust. A human figure was faintly discernible in the dust.

"The bed has been used recently." Jiang Hui frowned as she looked at the marks on the bed.

Tang Li glanced at it: "It's nothing. It's me again."

She finally realized where all the dust she was covered in that morning came from.

Jiang Hui nodded, gesturing for Tang Li to step back. She took out a spray bottle from her pocket, shook it, and sprayed it from the hospital bed onto the surrounding equipment. The next second, multicolored lights, like shimmering mold with poisonous spots, appeared throughout the ward.

"What is this?" Tang Li felt a surge of physical disgust and nausea.

"A great invention of vampires." Jiang Hui looked around, her eyes growing colder. "The blood of the same person will only show one color. Therefore, in this ward..."

"It's splattered with the blood of different people," Tang Li interjected, anger weighing heavily on her stomach like a brick. This wasn't a hospital ward; it was a slaughterhouse.

At this moment, Jiang Hui displayed the calmness and rationality of a veteran of the eerie game. She observed the marks on the ground and followed them to a floor tile near the corner of the wall.

The knife, which had never left her hand, spun in her palm. Jiang Hui squatted down and forcefully tapped the floor tile with the hilt of the knife.

"Empty." She made a simple judgment based on the not-so-dull knocking sound. The knife spun in her hand again, the blade wedged into the gap between the floor tiles, and with a forceful pry, she forced open a narrow crack, revealing a dark hole below.

"There might be a hidden door leading to the second basement level nearby," Jiang Hui judged. The veins on her arms were bulging, clearly indicating that she had been bearing excessive weight, but her voice remained steady. "Tang Li, we have to go down."

"Let me take a look first." Tang Li stood behind her, blinking gently. "...Let 'us' take a look first."

The black pupils and white sclera shattered once again into a kaleidoscope of colors.

At their feet, the tiny pears carefully put on mini headlamps, and then one by one, hand in hand, jumped into the crevice, like a string of tiny fireflies.

In the space-time adjacent to theirs.

Lu Dapeng carefully cradled the infant in his left hand, while his right hand gripped Qiu Wanting's sleeve tightly as they continued to fall into the dark tunnel.

"boom--"

The sound of it landing silently was like a bamboo shoot finally breaking through the soil.

The singing was so clear, accompanied by children clapping and laughing.

Happy birthday! Happy birthday!

Qiu Wanting opened his eyes and saw children of varying heights all around him, and he stood among them. It was still dark, with only the flickering candlelight barely dispelling a small patch of darkness and illuminating the faces of the children around him.

Children of all ages were dressed in hospital gowns. They clapped and laughed, and in the center of them sat a small, stool-like table with a simple "birthday cake" neatly placed on it.

Qiu Wanting had seen the birthday cake in the bizarre dungeon before.

Perhaps it's a clean cake base smeared with sticky flesh and blood, or perhaps it's cream layers mixed with gushing eyeballs. But this is not it: a shabby chocolate pie with a candle that's already two-thirds used up on top.

The person celebrating their birthday was so weak that they couldn't even lift a fork.

It turned out to be the case.

Qiu Wanting stared at the figure placed next to the cake; it was a very small baby girl who couldn't even sit up.

Yes, it's your birthday.

Aren't you born today?

Meng Wanwan.

the other side.

The little pears widened their eyes, realizing they didn't need to use the overhead lights. The second basement level of the eerie private hospital actually already had a light source. It was a cold, dim light, as eerie as an aquarium.

A cold white light shone from behind the glass, revealing a huge, seemingly endless glass tank filled with blue liquid. Ripples transformed into mottled shadows, like a giant, ever-changing net, enveloping the tiny Tang pear.

They instinctively huddled together, taking small breaths of cold air. Only when tiny white mist escaped from their lips did the Tang pears realize how cold they were.

They observed each other, patting away the white frost that was rapidly climbing on each other's bodies.

As the shifting ripples of light and shadow were pushed aside, a larger shadow drifted over with the current and slowly enveloped the pears.

This feeling is so familiar, like when you're in an underwater tunnel in an aquarium, and as you turn to talk to your companion, a giant manta ray floats leisurely down the glass wall.

The manta ray's gaze is almost tangible, fixedly fixed on your back.

What is that? What is that watching me from behind?

A sense of crisis pounded down her spine. Tang Li turned around, looking back at everyone.