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

"...The surveillance system is broken." Xiao Mei murmured in Tang Li's ear in shock.

How terrifying Tang Li is. The poor little AI thought fearfully, thankfully, when she had a physical form, she always thought of herself as just a newly hired female ghost and treated Lady Tang Li with utmost respect, otherwise…

Waaah, is Tang Li going to blow me up too?

"A mere bomb wouldn't pose much of a threat to the dean, would it? What a pity," Tang Li muttered regretfully to herself. If she had known this would happen, she would have let Liu Dan eat a few more.

"Can the spider speed up again?" Xiaomei's tone suddenly became urgent. "The dean is completely enraged. It seems he's tracking us using some method."

"He's coming this way, and he's moving so fast!"

Eighth floor.

Lei Hong remained expressionless as he removed his white suit, which was charred and tattered from the explosion. Even the red brooch he had carefully preserved for decades and only wore on important occasions was destroyed in the blast.

The hairstyle that was originally well-maintained is now a mess, almost comical, with every strand of hair charred and yellow.

He was covered in grime, and the faint smell of blood still lingered in his throat, but after all, he was the Dean of the Mysterious Ones, second only to the Boss in the dungeon, so the bombs posed no threat to him.

That will only drive him crazy.

"Tang Li," he sang the name between his teeth, "Tang Li."

He originally intended to conserve as much power as possible to deal with Gu Xiaoying, but now he is willing to spare some of it to kill her.

His fingertip shattered, and the dean's blood gushed out, floating in mid-air as a red bandage.

The dean pulled out a small glass bottle from somewhere, inside which was a long hair. He took out the hair and handed it to the red bandage, which immediately responded by playfully tying a bow around the hair.

That was Tang Li's long hair. Qi Cuiming, disguised as a cleaner, found it on the sheets when she changed Tang Li's bedding and kept it. Newcomers are newcomers after all; they don't have much awareness of protecting their hair and blood.

At that time, they naively thought this was the "strange master's" fearlessness.

"Give me directions," Lei Hong whispered.

The red bandage flew like a red shooting star towards the place where the hair's owner was.

An ominous red line streaked across the sky.

the other side.

The familiar scene awakened Tang Li's memories. The spider's many legs trod on the old cement floor, the dense clicking sound like the drumbeats before a battle. The dragonfly's corpse still lay in the corner of the stairs, its thin wings like a delicate specimen covered in dust.

The slender fluorescent tubes flickered intermittently. While the entire hospital was clearly engulfed in darkness, these lights were still on.

At the other end of the corridor, the old archives came into Tang Li's view.

Tang Li stopped Spider at the stairwell. She rolled off his back and turned to look at the obediently prostrate man on the ground with a strange expression: "Go away, leave this place."

The spider looked at her, puzzled and aggrieved: "But, sir, you..."

Tang Li gave a brief order: "Go back to your room and wait for my instructions."

"As you command, my lord!" The spider's eyes lit up again, knowing that his lord had not abandoned him, and he left quickly, satisfied.

Tang Li then turned around and walked towards the old archives room.

Through the earpiece, Xiaomei seemed to breathe a sigh of relief: "The Dean is still quite a distance away. Although it's a bit of a pity to give up this mount, at least we've eliminated the risk of retaliation..."

Tang Li paused slightly, no longer listening to Xiao Mei.

The faint, melodious music drifted into the ear that wasn't wearing headphones.

The sound of a radio. Tang Li thought, feeling a sense of unknown fear hanging precariously in mid-air like a thin thread.

Has someone turned on Lao Yan's radio again?

"...Since I began to compare the willow branches to others, and jokingly plucked flower branches to rival spring, I've lost to the crabapple by three or four points. Even if I were to steal a share, half of it would be suspicion and half resentment..."

Half suspicion, half hatred.

It was clearly a man's voice, yet he acted like a wronged woman lamenting her fate.

Tang Li gently pushed open the slightly ajar door.

The dim light shone into her eyes; there was someone in the archives.

A man lies in a rocking chair, covered with a thin blanket, his hands covering his eyes, listening to the radio and singing along.

...Is that Lao Yan? Is he still alive?

Hearing the door open, the person sat up, smiled before even opening their eyes, and looked at Tang Li.

It was a familiar face. But he shouldn't be here.

Dr. Jerry smiled, his eyes crinkling, and looked at Tang Li. His voice was so soft it was almost strange, as if he were trying hard to suppress something: "Sir, you've arrived?"

Despite her usual ingratiating expression, Tang Li could feel the underlying malice beneath it at that moment.

No, no, be careful.

Tang Li said in a steady tone, "Ah, Dr. Jerry, you're here."

She remained standing at the door, wary and not taking a step forward. "What? Has he been transferred? Our promising and popular Dr. Jerry, how come he's taking over from Old Yan to guard the archives?"

Dr. Jerry was still smiling, all the fear and timidity he had shown before disappearing: "My lady, it's all because you always ignore me, I miss you so much!"

"—I had no choice but to wait here to see you."

Xiao Mei's urgent voice kept ringing in the earphones as she shared information with Tang Li.

Tang Li raised her eyes: "Didn't the dean assign you a task? Senior staff members are to hunt down those with fewer than twenty kills and become new test subjects. Dr. Jerry is so relaxed, has he already met his KPI?"

Jerry stared at Tang Li, slowly got off the recliner, and stood opposite her.

The thin blanket slipped off. Tang Li's pupils contracted sharply.

Dr. Jerry's white coat was tattered and stained with dried blood. Through the holes in the fabric, one could see deep, bone-revealing wounds.

Dr. Jerry seemed completely oblivious to the pain. He spread his arms wide, as if openly displaying his "exposed" state to Tang Li.

"Look, look, sir." Dr. Jerry laughed, staring into Tang Li's unfathomable dark eyes. "Look at your poor follower, how pathetic he is. He's just an office worker, unable to complete the director's task, and he's being chased by players with knives."

"In his most desperate moment, he remembered that the adults had given him a drop of blood, a precious drop of blood, which he treasured as a life-saving elixir."

"Ah, my dear sir, you may not know this, but Dr. Jerry chuckled as if he had suddenly remembered something. "For a low-level monster like me, a single drop of blood from a high-level monster is enough to transform me completely."

Blood… Yes, on her first day in the hospital, she thought she was being checked for mushroom poisoning, so she agreed to let Dr. Jerry draw her blood.

A cold sweat broke out on Tang Li's back again; she knew where her weakness lay.

Xiao Mei's words still echoed in her ears: the supernatural are a bunch of obsessive madmen. The more stubborn the supernatural are, the easier they are to fool. But if one day they realize the truth themselves, they will take crazy revenge without regard for anything else.

Dr. Jerry walked towards her step by step.

"O all-knowing and all-powerful being, please enlighten your faithful believers."

"Why doesn't your blood have any effect on me?"

And in my ears, the radio was still playing its creaking tune:

"...If they steal some more, I'll feel half suspicion and half hatred..."