Chapter 3

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The drawer was pulled open, Qi Le Ren didn"t even glance up at the killer"s face, he just raised his hand and threw a punch at his crotch—this blow came without any warning. The killer grunted, he couldn"t keep his balance steady and he dropped to the ground, the chainsaw hit the floor with a bang.

Chance!

Qi Le Ren immediately dug his way out from under the reception desk, but a burst of p.r.i.c.kly sensations came from his left leg. His heart dropped at once. Although he wasn"t stuffed under the service desk for that long, being in a highly stressful situation, he entirely forgot about adjusting his position. It was only after he came out that he noticed his left leg was feeling numb.

In these few short seconds, Qi Le Ren took a look at the killer moaning on the ground in pain nearby. As expected, this man was in a prisoner"s suit, his hair was very short, but unexpectedly, he was a handsome young man, it was just that his expression of pain and the fresh scars crisscrossing half of his face destroyed his appearance, making him look ferociously terrifying.

The killer who was. .h.i.t in the crotch still couldn"t stand up, but his right hand touched the chainsaw, he was snarling at Qi Le Ren while brandishing the saw. Qi Le Ren"s pupils shrunk, he turned around to sidestep the outer edge of the reception desk and enduring the tingly, numb feeling in his legs, bolted towards the corridor.

On the gla.s.s doors of the transfusion room were the b.l.o.o.d.y, messy handprints of the dying victim. The corpse was cut in half at the waist and was lying on the ground, intestines were slipping out of his body, as he was dying, he crawled and dragged himself a meter away.1

Qi Le Ren did not rush back into the transfusion room, he headed for the staircase—he already realized that this place wasn"t a normal world. Judging from the sealed transfusion room, the probability that the hospital"s entrance is open is practically zero to none. It"s better to hide in the clinic to look for another opportunity to leave.

【Player Qi Le Ren Completed Starter Village Quest Step II: Leave the Transfusion Room】

【Starter Village Quest Step III: Survive Until Dawn】

Nearly as soon as he ran out of the transfusion hall, prompts appeared in his mind once again.

Escaping this time went surprisingly smoothly. By the time his soul returned, he had already arrived at the clinical hall2 on the fourth floor of Building B; the transfusion hall was far away, located in the first floor of Building A. If he hid properly, the killer wouldn"t be able to find him for three days and three nights. Qi Le Ren finally relaxed, he sat down on the ground relieved.

His heartbeat still hadn"t calmed down, but the joy of evading death was set in his heart. He clutched his forehead and couldn"t help but laugh.

Survived. He survived.

After resting for ten minutes, Qi Le Ren recovered some of his strength and got up to find some water to drink.

Although the most urgent crises has temporarily been averted, there were still many issues and mysteries he needed to solve. He didn"t forget the sudden appearance of task prompts, which virtually announced he was no longer in the real world.

Card slots…skill cards… These words resurfaced in his mind, he subconsciously touched his waist, where a coa.r.s.e belt with two slots above, a bit larger than half of a playing card, was fastened.

He remembered seeing the familiar term, "SL Dafa", at that time…

At this point, it occurred to him that anyone who"s played games is familiar with the inventory box. The first slot was shockingly a very, very small card. The subjects at mind appeared on his hand.3

【SL Dafa】 (Bound Skill Card): The holder can set up a save point at their body"s location. After saving a file within 10 seconds of death or a fatal injury, the body automatically returns to the position and status when setting the save point and immediately triggers the second use. If more than 10 seconds pa.s.ses after saving a point, that point is invalid and ineffective. A save point can be used three times in a row. The cooling time is 1 hour. In any case, to use it, you have to die.

"… …" Although Qi Le Ren played plenty of games4, he was shocked by this seemingly cheat-like, but actually tasteless5 skill card

Its name is "SL Dafa", but the loading ability simply doesn"t involve time! Reading this explanation, he figured that the "loading file" will not cause a reverse in time, it will only let his body return to the save point, but what really maddens him6 about this triggering requirement is that he unexpectedly has to die within ten seconds!

To die ah!

How does he know if he"ll die within ten seconds? What if he doesn"t die? Isn"t he going to have to make it up by stabbing himself? Isn"t this just instigating him to commit suicide?

Furthermore, if he doesn"t die within ten seconds after saving, but misfortune arrives at the eleventh second… At that moment, the save point has already failed, he"ll die nonetheless!

So this is a skill that doesn"t have any f.u.c.king purpose7…… Oh, no, can"t say there isn"t any at all. It should or can be used to court death. For example, standing at the roof after saving a file then jumping down to experience how it feels to die from jumping off a building, or something of the sort, Qi Le Ren bitterly8 thought. But he was such a serious9 person, how could he possibly do such foolish things… Tsk, he supposed he really did want to try it a bit, it"s definitely not that he likes seeking death, he simply wants to test out his skills.

Qi Le Ren inserted his skill card into the card slot, officially activating it.

However, nothing changed. He just obscurely sensed that he could set up a save point that would only be visible to himself at the location under his feet, and effective time limit for the save point was only ten seconds.

Forget it, let"s first sort things out.

Qi Le Ren entered an otolaryngology10 clinic, found a notebook and pen on the doctor"s desk, and was prepared to organize his clues. The blank notebook appeared to be very old, seemingly older than one or two decades. The cover was brown, the paper inside was yellowing, apart from the series of horizontal lines on the outer blank page, there wasn"t even a name.11 Qi Le Ren closed the door, and began sketching a topographic map of the hospital"s clinical building by memory.

Thanks to majoring in interior design in college, he was quite sensitive to the layout of the building. Although after graduating, he was a freelance interior designer, his life was still rather comfortable.

He visited the First People"s Hospital several time, the clinical department is composed of two buildings, Building A and Building B. From above, the view looks similar to two hyperbolas. The main body has six floors, and there are only two ways to move from one building to the other—either leave from Building A and arrive at the bottom floor of Building B; or follow the open hallway12 on third floor of the building to Building B. There is only one hallway located between the two buildings, it was like a line connecting the top of the two buildings. At that time, Qi Le Ren arrived at Building B using the open corridor on the third floor. He vaguely remembered the dense fog in the open corridor, even the sunlight was gloomy.

The unknown prompt required him to survive until dawn, this was most likely the final task. For the time being, let"s put on the shoes of horror game players. So, this type of time-limited survival horror game will inevitably be accompanied by all sorts of danger.

Currently, this hospital has ghosts and killers, and ghosts can be killed, that killer used a chainsaw to kill the ghost. This means that that physical attacks are useful…unless that specific chainsaw is somewhat special?

Qi Le Ren circled around "Method of Killing Ghosts", prepared to see it through when the time comes again. He did not believe he"d be lucky enough to get through the night without encountering a second ghost.

He glanced at the time on his watch, it was now 4:15 in the afternoon, the sun sets early in November, there was only an hour and a half until dusk.

Darkness, which only means greater danger in horror games. Ghosts have already begun to appear during the day, in that case, it will only be more dangerous after dusk. There isn"t not much time left for him to prepare.

Food, water, weapons, emergency medicine, a way to kill ghosts, a detailed map of the hospital, the fog… Qi Le Ren wrote a bunch of things in his notebook, then suddenly remembered that he hadn"t tried contacting the outside world.

He doesn"t know where his laptop went, but it should have been left behind either on the bus or the ambulance. On the other hand, his phone is here, but there is no signal.

Because he was mentally prepared, Qi Le Ren didn"t lose too much hope. He closed his notebook and tried seeing whether he could get it into his inventory box, the result was he was successful.

It seems the issue of carrying burdensome items has been solved.

Qi Le Ren pulled himself together, and opened the door to the clinic.

Someone was walking, sticking close to the wall and glancing in every direction. The second the door opened, two people and four eyes stood relative to each other:

"Ahhhhhhhh———!!!!"

1随着他临死前的爬行拖出了足有一米远 - Suízhe tā lín sǐ qián de páxíng tuō chūle zú yǒuyī mǐ yuan. Not too sure about this one.
2门诊大厅 - Ménzhěn dàtīng. Outpatient ServiceHall
3I probably wrecked this entire paragraph…like really badly…
4饶是玩过不少游戏的齐乐人- Ráo shì wánguò bu shǎo yóuxì de qí lè rén. Confused here as well…
5鸡肋 - Jīlèi. Chicken ribs; tasteless; something of little value/interest; something of dubious worth that one is reluctant to part with, etc.
6坑爹 - Kēngdiē. Int. Slang, means: "to trap your father" or "deceive someone". Can"t find a good English term/phrase for it, and I can"t think of anything else to use…Maybe I should reword the entire sentence? Full sentence was: 但坑爹的是这个触发条件竟然是十秒内死亡！
7并没有什么卵用 - Méiyǒu shé me luǎn yòng. "Doesn"t make any sense, doesn"t have any purpose." Vulgar slang that pretty much translates into "useless b.a.l.l.s; serves no purpose; accomplishes s.h.i.t; etc." 卵 apparently means "b.a.l.l.s".
8苦中作乐- Kǔ zhōng zuòlè. Idiom: "To find joy in sorrows/To enjoy something in spite of suffering"
9严谨的人- Yánjǐn de rén. Serious person; strict person; cautious person; careful person; critical person; etc.
10Branch of medicine that concerns the ear, nose, and throat (ENT)
11除了一道道的横线外空白一片，连个名字也没有 - Chúle yīdào dao de héng xiàn wài kòngbái yīpiàn, lián gè míngzì yě méiyǒu. ???
12It’s those hallways that connect to buildings in the air outside. I"m not really sure what they"re called.

I wonder who Qi Le Ren b.u.mped into~ Just kidding, I know who, and you guys’ll find out soon too! ^^

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