Chapter 3: Madmen’s Pantomime: 2

The moment her voice rang out, cold sweat soaked through the back of Song De’s cotton shirt.

The summer heat hadn’t even broken, and yet he felt a chill closing in. His head turned reflexively to look behind him.

Just then, a chorus of howling erupted from the ward across the way, snatching everyone’s attention in an instant.

The nurse’s face darkened. She turned and rapped on the ward door.

The howling paused, then in the next breath became far more terrifying.

The ward Nan Lin and Ruan Yu shared was right next to the one making the noise, so they heard it more clearly. Just the other side of the wall, something was scrambling back and forth on all fours.

Uneven in weight, tipped with claws that were far too long.

Ruan Yu asked softly, “Brother, do you hear it? He’s still saying something…”

Beneath the maddening noise, garbled human speech could just barely be made out.

“I’m not sick! You can’t just drag me back here!”

“…You’re the real lunatics!”

“Let me go… let me go! Let me go!!!”

He began throwing himself against the door with everything he had.

Nan Lin’s gaze traveled over everyone present and finally settled on the bell in the nurse’s metal tray.

She shook the bell, and it gave off an indescribable sense of wrongness… Meanwhile, the next room slowly fell silent.

…

Nan Lin’s lashes trembled. He knew where the wrongness came from.

It was exactly like professionally trained dogs. When they hear a bell, they stop moving and wait for a command.

Given enough time, it becomes pure reflex.

And human beings can be domesticated just the same.

Nan Lin’s palm hovered over the door, a deep and knowing light in his eyes.

This kind of quiet, insidious control was not unfamiliar to him.

While everyone stood in silence, the nurse outside the door began to titter. “Good, just like that. Be obedient.”

Her gaze flicked across the patients in the wards on both sides. “I’ll say the rules here one more time.”

This was effectively a portion of the death rules. Everyone present knew it.

“The three daily meals are served at 7:30 to 8:30 in the morning; 11:30 to 12:00 at noon; and 17:30 to 18:30 in the evening.

During those windows, the cafeteria will be open to you, and you may only eat inside the cafeteria.”

Her words stopped abruptly. Song De couldn’t hold back: “And the rest? What are we supposed to do the rest of the time?”

The nurse’s smile turned strange, her drawl stretching. “Do what you’re supposed to do during each time slot. For now, I’m only responsible for your meals.”

In short, she would not tell the players what to do with the rest of their day.

“However. Patients who don’t behave don’t get liked. And patients who don’t get liked get punished.” She dropped that parting line with heavy meaning and swayed away step by step.

“What does she… what’s that supposed to mean?” Song De was the most panicked of them all. Not only was he stuck in a “single-occupancy ward” that shouldn’t exist, with a “wardmate” of unknown nature, he was now facing a madhouse rulebook with half its pages missing.

Nan Lin kept his eyes half-lidded, expression unchanged.

From the look of things, they needed to find the schedule for the other time slots as soon as possible and follow it to the letter. If they did anything else during a prescribed window, the consequences were unlikely to be pleasant.

It was now 17:00 in the afternoon, which meant dinner was nearly upon them.

And what exactly did “don’t behave” cover…

Nan Lin turned it over in his mind. All the while, he noticed that Ruan Yu had been standing just behind his shoulder without a word.

The man seemed frightened, and yet stubbornly determined to hold his ground.

Nan Lin spoke, which was rare for him: “The cafeteria should have clues for the next time slot.”

The game would never set up an unwinnable situation. Both sides had to abide by certain rules.

On this one point, no one would be the exception.

“Nan Lin.”

Qiu Xinxin’s voice came from across the corridor. She looked at him and waved a tattered sheet of paper.

Where did that come from? Did they find it in the ward?

Nan Lin glanced at what she held, then turned and began rummaging through the shabby, filthy ward.

Ruan Yu quietly lifted his lids and shot Qiu Xinxin a look, then joined Nan Lin in the search.

Soiled sheets, bloodied surgical scissors, strips of burst gauze. The odds and ends lay scattered through a ward that was already small, making the space feel all the more cramped.

“Brother,” Ruan Yu said, drawing a sheet of rules from the blackened cotton of a pillow.

At the sound, Nan Lin stopped and quickly read through the contents.

[Cartagena Asylum Rules:

1: Do not lie in bed. Do not cry and make a fuss. Take your medicine obediently.

2: Do not fall asleep while bathing. Do not horse around while sleeping.

3: Strictly forbidden to…]

Forbidden to what? The rules ended right there.

In other words, the complete rules were scattered across different sheets of paper. That was why Qiu Xinxin had warned him to search.

She wasn’t certain either, of course.

Nan Lin’s gaze fell on Qiu Xinxin. He gave a nearly invisible nod.

The girl visibly relaxed and began signaling the players in the other two wards to search for rule sheets.

The group’s orderly activity drew heated discussion from the players watching outside the dungeon.

“The game gives it a high mortality rate, sure, but it’s still a new player dungeon. The way through isn’t that complicated.”

“Easy for you to say. Haven’t you heard how complex this dungeon’s rules are?”

“Not only do they have to assemble the complete restriction rules, the ‘things you must not do’, they also have to find the ‘things you must do’, and stay alive the whole way to a successful escape.”

“Is everyone discussing the plot? Am I the only one who thinks they’re way too calm?”

“Right, right! It feels like… there are more than two veterans here.”

“What are you watching? New players?”

More and more people were stopping in front of Nan Lin’s livestream screen, and the center of their attention was gradually shifting to the edges.

Inside the dungeon, however, Qiu Xinxin’s plan hit a snag.

Zou Zhiming shook his head. The rule sheet in his ward had been soaked through with the corpse’s blood, and the writing was illegible.

Song De was searching too, but he moved like a blindfolded animal, slow and endlessly repetitive.

Ruan Yu leaned close to Nan Lin’s ear. “Brother, look at Song De. Is that the price for breaking a rule?”

Nan Lin gave a small nod at the sound.

Yes. Song De should never have gone back to his ward alone.

When the nurse had said she was going to “register their information,” that meant she hadn’t actually known which wards the players belonged to.

Song De should have used the trip back to choose a fresh empty ward together with Zou Zhiming.

That said, it probably wouldn’t kill him outright.

For now, it was unclear whether they could switch wards on their own. There were far too few rules discovered so far.

This asylum had no single-occupancy wards…

So while a player was in a ward, there had to be at least two people in the room, even if the other occupant was a “corpse.”

Nan Lin gave another slight nod, but from the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ruan Yu beside him.

The man stood at his rear diagonal. A position that wouldn’t obstruct his movements but still made his presence known.

Nan Lin thought about it, then decided to say it early: “Don’t stay alone in a ward for long.”

The man ought to understand what he meant, right?

Something felt off, though he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Nan Lin thought this, and glanced over Ruan Yu once more.

The man caught the look. In those clean, clear pupils, a smile suddenly bloomed.

Warm but never blinding. Pure, with a thread of shyness woven through it.

Nan Lin was momentarily caught off guard by that smile. He turned his head away with perfect calm and, without appearing to, nudged the window open.

At the same moment, Ruan Yu reached up and rubbed the tip of his nose.

Nan Lin: A trace of blood seems to have drifted out. What excuse can I use to send this one away for a bit?

Before he could find one, a shrill bell cut through every thought.

It came from a truly awful loudspeaker, and its sound was just as unpleasant. Qiu Xinxin nearly shouldered the ward door open on the tail of the bell, but even so, she failed to piece together the complete restriction rules before the next time slot arrived.

Someone else had come to keep watch over them.

An extremely emaciated male doctor walked toward them. The sleeves and trouser legs of his oversized clothes hung empty, and when the wind blew, the fabric clung to bone, which made him look all the more uncanny.

Estimated height: 179 centimeters. Weight: no more than 40 kilograms.

Nan Lin’s brow furrowed. This went well beyond “thin.”

By the look of it, none of the doctors here were in good shape, mentally or physically.

Still, he felt he was missing something… Nan Lin stared at the doctor’s too-long clothing, his gaze coming to rest where the fabric bunched into folds.

“That outfit of his is way too big,” came a low voice from behind, Ruan Yu’s words slipping into Nan Lin’s ear.

Indeed. The clothes were so loose they looked like a sack, or a shroud.

Nan Lin’s gaze darkened slightly. He lifted his head toward the doctor.

The gaunt, hollow-cheeked face suddenly stretched into a smile. Lifeless eyes swept over every player present, and a flash of crooked yellow teeth preceded the words: “Six in total… let me see… six.”

The sound of pages turning came steadily, tangled with the doctor’s bizarre cadence.

“Come out and assemble. Maintain discipline.”

Qiu Xinxin cast a regretful look at Song De’s ward, lips pressed together in thought.

Nearly half the rules were missing. Neither Song De nor Zou Zhiming had produced any usable restriction rules from their wards…

New players were always trouble, and this dungeon happened to demand a certain level of player skill.

Nan Lin registered the low pressure rolling off Qiu Xinxin. He glanced to the side and unexpectedly met Lin Yi’s eyes.

Lin Yi appeared to be looking for something. He nodded at Nan Lin and was the first to look away.

Nan Lin: Long sleeves and a high collar… isn’t he hot?

The thought flickered past. He quickly straightened his attention again and, amid the group’s orderly advance, met Qiu Xinxin’s bright eyes. The yellowed corner of a paper sheet slid out between his fingers.

The clever understood one another at once.

Up front, the “skeleton” doctor walked on unsteady feet. Behind him, the “patients” began a covert exchange.

Qiu Xinxin and Nan Lin swapped their rule sheets.

Once they had taken the slightly softer sheet of paper in hand, they finally managed to piece together part of the shattered rules.