Contaminated

Contaminated

Mu Sichen might only be a college student who had grown up in a peaceful era, but he was not naive.

The deaths of the four players had made one thing clear to him: this was not a safe world, and completing the mission without any sacrifice was impossible.

But first of all, sacrifice had to be a decision one made for oneself, not something decided by someone else. No one had the right to make that choice for Shen Jiyue.

More importantly, the price of this sacrifice was too high.

Even after mutating into a monster, Shen Jiyue had still held fast to his beliefs without wavering. He could even face the ugliness and strangeness of his own body.

That proved that, to Shen Jiyue, his beliefs were more important than his life.

And this so-called curing of a patient was not actually about killing Shen Jiyue. On the contrary, it meant contaminating Shen Jiyue's mind and making him lose the belief that supported his spirit.

To Shen Jiyue, that was probably even more painful than losing his life.

Mu Sichen could not accept that kind of behavior.

If he could, Mu Sichen very much wanted to give Yao Wangping a hard whack with the pickaxe and knock some sense into that overly rational, overly cold head of his. But right now, he still needed to get information from Yao Wangping, so it was best not to fall out with him.

Without giving anything away, Mu Sichen asked, "Were you like me? Did you enter the sanatorium as a family member, then become a doctor after 'treating' a patient?"

"No. I was a patient," Yao Wangping said. "This sanatorium automatically identifies people's faith. In this town, I count as Fallen, so the moment I came in, I became a patient."

"How does a patient become a doctor?" Mu Sichen asked.

Yao Wangping said, "Family members are already in the process of turning into patients. If you turn a family member completely into a patient, the statuses of family member and patient can be swapped. After that, as long as you treat one more patient, you can become medical staff."

"It sounds like once I become a doctor, I'll be safe inside this sanatorium," Mu Sichen said.

"Not exactly," Yao Wangping said. "Doctors have an obligation to actively search for patients. If a doctor can't turn in one patient each day, they'll be demoted to family member the next day."

"Doctors are dangerous after all, then. What about volunteers?" Mu Sichen asked.

Yao Wangping said, "Volunteers are the most stable and special existence in the sanatorium, but they're also the most useless. Their identity won't change, but they don't have much ability to harm anyone either. They only assist doctors. Once you become a doctor, you can order volunteers to do anything, so there's no need to pay attention to them. Just focus on becoming a doctor."

With Yao Wangping's explanation, Mu Sichen finally understood the rules here.

Among the sanatorium's four identities, volunteers were transformed from Big-Eye's followers who believed in Him unwaveringly. Even if their bodies were covered in blister-eyes, they would only feel happy. There was no possibility of them becoming patients, and their identity was the most stable. For the time being, he could set them aside.

Next were the three identities of patient, family member, and medical staff. In reality, all three types of people were transformed from ordinary townspeople or Fallen. They did not believe in Big Eye. They were the only mentally normal people left in the Town of the Eye, which meant they were survivors.

These three identities preyed on one another. A patient could turn a family member into a patient and become a family member. A family member could treat a patient and become a doctor. A doctor had to go outside to search for people and bring patients back to the sanatorium to avoid demotion.

The more Mu Sichen thought about it, the more these rules resembled a pyramid scheme. With rules like these in place, survivors would kill and sabotage one another, hurting other survivors just so they could become doctors and buy themselves one day of safety.

Big Eye did not need to do a thing. The survivors would deliver Followers to Him themselves.

"What happens to patients who are treated? Do they become volunteers?" Mu Sichen asked.

"No. They get discharged," Yao Wangping said. "They'll accept the changes to their bodies from the bottom of their hearts, go to B1 to collect their medical records, and then leave the hospital filled with devotion."

Mu Sichen asked, "Discharged? What about us?"

Yao Wangping said, "Once a patient is discharged, the family member and doctor receive contribution points. After 19:30, they can leave the sanatorium and go back to rest, then return the next day to care for new patients. As for volunteers, as long as they work on schedule every day and don't leave their posts without permission, they can earn enough contribution points and leave freely when the time comes."

Mu Sichen detected something off in this regulation. He asked, "Doesn't that mean that, aside from discharged patients and people who become volunteers, survivors have no way to leave this sanatorium at all? In other words, as long as you don't believe in Big Eye, it's fundamentally impossible to leave this place."

"So what? Our objective isn't to escape the sanatorium. It's to find the "Pillar." Stop wasting time and go treat your patient, then search the rooms one by one with me for clues about the "Pillar,"" Yao Wangping urged.

"What exactly is the "Pillar"? Why do we need to search room by room?" Mu Sichen asked.

Yao Wangping shook his head. "Every "Pillar" exists in a different form. No one knows what it will look like specifically. It might be a Thrall, a sinister object, a painting, a sheet of paper, a mirror, a mass of air... In short, it is a vast energy capable of supporting a domain. It can attach itself to any object or living being. It has no fixed shape."

Mu Sichen asked, "Then how do we find it?"

Yao Wangping said, "The "Pillar" must be inside the sanatorium. We search every room, and once we find a special energy aggregate, that's it."

Mu Sichen felt Yao Wangping's method was far too crude and simplistic. More than that, a deep unease had settled in his heart.

He kept feeling that if they acted according to the sanatorium's regulations, they would only be bound by the rules and trapped inside this sanatorium, with no chance of completing the mission.

"This is your first time coming to the sanatorium too, isn't it? Where did you learn these rules?" Mu Sichen asked.

Yao Wangping glanced at the time and said impatiently, "Why do you have so many questions? Of course the information was passed on by other companions. Did you think I was the only one who came to the Town of the Eye?"

With this hospital's rules, could anyone really transmit information out? Who had passed this information to Yao Wangping? Mu Sichen fell into thought.

Seeing that Mu Sichen still had not moved, Yao Wangping said urgently, "The doctors will go out to search for patients before 14:00. From 14:00 to 19:30 is treatment time. It's 10:30 now, so we have three and a half hours. I'll give you half an hour to become a doctor. After that, come to the first floor and meet me immediately."

With that, he walked out of the office and paid no more attention to Mu Sichen.

Mu Sichen was full of doubts. He felt the information they currently had about the sanatorium was still too unclear. If he acted rashly, he might very well fall into a trap.

Putting himself in Big Eye's position, how could Big Eye possibly fail to know that the "Pillar" was vitally important? How could He not use His strongest power to guard the "Pillar"?

Big Eye knew there were Fallen in the Town of the Eye. Would He really let Fallen move around freely inside the sanatorium and destroy His "Pillar"?

There had to be more to this.

Mu Sichen spread out his hand. The blister-eyes growing on his palm and the back of his hand had not disappeared because of Qin Zhou's Totem. On the contrary, they had become even more lifelike. The black spots inside the blister-eyes began turning back and forth like pupils, as if they had gained their own awareness and were observing Mu Sichen.

Mu Sichen's gaze met the blister-eyes, and a wave of revulsion rose from the bottom of his heart, almost making him lose SAN.

He did not dare look at the blister-eyes anymore. He hid his hand beneath his cloak. Out of sight, out of mind.

Any person with normal thoughts, seeing their body become like this, would probably be desperate to escape the predicament, even if that meant harming someone else without hesitation.

The moment someone produced that thought, they would be ruled by the sanatorium's rules. Patients would contaminate family members. Family members would treat patients to become doctors. Doctors, in order to keep their status from dropping, would go outside and bring in new patients. Like a horror movie, this chain of contamination would continue in an endless loop.

Mu Sichen returned to the ward and saw Shen Jiyue lying on the bed, his eyes peacefully closed, as if waiting for death.

He did not even glance at Mu Sichen.

Mu Sichen picked up Shen Jiyue's medical record log again. His gaze fell on the third entry, "family-member persuasion."

The log recorded that yesterday, a family member had received Big Eye's blessing in front of Shen Jiyue. Shen Jiyue had been deeply shaken by the sight, and his spirit had loosened.

Combined with the rules Yao Wangping had described, Mu Sichen had reason to suspect that yesterday's family member had failed their treatment, received no contribution points, transformed into a patient, and then immediately gone mad. That had dealt Shen Jiyue an enormous shock, but he had still endured it.

Mu Sichen felt it was necessary to understand what Shen Jiyue was thinking.

He brought over a chair, sat down beside Shen Jiyue's bed, and said, "Shen Jiyue, let's talk."

"You should stay away from me," Shen Jiyue said with his eyes closed. "I won't worship that disgusting eye."

Mu Sichen asked, "Do you know that if a family member cures a patient, they'll become a relatively safe doctor, and if they don't cure a patient, then under constant contamination, the family member will also become a patient?"

Shen Jiyue opened his eyes and looked at Mu Sichen seriously with those protruding frog eyes.

"Looks like you do know. Then why did you still drive me away? Shouldn't you have tried to turn me into a patient?" Mu Sichen asked.

Earlier, Mu Sichen had known nothing about the rules. If Shen Jiyue had not known either, that would have been one thing. But Shen Jiyue clearly did know. That meant his earlier display of refusing to associate with a family member who abetted evil had been an act.

Because against a completely ignorant Mu Sichen, the best choice would have been to contaminate him and turn him into a patient. That way, Shen Jiyue could become a family member and escape.

But Shen Jiyue had not done that.

"It seems you already know the rules," Shen Jiyue said. "I advise you not to help the tyrant do evil. Even becoming a patient is better than trying to become a doctor."

"Why?" Mu Sichen asked.

Shen Jiyue said, "Once someone acts according to the sanatorium's rules, it means they have accepted the Town of the Eye's underlying logic from the depths of their heart. No matter how firm their will is, they will be imperceptibly contaminated and never escape this place."

"Contaminated?" Mu Sichen thought of Yao Wangping. He was clearly someone Xiangping Town had sent to save survivors, yet he could push a patient who was also a survivor into the fire pit without hesitation.

At the time, Mu Sichen had thought Yao Wangping was rational to the point of heartlessness. Thinking about it now, perhaps he had already been silently contaminated without realizing it.

Yao Wangping had the Protection of Qin Zhou's Totem. Could he still be contaminated? Mu Sichen frowned.

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Author's Note:

Qin Zhou (extending a tentacle): Mu Sichen, I'll protect you.

Mu Sichen (dodging): I feel like you're kind of useless.