Chapter 63: The Deadly Trial, The Infection Serum

Upon observing the other's attire and distinctive features, Ji Yan realized that the eerie entity by the elevator earlier had mistaken him for this person...

"Why are you still in the morgue? Weren't today's surgeries finished?"

The black sheep intern rasped, his bloodshot black eyeballs staring creepily at Ji Yan.

Ji Yan coughed twice and said calmly, "Came back to fetch something."

"Let's go."

"Everyone has gone back to rest, we should leave too. The medical instructor conducts night rounds on time."

The black sheep intern turned around, seemingly intending to lead Ji Yan somewhere.

With his mind currently set on escaping the morgue first, Ji Yan followed closely behind, walking to the end of the corridor and entering the elevator car.

Inside the cramped elevator, Ji Yan and the black sheep intern stood one behind the other, his gaze falling upon the intern uniform the other wore.

This was the exclusive attire of players!

In other words, this black sheep specter was a sheep-zodiac player who had been eliminated earlier.

Once eliminated, their bodies had been turned into puppets, acting as NPCs in the underground morgue, responsible for processing the bodies of sent-down patients and medical staff.

Remembering the black hair that had sprouted from his own arms and face during his infection, and realizing this might also be his ultimate destination, Ji Yan could not help feeling a chill run down his spine.

As he was thinking this, he felt a sharp stinging sensation on his face.

When he touched it with his finger, it was smeared entirely with blood.

Ji Yan froze, instantly realizing that the [Edward's Skin Mask] was about to wear off!

A faint, ghostly smell of blood permeated the elevator car...

Cold sweat broke out on Ji Yan's forehead. He looked at the slowly changing floor numbers on the elevator, and then at the black sheep specter standing with its back to him.

"Something smells wrong..."

The black sheep specter spoke abruptly. Before Ji Yan could respond, the creature whipped around in the next second, violently shoving Ji Yan against the elevator wall. "You are not one of our kind."

"You are... a white sheep! Why did you find your way here?!"

"You cannot leave... You must be infected and become one of us!"

The face of the black sheep specter twisted into a ferocious expression. The moment the words fell, a sharp scalpel plunged toward Ji Yan's chest.

However, Ji Yan was faster. The embroidery needle he had long since gripped in his palm slashed out first.

At this moment, the [Legendary] quality of the embroidery needle manifested itself.

A flash of silver light swept past, and the scalpel snapped like plastic, while a deep gash was simultaneously carved across the black sheep specter's chest.

This cut rapidly widened. The black sheep's flesh split apart like torn fabric, and the organs within tumbled out in a messy heap, collapsing onto the blood-smeared floor like the viscera of an slaughtered cow or sheep on a butcher's block...

The thick, viscous blood reeked with the unbearable stench of a stagnant, rotten gutter.

Ji Yan took a deep breath. He had not expected that the black sheep specter would instantly turn violent upon sensing the slightest anomaly, but fortunately, he had anticipated it in advance.

Ding-dong!

At that very moment, the elevator doors slid open.

The suture specter stationed to guard the elevator doors looked at the bloody scene inside the car and suddenly froze in place as if glitching.

Ji Yan tightened his grip on the embroidery needle hidden beneath his sleeve...

"Doctor Sheep, why are you performing surgery inside the elevator?"

"Making such a mess will make it hard for the orderlies to clean up."

The elevator specter showed no surprise at all, acting as if it were a routine occurrence, merely sounding slightly aggrieved.

Ji Yan paused for a fraction of a second, then feigned composure and replied coldly, "That is their business."

With that, he made a hasty departure from the area covered by the morgue map.

The moment he stepped out, before his violently pounding heart could settle, he received a notification from the game interface:

"Ding! Congratulations to the player for successfully unlocking the [Morgue] map sector and obtaining information regarding the [Zodiac Main Quest]—Since the instance opened, a total of 18 players of the sheep zodiac have all died and been eliminated without exception. Guess why?"

"This seems to be a dead end. No matter how the sheep players struggle, every single one of them inevitably gets infected in the position of [Attending Physician] and is sent to the morgue to be disposed of."

"No player has ever managed to clear the second-stage instance storyline; they all seem stuck at a fatal bottleneck with no hope of clearing it."

"Does the sheep represent holiness and kindness? That has been a lie from the very beginning!"

"Will you become the 19th unlucky soul to be infected and die? If you do not wish to, how will you save yourself?"

"Ding! The player has entered the [Morgue], successfully killed a black sheep specter, and obtained a nighttime reward—Infected Blood Plasma X1."

"The main quest?"

Ji Yan had not expected the hidden map to also contain information regarding the main storyline.

Yet, after browsing through the main quest details, his expression turned grim.

The information indicated that after promotion to [Attending Physician], entering the second stage of the instance storyline involved a fatal barrier that had doomed all previous players.

According to the instance mechanics:

Reaching a 30% completion rate in dealing with the sheep-headed eerie physician completed the first stage of the instance storyline, promoting the player from [Intern Doctor] to [Attending Physician].

Reaching a 70% completion rate completed the second stage of the instance storyline, promoting the player from [Attending Physician] to [Chief Physician].

What kind of mission hurdle was triggered by the sheep-headed eerie physician between 30% and cent completion that resulted in a 100% mortality rate?!

Ji Yan could not help breaking out in a cold sweat.

He felt the despair of someone told they had terminal cancer, left with only chemotherapy while waiting for death.

Venturing out with the bloody paper doll tonight had yielded no tangible benefits, yet this single piece of main quest information was more valuable than any reward.

Ji Yan produced the bottle of infected blood plasma he had received as a reward.

He checked its description, which was remarkably concise: "This is a bottle of infected blood plasma. It can prove fatal to you, yet it can also save your life."

The description was utterly baffling.

Even his [Omniscience and Omniclairvoyance] trait could not unearth any additional hidden information.

Ji Yan had no choice but to let it be.

Regardless, the fatal bottleneck was a task for after official promotion.

For now, he priority was to survive his internship period first.

Massaging his temples, Ji Yan realized it was getting late and prepared to return to his room to rest.

Yet the moment he turned around, a sharp pang shot through Ji Yan's chest.

Looking down, he saw that the clothes over his chest had long since been soaked through with fresh blood.

Pulling back his garments, he discovered to his shock that a bloody hole had been stabbed right through the center of his chest!

"Was it stabbed by the black sheep specter's scalpel inside the elevator?" The situation back then had been critical, and the surge of adrenaline had kept Ji Yan entirely oblivious to it.

"Warning! You have been stabbed by a polluted scalpel, resulting in an infection. Please find and inject serum within 30 minutes, otherwise the infection will spread throughout your entire body, requiring surgical treatment by the medical instructor."

(Hint: This infection is somatic and cannot be cured through mental treatment.)

"This is the risk of coming out at night; even a minor wound carries a fatal infection."

Ji Yan frowned deeply.

The wound had missed his vital organs and was not immediately fatal.

Nor would the infection kill him right away.

What was truly fatal was the sheep-headed eerie physician!

It had warned him explicitly during the day not to leave his room in the middle of the night. Once infected, it would not provide treatment; instead, it would directly treat the failure as a failed internship assessment and cultivate the next intern.

Therefore, Ji Yan could only rely on himself to resolve the infection.

"The trait [Omniscience and Omniclairvoyance] has successfully triggered—the dormitory warden in Room 104 on the first floor conceals the instance's hidden reward, 'Serum'. However, besides the serum, there are other surprises waiting there."

"Other surprises?"

Ji Yan raised an eyebrow, wondering if that implied additional hidden rewards.

Be that as it may, his trait ability remained the most reliable, always managing to carve out a path to survival for him in moments of crisis.

The wound on his chest had stopped bleeding, but visibly, the flesh surrounding it was turning black and necrotizing bit by bit...

Without pausing, Ji Yan made his way straight from the corridor to the first floor of the dormitory.

Room 104 looked somewhat like a utility room, its doorway covered in dust. Just as Ji Yan reached out to push the door open, a single eye peered out from behind the crack, its pupil vertical, sending a shiver down one's spine.

"What are you doing?"

Ji Yan paused for a moment before speaking, "I am here to borrow something."

The other's gaze fell upon the infected wound on Ji Yan's chest, taking it in at a glance. "Serum?"

"Yes, you—" Before Ji Yan could finish his sentence, the door slammed shut with a loud bang, shutting him out completely, accompanied by a chillingly indifferent voice from within: "Not lending any, get lost."

Ji Yan was left bewildered, yet he faintly sensed the other party's malice. "There has to be a reason, right?"

"You sheep all stink of musk. Just looking at you makes me sick."

"So, get lost!"