Chapter 17 Password

"Password..." Feng Bujue muttered, casually entering, "499999..."

【That doesn't seem right】 This line of text popped up on the menu in front of him.

"Alright..." Feng Bujue immediately turned around and began to carefully search the room.

Clearly, the treasure chest before him was not the type of puzzle that could be opened and solved immediately, but required collecting clues elsewhere to unlock.

"Although this isn't a corridor, standing here and trying a million passwords...doesn't seem very realistic." Feng Bujue said as he searched, "I don't know what will happen if I stay in the room for too long, and this room is extremely small. If something really spawns...I won't even have room to maneuver."

Two or three minutes later, Brother Jue had basically determined the state of Room 109. Besides the jump scare when opening the door that "shocked you," and this treasure chest that required a password to open, there was nothing else of value.

"Then there's nothing I can do..." Feng Bujue said helplessly before leaving the room.

Returning to the corridor, he continued forward in the direction he had been going, and soon came to a crossroads. There, Brother Jue discovered another map—"Cedar County Public Hospital 1F Floor Plan." Like the map of the second floor of the hospital, this map also looked very chaotic.

But Feng Bujue seemed to be able to understand it: "Hmm...sure enough, I was right, many parts can overlap..." This time he had experience, and to avoid attracting Chad, he only spent a short time roughly memorizing the entire map before quickly turning around and leaving.

"According to the map..." Feng Bujue said as he hurried along, already formulating a plan, "This corridor should lead to the cafeteria, passing the pediatric clinic along the way...and the blood bank is in the basement...then..."

He quickly arrived at the corridor where the pediatric clinic was located. Obstetrics and Gynecology was next door, and not far away was a T-junction. Turning the corner there would lead to the pediatric ward.

Just as Feng Bujue was preparing to pass straight through the intersection, a series of silver bell-like laughter suddenly rang out in his ears.

"Hey hey...how many quest lines does this script actually have..." Feng Bujue couldn't help but mutter to himself, and at the same time, he had already turned his head in the direction of the sound.

The laughter came from the fork in the road on his right. The lights in that corridor seemed to be broken. Except for a few meters near the intersection, everything was pitch black.

Seven or eight meters away, at the boundary between darkness and light, the figure of a child was standing there. She was wearing a red dress and looked to be only eight or nine years old. Her long black hair covered her face and hung down to her chest.

"Heh..." The ethereal laughter was chilling to the bone.

"Hmm...standing in the shadows..." Feng Bujue muttered, "Then I can't be sure if she's a monster or a ghost, but judging from her appearance and behavior, she's probably a ghost..."

"Uncle," the little girl suddenly spoke, "Do you like candy?"

"Hey hey...something's not right here..." Feng Bujue thought, "This is the kind of question a creepy uncle should ask a little girl..."

"Perhaps..." Feng Bujue replied to the other party, his words noncommittal.

"I have candy here, do you want some?" the little girl continued.

"What flavor is it?" Feng Bujue threw a question back.

The little girl ignored his question and continued, "If you comb my hair for me, I'll share it with you."

Brother Jue immediately had a flash of inspiration, and his right hand instinctively reached into his pocket for the small comb, "Okay...ah..." He hesitated a bit as he answered, feeling that something was a little strange.

"Then when you have time, come to my ward to find me, there's a mirror there." After the little girl finished speaking, she turned around and walked away. The red figure gradually disappeared, without making a single sound.

After the other party completely disappeared from sight, Feng Bujue stood there for a few more seconds before muttering, "There's no quest prompt..." He stroked his chin, lost in thought, "Is this a trap...or a link in another quest?"

After considering it for about half a minute, he decided to put this event aside for the time being. Since the other party had said "when you have time," it meant that he didn't necessarily have to go there right now.

Having made up his mind, he set off again, heading towards the pediatric clinic a dozen meters away.

"The quest probably won't be that easy..." Feng Bujue had such a thought in his mind as he walked to the door. As he reached out and grabbed the doorknob, a system prompt popped up in front of him: 【The door is locked】

"It's 'locked' instead of 'can't be opened'..." Feng Bujue said, "That means...in order to find a key in this room, I have to first find another key to open the door to this room..." He sighed, "Oh well...fine..."

This was a common occurrence in puzzle games, and there really wasn't anything to complain about.

Feng Bujue turned around and walked back, preparing to deal with the hair-combing-for-candy event first. Unexpectedly, when he returned to the fork in the road and prepared to move forward, he heard such a system prompt again: 【The path ahead is shrouded in dangerous darkness, are you sure you want to go?】

"Death flag..." Feng Bujue knew what this meant as soon as he heard it. He quickly retreated to this side of the intersection, "No wonder that little girl said to come 'when you have time,' so going there directly would cause something to happen..." He scratched his head, "Then...should I go find a flashlight or something first?"

As soon as he said these words, he had a flash of inspiration: "That's right...the security room should have one."

With this in mind, Feng Bujue immediately began to recall the 1F map and quickly remembered the location of the security room.

"Then I'll go to the security room." Brother Jue was not worried about having too many debts at this point. Anyway, he had already triggered a bunch of random events, so it didn't matter where he went first.

Soon, he returned to the crossroads he had passed earlier, and took the opportunity to glance at the map again to deepen his impression. Then he headed towards the hospital lobby. After passing through two corridors and ignoring some forks and oddly angled stairs, he successfully arrived at the hospital lobby.

Upon arriving here, Feng Bujue was surprised to find that...the hospital doors were actually open at this time.

In reality, this wasn't anything new. Slightly higher-level hospitals had overnight emergency services, and it was normal to be open at night. But in horror games with limited settings...whether it was a Western-style mansion, a research institute, a hospital, a family home, or ruins...the exit was generally closed, and there were very few settings that allowed you to escape.

"Hmph...open the door? Do you think I'm going to fall for such a cheap trick?" Feng Bujue stood in front of the hospital entrance, looking at the parking lot outside, and said calmly, "The main quest clearly states to 'stay at your post,' stepping out will definitely lead to death."

"Ah..." Suddenly, a long, drawn-out wail rang out from behind Brother Jue.

"Ah..." Immediately afterwards, there was another sound.

In the two seconds it took for Feng Bujue to turn around, the overlapping wails filled the entire hospital lobby.

When he turned his head, he didn't see anything.

"Here it comes again?" Feng Bujue said, putting on his sunglasses as he spoke, "Whoa~" He also howled.

Looking out from the perspective of the sunglasses, he saw a large, dark mass of ghostly figures. This group of ghosts were all gathered in front of the row of registration and payment windows, and were...waiting in line.

"Amitabha..." Feng Bujue took off his sunglasses, put his hands together, and recited this sentence to show that he couldn't help them.

He completely ignored the terrifying wails and walked towards the security room.

Fortunately, the door to the security room was not locked, and he went straight in.

The room had two parts, an outer room and an inner room. More than half of the outer room was occupied by monitoring equipment. There were two swivel chairs in front of the console, and the remaining space was barely enough for people to walk. There was also a smaller room connected to the back, which was probably a changing room.

Feng Bujue's interest was piqued as soon as he saw the monitoring screen. He took two steps forward, sat down in front of the console, familiarized himself with the operation, and began to adjust the monitoring probes to observe the situation in various parts of the hospital.

Unfortunately, more than half of the dozens of monitor screens were showing static and could not be seen clearly at all. The remaining cameras had fixed angles, could not be adjusted, and the scenes they captured were all empty corridors.

Feng Bujue then wanted to access the video files on the computer, but opening any drive required entering an administrator password.

He was very depressed, so he clicked on the start menu, opened several games that came with the system, and used the name "heyheyhey" to refresh the high scores for Minesweeper, Hearts, and Solitaire, slightly calming his emotions.

Then, he left the console and walked towards the changing room.

There was no keyhole on the doorknob of the changing room, and Feng Bujue turned the doorknob and opened it. After pushing the door and entering the room, he turned on the light with a touch of his hand. The room only had a row of lockers and a few square meters of standing space, and the conditions were extremely simple.

"The hospital's leadership is so crooked that I can't even look at it..." Feng Bujue looked at the mottled walls, the shabby cement floor, and the rusty lockers, and couldn't help but feel the urge to complain, "Although male employees don't need to lock the door to change their work clothes, not even providing a stool to sit on in the changing room...is this supposed to be saving space..."

There were eight lockers in the changing room, lined up against the wall. Feng Bujue walked over and tried them one by one, but only one could be opened.

As soon as the locker door was opened, a musty smell wafted out.

There was an iron rod above the locker, and two plastic hangers were hanging on the iron rod; behind the locker door was a poster of a swimsuit model, which looked like...a semi-human, semi-otter creature. Judging from the style of the swimsuit and Lester's sexual orientation, it should be female...

At the bottom of the locker were: a flashlight, a key, a severely moldy sandwich (in a plastic bag), a newspaper, and a small mirror.

Among them, the flashlight and the small mirror were defined as "tools"; the newspaper had no item description; and the remaining two were plot items.

【Name: Key】
【Type: Plot Related】
【Quality: Normal】
【Function: Opens a door somewhere】
【Can it be taken out of this script: No】
【Note: A backup key secretly made by Lester, can open a door somewhere.】

"Which door can it open..." As soon as Feng Bujue saw the note, he guessed the use of this thing, "Isn't it the storage room on the third floor?"

【Name: Moldy Sandwich】
【Type: Plot Related】
【Quality: Trash】
【Function: Edible?】
【Can it be taken out of this script: No】
【Note: Usually only severe hoarders would keep something so badly spoiled.】

"This thing can't be taken out of the script either..." Feng Bujue muttered while looking at the item description, "Where will it be used...is there a patient in a certain ward who likes to eat rotten food..."

He picked up the newspaper, put the other things in his pockets one by one, and then left the changing room.

After returning to the monitoring room outside, he sat down in the office chair, picked up the newspaper, and started reading. According to his personality, he would naturally prepare to read this newspaper from front to back, but unfortunately, the system restricted this behavior.

90% of the area of the newspaper in front of him had been blurred (Monster Kingdom uses English, and so far, all the text Feng Bujue had seen in the hospital was in English, but the system's built-in translation function would also display the corresponding Chinese in front of him), and only a small area of the news was legible.

【Bad News! Disaster at Cedar County Public Hospital!】 That was the title of the report.

Just by looking at the title, Feng Bujue had a bad feeling...

【According to this newspaper's Cedar County, December 5th report (by reporter Shrek), as of 16:00 on the 5th, seventeen hours have passed since the avalanche in the White Ball District of Cedar County in the northern part of the Kingdom. Due to the continued increase in the snowstorm, rescue work has been slow, and large vehicles cannot approach the area. Manual excavation work is struggling in the heavy snow and continuous landslide accidents. Experts say that if a rescue channel cannot be opened within twenty-four hours, the chances of survivors surviving will be close to zero.】

"What?" After reading this report, Feng Bujue read it again and again, "What's going on?" He folded the newspaper, stuffed it into his pocket, and quickly walked out of the security room.

When he returned to the hospital lobby, the wailing sounds had disappeared, and he could no longer see any ghostly figures through his sunglasses.

Brother Jue put his hands on his hips, stood in front of the hospital gate, and looked at the peaceful parking lot outside. The distant snow-capped mountains and the city lights were faintly visible: "If this place has already been buried...then am I in a dream right now?" He quickly began to imagine, "Maybe...Lester is already a ghost too? That's not right...then why do I need sunglasses to see my own kind?" His eyes changed slightly, "Could it be...this is a 'newspaper from the future'?"

"Wait...the time displayed on the computer just now was..." Feng Bujue still remembered that when he was playing games just now, the date displayed on the computer was already 2:00 AM on December 6th.

Thinking of this, he turned back to confirm.

But...this time, after he opened the door to the security room, all the monitors on the console only showed static.

As Feng Bujue's vision moved, those screens flickered strangely, and then...the scene from the beginning of the script appeared again, blood, internal organs, terrifying faces...but this time it was playing on dozens of screens at the same time.

Feng Bujue stood at the door, hesitating for a while. In those brief ten seconds or so...the lights in the security room had quietly turned dark red. The entire room began to twist and deform, and strange creaking sounds came from all around. On the wall opposite the console, three black stains gradually appeared, and slowly expanded to form a terrifying human face...

"Tch..." Feng Bujue knew that he couldn't stay here any longer. He had to retreat quickly and close the door.

"The security room should be completely inaccessible now, and the electronic calendar and clock in the lobby are turned off...which means that after I read the newspaper, I can't confirm the date anymore, right..." Feng Bujue pondered, "Oh well, at least I found a flashlight, I'll go take a look at the pediatric ward first."

He didn't dwell on it too much. On the contrary, Brother Jue was becoming more and more interested at this moment. Unconsciously, he had immersed himself in the fun of solving puzzles...the main quest and side quests were just formalities. His ultimate goal, or rather, what he wanted to do most...had become 'unraveling the mysteries of this script'.

…………

If there is text, it is long, if there is no text, it is short.

After two ellipsis points and eight characters, Brother Jue had returned to the fork in the road leading to the pediatric ward (before coming here, he had specifically gone to the pediatric clinic to try the key in his pocket, and the result was naturally a failure).

He took out the flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, shining it forward. The pitch-black corridor was like a giant mouth that swallowed people, silent and oppressive...the round light emitted by the flashlight could only illuminate a very small area close by.

This kind of "cold horror" atmosphere was enough to make many people flinch. But Feng Bujue didn't care at all. He hummed a song, swayed the flashlight from side to side, and walked in leisurely.

"Shao Lin kung fu good~ very good~ Shao Lin kung fu strong~ yes very "strong"! I am Iron Head Kung Fu! Invincible Iron Head Kung Fu~ you are Golden Leg...Golden Leg!"

The song he chose was of unknown meaning. Strictly speaking, it was a duet, and he didn't really know how to sing Cantonese songs. In short, the melody suddenly flashed in his mind, and he sang it comfortably.

In this kind of environment, ordinary people might also sing, mainly to relieve tension and fear. But Feng Bujue...was purely in a state of strolling around the neighborhood after dinner, humming to himself...

At this moment, he was holding the flashlight and walking into the corridor, and the system prompt did not sound as expected. It seemed that the death flag had been eliminated, and he could now pass normally.

"Waa~ waa..."

Brother Jue hadn't walked far when another sound came, this time it was the crying of a baby.

"So...how many side quests are there..." Feng Bujue muttered, "The infant room is haunted too, huh? Fine, fine..." He aimed in the direction of the crying and walked towards the place where the sound came from.