Published at 8th of October 2024 3:08 am

Chapter 1188: Giving Priority to Exits

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

As it turned out, the

Lava Player’s Handbook

was printed and produced in the Information Department.

Last time, she only looked at the folder containing medical records. This time, Lin Sanjiu spread out all the documents she had collected on the floor and flipped through them page by page until she picked out all the pages of the player information handbook. This batch of pages hadn’t been bound yet and was scattered everywhere. There were several stacks with the same content. The pages she obtained might not even form a complete version, but at least Lin Sanjiu now had a rough idea of the information.

As she expected, the fragmented information she had gathered was only the tip of the iceberg compared to the entire Lava world. The hospital, as the core layer of Lava, had various complex rules that filled several pages. It seemed like it was not finished yet. Lin Sanjiu squinted and looked for a while, becoming more restless the more she read. After she reluctantly finished the last page she could find, she let out a heavy sigh.

In the player information handbook, there wasn’t a single word that could help Hei Zeji in his current situation.

But that was only to be expected.

The vague feeling of luck shattered, replaced by a new sense of pressure weighing on her. Lin Sanjiu put away the information handbook and used the repetitive and useless paper pages to cover Hei Zeji, making him look like a snowman. The utility room was too narrow, forcing her to keep her legs tight together so that she wouldn’t accidentally touch him. With this layer of separation between their bodies, she felt much safer.

“Let’s see if there are any other useless cards,” she muttered to herself. Even things like dirty towels could be used to cover Hei Zeji’s body better and prevent her from accidentally touching him.

She opened the card inventory, and as she looked, she suddenly froze, flipping back a few cards in disbelief before slightly parting her lips.

That’s right; she still had this Special Item!

Hope reignited within her in an instant, flooding her veins like a tidal wave. Sitting still, she couldn’t believe that her problem might be solved so smoothly. With a mix of belief and doubt, she carefully read the textual description on the card. Soon, her hope began to diminish, and her doubts rose like a hot air balloon.

She knew her luck couldn’t be this good.

Lin Sanjiu had never used it before, so she hadn’t given it much thought. Now that she looked at it, she realized that if the item description was correct, this item was actually useless. Its usage condition was inherently contradictory, rendering it impossible to work. But it had indeed been used by someone else before, and it had been used more than once. How had the previous owner managed it?

Biting her lip, Lin Sanjiu thought quietly for a while before suddenly standing up.

Yes, the previous owner’s method must have been simple. If her analysis was correct, then Hei Zeji could be saved. However, to save him, she had to find Bohemia first.

‘Bohemia must be outside.’

Lin Sanjiu hesitated for two seconds before giving up the idea of taking Hei Zeji out of the hospital. He was not easy to move, and even if she retrieved the cart, pushing a transport machine like a flatbed cart while fleeing posed too much risk. She could only leave him here and bring Bohemia into the hospital’s basement. It was midnight now, and no one would open the janitor’s utility room. This meant she and Bohemia had to return here before morning and kill Hei Zeji.

If he woke up halfway and returned to the laboratory, it would be disastrous.

She had to be prepared for any eventuality. Lin Sanjiu struggled for a moment on the ground before finally taking out the [Penguin Children’s Pop-up Book].

She flipped to the center of the book, and a paper cup jumped out between two pages. The drink in the cup emitted a gentle steam. On the page, a motherly woman sat on the living room sofa, smiling as she was about to receive the cup from a little boy’s hand. The image also had two stiff lines of dialogue commonly found in children’s books: “You’ve worked hard, have a cup of tea,” and “You’re such a good child.”

The little boy stared at his mother with two black shiny eyes, and his frozen smile looked very joyful. Not far behind him, the dim light from the living room faintly illuminated the dark kitchen, where a pair of men’s feet could barely be seen by the doorway. The feet were facing upward, seemingly motionless on the ground for a long time.

Lin Sanjiu reviewed the story on the pages before and after, feeling that the tea in the cup wouldn’t be lethal poison, so she tore it off—but then again, even if it were lethal poison, she would still tear it off.

Hei Zeji’s entire chin had turned into a deep black hole, as if more than half of it had been eaten away by insects. Lin Sanjiu held the cup, looked down from above, and then averted her gaze. She was somewhat relieved that he no longer looked like his original self. If she had opened a black hole in his original appearance, she might have found it even more unbearable.

After pouring the hot tea into the black hole, Lin Sanjiu observed for a while and found that the tea didn’t flow down his body. She then threw away the cup, which had turned back into a piece of paper, and quietly opened the door before returning to the corridor.

By now, it was past midnight, and she had a maximum of six to eight hours before the janitorial staff started working in the morning.

Fortunately, the vigilance and strict security measures had been lifted. Lin Sanjiu had hidden in the utility room for nearly thirty minutes without hearing any footsteps of patrols. Even if the security team had reported to the hospital, they probably believed that she was still in the process of transforming into a guard, waiting for her to leave the laboratory and join the security department. As long as they didn’t inspect the laboratory during the late night, they would only find a body of a red-faced person without any organs inside.

Every step Lin Sanjiu took was cautious and slow, and she made sure her clothes made no noise. Of course, she couldn’t return the same way, but like many buildings, there was a green emergency exit sign hanging in the corner of the ceiling. Following the direction indicated by the emergency exit sign, she quietly walked for a while before stopping her steps.

Even though she didn’t know the layout of the lower levels of the hospital, she knew that this corridor couldn’t lead to an emergency exit. Because on this corridor, there lay a bench she was all too familiar with; across from the bench, a door had a sign that read “Pantry.”

They were already not far from the payment counter, so how could the emergency exit be here?

Lin Sanjiu’s puzzled gaze followed the green figure on the ceiling, and soon, step by step, she approached the stairs behind the payment counter. The sign with the green figure on it circled around on the ceiling, then turned back and extended along the path she had come from.

‘damn it, this thing is just a decoration.’

Then again, the bottom level of the hospital probably didn’t have any emergency exits at all, not even a regular exit—after all, these NPCs didn’t really need to go home after work, take a half-hour subway ride, and have dinner with their wives.

Did Gardenia also enter and exit through the payment counter?

In her mind, Lin Sanjiu cursed softly and hid beside the staircase, her gaze lingering on the door leading to the payment counter for a while. The bright yellow light leaked through the gap at the bottom of the door, and occasionally, the shadows of footsteps would lightly flicker in the light.

The NPCs were on the night shift. If she pressed her ear to the door, she might even hear the conversation between the players when they exchanged item points.

If the payment counter was the only possible way for her to leave, it would be bad. Her time was limited, and she couldn’t wait here until the NPCs took their lunch break. Even if she could wait for lunchtime, the payment counter would be closed by then.

Did she have to leave the same way she came in?

She recalled the layout of the payment counter and calculated in her mind how much time she would need to rush out of the payment counter’s door and leap over the counter. This process would probably only take less than five seconds, and she could even do it with only her right hand. However, the problem was that the area in front of the counter would likely be surrounded by other players. Even without NPCs calling, other players would proactively block her.

There was no other way.

Lin Sanjiu stood up and silently walked in the opposite direction of the payment counter. She could waste another one or two hours looking for an exit, but she didn’t think she would achieve anything. Besides forcing her way through the payment counter, she had no other options.

However, she could at least take some precautions for herself.

Since the advent of the doomsday, there had been something that had repeatedly come to her rescue countless times, just as reliable as [Planar World]—that was corpses. Although she was currently lacking a corpse, not far from her, there was something almost as good: Wushi Ming, who has lost the ability to move.

When she opened the door of the refreshment area, Wushi Ming, twisted like a pretzel, was still in the same position waiting for her. Hei Zeji must have been good at packing suitcases before; he managed to fit a fat old man into such a narrow space without breaking a single bone. Lin Sanjiu dragged Wushi Ming out and carried him with one hand, so his feet wouldn’t drag on the ground and make noise. She climbed up the stairs step by step and arrived at the entrance of the payment counter.

Dimly, she could hear a male NPC talking with a player inside the payment counter. Fragments of their conversation seeped through the door. She placed Wushi Ming beside her feet, activated [No coincidence. No story], and silently waited. When the male NPC’s voice paused for a moment and never resumed, Lin Sanjiu turned the doorknob slowly and quietly, then peered through the slightly opened door.

The male NPC happened to be blocked by the door, but… there was no one in front of the counter.

She grabbed Wushi Ming’s collar again, used her shoulder to forcefully push the door open, and rushed in. The male NPC let out a startled cry. When she looked up and saw the payment counter, her heart almost jumped out of her throat—four guards were lined up in front of the entrance of the payment counter, and they charged toward her at the same time.

The male NPC dramatically put his hands on the counter and kept shouting, “Catch her!”

Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth, threw Wushi Ming’s body horizontally, and knocked down the two guards closest to her. She seized that precious moment, turned around, and rushed toward the counter, feeling the faint wind coming from behind, as if someone was about to grab her.

She didn’t have time to catch the male NPC to use as a shield. Any delay in breathing could make her fall into the hands of the guards. Right now, she could only flip over the counter at the highest speed. She couldn’t even feel her own intense heartbeat; her eyes were only fixed on the counter in front of her. As she placed her right hand on the tabletop and leaped over it like a nimble deer, a person stood up from the other side of the counter. Only when this person rushed towards her did Lin Sanjiu realize that this person had been crouching on the ground all along.

1

“Lin Sanjiu?”

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