Published at 8th of October 2024 3:08 am

Chapter 1157: The Place Where Sharks Lurk

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

The dimly lit wall lamps looked like patients on the verge of passing out at any moment. Lin Sanjiu held the price list and carefully examined it under the stingy light of the wall lamp. Suddenly, she noticed a detail she hadn’t paid attention to before and exclaimed, “Hey!”

“What’s wrong?” asked Ya Jiang who was in two parts.

She pondered for a moment, unsure of the significance of her discovery. “Do you have your price list with you?” she asked Ya Jiang.

Ya Jiang flicked aside his long hair and took out a black hairpin. He split it into two thin legs, creating a tiny shadow between them. After a few strokes, he exclaimed, “Oh!” and handed the price list to Lin Sanjiu. In an environment where deceit was likely necessary to survive, this was a gesture full of trust.

“Thanks,” Lin Sanjiu said, although her thanks were not for the price list.

Ya Jiang looked puzzled. “Thanks for what?”

Forget it.

Due to the loss of one hand, Lin Sanjiu had to place his price list on the ground before comparing it with her own copy, carefully examining each line. The two price lists were almost identical, containing a lot of information, and it was challenging to notice the small differences without scrutinizing each word.

“Here.” She spread the two open price lists side by side and pointed to one of the items on the list. “Why does your price list not have the item ‘flower basket’?”

Ya Jiang lowered his head and confirmed, “Yeah, it’s true. It’s not there.” After a moment, he asked, “What about it? What’s so strange about the flower basket?”

“It’s just a bit odd.” Lin Sanjiu sat on the ground, taking the opportunity to rest for a while. “I’m not really sure what it means… You see, the price list only introduces the prices of various items in the hospital’s payment counter. Since it is a payment counter in a hospital, the list should only include medical supplies. But what does a flower basket have to do with medical supplies?”

As she looked at the two books, she vaguely felt that she might be making a big deal out of nothing. “In theory, it should be a product from the affiliated shop. But… why are the other items in the affiliated shop not listed, only the flower basket?”

Ya Jiang suddenly let out a sound of unease from his throat, like a nervous pigeon.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Sanjiu said, raising her head. “Do you have any ideas?”

“This is my specialty,” he said excitedly, his face turning pale, waving his hands in the air. “You know it too!”

“What do you mean?”

“This price list was printed by someone,” Ya Jiang said quickly. “So, it was just an accidental mistake!”

Did the deception start as soon as they woke up?

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, then puzzled. “But what’s the point of making such a price list? Besides the flower basket, all the other information is the same as the real price list… It didn’t lead me to another player’s room or anything.”

Her patient room was in the middle of the barrel-shaped hospital, while Ya Jiang’s room was closer to the bottom. The range between them was too vast, with at least hundreds of patient rooms separated by it. No matter who made the price list, it was unlikely that they could spread it to hundreds of patient rooms one by one. From this perspective, the price list in Ya Jiang’s hand should be real.

“True,” Ya Jiang said, finally realizing. “If I were the one who made it, I would definitely send you to some other place and set a trap for you there. But it only said ‘hospital’s lower level.'”

“Because its goal was just to make you take this price list,” said another voice.

That made sense; this was an angle she hadn’t thought of. Just as Lin Sanjiu realized this, she suddenly sensed something was wrong. She jumped up like a startled rabbit, but she was too late. Before she could react, something abruptly extended from the wall behind her, and it forcefully sliced her lower back. At the same time, the child’s voice that had spoken earlier shouted, “Kidney!”

As Lin Sanjiu landed and swiftly turned around, she caught a glimpse of a short arm rapidly retracting into the wall. The rectangular steel frame flashed brightly in the dimness before disappearing along with the arm.

But this time, there was no plastic red kidney model left behind.

It was unfortunate yet fortunate at the same time. The child behind the wall happened to press the rectangular frame against the spot where she had lost a kidney. Otherwise, if she had lost her other kidney, she would probably have been in big trouble.

Both of them stared at the smooth wall, silent for several seconds. The sudden incident had happened and ended too quickly. Even the frightened Lin Sanjiu began to doubt whether she had just hallucinated.

“That kid…” Ya Jiang said, hesitating, “didn’t take it, right?”

Lin Sanjiu shook her head. When she walked closer to the wall, the metal gauntlet enclosed her fist with a ‘clanking’ sound. The child must have fled after failing to strike. Lin Sanjiu examined the wall, uncertain if she could break through this pocket dimension structure. Just then, the child’s muffled voice rang out, saying to someone, “I made a mistake. She doesn’t have a kidney!”

The child was not far away, just behind the two walls!

Lin Sanjiu identified the direction and was about to chase after her. However, Ya Jiang grabbed her and shook his head.

What was he doing?

As she stared at him, he cleared his throat and winked at her, then suddenly shouted, “Hey, don’t walk so fast! Help me out! I’ve lost my waist!”

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback but quickly understood. She immediately kicked away the fake price list on the ground and turned around to leave.

Ya Jiang cried out like an old lady who had her bag snatched, almost in tears. “I can’t walk fast. Didn’t you promise to help me?”

Although Lin Sanjiu walked swiftly ahead as if she was heading toward where the child’s voice had come from, she was actually taking continuous turns, maintaining the same distance from Ya Jiang at all times. Every time she nearly lost sight of him, she would wait for him to catch up from behind a corner or a similar hidden spot, never letting him leave her line of sight. Sure enough, within five minutes, there was movement again on the maze-like pathway.

As Ya Jiang struggled to move his legs, the wall in front of him suddenly swayed slightly, and then a hand suddenly emerged from the center. Compared to before, the arm was much higher, holding a rectangular steel frame that swung directly toward his chest. Lin Sanjiu knew that if it hit, she would probably hear the child shout, “Heart!”

It was one thing to take a kidney, but aiming for the heart was a bit too vicious.

Ya Jiang’s waist and abdomen were sealed off, leaving him unable to turn or dodge. Even his hands were still on one of his thighs, a step behind the steel frame which was now rising towards his chest. From where Lin Sanjiu stood, she would not be able to save him in that short half-second. However, just as the frame was about to hit, the child’s hand, which clearly belonged to a little girl, was pulled back by an invisible force. Amidst the child’s exclamations, the steel frame was knocked out of her hand and landed on the ground with a clanging sound.

Lin Sanjiu calmly entered the pathway, and the child, whose arm was tightly held by Higher Consciousness, continued to struggle. More than half of her body was pulled out of the wall. Her face was flushed, and she yelled furiously, “Let go of me, you electric pole! I should’ve taken your brain!”

Ya Jiang sat down on the ground, still recovering from the recent danger, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath.

The little girl appeared to be around ten years old, with slender limbs, not even showing signs of puberty yet. Despite her young age, she had a fierce and intimidating expression, just like any experienced posthuman who had killed before. “Don’t touch my reaper!” she warned sternly.

So, this thing was called a reaper?

Lin Sanjiu picked up the steel frame and examined it, keeping a safe distance from the girl. Although one of her arms was restrained by Higher Consciousness, her other shoulder, arm, and leg were still submerged in the wall. If Lin Sanjiu got too close, she could easily be counter-attacked.

“You can travel through walls,” Lin Sanjiu said, observing the girl. “Not bad. I wonder if you can continue to do so without your corneas.”

The girl’s face turned stiff, and her gaze shifted to the steel reaper in Lin Sanjiu’s hand. She snorted, “If you have the guts, come over here and take them!”

Another strand of Higher Consciousness immediately wrapped around the reaper and swiftly traversed the air, pressing it down towards the girl. The child involuntarily screamed, seemingly surprised that Lin Sanjiu could reap her corneas without getting close. As she quickly turned her head to avoid the attack, the reaper also stopped in mid-air.

“Come out!” Lin Sanjiu commanded with Higher Consciousness, keeping the reaper firmly pressed against the child’s head. She shouted to the surroundings, “I know the child isn’t working alone. Come out, or I’ll reap everything I can from her.”

A certain feeling had persisted since she arrived at the bottom level of the hospital, and it was becoming clearer as time passed. It was like being underwater in the deep sea—she couldn’t see anything clearly, but she could vaguely sense the lurking shark group, constantly swimming and seeking opportunities around her.

Even though she had drunk coffee, boosting her status by thirty percent, she was still far from her peak state.

Facing the person behind the little girl, who was about to show themselves, she couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious. However, she certainly didn’t let any trace of worry show on her face. She shouted again, “Come out!”

“Come out and give me some relief,” the little girl said, sneering at Lin Sanjiu. “Such an arrogant lady deserves to be torn apart—”

Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes suddenly widened, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. She looked utterly shocked and astonished. Lin Sanjiu hadn’t even raised her suspicion when a low voice from the other side of the wall called out, “Kidney!”

As the child screamed, demanding Lin Sanjiu to pull her over, she immediately understood the situation and retracted her Higher Consciousness. With no resistance, the girl’s body was smoothly expelled from the wall this time.

Lin Sanjiu raised her eyes and saw that from the opened wall, a stainless steel reaper had just swept past the child who was stuck on the other side of the wall, missing her back by a tiny bit — then the wall closed, and everything returned to normal in an instant.

Ya Jiang stared blankly, and only then did he let out a low sigh. “What the hell is this place?”

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