Chapter 540 The Nurse’s Face

Chapter 540 The Nurse’s Face

Su Bai was blind, so even as he moved with the team, his understanding of the Reverse Birth Corridor relied entirely on Le Shiya’s verbal descriptions.

He listened in silence, cross-referencing her accounts with the corridor layout he recalled from his first entry into the game, striving to reconstruct a complete mental floor plan.

The Reverse Birth Corridor was immense. Treating each wing as an independent corridor, each housed roughly thirty patient rooms. The nurse had assigned the players rooms at the very head of one such corridor—extremely close to the nurse’s station—as if deliberately.

According to Le Shiya, every door was exquisitely crafted, and the corridors were adorned with whimsical paintings and decorations. Yet the sheer length of each corridor meant that, standing at one end and gazing down its full span—thirty identical doors aligned in perfect, monotonous rows—it felt like…

“Like standing before a row of faceless shadows.”

Su Bai could picture it: repetitive, symmetrical, rigid arrangements inherently evoking unease and dissonance.

Moreover, the corridor lights burned blindingly bright. Incandescent glare spilled unreservedly onto the beige walls, leaching them of warmth and turning them a sickly, pallid hue—erasing every shadow from the entire space.

This transformed the originally warm, cozy neonatal ward into something cold, exposed, and glassy—like a specimen under harsh illumination.

“As soon as you turn a corner, another long corridor appears. It always feels like walking down a road with no end.” Le Shiya’s voice carried an indescribable weight of oppression.

During their exploration, they discovered that each corridor’s midpoint contained a washroom and a storage room. While searching the storage room, Xiang Feiyu even found a foldable wheelchair.

Though Xiang Feiyu insisted carrying Xu Rui posed no difficulty—and might even be more practical in an emergency—Xu Rui adamantly refused. In the end, he chose to sit in the wheelchair himself. After all, even with impaired mobility, being carried by another felt, to him, like a last resort—undignified and deeply undesirable.

More unsettling than the corridor’s layout was the fact that, along their path, every seven or eight rooms, they encountered a nurse standing motionless, head bowed.

These nurses were spaced evenly throughout the corridor, clad in standard white uniforms, heads lowered, eyes closed. They held identical postures—neither patrolling nor reacting to sound or movement, showing no visible breath, no rise or fall of their chests—as if pinned in place by some unseen force, forbidden even the slightest motion.

Like lifeless dolls.

To assess their threat level, Chi Yan and Xiang Feiyu—the two leading the group—made several cautious approaches.

Perhaps ignorance bred boldness: Xiang Feiyu walked straight up to one nurse, circled her without hesitation, and paused briefly to study her face.

Then, suddenly, he raised both hands and sharply clapped them against either side of her cheeks—*smack!*—the crisp sound echoing sharply down the corridor.

…

The nurse remained utterly still, as if completely unaware.

“…”

“And *this* nurse is *that* old?”

Just as Xiang Feiyu finished his experiment, Le Shiya’s voice sounded inside Su Bai’s mind.

Unlike her earlier strained, laborious use of her ability, this time she employed it as effortlessly as breathing—sometimes even her muttered words seeped directly into his thoughts.

“This nurse is actually quite attractive,” Xiang Feiyu remarked, still standing there observing her—words that startled Su Bai somewhat.

His remark made Su Bai frown faintly, a strange heaviness settling in his chest.

“…” After a pause, he asked seriously, “What does this nurse look like—to all of you?”

“Brother, she’s a bit older,” Le Shiya replied, as if scrutinizing carefully before continuing. “She… looks a bit like my grandmother.”

The moment those words left her mouth, the atmosphere within the team shifted—subtly, instantly.

“…What?” Xu Rui’s voice brimmed with disbelief. “Impossible! She clearly looks like Su Ye!”

Su Bai knew the name Su Ye—a renowned actress in the real world, famed not only for her striking beauty but also her exceptional acting talent, with legions of devoted fans.

Chi Yan then spoke slowly, his tone odd and hesitant: “To me… she looks almost exactly like my mother. And she’s certainly not young.”

How could that be possible?!

Nearby, Tian Yue couldn’t help but exclaim: “What kind of joke is this?! How could *one* nurse possibly resemble *all three* people you just named—*at the same time*?!”

Clearly, Le Shiya’s grandmother and Chi Yan’s mother were not the same person—and neither bore any resemblance to Su Ye.

The entire team fell abruptly silent. Su Bai quickly sorted through the information in his mind, then asked calmly, “And the nurse at the nurse’s station earlier? Who did *she* resemble?”

This time, even Le Shiya sensed something amiss. Her voice turned unusually grave: “The nurse at the station… in my eyes, looks almost exactly like the mother in the photos Grandma showed me.”

Her words thickened the air instantly.

“…”

Chi Yan let out a soft, self-mocking sigh, his voice low and muffled: “That nurse… looked almost *exactly* like my late wife. I’ve kept it to myself—felt terrible about it for a long time.”

Su Bai remembered that Chi Yan’s wife had also been a Nightmare World player—but had perished in a nightmare game, along with the child she carried, leaving Chi Yan alone.

Did these nurses truly appear differently to each person?

Or did their faces shift depending on the observer—manifesting the person most familiar to them, or the one who’d left the deepest impression?

Su Bai’s fingertips curled slightly. Then, calmly, he asked: “Su Ye… wouldn’t happen to be your idol, would she?”

Xu Rui didn’t answer—but his silence spoke volumes.

“It seems… these nurses’ faces transform into the person you’re closest to—or most wish to be close to—in your eyes.” Su Bai stated the conclusion, confident the others had reached it too.

Only then did Xiang Feiyu seem to grasp it. He clicked his tongue, muttering with a peculiar tone: “No wonder… I always felt this indescribable sense of familiarity when looking at them.”

He suffered from amnesia—but even so, the nurses’ uncanny effect had still taken hold.

Su Bai finally exhaled, understanding dawning: “…Now I see where the difficulty of Rule Four lies.”

“Fourth: You must refuse hugs from the neonatal department’s medical staff.”