Blue Mountain Psychiatric Hospital 16

Qi Chanyang: "???"

After being in the game for so long, Qi Chanyang had been tied up by NPCs and by players, but he had never imagined that one day someone would suggest tying up all the NPCs.

Qi Chanyang couldn't help asking, "Are you serious???"

"Yeah."

Yeah, my ass!!

Qi Chanyang tried to make sense of him. "How are you going to tie them up?"

"With rope."

"Where are you going to get rope?"

"The cafeteria has some."

"How do you know that?" As he spoke, Qi Chanyang's gaze shifted to the stick propped beside him. "And where did you get that stick?"

"The cafeteria."

Jie Fangcheng casually broke the stick apart to show him. "There weren't any handy tools, so I took apart some table legs. At first I used them one at a time, but they snapped too easily, so I twisted six together. Works pretty well. Need a stick? There's another table behind the cafeteria."

What kind of big shot was this? He could even make weapons out of materials on hand?

Qi Chanyang changed the subject. "And after you tie them up?"

"Interrogate them." Jie Fangcheng made a chopping motion. "Ask questions. If they can't answer, chop off a finger. Once you're out of fingers, chop off toes. Isn't that how they do it on TV?"

Gu Shanshan, on the other hand, had an idea. "Or we could keep them from taking their medicine at night. 'Normal people' shouldn't need medicine. Like No. 4, she'll mutate if she doesn't take it. That means she's not normal."

"Shanshan has a point!"

Then the two of them looked at Qi Chanyang together.

Faced with two pairs of earnest eyes, Qi Chanyang opened his mouth. After a long moment, all he could manage was, "Can they be tied up?"

Jie Fangcheng said, "They can."

Qi Chanyang was startled. "How do you know that too??"

Jie Fangcheng answered delicately, "I tried it. The rope is pretty sturdy."

He had tied up the mutated No. 9 earlier. The guy was still locked in the cafeteria.

"This..." Qi Chanyang frowned. He couldn't say what was wrong with it, but it just felt off. "Isn't that a little messed up?"

"What's messed up about it? Killing them all seems worse, doesn't it?"

Qi Chanyang looked at him, bewildered and conflicted. It felt as though he had brought an NPC along to clear the instance. The way this guy kept talking about killing people was exactly the sort of thing an NPC would do.

Jie Fangcheng looked at his expression in surprise. "What's wrong? You think killing them all would be better? Wow, you're so violent and bloody."

Damn it!

Qi Chanyang cursed furiously inside, but he did look away.

Listening to their conversation, Gu Shanshan could tell from Qi Chanyang's tone alone just how unusual an idea it was to tie up the NPCs.

She had still held onto a sliver of hope, but now that she came back to herself, all she could do was sigh inwardly.

Having faced a mutated NPC head-on, Gu Shanshan knew very well that these NPCs were beyond what rookie players could handle. But the problem was that the simplest and most effective way to test which NPC was normal was to stop them from taking their medicine.

Gu Shanshan could hear the sounds that occasionally came from outside. Qi Chanyang had changed into a new set of clothes. It must have taken a great deal of effort to obtain the clues they had now, and rookies like Gu Shanshan could not rely on him alone to clear the instance.

"From what we know so far, No. 1 and No. 4 aren't normal people." Gu Shanshan then asked, "What about No. 9? Is he normal?"

"No."

"Then we can rule out those three. That leaves six."

Six. Although they still had two days left, the players could not take more than three pills. In other words, they had to find out who was normal by tomorrow.

Gu Shanshan had shared a room with Patient No. 1 all this time without anything unusual happening, so the players could presumably switch rooms.

That meant tonight, the players in the rooms of No. 1, No. 4, and No. 9 could take their medicine and safely make it through the second day.

The remaining six players could not take medicine.

The normal-person NPC among them would be safe. The other five would not.

Aside from Qi Chanyang and Jie Fangcheng, who could definitely escape, three players might die fighting mutated NPCs tomorrow.

Gu Shanshan took a deep breath and laid out her current deductions and plan.

"Liu Hanyue said, 'He's special. Though he's normal, he'll eventually be driven abnormal.' I think that means normal-person NPCs, like players, can't take too many pills either. So we have to determine who is normal on the second day, which is today. If we drag this out until the third day, forget the NPCs, even players who have taken three pills might die."

"We'll keep looking for clues during the day. If we still can't find anything, then tonight..." Gu Shanshan paused and looked at Jie Fangcheng first.

"Mr. Jie, are you confident you can escape if the patient NPCs mutate?"

Before Jie Fangcheng could speak, Qi Chanyang answered for him. "He can. He's stronger than I am."

Gu Shanshan looked at him in surprise. Jie Fangcheng nodded. "That's right."

Qi Chanyang: "..."

It was true, but why was it so irritating?

Though Gu Shanshan did not know what had happened, Qi Chanyang's words immediately put her mind at ease.

"Then here's the plan. Tonight, we'll test the six NPCs: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8."

Qi Chanyang immediately understood what she meant.

"You mean six players won't take medicine tonight."

Gu Shanshan fell silent for a moment, but she still nodded firmly. "Yes. If we can't find another way, we have to do this."

Only Qi Chanyang and Jie Fangcheng among the players were capable of dealing with mutated NPCs. For the rest of the rookie players, facing a mutated NPC meant certain death.

And among the six NPCs whose status had yet to be determined, only a normal-person NPC might not attack the players.

That meant three rookie players would have to face mutated NPCs tonight. It was practically certain that all three would die.

It had to be said, this newcomer really was someone who could survive in this game.

As Qi Chanyang thought this, Gu Shanshan spoke. "You can count me among the players who won't take medicine tonight."

Qi Chanyang could not help but be moved.

This girl was smart and bold. She could be ruthless when she needed to be, and she was willing to lead by example. If she made it through this instance, then as long as she wanted to, she could probably build a guild with considerable strength.

Qi Chanyang made a promise. "Once I deal with the NPC on my end tonight, I'll come save you first."

Gu Shanshan smiled. "Thank you."

At that moment, Jie Fangcheng beside them raised his hand. "I have a question."

"What question?"

"Why don't we just tie up the NPCs together while they're taking their medicine?"

All this splitting people into groups and whatnot had already lost Jie Fangcheng.

Gu Shanshan said, "That's impossible."

"Why is it impossible?"

Gu Shanshan frowned. "Forget the patient NPCs. The doctors wouldn't agree to it. You should know better than I do how strong the doctor NPCs are. What if they attack?"

"They won't."

"?? Why?"

Jie Fangcheng said flatly, "Because they don't dare."