Chapter 14: The Asylum Pantomime: 13

Nan Lin fell into brief contemplation.

My little pet…

He still remembered that when he was the sole winner of this game, when he was still [the King], someone had frequently sent him little pets.

And those little pets had always been obedient and docile, beautiful and tender…

Nan Lin went quiet.

The more he thought about it, the less it made sense. Or rather, the resemblance was enough to make him think of one particular person.

But how could Ruan Yu be anything like those little pets?

Nan Lin swiftly rejected the conclusion. It would be far too disrespectful to Ruan Yu.

Naturally, that was the moment Chong Jiu chose to pile on. His tone dripped with teasing. “Wondering who I mean, aren’t you?”

Boring.

Nan Lin looked away, offering Chong Jiu only the cold edge of his profile, and turned back to the pages of his book. It appeared to be a schematic map of the asylum from the time it was first established.

Ignored, Chong Jiu froze. The lengthy speech he’d prepared lodged in his throat, and he let out an unconscious grunt.

Seeing that Nan Lin truly had no interest in engaging, Chong Jiu laughed, rubbed his forehead with a sigh, and turned to leave.

At 10:30, Nan Lin left the reading room right as the block ended, planning to circle past the cafeteria and head to the monitoring room in the left-side building.

But something seemed off today.

It wasn’t lunchtime yet, but the cafeteria blazed with light. Figures milled around the entrance, and the open ground in front was packed with people. Some of the patients had even climbed onto the Nightingale Statue outside the right-side building for a better view.

Nan Lin stopped, frowning, and immediately turned to go around the back.

If the front of the cafeteria was impassable, he’d go around the rear.

The instant Nan Lin’s figure vanished down the side path, one person at the cafeteria entrance slowly turned his head to gaze after him. That tall, slender silhouette stood out conspicuously in the crowd.

“Director?”

Someone beside him whispered, and the man turned back with a gentle reply.

On the other side, Nan Lin also half turned his head. Just now, he had felt a gaze that sent chills down his spine.

But the sensation of being watched vanished as quickly as it had come. Nan Lin didn’t dwell on it and continued along the path.

The trail between the rear of the cafeteria and the pond was rough going. So far off the beaten track, the wild grass grew tall, leaving only a narrow strip for passage.

And whether due to the dampness or something else, Nan Lin felt the mud beneath his feet growing stickier and heavier. Every step took more effort than the last.

Halfway there, Nan Lin suddenly stopped. He looked at the enormous water lily pads on the pond’s surface, so strangely familiar, and something clicked.

At some unknown point, the lily pads, both withered and living, had become crawling with frogs. The slimy creatures croaked and thronged, and as if sensing Nan Lin’s gaze, they turned to face him in unison, mouths gaping.

As the creatures stirred restlessly, the lily pads beneath them rocked left and right, their texture decidedly unlike any normal plant.

But the most disturbing sight was the underside of the lily pads. A smooth, nauseating, dark-red shell.

I think I understand something truly horrifying.

That water yesterday. And that obviously unnatural dish…

For the first time, he was glad he’d walked out of that room with his eyes closed.

He pressed forward. Being watched by those things was unpleasant, but at least he still had some distance from the pond. The rest of the journey passed without incident.

But when he reached the left-side building’s entrance, Nan Lin recalled the oddness of the second half of that path and turned to look at the trail of footprints behind him, his brow creasing.

Logically, there should only be his own footprints.

But now, in the muddy path, apart from one set of normal-sized prints that sank deeper with each step, there was a second, smaller set trailing right behind, following every step.

Nan Lin crouched and measured the second set with his hand. Something’s been following me the whole way?

He didn’t turn around. He felt no fear or panic. He simply stood, dusted off his hands, and walked into the left-side building.

With only one hour of free time to begin with, he didn’t want to waste any more of it here.

The monitoring room…

Nan Lin paused in the ground floor lobby, observing the density of the crowd and comparing it to the map he’d seen in the reading room. Then he headed toward the monitoring room.

That key was most likely the door key to the monitoring room. As for why Chong Jiu had handed it to him…

I don’t know the reason, but I get the feeling that man’s up to no good.

With that thought, he finally stopped before a secluded corner. Dust coated the lock above, and he wondered whether the equipment inside would still work.

Whatever. Try first.

Nan Lin fitted the key into the lock. It turned smoothly. He couldn’t decide if he was relieved or surprised.

The monitoring room was slightly better than the outside. Dust covered the screens, but once Nan Lin wiped it away, he found that static still flickered across the displays.

Good. Still working.

Although the riot that the previous person had mentioned probably couldn’t be seen, footage from recent months should still be available.

He pulled up the earliest date in the directory and started playback from the director’s office at double speed.

In truth, that sprawling office was empty most of the time. Only occasionally did a young man enter, and he never stayed long before leaving.

Every day was the same monotonous repetition, until one day the man seemed to discover the camera and looked straight up at it.

A face that could be called handsome. Upturned eyes and an ever-smiling mouth that lent him an inexplicable warmth and approachability.

After that, the surveillance here went dark and silent for long stretches.

Nan Lin, feeling he’d missed something, manually rewound and studied the blurry footage closely.

The “director” of this asylum had been mentioned by too many people. Nan Lin did not believe the man was clean, kind, or ignorant.

Dozens of surveillance feeds played simultaneously. The vast majority showed patients brawling and other things best left unmentioned.

Nan Lin observed while keeping his primary focus on the director’s office.

After an untold number of replays, he suddenly hit pause. Bracing both hands on the desk, he leaned forward slightly and squinted.

Behind a withered potted evergreen in the director’s office sat an unremarkable little picture frame. Inside was a photograph of a young man in an academic gown, smiling brightly.

But from the contours of the face, this person was not the same man who had appeared in the footage… and he looked familiar.

Nan Lin guessed the person in the photo might be the asylum’s true director.

If so, then these recordings still documented the asylum after the riot… Wait. Someone had entered the director’s office?

The feed had started playing on its own at some point. Nan Lin glanced suspiciously at the bottom right corner of the screen. The current time was displayed there.

He glanced at the door. The director’s office was extremely close to the monitoring room.

His gaze returned to the screen. A man with a familiar build was shoved forcefully into the room. He turned with a disheveled expression, complicated emotions flickering behind the hair falling across his eyes.

Nan Lin’s brow furrowed sharply. He recognized the man. It was Chong Jiu, whom he had just seen not long ago!

On the screen, Chong Jiu stared fixedly at the door. A loud bang of a closing door echoed in Nan Lin’s ears. Then the current director, the same one from the previous footage, walked back into frame.

The two erupted into a heated argument. In the end, the current director seized Chong Jiu by the throat and hurled him to the ground.

The more Nan Lin watched, the more something felt wrong. His hands pressed against the desk unconsciously until his knuckles whitened.

The two silhouettes on screen shifted and blurred, until at one angle they overlapped with his memory.

Chong Jiu… the picture frame…

That was it! The patient Chong Jiu was actually the former director of this asylum!

No wonder he’d been able to get his hands on the monitoring room key.

Nan Lin looked away and turned to the other screens.

Should one call Chong Jiu pitiful?

But he seemed to have adapted to life in the asylum. He could even put on a vacant, blank facade when meeting players for the first time.

Besides, Nan Lin felt the situation wasn’t this simple. Otherwise, why would Chong Jiu throw the monitoring room key to him? For fun? Or to recruit the players in destroying the new director?

Nan Lin reserved judgment. He even felt the performance was imperfect, marred by too many telltale traces of acting.

He pocketed the key and prepared to leave.

But as his hand touched the door handle, instinct screamed that something was wrong. He turned and saw the director staring straight at the surveillance feed, pitch-black pupils brimming with a slow, creeping smile.

Nan Lin killed the screen in a flash. So ugly. I’d rather look at Ruan Yu than you… Hm?

A tiny flicker of guilt surfaced before he shoved the door open and hurried out before time expired.

Lunchtime was nearly here. He had to get to the cafeteria fast.

Otherwise he had the nagging feeling that something terrible would happen.

Moreover, Nan Lin looked toward the cafeteria. Ever since Song De had disappeared, he felt he had become the primary target of the instance’s rules and monsters.

Hmm… Could the hidden rule of this instance be to target whichever player had the lowest sanity?

Nan Lin glanced at his current sanity. The numbers displayed were painfully blinding.

[Player Nan Lin’s sanity: 35.

Note: The madman has squeezed the genius out of your brain.]

Nan Lin shut the personal interface instantly, his mind desperately chanting: That was a hallucination. Just a hallucination. What a realistic hallucination…

He walked toward the cafeteria, his figure gradually swallowed by the bustling crowd.

In the director’s office, Chong Jiu lay on the floor, alive or dead unknown. Beside him, the current director slouched in his chair with his head propped against his hand, smiling pleasantly at the computer screen on the desk. Five live surveillance feeds glowed across the display.

Three showed solitary cells. One showed the interrogation room. One showed the monitoring room.

In the monitoring room feed, no one remained.

But he saw his own face gazing up at the camera.