Published at 8th of October 2024 3:07 am

Chapter 1151: Hospitalized Lin Sanjiu

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Lin Sanjiu vaguely knew that she had been unconscious for a long time.

She floated in a deep and shallow, constantly rolling darkness, her consciousness intermittent. In the hazy moments, she couldn’t even remember what had happened to herself. It wasn’t until she struggled to open her eyelids, and her vision gradually cleared from a foggy state, that her bodily sensations also returned.

On the grayish-white ceiling, there were faint cracks, as if a giant spider had just started weaving its web.

What had happened?

She furrowed her brow, feeling like her memories had been shattered into pieces, and she needed to painstakingly piece them back together. Ah, right, it was that ukiyo-e painting she had taken from Bonnie Bunny. As soon as she took it out, she was engulfed by lava… So, she should be in the hospital now, shouldn’t she?

Did she still have that ukiyo-e painting in her hand?

With that thought in mind, she struggled to lift her neck to see her left hand and to get a glimpse of what the hospital looked like. What met her eyes was a small room entirely painted white. The room was narrow and cramped, with no space for anything except a medicine cabinet, a single bed beneath her, and an IV stand next to it. The room was so small yet had a heavy, solid iron door that made it feel like it might tip over at any moment.

Was this how hospitals were? Just as that thought crossed Lin Sanjiu’s mind, she suddenly realized something was wrong. She continued to lift her neck, scanning the room in all directions, and couldn’t help but open her mouth.

Her left arm was gone.

Starting from the fingertips that held the ukiyo-e painting, her palm, wrist, all the way to her upper arm, everything was gone. Perhaps because she was clutching the edge of the ukiyo-e painting when she was swallowed by lava, it had ended up in the hospital with her. Now it lay crumpled in the place where her left hand should have been—the deep red demon head, which was particularly huge compared to the other spirits in the hell’s Gate slit, seemed to sense her gaze. It rolled its eyes toward her and then deeply furrowed the skin where its eyebrows should be.

Why, even a spirit from a Special Item was disappointed in her?

Lin Sanjiu rolled her eyes at the demon. Well, from now on, its owner was downgraded, and it could do as it pleased.

The battle with Bonnie Bunny had yielded more than she had imagined. She not only obtained a Special Item but also discovered the location of the lava in this round of the game. Thinking back to Bonnie Bunny’s seemingly nonsensical question (“How many Special Items have you used since the game started?”), the answer became clear: the lava in this round of the game was hidden in the posthuman’s storage of Special Items.

To be more specific, the lava should have been stuck between the third Special Item taken out and the storage space. When the posthuman took out the third Special Item, the lava would suddenly engulf it without warning.

1

Ya Jiang was absolutely right. Who would have expected lava to come out of such a place?

Lin Sanjiu had already taken out [Tornado Whip] once and the Artist once before. Combined with her actions of taking out and putting away the ukiyo-e painting, it had naturally ended up in the hospital. However, she realized it a bit too late, and now that she was in the hospital, she couldn’t warn Hei Zejiu.

She wondered how Ya Jiang was doing after she left.

She emitted a low groan from her throat and slowly used her right hand, which still had the IV needle, to support her body as she turned and sat up on the right side.

‘Fortunately, it was my left hand that had been swallowed,’

she thought, and she lowered her head to look at the hospital gown she was wearing. She casually turned the ukiyo-e painting into a card.

Bohemia and Puppeteer must be outside this iron door, right? Were they also confined to a narrow patient room like her?

After her left hand had come into contact with the lava, it had completely disappeared. As for Puppeteer—she thought for a moment and an image of a headless body in a black leather jacket came to mind, making her shiver.

[Ghost Ukiyo-e]

This was a rare and boldly colored woodblock print. Legend had it that during the night parade of one hundred demons, the gates of hell would open in the underworld, revealing a deep red demon king. Anyone who inadvertently encountered the demon king would be mentally enchanted, following the procession of demons through the gates of hell, and becoming one of the hundred demons. In other words, every expressive and vivid demon in the image had once been a posthuman.

Usage: Very simple, just pick up the scroll and let it touch the viewer’s face. Only then would the viewer be so moved by the art’s intense and close-up impact that they would involuntarily feel the call of the art and merge with the ukiyo-e painting.

Precautions: Because the size of the paper is limited, it cannot accommodate an endless number of night demons. When the number reaches its limit, the posthumans previously sucked into the scroll will be released one by one in order.

Bonnie Bunny truly lived up to being a melee-type posthuman, with all the Special Items designed to work best in close combat.

‘Let’s go out first, if it’s possible.’

Lin Sanjiu dragged the IV stand behind her and slowly approached the iron door. Her body felt like it had been stripped of its bones, weak and lacking strength. Fortunately, the large locks on the iron door were there to keep outsiders from getting in, not to prevent her from going out. She unlocked them one by one, and with a creaking sound, she opened the heavy iron door a crack.

She instinctively imagined what a hospital should look like many times, but they all had one thing in common: they should appear as ordinary buildings with something like a red cross on the walls. She didn’t expect that when she first saw the interior of the hospital, her vision would actually blur for a moment.

There was nothing outside her room. More precisely, just beyond the door frame, the ground dropped straight down like a cliff—she hadn’t expected that there would be no floor outside the door. She quickly withdrew her foot, which was about to step out. However, because she accidentally moved the IV needle in her hand, she felt a sharp pain in her skin.

Lin Sanjiu turned back and bit her hand to pull out the needle, then looked out again.

It was a cylindrical, circular building, completely sealed off from any airflow, with no trace of daylight. Along the curved walls, rows of small white spotlights illuminated identical iron doors, creating circular arcs.

On each level of the arc, there were an equal number of iron doors, and each door presumably led to a patient room identical to hers. She looked down and noticed that the small white lights extended in concentric circles until the farthest light became so dim that it was almost invisible, revealing a dark circular floor.

It was hard to determine how deep this atrium-shaped building was.

She looked left and right, noticing iron doors five meters away from her. Kneeling down, she used her one remaining hand to grasp the door frame and leaned her upper body out as far as possible, attempting to carefully inspect the neighboring rooms.

The sound of the iron door opening echoed against the wall, accompanied by a sudden gust of wind.

At that moment, Lin Sanjiu’s body was weak, and her reactions were slower than usual. By the time she realized that the gust of wind was coming towards her and hastily retreated into the room, the gust had already approached her. In that fraction of a second, a small shadow appeared in the wind, suddenly opening a hole-like mouth towards her right hand, revealing rows of sharp white teeth—

She couldn’t evade it. When she fell back to the floor, the creature’s sharp teeth scraped her hand. Blood beads flew from her hand and splashed into the air. The creature suddenly twisted its head, bounced off the door frame with a ‘bang,’ and returned in the direction it came from.

“That seems to have been a piranha!” Mrs. Manas exclaimed in surprise.

Lin Sanjiu gasped and tried to use her left hand to cover her bleeding right hand, only to remember that she didn’t have a left hand. She quickly sat up, her gaze following the piranha as it retreated. Just beyond the open iron door, half of a man’s face became visible.

“Why didn’t it get anything?” the man asked as he reached out to grab the piranha. He muttered something under his breath and shook it a few times as if he were afraid the piranha was hiding something from him. He crouched behind the iron door, and except for a forehead covered in short brown hair, it was hard to make out his appearance. The man glanced over and locked eyes with Lin Sanjiu. He immediately retreated into the patient room, and the iron door slammed shut with a heavy ‘clang.’

Lin Sanjiu closed the door, sat behind it, and stared blankly at her hand.

The piranha was small but had an extremely large mouth, coupled with densely sharp teeth. It wouldn’t have been surprising if it had bitten off her entire wrist—if its target had been her right hand. The reason it only scratched Lin Sanjiu’s hand was that it wanted to bite what was in her hand.

Thinking of this, she couldn’t help but look at the IV needle she had just pulled out.

Could it be that the piranha originally wanted to bite the IV needle?

Her gaze followed the intravenous tube all the way up and fell on the small IV bag, which still had about half of its transparent liquid remaining. She took the IV bag down and carefully examined its label: [High-Efficiency Nutrient Solution]. Apart from these few words, there was nothing else.

“It should be something good, right?” Mrs. Manas said uncertainly. “People want to steal it.”

“Compared to just before, it seems like I’m even weaker now…” Lin Sanjiu didn’t know if this was her own psychological effect. She sighed as she looked at the IV bag. “Could it be that I can’t remove the IV needle yet?”

She picked up the needle tip from the ground, held it in her mouth, and took out the alcohol given to her by the grand prize. She gave her lips a disinfecting shower before inserting the needle back into her hand’s blood vessels. As the cold liquid entered her bloodstream once again, she took a long breath, closed her eyes, and felt a bit more strength gradually returning to her body.

The iron door suddenly shook, startling her and causing her to open her eyes—someone was outside repeatedly banging against the door locks.

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