LWGP - Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Coincidence
Wang Jiu and the others still didn't know what was happening below, much less that a truly terrifying creature had awakened.
But they were still scared out of their wits.
Because when the elevator reached the eighth floor, ding, the doors suddenly stopped.
The three of them tensed up, tightening their grips on their weapons, and then they saw four people in front of the elevator.
The four were covered in blood, clearly having just survived a vicious fight.
What made Wang Jiu and her group's expressions turn peculiar, however, was that three of the four people outside the elevator were just like them—two doctors and one nurse.
The other was a rather ordinary-looking young man with an injury on his arm.
Of the four, only one doctor had a weapon: a scalpel.
The two groups faced each other, both on high alert, but fortunately, the leaders from both sides were quick to speak.
"Help! Someone's trying to kill us!"
Wang Jiu and the others looked and saw a burly man charging down the hallway, brandishing an axe with a ferocious expression, his mouth open as if shouting something!
Holy crap, a murderer!
"Get in, quick."
After the four got in, the elevator doors closed and went up, this time without stopping.
Before they could speak, Wang Jiu asked directly, "Where are you going?"
The four were still in shock, their thoughts and emotions unstable, and they all spoke at once.
"We don't know, we don't know where to go."
"You're going to the eleventh floor? Not down to escape the hospital?"
"We can't go down!"
"Can we go with you?"
It seemed these people didn't know there was a clue pointing to the eleventh floor.
They were pretty much in the same boat as her group of three.
But Wang Jiu's group wanted to test them. This was a moment for tacit understanding. Li Meng took the initiative, saying, "So, should we still go to eleven? What if it's dangerous?"
In reality, the elevator had already reached the eleventh floor. But when the doors opened, it was pitch-black outside. There weren't even any hallway lights, making it exceptionally creepy.
Li Meng's timidity was not an act.
"Wait, the eleventh floor? Before, when I was locked in the room, I pretended to be unconscious. The murderer was dismembering someone, and I heard him on the phone. He mentioned the eleventh floor."
"By the way, my name is Chen Dong. I was lucky to run into you just now, or I'd be dead for sure."
The injured young man, Chen Dong, had inadvertently provided a clue, but he was still shaken and only offered a hasty thanks.
There was actually no need for introductions. Wang Jiu's trio wore sterile surgical scrubs, while the other hospital group of three wore regular hospital uniforms, complete with ID badges.
Liu Guang, who looked quite a bit like a K-pop star, just a few years older, was a deputy director. Disheveled, his inky-black hair was slightly curled. He pushed up his glasses and said, "It's nothing, we didn't expect to encounter something like this either... By the way, are you three also colleagues? What's the deal with this game dungeon? Director Wang, is there really a clue on the eleventh floor?"
Liu Guang seemed very focused on Wang Jiu, talking a bit more than necessary.
They were both attending physicians, both young and accomplished, and most importantly—they both wore glasses.
"We're just as lost. We're trying our luck for now. This place is too dangerous; there's safety in numbers."
After a chaotic and rambling conversation, they finally agreed to stick together.
With that, Wang Jiu walked out. Zhang Xu and Li Meng followed her, and the others, seeing this, naturally didn't lag behind.
"It's so cold." The other nurse, Wang Ling, rubbed the goosebumps on her arm. She glanced at the axe in Zhang Xu's hand, hesitated for a moment, but still asked about it.
They were clearly also aware of the rule that items couldn't leave the rooms, so there were only two possible sources for a weapon that could.
1. It belonged to a murderer.
2. It was a reward.
Based on the socialist wisdom that there's strength in numbers and that the other party didn't seem much stronger than their own, Zhang Xu glanced at Wang Jiu for permission. After getting her nod, he briefly explained to the four how the three of them had teamed up to kill a murderer.
He didn't mention that Wang Jiu had done it alone, fearing she would be targeted—who knew if they would end up turning on each other later.
This was a survival dungeon, where human nature would be infinitely pressured to reveal its ugliest side.
Learning that they had taken down a murderer, Liu Guang's group of four was shocked and impressed.
"That murderer was terrifying. He killed almost everyone in my room. If the door hadn't opened early, I would have been next for sure."
Chen Dong was still shaken, which everyone could understand. They were all in a similar situation.
Liu Guang said, "Now that there are more of us, we won't be afraid even if another murderer shows up."
Wang Ling added, "That's right, Big Brother Zhang and the other two all have weapons."
No one noticed Wang Jiu frown slightly, looking thoughtfully at the four people ahead.
"But what is this place? The floors below had lots of rooms, but this one only has a... morgue!"
Everyone's eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, but using the light from the elevator, they could see that the empty floor was divided into two sections: an open area and a room, indicated by a single door.
There was a sign on the door. The six people who worked in a hospital found it familiar, but in this place, it gave them a creepy feeling.
"Could the clue be inside the morgue?"
"Let's go in and see."
Click. The lights in the morgue turned on. Thankfully, it didn't look scary inside. In fact, it was very clean, with no bodies in sight. They were probably all in the refrigerated drawers, each silver-white drawer marked with a number.
"What a huge morgue! There are 99 drawers!"
"The clue might be in one of the drawers."
"Let's search quickly. It's too dangerous downstairs. I'm afraid there are more murderers... Oh, right, there's also a gunman. I hope he doesn't come into the hospital."
Zhang Xu and the others got busy, but Chen Dong's arm was injured, and blood was dripping onto the floor. Wang Jiu offered that they had bandages and hemostatic medicine and could help dress the wound.
The other five were busy searching for clues. Wang Jiu took out the supplies, casually placed her scalpel to the side, and knelt in front of Chen Dong, who was sitting against the wall.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, Director Wang," Chen Dong said, thanking her through the pain, his face slightly flushed.
"It's nothing. I could bandage a wound like this with my eyes closed."
"I just feel like I'm dragging you all down by being injured. This place is so dangerous."
Chen Dong looked ashamed, lowering his head and his gaze.
Seeing this, Wang Jiu offered a few words of comfort.
Li Meng and Zhang Xu were searching for clues, pulling open drawers to look at the bodies. They ran into a problem and were about to ask Wang Jiu about it when they heard a scream!
The five of them immediately thought a murderer had come up. They all looked over, only to witness a scene that left them utterly stunned.
Wang Jiu was holding down one of Chen Dong's arms. Chen Dong screamed, and the scalpel in his hand fell to the floor.
"Director!"
"Lao Wang! What's going on?"
Li Meng and Zhang Xu shouted as they rushed over. They saw Chen Dong, gritting his teeth against the pain, his face flushed red but his expression savage, trying to grab the scalpel again to slash at Wang Jiu.
But Wang Jiu let go, raised her foot, and kicked him in the head.
Thud!
Chen Dong's head slammed against the polished marble, and he went silent.
It happened so fast. Everyone was stunned for a moment. Li Meng and Zhang Xu naturally had complete trust in Wang Jiu, but Liu Guang's trio grew tense and wary. In the end, however, they didn't make a move, only asking cautiously.
Wang Jiu had no intention of hiding anything.
"While I was bandaging his wound, he grabbed the knife I had placed beside me."
Everyone had seen that part, but only now did they realize Chen Dong had a knife in his hand.
And that he was trying to kill Wang Jiu.
"He grabbed your knife? Isn't he a survivor like us? Why would he attack you, Director Wang? Just to steal a weapon?"
Liu Guang's expression was complicated. The person they had just escaped with had, in the blink of an eye...
Wang Jiu stood up, seemingly still shaken. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath. "Why do you think he wanted to steal a weapon?"
"For self-protection, of course."
Wang Jiu pushed up her glasses, appearing to have calmed down. Then she raised her eyes, scanned the group, and said gravely, "I think it's because he just lost his weapon."
The statement was so abrupt that no one understood it at first, but then Liu Guang reacted as if he'd been struck by lightning.
"You mean—he's a murderer?! That's not right. Wasn't the murderer the one chasing us before? He had the axe."
"Oh, I get it. You're saying the axe in that burly man's hands was taken from Chen Dong."
As expected of someone who'd made it to deputy director, Liu Guang was a quick thinker.
They had analyzed that there should only be one murderer per floor, just like on Wang Jiu's floor, Murderer No. 4. The 'No. 4' likely corresponded to the floor number.
In that case, this Chen Dong must be Murderer No. 7.
Everyone now understood, and they were dumbfounded. Looking at Chen Dong on the floor gave them a strange feeling.
A murderer... a murderer who had his axe stolen and was chased by his victim.
Oh, and the wound on his arm was probably inflicted by that burly man, too.
This is serious, but what do I do if I want to laugh?
"I thought all murderers were built like No. 4 from our floor, who looked like Lu Zhishen. I didn't expect you guys to be so lucky and run into a noob."
Li Meng's tone was quite complex. Wang Ling and Xu Kai were speechless.
"Don't talk nonsense. This guy wasn't easy to deal with. Although he wasn't physically strong, don't forget that the burly man himself was very tough. No. 7 probably just had terrible luck and ran into a brick wall. After all, there are strong and weak among us survivors, too."
After saying this, Liu Guang gave Wang Jiu a meaningful look.
Wang Jiu was organizing the first-aid kit and bandages. She glanced back at him with a half-smile. "Mr. Liu, why are you looking at me like that?"
"Director Wang, you seemed to have placed that knife on your right side?"
"Yes."
"Was that just a coincidence?"
"It was a coincidence."
"Really?"
"But it was deliberate."
Is entrapment illegal?
It's not. It's like Jiang Taigong fishing—the willing take the bait.
Click. Wang Jiu closed the box and put it in her backpack. For the sake of temporary unity between the two groups, she explained, "Just now, outside, he said something that made me suspicious."
Zhang Xu was puzzled. He thought back. Had Chen Dong said something questionable?
He seemed to have only said...
Suddenly, it dawned on him. Zhang Xu said, "That's right! He mentioned that we opened the cell doors early! He said he was pretending to be asleep the whole time, didn't complete any tasks, was just focused on escaping, and had no kills. How would he know something like that unless he was the murderer and knew the normal settings? But that's not right. He's from the seventh floor, and we only had control over the fourth floor's permissions, so..."
Zhang Xu quickly asked Liu Guang when their room door had opened and what the timer on the door had been set to.
After they compared notes, Li Meng had a strange expression. "The System opened the seventh floor too? Don't tell me it opened all the floors. What is it trying to do? Did it have a rare pang of conscience and decide to do something decent for once?"
But Wang Jiu didn't think so. "Something good? Not necessarily. Don't forget, we opened the doors early for the sake of the other survivors on the fourth floor. But if the floors above us also opened early, it just increases our danger. After all, no matter which floor we go to, we'll run into people who have escaped, as well as the murderers chasing them."
This was tantamount to increasing their peril.
Li Meng realized, murmuring, "A chain reaction?"
Zhang Xu: "This Dog System!"
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