I picked up a boyfriend in the infinite game

Chapter 238, 4th Hall, 3

As the players introduced themselves, the sky gradually darkened, and twilight descended. Through the narrow, cracked window on the east wall, the edge of the inky sky could be seen.

Song Guicheng glanced at his watch; it was a little past five in the afternoon. There were still several hours before curfew, but judging from the sky, they didn't have much time left to carry out their operation today.

A subtle tension filled the air. The group recovered from the initial shock of entering the dungeon. Players who could make it to such a high-level dungeon were all quite skilled and didn't like to stick together. Moreover, this was a competitive dungeon, and they might not even trust their own teammates, let alone outsiders.

Chen Wenyu was caught in a dilemma between Song Guicheng and Zhao Xiaoyun. Both of them were people he trusted, but Zhao Xiaoyun clearly did not trust Song Guicheng. Although Song Guicheng's attitude was mild, his thoughts were hard to guess.

As everyone was considering their next move, Zhou Fang took two steps forward. Her face showed a cautious earnestness. She glanced at Liu Qinggen beside her before turning to Lin Caiwen and saying, "Dr. Lin, I think you're the only one here who has actually worked as a doctor. This matter definitely needs you to take the lead for it to be safe."

Liu Qinggen immediately nodded in agreement. He had dark skin and large knuckles, looking like someone who did manual labor all year round: "Yes, Zhou Fang is right. The situation in this alley is unclear. We have to manage the clinic to treat patients and also keep an eye on the supply and marketing cooperative to distribute supplies. It can't be chaotic without a leader. Dr. Lin, you are experienced and meticulous. I think you should be the team leader. We two will lend a hand to you and follow your arrangements. We're sure to do well."

The couple sang in unison, and the expectation in their eyes didn't seem fake.

Shi Sui and Song Guicheng exchanged a glance, which was a clear indication of their advocacy for collective action.

Upon hearing this, Lin Caiwen's heart stirred slightly. Having spent nearly ten years in hospitals in the real world and witnessed all sorts of emergencies, she was indeed better than others at sorting things out in chaos.

She adjusted her glasses and glanced at the ten people present.

Shi Sui leaned against the wall, a nonchalant smile on his lips, seemingly lost in thought; Chen Wenyu's gaze darted between Zhao Xiaoyun and Song Guicheng, as if he were struggling with something.

Song Guicheng stood by the window, his long white hair tied up. His profile was stern, as if he were deep in thought, but he occasionally glanced at them, clearly having heard what they had just said, and his expression softened.

Lin Caiwen, however, instinctively became wary of him; there were quite a few smiling tigers like him in the game.

The remaining few also displayed various expressions: wary, bewildered, alert...

Lin Caiwen took a deep breath, her mind clear. This dungeon was obviously not simple. The system didn't explicitly state the faction, but competitive dungeons were inherently more dangerous.

However, regardless of whether it's saving lives or causing harm, the most important thing right now is to stabilize the situation. Managing the health clinic and supply and marketing cooperative is a task assigned by the system through Jia Weimin, and it's also the best way to contact residents and investigate clues. It definitely needs someone to take the lead and coordinate it.

Zhou Fang and Liu Qinggen's initiative to get closer to each other may have their own motives, but at least on the surface they are willing to cooperate, which is better than fighting their own battles and distrusting each other.

Moreover, acting together makes observation much easier. Who's just going through the motions, who's secretly plotting, whose eyes are hiding ulterior motives—over time, these flaws will inevitably surface. This actually presents an opportunity to figure out who's on the opposing side.

Having figured this out, Lin Caiwen's face showed a gentle and calm expression. She nodded and said in a clear and strong voice, "Alright, since everyone trusts me, I'll take care of things for now."

She looked at Zhou Fang and Liu Qinggen, her tone sincere: "It's getting late today, and Jia Weimin said we can't register. Su Xiaoxian and I will be in charge of taking inventory of the medicines at the clinic. I'll leave the inventory of the supplies at the supply and marketing cooperative to you two. Let's keep in touch if anything comes up."

She then turned to the others, her gaze sweeping calmly across each face: "The rest of you, if you don't have any other plans for the time being, why don't you help organize the things in the clinic? Medicines need to be sorted, equipment needs to be disinfected, and the supply and marketing cooperative's inventory list also needs to be reorganized. All of these need to be done as soon as possible to facilitate subsequent work."

Shi Sui and Song Guicheng exchanged a glance. He didn't want to act as a group, as it would be inconvenient for him to do things. Song Guicheng, however, shook his head slightly.

Collective action is a good idea. Whether to kill or spare these residents, whether to save them or exterminate them, we must first find out the truth behind it.

The indiscriminate killing of innocent people has always been the thing that Song Guicheng despises the most. If power becomes the basis for violence, the so-called "strength" will completely rot into mud, and the person who possesses it will only be left with an indelible stench.

Song Guicheng stepped forward: "Then I'll go help out at the clinic." He turned his head slightly towards Shi Sui, "Want to lend a hand?"

Shi Sui understood Song Guicheng's meaning and lazily straightened up: "Fine, you've spoken, so of course I have to listen."

Song Guicheng didn't act immediately, but instead cast a glance at Chen Wenyu: "Xiaoyu?"

He brought Chen Wenyu in, so he should be responsible for him. However, he wouldn't object if Chen Wenyu wanted to work with Zhao Xiaoyun.

Chen Wenyu looked up at Zhao Xiaoyun, then at Song Guicheng, and for a moment he had the illusion that his parents were divorcing and asking him who he wanted to live with.

He walked to Song Guicheng's side with his head down and said hesitantly, "Brother, I'll go with you."

Zhao Xiaoyun smoothed her wine-red curly hair, glanced at Chen Wenyu with a complicated expression, and finally nodded: "Count me in."

Zhang Haoqing leaned against the door frame, his eyes sweeping over the crowd with a gloomy look. He didn't speak, but he didn't move either, clearly intending to check the situation first.

Sun Zhida walked directly to Liu Qinggen's side and said, "I'm going to the supply and marketing cooperative."

Chen Mo was holding a camera and taking pictures of the epidemic prevention regulations on the wall. The words on the wall were so blurred that they were hard to read. It was unclear what purpose his camera was for.

He wiped the lens: "Call me if there's any heavy work."

The players' residences were separated by a clinic to the left and a supply and marketing cooperative to the right, with only one door separating them. They simply opened the door and went inside.

The evening light slanted into the clinic, casting a dim yellow hue on the mottled white walls. An old-fashioned incandescent bulb hung from the rafters, its pull switch tugged twice before turning on, the light flickering and illuminating the messy room. The place had clearly been used frequently, yet it carried a sense of hasty abandonment and disorder.

The wooden table had scratches of varying depths on its edges, as if it had been repeatedly struck by a scalpel or tweezers. The enamel basin in the corner was half full of murky water, with a layer of dark brown grime at the bottom.

The overwhelming smell of disinfectant mixed with a musty odor made his nose feel tight, but Song Guicheng could always catch a very faint, rusty, fishy smell in the strong medicinal smell, as if it were seeping out from the cracks in the wall.

From the moment he entered the alley, the subtle, lingering smell of blood was constant and omnipresent, and Song Guicheng couldn't pinpoint its source.

Lin Caiwen was the first to walk to the medicine cabinet. Her fingertips brushed against the dusty cabinet door, feeling a sticky coolness. When she opened the cabinet door, the medicine bottles inside were overturned, and the labels on many glass jars were wrinkled from being soaked in water. The words "Aspirin" and "Penicillin" were blurred, and there were marks on the bottles where her fingertips had repeatedly rubbed. Lin Caiwen frowned.

“Su Xiao,” she said, turning around with the calmness typical of a doctor, “first find a rag and wipe the dust off the counter and the outside of the medicine bottles. Be careful not to break them; some of the bottles look like they’ve been dropped, with cracks at the opening.”

Su Xiao responded and turned to find a rag in the corner.

Shi Sui and Song Guicheng were responsible for sorting out the still usable medical devices and disinfecting them, while Chen Wenyu categorized the medicines.

Song Guicheng and Shi Sui worked together. The tweezers and hemostats in the instrument tray were still covered with dark yellow stains, like blood scabs that hadn't been thoroughly cleaned.

He squatted down to tidy up the scattered instrument packs. His movements were swift and efficient. When he picked up a scalpel, his thumb unconsciously brushed against the blade and touched a tiny nick, indicating that it had been used repeatedly and might even have been used to cut hard objects.

Song Guicheng remained expressionless; it would be truly unusual if there were absolutely no abnormalities in this clinic.

He picked out the rusty equipment and set it aside, while the usable equipment was sorted and placed in enamel trays, waiting for Shi Sui to hand him the disinfectant.

Shi Sui was waving a half-empty bottle of iodine in his hand. The label on the bottle was long gone. He looked at it in the light and scoffed, "This stuff is expired, isn't it? It smells like vinegar."

He said that, but he still unscrewed the bottle cap and poured it into the instrument tray that Song Guicheng had arranged. The liquid splashed up and landed on the back of his hand, but he didn't care. Instead, he nudged Song Guicheng's shoulder with his elbow and said, "Guicheng, do you think this looks like a murder scene?"

Song Guicheng didn't even look up, his fingertips gripping a pair of hemostatic forceps as he examined the wear and tear on the bite: "Hmm."

The place was messy, covered in blood, and the equipment was rusty; it really looked like a murder scene.

Chen Wenyu was assigned to sort medicines, which was obviously a challenge for him, given his poor memory. He stood in front of the medicine cabinet, holding a stack of medicine bottles, frowning. The blurry labels on the bottles puzzled him. He was about to ask Lin Caiwen when he forgot what he was going to ask and just stared blankly at one of the brown medicine bottles.

"Where...should we put this?" His voice was soft, tinged with uncertainty.

Song Guicheng happened to walk over and glanced at the medicine bottle: "This is a light-proof injection. Put it in the dark compartment on the top shelf."

He reached out and took the bottle, pausing as his fingertips touched the bottle. The bottom of the bottle was covered with some dry soil, which didn't seem like something you'd find in a clinic.

Lin Caiwen found a pair of rubber gloves and put them on. She was sorting through past medical records. She said to Chen Wenyu, "Put the ones you can't tell apart aside for now. I'll sort them out later. You just need to clearly distinguish the labels first."

The notebook pages were yellowed and brittle. Lin Caiwen twirled the pages between her fingers, her gaze sweeping over the faded handwriting. Most of them were hastily written records of illnesses: "Fever for three days, coughing up rust-colored sputum," "Skin ecchymosis expanding, accompanied by vomiting blood"... The handwriting came from different people, some neat, some messy, but all ended with the conclusion of "symptomatic treatment, with poor results."

Suddenly, my fingertip touched a rough bump.

Lin Caiwen paused, then smoothed out the page. Under the lamplight, a dark red fingerprint was clearly imprinted on the right side of the page. The lines of the fingertip were faintly visible, as if someone had accidentally pressed it when coughing up blood, or as if it had been squeezed tightly. Faint bloodstains had spread along the edges, long since dried and blackened.

Lin Caiwen leaned closer, her brows furrowing even more. The fingerprint was right next to the record that read, "The patient suddenly had convulsions and respiratory arrest at night." The bloodstains seeped into the paper, blurring the writing underneath.

As you flip through the pages, more blood seeps out. Some are drops of blood from fingertips, scattered across the medication list; others are half a handprint, straddling the "death" column, as if trying to obscure the word "death."

The most glaring thing was the cover of the last notebook, which was printed with a complete bloody handprint, with five complete fingers and a few strands of dry hair stuck in it, as if it had been pulled off someone's head.

Lin Caiwen's breath hitched almost imperceptibly. She had seen too much blood—on the operating table, in the emergency room—but she had never felt anything like this before. These dried bloody handprints seemed to contain some kind of silent struggle.

She turned to the last page of the record, the date was three months ago, and the signature at the end was half covered by bloodstains, only the bottom part of the character "走" could be seen.

Lin Caiwen stacked the notebook with the bloody handprints aside and tapped her fingertips lightly on the edge of the table. These records, which should have been evidence of life's trajectory, had now become a vague mystery, each page imbued with an indescribable eeriness.

Are these bloodstains a sign of a near-death struggle, or an attempt to cover up some secret?

The wind outside the window rustled the fallen leaves across the glass.

Lin Caiwen took a deep breath, suppressing the inexplicable chill in her heart. As the team leader, she couldn't panic. These bloody handprints might be clues, or they might just be a trick in the dungeon, but in any case, she had to keep them in mind.

Everyone was focused on their own tasks when suddenly a sharp, shattering sound came from Chen Wenyu's direction: glass breaking on the ground.

Song Guicheng immediately looked over and saw Chen Wenyu suddenly take half a step back, his back hitting the medicine cabinet. The medicine bottles in the cabinet rattled for a while, and two of them lost their balance, rolled to the ground, and shattered.

He blinked again as shards of glass splashed at his feet.

Chen Wenyu called out to Song Guicheng, "Brother, brother!"

Song Guicheng walked over, his gaze falling on the shards of glass at his feet, his brows furrowing slightly: "Your hand wasn't cut, was it?"

Chen Wenyu's face was pale, his fingers were cold, and his hand holding the list trembled slightly. He was about to tell Song Guicheng what he had just seen, but he forgot the words as soon as he got them out.

What was he going to say?

Chen Wenyu opened his mouth, his mind a jumbled mess. The horrifying scene from just now was still vivid in his mind, but the specific words he wanted to tell Song Guicheng slipped through his fingers like sand.

"I...I..." Chen Wenyu's face flushed red with anxiety. He pointed at the bottle of medicine, but couldn't utter a complete sentence. "It's just...I think..."

Song Guicheng waited patiently: "What's wrong? Did you see something strange? Or is there something wrong with the medicine bottle?"

Chen Wenyu frowned and tried hard to remember, his temples throbbing, but the harder he tried, the more blurred his memory became, leaving only a nameless panic swirling in his mind.

He scratched his head: "I don't remember."

Song Guicheng knew that Chen Wenyu had a bad memory, but he didn't expect that there would be any problems when organizing the medicine; it was his oversight.

The anomaly just now was clearly a warning from the instance, which Chen Wenyu witnessed, but he forgot to speak up when he should have... It was his responsibility.

Song Guicheng said to Shi Sui, "Shi Sui, I've almost finished organizing the equipment here. I can manage by myself. You and Xiao Yu can work together."

Shi Sui followed his gaze and saw Chen Wenyu staring blankly at the list while holding a bottle of medicine, not moving for a long time. She couldn't help but chuckle: "What, afraid he'll drink the medicine like a beverage?"

Song Guicheng didn't take the joke lying down, but simply said, "Chen Wenyu has a bad memory."

Shi Sui raised an eyebrow: "He didn't seem this stupid in that Yongding Tower instance before."

Song Guicheng shook his head: "Let's talk about it after we get out of the dungeon."

"Alright," Shi Sui shrugged, clapped his hands, walked a few steps to Chen Wenyu's side, and waved his hand in front of his eyes, "Hey, Chen Dafu, where did your soul wander off to?"

Startled by his sudden movement, Chen Wenyu looked up blankly and asked, "Chen Dafu?"

Shi Sui: "Hmm, I'm calling you. You're rolling in money, you hire people to accompany you through every dungeon, you're famous and rich, the name Chen Dafu suits you perfectly."

Chen Wenyu didn't delve into the name, but simply handed the list to Shi Sui, "Brother Shi Sui, can you take a look for me..."

One of them read out the list, and the other dispensed the medicine.

The panic in Chen Wenyu's heart hadn't subsided; he felt as if the words were flashing before his eyes, as if they had come to life. Yet, he also felt as if he had found his anchor, and his hand holding the medicine bottle became steadyer.

Song Guicheng watched their figures, his shoulders relaxing slightly.

The dangers within the instance lurked in the shadows, and he had to protect these two guys no matter what. Although Shi Sui seemed unreliable, he was quick-witted, and with him keeping an eye on Chen Wenyu, there would be fewer unexpected incidents.