LWGP - Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Winning by Lying Down
Damn, a System?
Was this some feudal superstition or advanced future black technology?
So, should they agree or not?
Wang Jiu was decisive. "Agree to it. Look at the timer on the door lock."
The other two looked. The original three minutes had already ticked down to just over one.
Wang Jiu strode back to the operating table in two or three long-legged steps, picking up the scalpel again. As she did, she said, "I suspect that if we agree, we'll have thirty minutes for the challenge. But if we refuse, this timer shows when the door will open on its own. I just observed that the lock next door is the same as ours, with the same timer. In other words, if there's no challenge, the doors to both our rooms will likely open at the same time."
When did you notice all that? Weren't you busy flipping off that dead pervert?
Li Meng's eyes widened. "In that case, he could rush out and kill us! Agree, agree! Hurry up and agree!"
The three of them didn't dare take the risk. Even with three of them, the man next door looked tall and burly, with terrifying strength.
The only male, Zhang Xu, felt like he'd be taken down in a single round.
With a unanimous decision, they chose to accept the challenge with fifty seconds remaining on the timer.
Zhang Xu said, "Look! The time on top changed. It's 30 minutes now. So here's the problem: what are we competing with him on? We save a life, he takes one? We can't possibly win that."
He just needed one swing of his axe and it would be game over.
But Wang Jiu switched her mode of speech. "You two, come over here. Stand with your backs to that side and block the view. From now on, we'll only speak in our local dialect so he can't hear our surgical progress."
The two quickly did as they were told and continued the surgical procedure under Wang Jiu's guidance, but they were still panicking. What exactly was this competition about?
"The victim next door had his limbs severed. You saw the severed limbs—it was like a chef preparing a dish. That dead pervert has a sense of ceremony. The System's words actually gave a hint: 'work.' For us, saving a person is our work. For that pervert, completing the dismemberment while the person is still alive might be his normal work. But work has procedures and standards. So this competition should be about who can finish their work first while adhering to their usual standards. However, our job of saving someone is more troublesome; we can't be careless, or the person won't be saved. But his job is dismemberment, so he can afford to be a bit sloppy and rough. He has more operational flexibility than we do, and his timing is more elastic. Understand what I mean?"
It dawned on them. No wonder she had them block the view and switch to the local dialect. It was to prevent the man next door from sensing their surgical progress and rushing his own dismemberment work.
Both of them were locals and could naturally speak the dialect. Wang Jiu was from out of town, having arrived in Zeyang County over two years ago, but she had learned the local dialect quickly. She usually only spoke it occasionally for fun, but today, she was using it so formally for the sake of survival.
Both of them were very nervous, their efficiency dropping. Wang Jiu glanced at them. Though her tone lacked any warmth, it was remarkably calm and reassuring. "He's one person, we're three. Besides, I refuse to believe he's killed more people than we've saved. Taking a step back, even if we lose and he rushes in, are the three of us too scared to fight him up close? What's there to panic about?"
See? This is why she was the director.
Her mental fortitude was incredible!
The two quickly calmed down and began to cooperate steadily.
As the minutes and seconds ticked by, Wang Jiu's prowess became apparent.
It was true that they couldn't be careless, but it was a different story if one could speed up without being careless.
Li Meng and Zhang Xu, both professionals who had worked with her before, clearly noticed that Wang Jiu's movements were much faster than usual.
Of course, her previous surgeries were precise, but no one would deliberately rush. To rush while ensuring precision was incredibly difficult.
After all, a life was on the line.
But Wang Jiu did it. It was like a low-key martial arts master who usually just farmed his land suddenly drawing his sword when an enemy attacked, stunning everyone.
Not only did she speed up, but she also alternated between Mandarin and the local dialect, using Mandarin for "feints" to mislead the opponent's judgment.
For example, she would ask Li Meng for forceps in Mandarin, while her eyes signaled for a suture needle.
They didn't even need the local dialect; it was all based on tacit understanding.
Li Meng was fine, as she was just a nurse primarily providing assistance. But Zhang Xu was also a surgeon, albeit an intern, and he knew his stuff. He was shocked, feeling as if he was seeing the true, mysterious depths behind Wang Jiu for the first time. Why would such a skilled and young surgeon come to a small county hospital like theirs?
Because of her speed and precision, Li Meng and Zhang Xu's mindsets grew steadier, making them more and more efficient. They were now in the final stages.
Li Meng subconsciously glanced at the timer on the main door and saw that the time was 11:34.
Ding!
"This round of the side challenge is over. Your side is victorious. As you finished with more than 10 minutes remaining, you will receive an additional reward. Current victor's rewards: fixed reward of control over the door locks of both rooms, additional reward of taking one physical item from your original room."
They could only take one item?
Li Meng and Zhang Xu discovered that the instruments in their hands had vanished, returning to the tool rack.
However, one thing had disappeared completely.
The patient on the operating table was gone.
"He's…?"
The System responded: "The tool person has successfully completed their mission and has left the instance to return to reality."
The three of them: Fuck! That damn Fatty won by just lying there the whole time?
System: "Now, please select your reward item."
"Definitely a knife, a weapon!"
This was a no-brainer, even though all the scalpels looked uniformly small and delicate.
How frustrating. What they really wanted now was a pig-butchering knife!
But Wang Jiu glanced at the room next door, and as if she had thought of something, she frowned slightly and suddenly asked the System, "I have the authority to control the lock on the room next door, and I've already locked it. Will the other party obediently follow the game rules? Is this murderer under the System's control?"
"He is not. He is a local, not a player."
The System's reply was simple. Zhang Xu and Li Meng were still a bit confused, but Wang Jiu's expression suddenly changed, and she couldn't help but curse under her breath, "What kind of bullshit is this!"
Her voice was naturally low and sultry; it was hard to tell if the System was offended. But she quickly grabbed the longest scalpel available (though it wasn't very long).
"Let's go, quickly."
Although the other two didn't know why, they panicked as well, rushing out of the operating room after Wang Jiu.
The moment the door opened, the temperature outside was very low. It looked like a hospital, but it clearly wasn't their familiar one. It was a strange, deserted hospital.
The lights on the hallway ceiling were flickering, half-lit. The floor was covered in a lot of blood, much of it already dried, emitting a foul, rotten, and bloody stench.
No, there were people!
They could faintly hear screams coming from upstairs, downstairs, and even from other rooms on their floor. Everyone must be sealed inside their rooms.
This wasn't a hospital; it was clearly a slaughterhouse cage!
"Quick, find the elevator."
Suddenly, a series of loud bangs came from the room behind them. Zhang Xu's face turned pale. It sounded like… someone was hacking at the glass wall with an axe.
That's right!
This was the biggest bug, and perhaps a hidden level in this death game—the local homicidal maniac clearly had far more freedom of action than outside survivors like them.
So what if the door was locked? He could smash the glass wall! In any case, the operating room Wang Jiu and the others were in was already turning transparent and about to disappear.
No wonder Director Wang had just cursed the System.
The Dog System was a menace!
"The elevator's here! Here! Here!"
"Run!"
Just as the three of them disappeared from the hallway, the sound of the axe striking the glass wall grew more intense. After five or six hits, clang! The glass shattered all over the floor. A burly, blood-soaked murderer, standing at one meter eighty-eight like a butcher, rushed into the operating room where Wang Jiu's group had been, holding a dripping axe. He then charged through the room's door into the hallway, his gaze shifting to the descending elevator floor indicator.
They ran?
He was about to head for the elevator when he suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on the fresh blood drops on the floor.
The blood came from the surgical gowns Wang Jiu's group wore, and also from the damn Fatty who had won by lying down.
However, the blood drops didn't just lead toward the elevator; they also led to the fire escape stairwell.
He narrowed his eyes and sneered.
Using the elevator as a decoy while actually running to the stairwell to hide?
He could see which floor the elevator stopped on, but if they took the stairs, no one would know where they went.
These three prey were quite cunning.
Luckily, there were these blood drops.
He could still track them!
The murderer grinned, a cruel and merciless expression on his face. He pulled open the door and charged into the stairwell with his axe.
The hallway was dimly lit, and the stairwell was even darker. As soon as he rushed in, his eyes barely adjusted to the darkness when he immediately spotted bloodstains on the steps above. Just as he thought!
His judgment confirmed, his killing intent intensified. He was about to charge straight up when he suddenly felt something was wrong behind him.
Thwump!
A blade plunged into his back.
In almost an instant, he looked down. The scalpel was too small to pierce through his chest, but it had indeed penetrated his entire heart.
He felt it.
Clang!
The axe fell to the floor, and his body crashed onto the stairs.
Before he died, he could see a man and a woman running down from above, their faces filled with shock. But he couldn't see the expression on Wang Jiu's face, who had hidden behind another door, waiting for him to charge into the stairwell before stabbing him in the back.
Zhang Xu's voice trembled. "Lao Wang, this…"
Wang Jiu's face was deathly pale, her lips trembling slightly as she looked at them and asked, "Am I shaking?"
The two, who had experienced winning by lying down, shook their heads vigorously. No, no, Lao Wang, your strike was divine, steady as a rock!
If this had been a real-life killing, there would certainly be psychological trauma. But the situation was different now. This was a survival dungeon controlled by the Dog System, and their target was a homicidal maniac.
They had no time to reflect on moral codes of conduct.
"It's because I'm too useless, otherwise it should have been me," Zhang Xu said with a bitter smile. As the only man, when Wang Jiu gave up on escaping and chose to go for the kill, she had asked him if he dared to kill. He had said yes, but he wasn't confident he could do it in one fatal blow and waste the opportunity. So Wang Jiu decisively did it herself.
Lao Wang… is truly a badass, Zhang Xu thought to himself.
"Cut the crap. The System sent a notification."
All three of them received the notification.
"Weakling Trio No. 1 has killed Murderer No. 4. The achievement will be recorded in your personal score. The trio will share control over the door locks of all ten rooms on the fourth floor and gain the ability to take one item from each room."
Zhang Xu had played many games and was starting to see some patterns. "Why do I get the feeling this dungeon is open-ended? The main quest is unclear right now, but it most likely has to do with escaping. The side quests, however, are for us to rack up a score."
Regardless of the rewards, the mention of a personal score was enough to make any clever person's imagination run wild.
What was the connection?
Li Meng wasn't very perceptive about such things. As the director, Wang Jiu elegantly explained the concept. "The main quest is just to escape, and then we'll never have to deal with this bullshit again. As for the side quests, if you get a high score… maybe if you have eight lifetimes of bad luck, you'll have to participate in another one of these dungeons…"
As Wang Jiu said this, she seemed to think of something, and her expression became a little strange.
The expression on Li Meng's round, pretty face was as if she had eaten shit.
There's a next time?
She was a white-robed angel who diligently dedicated herself to saving people. Who had she ever offended!
While the three were talking, they weren't wasting any time. Wang Jiu had Zhang Xu take the small axe from the murderer's hand and found that it was portable. Was this also a kind of rule?
Just like killing a monster and getting loot.
Then they returned to the fourth-floor hallway.
With the main quest still unclear, they had to take advantage of the side quest rewards. Maybe they could even get a clue about the main quest.
The first room they entered was the murderer's.
At first glance, it also looked like an operating room, but it was more like a torture chamber, filled with all sorts of gruesome instruments. There were also many buckets on the floor, filled with red and white matter.
Even though she was used to seeing blood and gore in the hospital, Li Meng felt nauseous.
Wang Jiu had Li Meng pick a weapon she was comfortable with. With all three of them armed, they would have a fighting chance if they encountered any more danger.
Logically, they should have left after picking their items to check the other rooms, but Wang Jiu looked at the endlessly bleeding corpse on the operating table…
"He's not dead yet."
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