Chapter 9: The Eerie Little Girl with Twin Ponytails
“But you two better not get yourselves killed.”
“The secrets of this hospital are not for you to know. Once seven days pass, you two should leave.”
Zhang Yurou exchanged a glance with Chen Wanchong, surprise flickering in their eyes. Yet, to keep the strange doctor before them steady, they both nodded toward Xie Yunyan.
Seeing their obedience, Xie Yunyan smiled with satisfaction and proceeded to the next hunting ground.
After Xie Yunyan disappeared from sight, Chen Wanchong immediately wore a sour expression and began to wail miserably to Zhang Yurou.
They never spoke of Xie Yunyan’s odd behavior. In these horror games, players trust each other but remain wary...
“Sis Zhang, this run’s a total loss! I’m practically down to my last pair of underwear!”
Hearing Chen Wanchong’s lament, Zhang Yurou rolled her eyes in silent exasperation. Did he really think she didn’t know his nature? Trying to trick her? Not a chance!
“I don’t have many cursed coins on me right now. Also...”
Zhang Yurou waved her hand and quickly finished, then turned to Chen Wanchong.
“Don’t even think about going after the hidden quests.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you—they know who we are.”
Zhang Yurou knew Chen Wanchong wanted to risk it all to complete a hidden quest and recoup his losses. But since that strange doctor agreed to help them, it was certainly not without reason.
After all, if they succeeded in the hidden quest, the doctor would receive a greater reward.
No cursed entity would go against cursed coins!
That meant the hidden quest was genuinely dangerous, far beyond their current abilities.
If they insisted on trying, the only outcome would be becoming one of the many restless souls trapped in this cursed hospital.
“If you’re set on courting death, don’t drag me down with you!”
Hearing Zhang Yurou’s merciless words, Chen Wanchong felt stung but awkwardly smiled.
As he fidgeted nervously and glanced around, Chen Wanchong noticed the half-body of Chen Rong lying on the floor.
“Hey, Sis Zhang, I’ll clean up this mess. Don’t want the bloodstains attracting any other nasty things.”
With that, Chen Wanchong propped his hands on the desk and began clearing the reception area.
Zhang Yurou glanced at him once more before turning away to sit down and contemplate the problems she had encountered today.
Having spent two years in horror dungeon games, Zhang Yurou was no naive newcomer.
---
There were rarely cursed entities roaming freely in horror dungeon games.
Those that did were usually mini-bosses, or sometimes twisted dungeon bosses disguised as players or NPCs toying with them.
She knew special players sometimes appeared in these horror dungeons, but she had never seen one—only heard rumors.
She didn’t really understand what these special players were, so she refrained from jumping to conclusions.
If that strange doctor really was a special player, then Zhang Yurou would be all the more cautious facing her.
Because Zhang Yurou knew that human nature was a thousand times more terrifying than any cursed monster.
She decided not to share these suspicions with Chen Wanchong. Their relationship was casual, not comrades-in-arms.
Xie Yunyan was unaware her identity was being guessed. Now, she was moving through an unnaturally long corridor, following the trail of cursed energies.
“Host, why did you agree to those two? You’re a cursed being now, not human.”
“Players aren’t good people! Well, except you, host.”
System 368 chimed in Xie Yunyan’s mind.
“368, you’re oversimplifying. You don’t need to know now, but you will understand later.”
“Besides, killing becomes addictive.”
Walking alone in the empty, dim corridor, Xie Yunyan smiled faintly to herself after replying to System 368.
Killing a player earned a hundred cursed coins...
Not much, but for a newcomer like her, a newly minted special player, it was no small sum.
Not only humans, but all intelligent beings were inherently greedy...
Therefore, to earn those hundred cursed coins, most special players would first choose to hunt down ordinary players en masse.
But the more they killed, the faster they became spiritually corrupted by this terrifying world.
Once assimilated by the horror game, they would become mini-bosses in some dungeon, or lose their humanity entirely and see themselves as part of the horror game itself.
Though these were only her own guesses.
Whether true or not, she vowed to hold on to her core self—she could harbor malice, but must never lose her humanity.
As a straightforward system, 368 did not grasp the deeper meaning behind Xie Yunyan’s words.
But since she said he would understand later, he trusted she would.
Thinking this, System 368 replied silently in her mind:
System 368: Unconditionally trust my host.
Before it could say more, it sensed Xie Yunyan withdrawing from its awareness.
Knowing she had encountered something outside, System 368 fell silent so as not to disturb her.
---
Xie Yunyan’s footsteps stopped. Ten meters ahead stood a small figure with her back turned.
Her casual expression instantly hardened upon seeing the figure blocking the corridor.
It was not an ordinary player, but a cursed patient in striped prison clothes.
Xie Yunyan could sense that this little girl’s cursed aura was even stronger than the one she had slain earlier.
The cursed girl, with twin ponytails, turned around to face the white-coated Xie Yunyan, utterly stunned.
When the girl turned, Xie Yunyan saw the number tattooed on her body: 203.
203... 208. So the lower the number, the stronger the entity? Xie Yunyan wondered, frowning slightly.
The two cursed beings stood in quiet confrontation, neither making the first move.
---
Meanwhile, Wang Renheng and three surviving rookie players hid inside Room 118.
One new player pressed his ear to the door for a moment.
When it remained silent outside, he straightened up and happily spoke inside the room.
“Brother Wang, it seems like there’s no cursed activity outside anymore.”
Wang Renheng looked at this clueless newcomer, amused but exasperated, and patted his shoulder twice.
The newbie took it as praise and nodded enthusiastically, bowing slightly.
Wang Renheng was left speechless: “No sense at all. How did you even survive this long?”
If he didn’t need these rookies to test the waters and distract the cursed entities, he wouldn’t waste his breath on such cannon fodder!
He would have dealt with them long ago!
Though weak, they were still competitors.