LWGP - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Surgery
In the early spring of 2022, the Zeyang County People's Hospital in Lin City was as bustling as ever. Winter had just ended, and the change of seasons brought blooming flowers, along with no shortage of people with colds or allergies. The cries of children and the coughs of the elderly filled the air, a lively, human scene that was anything but joyous. The scent of disinfectant wafted through the halls.
Wang Jiu had just finished a surgery. Holding her thermos, she went to get some water and overheard a group of young nurses laughing as she passed the nurses' station.
They greeted her warmly.
"What are you talking about?"
"We were just saying a new patient came in. He's so handsome—that sexy kind of handsome. A perfect mix of handsome and sexy."
The newly hired nurse watched Wang Jiu's expression as she spoke, but she saw no major reaction. Wang Jiu just took a sip of water from her thermos.
"Hey, you young girls are all about handsome guys. Handsome is handsome, but sexy? Your choice of words is too over-the-top. What kind of man is like that? He sounds like a sissy. Lao Wang, don't listen to their nonsense. He can't be more handsome than me!"
The neurosurgeon Xu Jiu, who was filling out a form nearby, said irritably. The young nurses were about to retort when Wang Jiu, who had been quietly drinking her water, spoke up.
"Are his injuries serious?"
Huh?
The question was quite professional.
Everyone snapped back to reality. The young nurse replied, "For you, Director, it's probably a minor injury. They're just finishing up the stitches now. He should be fine soon."
"That's good."
Wang Jiu nodded slightly. She took a pen in her left hand and signed off on her last surgery, her head lowered as she said nonchalantly, "Actually, sexy and handsome can be one and the same."
Just when she had turned the atmosphere serious, she stirred it up again.
"Just wear a bikini under a trench coat."
With a soft click, she capped her pen. Wang Jiu gave them a little wink, a hint of a smile on her lips, and turned to leave.
Her fingers hooked around the strap of her thermos, she swayed slightly with each step. Her tall, slender figure moved with a leisurely and composed gait.
Everyone was quiet for a moment, then they all started to laugh. The young nurse couldn't help but say with a smile, "This Director Wang has such a frank personality..."
She was new, but she already knew that this Director Wang was famous in the hospital.
Twenty-eight years old, financially well-off. Although she switched between a white coat and scrubs every day and had little opportunity to show off jewelry or accessories, her car was quite conspicuous.
If her professional skills weren't so impeccable, the rumors about her would likely be more negative.
Modern society isn't subtle. Naturally, she had many suitors, but word was she'd been married and divorced. It seemed she had a child and didn't plan on having more, which deterred many admirers. She lived a quiet life, had a great personality—steady and reliable, yet with a good sense of humor—and was well-liked.
But those at the hospital who knew her for a while always felt there was something mysterious about her.
For instance, why would someone with her qualifications get divorced? And why did she suddenly leave a major hospital in the capital two years ago to come to this small town?
Gossip is human nature, but because she was so well-liked, no one dared to pry openly. Besides, after working in a hospital for so long, they had seen all kinds of marriages and didn't want to pick at old wounds.
"I think Lao Wang is genuinely unbothered by anything. It feels like nothing can faze her."
"Why else do you think we all call her Lao Wang?"
Xu Jiu, being a man, didn't care for such gossip. He smiled and hurried after Wang Jiu. They could faintly hear him asking if she had any other plans and if she wanted to get lunch, but as it happened, she had another surgery.
"Is Lao Wang here? There was a car accident on West Street, three people were brought in with serious injuries. One has a punctured lung. Director Zhang is calling for her."
"There was a pile-up on National Highway 104 near Cangdong, too! More than a dozen people! Where are Lao Xu and Dr. Lin? And Lao Wang, Lao Wang!"
Senior nurses rushed over, calling out. When they saw each other, regardless of whether the surgeons they were looking for were present, they themselves were stunned.
What's going on?
How can there be so many car crash victims all at once?
This was just a small county. How could so many accidents happen in such a short time?
But that was a matter for the police to investigate. The patients had been brought to their hospital, so saving them came first.
"Director Wang went into Operating Room B302 for a surgery an hour and a half ago. She can't come out now!"
In Operating Room B302, under the shadowless lamp, a pair of forceps probed a bloody wound, removing shards of glass from a car crash. The patient was enormous, the wound was not small, and the blood loss was significant. The sharp piece of glass was only a few centimeters from his liver. Though it looked dangerous, the doctor's hand was steady as she made her incisions.
After an hour, the surgery was in its final stages. They were cleaning the wound and would soon begin suturing it closed.
The assisting nurse, Li Meng, had been nervous at first, but she had now calmed down, handing over various instruments and monitoring the patient's condition.
In many professions, an assistant is secondary and might not affect the overall outcome. But in the medical field, even a junior nurse plays a crucial role. A lack of coordination could easily affect the result of a surgery and the patient's life or death. That's why in any proper hospital, every nurse allowed in the operating room has undergone rigorous training and is expected to work seamlessly with the surgeon.
Li Meng was assisting the renowned Director Wang of the First Hospital. Fortunately, the surgery seemed to be going smoothly so far, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
What's with this light...
She tried to focus, but then she heard Wang Jiu's voice from behind her mask, "There's something wrong with the lights."
After two back-to-back surgeries, her voice was a little hoarse, likely from fatigue.
What lights? The shadowless lamp?
No, it was all the lights.
Nurse Li Meng was suddenly alarmed and couldn't help but say, "Lao Wang, is it a circuit problem? I'll contact someone outside right away."
They had worked together for a long time and were familiar with each other's rhythms, their coordination seamless. When no outsiders were present, they were casual with their forms of address.
Above her mask, Wang Jiu's elegant brows furrowed. Her hands paused for a moment before she calmly resumed suturing, but just then...
The suture thread... it was distorting.
Wang Jiu was finally certain that something was terribly wrong.
"What the hell! Fuck!"
With a shout, she looked up. The assistant physician opposite her, Zhang Xu, was terrified. He yelled because the floor beneath his feet was caving in.
Before they could react, the entire operating room began to warp. The dim light was suddenly swallowed by shades of black and white.
"What's going on?"
Their minds went blank for a moment, a daze that lasted for a minute or two. The discomfort was hard for the three of them in the operating room to handle. Li Meng asked, her voice filled with fear and unease.
This was too bizarre!
Were they having a group hallucination?
"First, check if the equipment is functioning. Prepare to continue the surgery." As the lead surgeon, Wang Jiu was still dutiful. Although the other two were terrified and confused, with their pillar of support present, they obeyed.
"Equipment normal, power normal, data normal."
"The instruments are working! Strange, the connection to the outside is cut. No cell signal."
"Continue."
Despite the strange incident, as long as the operating room was functional, doctors couldn't stop a surgery—they weren't the kind of scum who would wake a patient mid-operation to demand more money.
However, as the surgery progressed to two-thirds completion, Zhang Xu and Li Meng finally couldn't take it anymore.
Zhang Xu: "Is it my imagination? I think I hear something."
Li Meng: "You too? Damn it, I hear screaming too."
Zhang Xu: "Sounds like a pig being slaughtered... or like someone's flesh is being cut."
Li Meng: "Flesh being cut? That can't be right. The guy Lao Wang is cutting into is anesthetized. I gave him a full dose."
Zhang Xu: "Maybe it's because he's so fat?"
Both of them looked at the impressively large patient.
He was, without a doubt, a fatty. They heard he'd been injured in a fight and seemed to have some connections. Before the ambulance arrived, the hospital director had contacted Lao Wang directly, giving them two pieces of information to prepare for.
The bad news was that a steel pipe the width of a thumb was embedded in him. The good news was that it was in his right chest, not his left.
A situation like this was actually quite troublesome, which was why the director had personally called Wang Jiu to handle it. So far, it had been going smoothly, except for this inexplicable sound.
They knew the man was lying there, his mouth closed, making no noise. But they were all panicking because the sound was getting clearer.
It was a shrill, terrifying sound, just like something out of a horror movie.
They could no longer even make jokes to ease their anxiety, because Wang Jiu suddenly interrupted them.
"It's from next door."
Wang Jiu's senses had always been sharp. Her hearing and vision were the envy of many at the hospital after every physical exam. She could tell the sound was coming from the adjacent room.
"If it's not a broadcast, then there's a problem with the operating room's soundproofing."
She stared at the wall to her left for a moment, then said in a complex and strange tone, "The operating room seems to be turning transparent."
What the hell?
Li Meng and Zhang Xu thought their own imaginations were running wild, but Lao Wang had taken it to another level.
But upon closer inspection, it did seem to be turning transparent. They could faintly see the black monitor on the wall turning white, dimly reflecting the ceiling—but it didn't look like the ceiling of their operating room; the pattern was wrong.
So... were they seeing what was next door?
Wang Jiu: "I was just thinking, if we can hear them next door, can they hear us too?"
Her tone was ethereal and melancholic, as if she herself was only half-convinced.
But as soon as she said that, the screaming from next door abruptly stopped, as if a hand had been clamped over the person's mouth. If they listened closely, they could still hear an extremely faint moan.
Could they really hear us from next door?
Li Meng and Zhang Xu's scalps tingled. Shit, this was even scarier than the screaming.
"Lao Wang, your jinxing is terrifying," Zhang Xu said, on the verge of tears.
Wang Jiu felt she was being unfairly blamed. Her eyes swept over them, a mix of reproach and exasperation. "We've all had a university education. Can't we be a little more scientific about this? There's no such thing as jinxing in this world; it's just a psychological effect. Huh? I feel like the wall next door is a bit strange."
They saw the look of confusion on her face. Since the surgery was nearing its end and she had instructed them to clean the patient's internal cavity, she put down her scalpel and walked toward the wall.
"Our wall is turning transparent, but the one next door seems to be a pane of transparent glass itself. So if we can see them, they should be able to..."
Wang Jiu had just reached the wall and leaned in to observe the room next door. Perhaps because the transparency wasn't complete yet, and because the glass next door was quite thick and the lights seemed to be off, she couldn't see clearly. Until...
Click! The lights next door suddenly turned on.
The blood-soaked face of a burly, bearded man suddenly appeared before Wang Jiu's eyes, and the room next door came into sharp focus.
He was face-to-face with Wang Jiu.
It also looked like an operating room, with someone on the table. But that person was in a much more miserable state than their fatty. One arm and both legs were gone, and the hand of his remaining left arm had been chopped off.
Chopped?
Wang Jiu glanced at the small, sharp axe in the man's hand. Seemingly startled, she met the man's gaze and uttered four words, completing her previous sentence: "...see us."
Of course he saw us, but we also saw him... them!!
It was terrifying!
Seeing the situation next door, both Wang Jiu and Zhang Xu cried out.
The burly man opposite Wang Jiu seemed very pleased with this effect. Through the glass, his eyes slowly scanned their operating room. When he saw the fatty on their operating table, he paused, then, as if he'd thought of something, he grinned at Wang Jiu.
Damn, that smile was terrifying, full of cruel and perverse amusement.
Wang Jiu froze for a second, her face pale. With a slightly trembling hand, she lifted it and gave him...
The middle finger!
The man was stunned.
Zhang Xu and Li Meng were also shocked. "Lao Wang, didn't you see? There's a person on the operating table over there too, but it doesn't look like he's performing surgery. It looks more like he's..."
Li Meng: "Dismembering him."
Zhang Xu: "Right, he's a psychopathic killer! And you dare to provoke him!"
It was a good thing they were in the medical field; otherwise, they would have fainted on the spot.
Wang Jiu gave a bitter smile. "I wasn't provoking him. I was just trying to build up my courage."
"The highest form of courage is making even your own people think you're being provocative."
Hmm? That actually sounded logical.
Her two subordinates were brainwashed in minutes.
Wang Jiu suddenly moved away from the wall and hurried to the operating room door.
"And you're wrong about two things. One, he's not dismembering a corpse, because the person isn't dead yet. As professionals, don't you have that much discernment? Two, that's not an operating table, and maybe this isn't our original operating room anymore. The environment has changed. Look at this door."
A killer next door was bad enough, but now there was something wrong with the door?
Li Meng and Zhang Xu looked, and sure enough, there was a damn problem.
The familiar door lock had been replaced by an electronic one. But this electronic lock was strange. On its display, blood-red numbers ticked down like a timer, currently showing 03:18.
The time was decreasing second by second.
Li Meng: "A timer?"
Zhang Xu: "A doorbell?"
Wang Jiu: "A time bomb?"
Perhaps fearing that Lao Wang's jinxing would come true again, Li Meng and Zhang Xu's expressions were exceptionally grim.
Ding-dong. A crisp sound echoed not in the room, but deep within their minds.
"The world's first batch of Tutorial Instances has been activated. Scene: Hospital 444. Character has triggered a side quest: A challenge from the murderer next door."
"Challenge: Within a 30-minute time limit, see who can complete their professional work first. The winner gains control of the door locks for both rooms. However, regardless of the outcome, after 30 minutes, all door locks on this floor will open."
"Only those who survive this instance will be added to the novice list. Identity number currently unassigned. Tentatively designated as 2.5 temporary partners, all codenamed Weakling."
"Weaklings, you are now asked if you accept the murderer's challenge."
The trio of Weaklings: Oh, ho! Can we refuse?
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