Chapter 135 - 125: First Night

Bai Qiang originally wanted to claim she was a staunch materialist, but even she had to admit something felt off.

Using Zhang Yueqin’s phone, Bai Qiang quickly browsed through the major social media platforms. Overall, this world shared the same era and background as Ancient Abyss. Aside from different names for major cities, the similarities were strikingly high.

However, the social media here was flooded with news about Kaidan. Bai Qiang would spot one after just a brief scroll, and almost all of them featured a highly recurring comment below: "Quick, report this to the Abnormal Investigation Bureau!"

As the name implied, the Abnormal Investigation Bureau handled anomalous events. Yet, a search for their official website yielded nothing. There was only a three-digit phone number: 444.

Seeing the number four was almost enough to trigger a stress response in Bai Qiang now. However, a three-digit phone number offered a clear Explanation of its importance: it was on par with police and medical emergency lines.

Yin Zhen and Bai Qiang exchanged the information they had gathered so far in their team channel. After finishing her scheduled morning treatments, Yin Zhen borrowed a wheelchair and pushed Bai Qiang to the nurses’ station to chat with the staff, fishing for details about the inpatient guidelines and the hospital itself.

Yin Zhen had inspected the stairwells on both the east and west wings to ensure their escape routes would be clear in case of an emergency. The door to the west stairwell was wrapped several times in a thick chain and locked shut. A thick layer of grime covered the glass panel on the door. Pressing her face close, Yin Zhen peered inside through the filth. The stairwell was pitch-black with no lights. Large patches of paint were peeling off the walls, and she could smell the distinct odor of scorched matter.

She then checked the east wing again. The east stairwell was perfectly normal: the lights were on, the floor was clean, the handrails were dust-free, and a fire evacuation map was pasted on the wall.

At noon, Yin Zhen pushed Bai Qiang to the inpatient cafeteria on the basement floor, taking the opportunity to inspect every level along the way. The inpatient guidelines were posted next to the nurses’ station on each floor. At first glance, they all looked the same, but a closer comparison revealed several discrepancies.

The seventh floor had an added rule: "Do not run in the corridors." The sixth floor warned: "Do not sing after ten o’clock." The fifth floor stated: "Do not tamper with the fire hydrants..."

"This is a rule-based Kaidan!"

Bai Qiang felt her skin crawl. As Yin Zhen pushed her wheelchair, she used her phone to search for news articles. She had just learned at the fourth-floor nurses’ station that a massive fire had broken out in the inpatient department ten years ago. The old building had been practically gutted by the flames, claiming many lives and forcing the hospital to shut down.

It wasn’t until three years ago that a conglomerate bought the property, leveled the entire inpatient department, rebuilt it from scratch, and reopened it under the name Renxin Hospital.

"Here, look, this is the news article about the fire back then," Bai Qiang said, passing her phone backward. Yin Zhen took the device to read through it.

"The nurse said she had no idea when those inpatient guidelines were put up," Bai Qiang continued, sitting in her wheelchair. "She just told me that as long as you follow them, you’ll be fine. She’s worked at this hospital for over a year and hasn’t seen anything bad happen.

"She also mentioned that the doctors in the inpatient department have excellent medical skills. They’ve successfully treated several incredibly rare diseases, so even if some patients feel a bit uneasy, they are still willing to be hospitalized here."

Yin Zhen handed the phone back to Bai Qiang. "We should do our best to follow the hospital rules and avoid doing anything unnecessary. Surviving these three days safely is our main priority; exploring and gathering information comes second."

After lunch, Yin Zhen pushed Bai Qiang around the entire hospital for a thorough sweep.

The outpatient building was the original old structure. It faced south with its back to the north—a standard, auspicious orientation for dwellings of the living. It had a spacious front courtyard, and the main doors opened toward the direction of vital energy.

The inpatient department was a newly built structure, erected after the area was leveled. However, something must have gone wrong during its construction: the west side was sealed off, the stairwell reeked of burnt matter, and the building itself was shorter than the outpatient building. Looking at the inpatient department in isolation, its layout was long and narrow, sealed off from the wind on all sides. With the west stairwell deadlocked, the yin energy could not dissipate. Because the structure sat lower than the outpatient building, it looked as if it were sinking into the ground.

Standing at the base of the inpatient building, Yin Zhen said to Bai Qiang, "This doesn’t look like a ward building; it looks like an outer coffin. Something unnatural happened here years ago, and they couldn’t suppress it when they rebuilt. In the end, they constructed it in the exact layout of a burial chamber to crush whatever is beneath it."

Bai Qiang’s scalp went numb. "So they’re making us live on top of a grave? And we have to stay for three days! Can we just camp on the hospital lawn instead? By the way, will my spiritual power and your Extraordinary Ability even work against supernatural events?"

Yin Zhen’s voice was grim. "One of the rules in the outpatient building states not to wander outside the hospital after ten o’clock at night. Camping outside might not be any safer than staying in the ward. In a Rule Kaidan, the rules are the most absolute, unsolvable source of Strength. Let’s go to the hospital’s mini-mart to buy some supplies, then head back to the ward. I’ll see if I can heal your leg first, just so you can struggle a bit longer before you die."

Bai Qiang whipped her head around. "Are you trying to piss me off to death?"

After purchasing a large bag of miscellaneous items, the two returned to Ward 414. It had been well over six hours since they crossed over, but neither had inherited any memories belonging to their current bodies; their minds remained a total blank.

They decided not to dwell on the issue. Instead, they reviewed the rules for each floor of the inpatient building again and agreed that if any problems arose during the night, they would communicate exclusively through the team chat channel.

The young woman in the other bed had drawn her privacy curtain. She was wearing headphones, watching a drama on her phone, and crying so hard that her pillow was surrounded by crumpled tissues. Yin Zhen had previously approached her to share some of their newly bought snacks, but the woman ignored her, her eyes glued to the screen as she sobbed too hard to speak. Yin Zhen noticed the medical card at the end of the bed. It stated that her name was Wei Yang, 24 years old, admitted just today for a fractured left arm.

Yin Zhen pulled the curtain shut around Bai Qiang’s bed and began taking things out.

Currently, she could not equip a Character Card, meaning only her inherent Player abilities were available to her. She had brought three Items with her: a Game Backpack (Small) containing a vial of blood, the Pet Machine, and the refined Universal Key. The system store sold a ten-slot game backpack priced at 100,000 words. After seeing the price, Yin Zhen decided that three slots were plenty.

The vial of blood had been drawn after she equipped her Character Card in Ancient Abyss. It was enough to sustain the Pet Machine for three days. The Pet Machine only required Blood of Bloodline; it didn’t specify a time limit on how fresh the drawn blood had to be. As for the refined Universal Key, its cooldown time had been reduced from one hour to thirty minutes, and its unlocking capability had also improved.

Her remaining two Items were the Half a Book and the Save Card. Since her Villain Aura would not activate during this early login, the Save Card acted as her crucial life-saving Item.

Yin Zhen took out the Pet Machine and hung it around her neck. Zoe the egg curiously rolled to the very front of the screen, looking left and right as question marks floated up from above the egg.

Yin Zhen picked up the Half a Book and pressed her hand against the first piece of yellow paper. She recalled "Structural Repair." Soon, a wrench icon appeared on the paper, accompanied by the number 1,000.

A single use consumed 1,000 words. A full day’s usage required 3,000 words. Permanently replicating the ability cost 10,000 words, along with the disappearance of the page. Yin Zhen tried erasing the ability to re-record it, but a prompt informed her that this would cost 500 words.

Bai Qiang was injured in two places; repairing both would cost 2,000 words. It was better to just spend 3,000 words to replicate the ability for twenty-four hours. That way, if something happened during the night and both of them got hurt, they could keep using it without any cooldown in between.

"Press your hand on this wrench," Yin Zhen instructed.

She had decided to test if she could replicate the ability for Bai Qiang to use. Bai Qiang’s Luck Value was currently at negative one, while her own original Player Luck Value was seven. If disaster struck, it would definitely hit Bai Qiang first. It was safer to give her the healing ability.

Once the word count was deducted, the replication was successful. A padlock icon appeared over the wrench symbol on the page.

"Figure out how to use it yourself. I’m going to wash up and get ready for bed."

"You’re going to sleep at just past seven? Have you finished your homework? Third grade is the time to grind, my dear daughter!" Bai Qiang teased.

Yin Zhen shot her a murderous glare, while Bai Qiang fought hard to hold back a laugh.

After washing up, Yin Zhen and Bai Qiang slept side by side on the same narrow bed. Yin Zhen rejected Bai Qiang’s attempt to chat. She stuffed the Yellow Talisman given by the grandmother from the adjacent bed under Bai Qiang’s pillow. Then, she turned over, pressed a hand to the Pet Machine around her neck, and fell asleep.

Not long after falling asleep, Yin Zhen was jolted awake by the wailing of an ambulance outside. She checked her watch. It was 9:47 PM.

The ward lights were all out, and Bai Qiang was sleeping soundly. To maintain a clear view of her surroundings, Yin Zhen hadn’t drawn their curtain. She could see that the phone screen light from the bed near the door was off; Wei Yang must have fallen asleep too. The entire floor had grown eerily quiet, leaving only the dull hum of the air conditioner.

Yin Zhen glanced at the Pet Machine hanging from her neck. A line of "zzz" symbols drifted up from the egg. Zoe was also sleeping soundly. Rolling over, Yin Zhen went back to sleep, not daring to let her mind wander.

She slept for an indeterminate amount of time, though it felt longer than before. As Yin Zhen transitioned from deep to light sleep, she groggily heard a coughing sound. It was very close. Thinking it was Bai Qiang, she reached out blindly to her side—and jolted completely awake.

Bai Qiang was gone!

Yin Zhen threw back the covers and lifted her pillow. The Triangular Yellow Talisman that should have been under Bai Qiang’s pillow was, At this moment, lying right under her own. She immediately sent a message to Bai Qiang through the team chat channel, asking where she was.

COUGH COUGH! COUGH COUGH!

In the pitch-black ward, the coughing came from the adjacent bed. The privacy curtain for the bed that should have been empty had been drawn shut at some point, sealing it off tightly. Through the dim moonlight filtering in from the window, Yin Zhen could vaguely make out a hunched silhouette sitting on that bed.

COUGH COUGH! COUGH COUGH COUGH!

The cold sweat on Yin Zhen’s body was chilled by the air conditioner’s breeze, instantly breaking her out in goosebumps.

Then, the hunched silhouette slowly turned its head in Yin Zhen’s direction. Instantly, Yin Zhen felt an intensely itchy sensation rush up her throat, triggering an uncontrollable urge to cough.