Chapter 167: Escaping the Research Institute 12

Chapter 167: Escaping the Research Institute 12

The moment the broadcast bell rang, Lu Cheng felt as if an electric current had surged through his scalp, causing his muscles to tense instantly.

A moment later, the bell paused, and a soothing voice, reminiscent of a lullaby, echoed through the air.

"Nighttime rest is approaching. The main power will be shut off in one minute. To maintain order in the breeding center, please remain quiet after lights out. Remember the 'Three Nos' principle and do not move around randomly. Night patrol officers will conduct random checks. Any violations will result in consequences at your own risk!"

"What are the 'Three Nos'?"

Ning Yu's gaze fell on the NPCs nearby.

As soon as the bell rang, the NPCs who were walking or chatting immediately quickened their pace, sprinting toward their beds with the speed of a hundred-meter dash.

Qi Su frowned deeply. "No talking, no opening eyes, no moving."

In other words, once the lights are out, you must lie in bed and sleep—whether you can fall asleep or not.

There was still one minute before the lights went out; it should be possible to slip away now.

Unfortunately, the scenario always seemed to throw obstacles at players when they least expected it.

Qin Fei glanced back at the garbage pile where several NPCs dressed in black protective suits had appeared, clearly not residents of the breeding center.

"Damn!" Lu Cheng cursed under his breath.

"Those must be the reserve guards for the night patrol," Qin Fei said softly, yet his calmness strangely suppressed the unease that had been creeping up on the three people beside him, like a gentle spring stream flowing over melted snow.

Qin Fei's composure was infectious, and Ning Yu's tense expression relaxed slightly. She looked at Qin Fei, her expression probing. "We can't escape now. What should we do?"

The patrol officers were right by the sewer entrance, so the route they came from was blocked. But seeing Xiao Qin's relaxed demeanor, he must have a solution.

But what could that solution be?

After much thought, Ning Yu could only come up with one idea, her tone becoming subtle. "Could it be... we need to climb through the toilet?"

At this point, if they had to crawl through the septic tank to survive, Ning Yu honestly wouldn't hesitate.

After all, they were members of Black Feather, each equipped with plenty of cleaning balls. They could just use more of them after getting out.

Qin Fei's eyes flickered. Even if Ning Yu could be strong enough to crawl through the septic tank, Qin Fei wasn't sure he could handle it. Besides, after coming this far, it would be a shame to run away now.

The rule stated that "you must sleep after lights out," which was quite interesting. Qin Fei speculated that the nights in the breeding center might not be safe.

He wanted to see what would happen after the lights went out.

Qin Fei looked at the bunk beds nearby, where someone was struggling to climb to the topmost level, using both hands and feet, moving quickly.

"Let's go find a bed to lie down," he said.

Several reserve guards seemed to notice the four of them gathered together and kept glancing their way.

Qin Fei remained unperturbed under their intense gaze, leading the bewildered trio behind him while explaining in a low voice, "The breeding center is a mix of various people, each with a number but no identifying marks or tokens."

Lin Ye and the others received their numbers when they first entered the scenario.

Before entering the operation area, Qin Fei had taken the identity of the man in the gray jacket and had never been exposed.

The night patrol could only check if people were in bed, not whether they belonged to the breeding center.

"There are tens of thousands of people and beds here. With the constant flow of people, there will definitely be empty beds," Qin Fei was certain of this.

Finding an empty bed would be ideal.

If not, he could squeeze onto a bed with someone else when the lights went out.

The broadcast did not specify that each person must have their own bed. The grandfather and grandson Qin Fei had spoken to earlier slept like that every night.

Even if Qin Fei did that, the NPC on the bed would likely dare not protest for fear of their life.

Princess Qin Fei's confident explanation left the three people behind him and all the viewers watching the live stream speechless.

Good grief, could this still be considered playing the game? He was practically a bandit! No one had ever seen such brazen behavior in a scenario!

It turned out that Qin Fei's method was indeed feasible. As they moved among the iron bunk beds, they soon noticed NPCs doing similar things.

Lu Cheng pointed ahead sharply. "Look at that person!"

An NPC was crawling onto a bed without any bedding, clearly vacant for a long time.

The four players' gazes scanned the area like radar. There were only a few seconds left.

Empty beds were scarce, and Lu Cheng found the first one, followed by Ning Yu and Qi Su.

The dim light bulb above flickered rapidly, darkening the room with each flash.

The entire breeding center was eerily quiet, with only a few NPCs still lingering on the ground besides the patrol officers.

Qin Fei's luck today was poor. Despite having only a handful of competitors, someone else had their eye on the same empty bed.

Their gazes met in mid-air, sparking tension.

Nearby, a guard crossed his arms and stood there with ill intent, counting aloud, "5, 4, 3..."

Qin Fei felt as if he was playing a game of musical chairs.

If he didn't grab an empty chair before the time ran out, he would be kicked out.

Both he and the NPC rushed to the bed simultaneously.

But this competition was never fair, because Qin Fei had backup.

Lu Cheng secretly extended three vines, very unscrupulously helping Qin Fei to hold back his competitor's feet.

The agile player climbed the ladder beside the iron bunk bed and quickly reached an empty berth.

As for the NPC who was delayed, they were in a sorry state.

In the blink of an eye, all the lights in the breeding center "snap" went out, and at the same time, Qin Fei heard a series of footsteps rushing over.

The NPC who failed to grab a bed let out a blood-curdling scream that pierced the sky.

But there was only one scream.

After that, everything fell silent, with no further commotion.

A faint smell of blood wafted through the air. Qin Fei sniffed but didn't open his eyes.

"There's a monster inside; my sanity points are dropping."

Qin Fei heard Lu Cheng's voice again.

He knew that Lu Cheng had used the same prop he used in the water prison.

"I'm also affected by mental pollution," Qi Su said, "There's more than one monster... Two are heading towards Ning Ning and Xiao Qin."

The three players from Black Feather all had communication props, leaving Qin Fei as the only one who could only passively receive information.

However, for Qin Fei, the threat of monsters was not as significant as that of the patrolling NPCs.

His mood was calm as he lay on the bed, hands folded across his chest, looking like a corpse.

Only someone like Qin Fei, who was essentially a monster himself, could remain so composed amidst the presence of monsters.

After darkness enveloped them, fear spread instantly.

Monster attacks during the night were apparently common in the breeding center. The NPC above Qin Fei writhed uneasily, and the one below did the same.

The entire iron bunk bed creaked, like the eerie laughter of ghosts.

Yet, none of this was as terrifying as the approaching footsteps.

In fact, those weren't footsteps at all.

Plop, plop.

It sounded like something massive was slapping against the ground, perhaps a fish tail or something else.

The previous bloody smell from the NPC hadn't dissipated yet, and Qin Fei caught another faint scent mixed with the salty sea and algae.

"The pollution is so strong!"

Players could check their status panels even with their eyes closed, and Lu Cheng watched his sanity points plummet rapidly.

"Is Xiao Qin okay?" Ning Yu asked, worried.

Qin Fei was the only one they couldn't contact now. Although Lu Cheng had vines, they were part of his body, and he retracted them after the lights went out to avoid breaking any rules.

Lu Cheng felt uneasy too.

The monsters were heading towards Qin Fei, but there was no other solution right now, so he reassured Ning Yu: "Don't worry. He has a strong resistance to pollution. Besides—"

Lu Cheng paused, and his voice rang clearly through the communication prop in the dead silence: "I've been listening closely. There's no unusual noise from his side. If he were attacked by a monster, he'd at least make some sound, right?"

An instant kill was unlikely for a high-level player.

Lu Cheng muttered to himself, "He's probably still alive."

Ning Yu sighed.

Qin Fei: "..."

Thanks for your concern, but discussing whether I'm dead or not right in front of me like this is really okay?

The fans in the live stream burst into laughter.

"Don't underestimate our princess; she's a super powerhouse with 100% mental immunity!"

"Seeing Xiao Qin's face twist but unable to move was hilarious."

"Princess is wronged, truly wronged!!"

Ning Yu and Lu Cheng's worries were not unfounded.

In fact, Qin Fei's current situation was indeed quite dangerous.

The monsters roamed around the breeding center but didn't attack humans, perhaps because the condition for triggering an attack was violating the rules while on the bed.

But the monster near Qin Fei was different.

After pacing back and forth along the iron bunk bed, it suddenly stopped.

Rustle, rustle.

The iron bunk bed shook violently.

Qin Fei even suspected that the NPC sleeping on the bottom bunk might have been scared to death.

"Bang!"

With a loud noise, the entire metal-framed bed suddenly shook violently.

Xiao Qin nearly flew off the bed and then fell back down, the hard wooden slats pressing painfully into his back.

What's happening?!

Bang! Bang!

The shaking continued relentlessly.

Xiao Qin sensed something climbing up the ladder beside the metal-framed bed.

Without a doubt, it was the monster that had been lingering by their bed all along.

Every time it climbed a level, it would pause for a moment, as if observing the person lying on the bed.

Soon, the monster stopped at the third level.

An abnormally cold aura enveloped Xiao Qin's entire body, and an even more terrifying event followed.

Xiao Qin had originally thought that the monster would pause briefly like it did on the lower two levels before continuing upward.

But it didn't.

Something came over and squeezed onto the bed.

Its massive body filled the entire bed, which was enclosed by metal mesh. Due to the limited space, it pressed entirely against Xiao Qin.

The immense pressure almost crushed his ribs.

There were no blankets on the bed, and the wet, cold sensation clung to his skin.

Unlike the tentacle he had picked up in the operation area or the monster he had subdued in the corridor, this pollutant was intact, alive, and face-to-face with Xiao Qin.

Xiao Qin quickly realized what was happening.

—This monster was targeting him.

Why?

Did it detect his status as an outsider?

But that seemed almost impossible.

There were very few possible answers, and Xiao Qin soon realized that the monster might be attracted to him because of the pollution on his body.

Now, the pollution on Xiao Qin was even stronger than it had been in the evening. At this moment, in the pocket of his close-fitting clothes, there was a black dried rose leaf that hadn't yet been put into his personal space. This curled, dried leaf was continuously emitting extremely pure pollution.

The monster mistook Xiao Qin for one of its own kind.

Once he understood this, the young man's already calm emotions became even more tranquil, like an ancient well without ripples.

However, the audience watching through the camera had different thoughts.

What's going on?

Why was Xiao Qin chosen by the monster?

Did he violate any rules?

It didn't seem so.

"What does this monster want?"

In the live-streaming hall, the audience murmured in discussion.

Xiao Qin didn't open his eyes, but he could feel parts of the monster's body moving across him.

Cool, sticky liquid brushed against his cheeks and neck. The monster's skin was tightly pressed against him, feeling mostly soft but with a slight grainy texture.

This seemed to be a creature covered in scales.

One minute, two minutes.

The monster didn't leave.

Under the cold touch of the monster, a bold and somewhat absurd idea suddenly arose in Xiao Qin's mind.

He wanted to open his eyes and see what this pollutant looked like.

Xiao Qin had never observed a pollutant from such close proximity.

The operation area was full of severed limbs, other monsters were kept in glass containers, and the escaped experiment in the corridor had transformed into a flat membrane.

Now, there was a living monster right in front of him.

Not taking a look would be a waste.

At this point, Xiao Qin wasn't worried about whether opening his eyes would violate any rules.

Since the monster had already identified him as one of its own, his identity within the breeding center was questionable. The monsters could move freely, and so could Xiao Qin.

Even if opening his eyes did result in punishment for breaking the rules, the enforcers would be the patrolling guards and these roaming monsters.

The monster wouldn't harm him, and the guards wouldn't notice him opening his eyes. Everything would return to normal.

The dim light blurred the contours of the young man's features. Behind the camera lens filled with tension and fear, every viewer held their breath.

Everyone was on edge, afraid that the streamer would be splattered with blood at any moment.

In this tense atmosphere,

the young man in the center of the frame suddenly fluttered his eyelashes.

Then, he opened his eyes.

His clear, light-colored irises stared straight ahead into the darkness, directly at the monster less than 5 centimeters away from him.

?!!!!!!!

The live-streaming hall fell silent for an instant, then erupted into chaos!

"Holy shit! Holy shit!!!"

"What is the streamer doing?"

"Is the streamer crazy? Why did he suddenly open his eyes at a time like this? Could he have already been corrupted and lost his consciousness?"

"That's impossible. The streamer's sanity points are still at one hundred. Besides, he has encountered monsters more than once in this scenario. It's too far-fetched for him to be affected now."

No one could have imagined that Qin Fei opened his eyes purely because he wanted to see what the monster looked like.

And he did manage to see it.

What he saw didn't differ much from what he felt.

Lying on Qin Fei was a creature covered in gray-black scales.

The monster was long and snake-like, resembling a giant python, but its head was oval-shaped with gills and fins typical of aquatic creatures.

According to the history told by the NPC grandfather, the human society in this scenario world was destroyed by a marine disaster, which is why the monsters here all had some characteristics of sea creatures.

On its body, which was as thick as a bucket and several meters long, there were eyeballs at regular intervals.

These eyeballs seemed capable of seeing and were constantly turning in all directions, like grayish-white tumors embedded in the flesh.

They were not pleasant to look at; to be frank, they were somewhat disgusting, enough to make one lose sanity just by looking at them.

Qin Fei didn't pay much attention to the grotesque appearance. After a quick glance, his gaze focused on a spot at the tip of the monster's tail.

The long tail coiled around, with the tip near Qin Fei's head.

Among the black and gray patterns on the scaled skin, there was a small patch with a different pattern:

A series of numbers.

"D-0831"

This sequence number, similar to a code, struck Qin Fei as familiar. In the water prison, he found a slip of paper in his cell with a similar number: "B-6312".

Qin Fei and Lu Cheng had discussed the meaning behind these sequence numbers multiple times. They suspected it could be an employee ID or perhaps a reference to a specific area within the Research Institute.

But now, the answer was clear.

It was a monster's identification number.

The slip of paper in the water prison was likely left by someone who had been imprisoned there before.

Why did they leave such information for those who came after?

Who was the monster with the B prefix number?

Hundreds of eyes simultaneously stared at Qin Fei, and the giant snake's head and mouth dripped with mucus, wetting Qin Fei's face and body.

The young man remained calm.

Not wanting to attract the attention of the guards, Qin Fei did nothing except open his eyes.

For the entire night,

the patrolling NPCs and the monster never left the breeding center.

The giant snake coiled around Qin Fei all night, and by dawn, his entire body had gone numb.

He could barely feel anything below his neck, blinking occasionally to signal to the viewers that he was still alive.

At 6 AM, three hours after the lights went out, the bell rang again over the loudspeaker.

"Light-off period ended."

The giant python slowly slithered off Qin Fei's bed, flicking its tail, and left the breeding center.

For a long time, no one in the breeding center moved.

Only about 15 minutes later, when all the monsters and patrolling NPCs had disappeared, did the NPCs start getting up from their beds.

With the arrival of a new day, the panic of the night seemed to dissipate.

The NPCs who woke up in the morning didn't talk about what had happened last night. They just mechanically picked up their basins, went to the corner to wash up, and prepared to queue for breakfast two hours later.

Among the four players, Lu Cheng was the only one who was unemployed; the other three needed to work during the day.

Afraid of being late for work in the morning, the players tiptoed back to the garbage pile and crawled into the sewers.

The return journey was winding and tortuous.

It was peak washing time in the morning, and sewage would often surge from the branch pipes in the sewers. The group frequently had to stop and wait to avoid being swept away by the sewage.

In this manner, it took more than an hour for Qin Fei to return safely to his dormitory in Area D.

The empty single room remained as it was when he left.

The first thing Qin Fei did after returning was to walk to the bed, bend down, and look under it.

It was empty.

No new rose had appeared in the corner.

Qin Fei lowered his gaze.

He found it hard to describe his feelings at that moment—whether he felt relieved or disappointed.

He took out a cleaning ball that Lu Cheng had given him from his personal space, used it, changed into a T-shirt, lay down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling with his hands behind his head.

He couldn't fall asleep again, so Qin Fei simply cleared his mind, treating it as a rest for his brain.

Around 8:30, he left the dormitory and headed towards the operation area.

The supervisor of the operation area had been waiting at the door since early morning. When Qin Fei appeared, he was looking eagerly down the road.

Qin Fei had every reason to believe that if he hadn't shown up, the supervisor might have rushed to the dormitory to fetch him.

Seeing Qin Fei, the supervisor's eyes lit up like a light bulb: "Hurry up, hurry up! Today is your first day working in the laboratory. We need to go there early to meet Mr. Edward."

The supervisor pulled Qin Fei forward, covering half of his mouth with one hand, speaking joyfully yet cautiously: "I heard that Researcher Edward values you very much and has decided to place you in his own workgroup!"

That's Mr. Edward!

The heart of the entire Research Institute!