Central Hall, core screen, in front of Bai Liu's small TV.
Wang Shun stared at Bai Liu's small TV on the core promotion screen and couldn't help but sigh. People were truly different. This guy had actually climbed so fast while going up against league players like Miao Feichi and his father. It was only the first day of the game, yet Bai Liu had already reached the core promotion screen.
The number of likes and recharges supporting Bai Liu's surge was mainly due to the mid-stage confrontation between him and the Miao father and son. Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang's audiences had been cheering wildly, celebrating what they believed would soon be Bai Liu's death. The Scavengers Guild had even purchased a promotion slot for that very moment. With several big-name players not opening live broadcasts and other favorable factors aligning, Miao Feichi's fans charged him with points like crazy, pushing him straight to the king promotion position.
Yet soon after, Miao Feichi fell from the edge of king promotion.
Because Bai Liu didn't die.
Not only did he survive, but he also took the opportunity to infiltrate Miao Feichi's team.
The fans of Miao Feichi and the Scavengers Guild who had paid for promotional slots were dumbfounded. All the momentum they had created ended up serving as a wedding dress for Bai Liu. The audience flooded toward Bai Liu's small TV. Even those who were hostile or dissatisfied with him rushed over and couldn't stop watching. Most of them quickly figured out what had happened and ended up staying in his live broadcast room.
The explosive increase in viewers and engagement data rapidly pushed Bai Liu into the core promotion position. It wasn't just him. Even Mu Ke's small TV benefited from this "Miao Feichi bonus." He successfully rose from the multiplayer area to the central screens as well.
There were doubts, confusion, and heated discussions among the audience. Bai Liu had managed to infiltrate Miao Feichi's team, and previously, he had even killed Puppet Zhang, a reserve player from the King's Guild. No one dared to underestimate this newcomer anymore. However, the main consensus remained the same—he was impressive, yes, but he was too crazy. He had kicked an iron plate.
"It's useless to infiltrate their team. It was fine for Bai Liu to control Puppet Zhang by leapfrogging with his control skill, but he couldn't use an F-grade panel to control Miao Feichi and Miao Gaojiang. Even most S-grade skills wouldn't be enough. Moreover, Miao Gaojiang is extremely cautious. I heard he watched Bai Liu's videos hundreds of times and summarized a lot about his control ability. One key point is that Bai Liu's control skill has heavy limitations—it requires a medium, and both parties have to agree to it. So as long as they refuse to accept anything from him, they should be safe. Still, Bai Liu's trick was beautiful. With several layers of misdirection, he really fooled Miao Gaojiang. Tsk. This newcomer is like a beehive briquette—full of little tricks. What does he even do in real life?"
"After all, Miao Gaojiang has fought against the King's Guild, which specializes in control, and even won doubles matches. I doubt they'll be controlled by Bai Liu."
"Judging from the situation, Bai Liu is preparing to use a grab-and-run tactic. He'll seize the clues for the main task first, then clear the instance."
"Wouldn't it be more suitable to use that tactic with Mu Sicheng? Did those two fall out? It's like they've taken the wrong medicine. They're both bringing newcomers now. I've never seen God Mu bring a newcomer before, and now he's brought a husband-and-wife pair in one go…"
"Don't underestimate that couple. The two newcomers Mu Sicheng brought are of high quality. One can tank monsters; the other can kill them. They cooperate well—perfect candidates for doubles matches. If properly trained, they might not lose to the Miao duo."
"The newcomer Bai Liu brought is also promising, but his individual combat ability is weak. He'd be better trained on the intelligence-gathering side. Isn't Wang from the King's Guild in that direction? His database is extremely useful. Ah, these newcomers are really good! I can't even find prospects like this. I wanted to recruit Mu Sicheng this year and chased him through three instances without even getting a chance to speak to him. He runs too fast—I nearly died from exhaustion. Now looking at this batch of newcomers, I want to recruit them all into my guild!"
"Get lost. You're dreaming. Even if you want them, do you think they'd be willing?"
"They're talented, but I still think they'll die. Miao Feichi's blade attack is ridiculously high. Wasn't it 3,147? He nearly killed me in a previous competition. Bai Liu can't face that as a pure newcomer. But if Bai Liu enters the league, his crappy panel will improve. If he uses it well, he could really sweep through opponents."
"…I kind of want to recruit this kid. His skill is interesting. Can he copy the skills of players under his control? The duration is just too short. I don't know if that's due to his stamina or skill limitation. He could only use Mu Sicheng's skill to fight Miao Feichi for a few minutes…"
Wang Shun was slightly surprised to see so many league-level players gathered around Bai Liu's small TV, offering evaluations. The ordinary viewers stared at these players in awe. They didn't dare interrupt and could only whisper among themselves in the back rows. Many of the players standing at the front were familiar faces from last year's league—some were even high-ranking members of the top ten guilds. Their presence suppressed the atmosphere, just like when Mu Sicheng used to stand in front of Bai Liu's small TV.
Miao Feichi's provocative promotion hadn't only attracted ordinary viewers; it had also drawn the attention of league players at his level. They initially came to see what he planned to do. But after Miao Feichi's first collapse at Bai Liu's hands, that attention shifted.
Now it was Bai Liu who held their gaze.
In other words, Bai Liu had successfully attracted the attention of a large number of league players.
Wang Shun stared at Bai Liu on the screen and sighed again. Bai Liu was a solo player, yet his performance was dazzling. Had he already begun attracting the interest of major guilds during this heated support season?
To be honest, if the King's Guild hadn't been hostile toward Bai Liu from the start, Wang Shun would have definitely considered recruiting him.
Unfortunately… he sighed once more.
Still, when Wang Shun heard that Mu Sicheng was bringing two newcomers with him, he felt something strange. Bai Liu was bringing one newcomer. Mu Sicheng was bringing two. If you added Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng themselves, that made five people.
Exactly the number required for a league team.
Why did it feel like Bai Liu was cultivating new players to storm the league?
Wang Shun quickly shook his head and laughed at himself. How could a group of pure newcomers who had just entered the game possibly compete in the league? Bai Liu would only take such newcomers to the league if he were insane.
Even so, these newcomers would likely be recruited and nurtured by major guilds. It was only a matter of time before their faces appeared in league matches this year. The thought made Wang Shun vaguely uneasy.
_________________________________________________
Inside the game.
Mu Ke pushed the hospital bed back to its original position. In doing so, he also shoved the corpse of the monster patient into a corner. The body emitted a strange botanical stench. Within minutes of Bai Liu leaving, it had begun to release a heavy scent of fungal decay—moist, hot, and suffocatingly dense. The smell was so strong that Mu Ke had to cover his nose.
The plant-like patient that Miao Feichi had cut down leaned limply against the wall. In the dim light, its elongated shadow was deeply unsettling. After being sliced apart, it seemed even longer than before—its limbs thin and extended like metal rods. Mu Ke estimated that if it stood upright, it would have to bend awkwardly just to move around the ward.
Its rating had only been A-level. After taking multiple blows from S-grade Miao Feichi, survival had been impossible.
Mu Ke quickly looked away. Staring at such a creature for too long was deeply uncomfortable. Monsters that straddled the line between human and inhuman triggered a powerful uncanny valley effect in him. His mental value hadn't fully recovered yet, and he didn't want to risk further psychological pollution.
Books were scattered everywhere in the ward. Fortunately, they were intact, though many were stuck to the damp floor due to the heavy moisture in the room. That didn't stop Mu Ke. He carefully picked them up one by one, rearranging them before lifting the fallen bookshelves and restoring them to their previous order. With a pen in hand to guide his focus, he began reading rapidly.
As Bai Liu had speculated earlier, the books were filled with various annotations. Since this was the ICU and housed multiple patients, the handwriting differed from book to book. Mu Ke read selectively, focusing only on passages marked with notes. His eyes and hands moved quickly, barely pausing for more than a second on each page. It was almost like the so-called "Quantum Mechanics Calligraphy Reading" joked about online.
After an unknown amount of time, Mu Ke's eyes turned red. He exhaled deeply and collapsed onto the bed, murmuring blankly, "I've finished the first pass."
From the notes, he had roughly pieced together the truth about the "life recovery medicine." As the name suggests, it was a traditional Chinese medicinal formula claimed to cure a hundred illnesses. However, it was merely a folk prescription—it had never undergone formal experimentation or verification.
The terminally ill patients here had been tortured relentlessly by disease. They had visited countless hospitals and doctors, trying every treatment imaginable, only to fail repeatedly. Eventually, they were told to stop treatment and return home to live comfortably for whatever time remained.
In other words, to go home and wait for death.
But these patients refused to give up. Some wealthy and influential people built this private hospital because they refused to believe the doctors' diagnoses. They even grew resentful toward the medical professionals who declared their conditions incurable. As a result, the hospital had nurses—but no doctors.
The patients themselves became the doctors.
Over time, many of them had studied vast amounts of medical literature and treatment data. They accumulated a surprising degree of medical knowledge. After years of illness—or after being declared beyond saving—they had turned to books, desperately trying to rescue themselves.
Generally speaking, these patients trusted themselves more than they trusted doctors—or perhaps they trusted people who suffered from the same disease more than any medical authority.
"God won't fail those who persevere."
Mu Ke felt a surge of excitement when he read that line in the notes. Finally, after desperate prayers day and night, a mysterious patient had obtained a Chinese herbal prescription from an unknown source. After several patients tested it, the formula proved effective in relieving their symptoms. The discovery electrified the ward. The once-despairing patients named it the "Life Recovery Medicine."
However, for various reasons—such as "the mystery must not be passed on directly," "it cannot be openly transmitted," and "if it spreads outside, disaster will follow"—they could not directly tell newly admitted patients what the prescription was.
It wasn't that the Life Recovery Medicine was never passed on.
Rather, the method of "transmitting the prescription" between old and new patients was extremely obscure and cautious. First, the patient had to be terminally ill and on the brink of death. They also needed to have enough money to support a child. Only after performing good deeds would they be permitted admission to this hospital.
And that wasn't all.
New patients also had to endure a test of patience. Each ward contained a massive bookshelf. If a patient could finish reading all the books, they would discover the "Life Recovery Medicine prescription" hidden between the lines.
To Mu Ke, it felt like a coded transmission.
It was as if they feared the folk prescription spreading and bringing calamity upon them, so only those firmly in the same camp were allowed to learn it. The system reminded Mu Ke of the strict membership screenings of certain underground clubs in gray areas of high society.
Based on the notes and his rapid reading, Mu Ke pieced together a rough outline of the Life Recovery Medicine. He identified most of the ingredients, but the most crucial one was missing.
He flipped through the books again. Most references to this final ingredient were vague. They described it as "one-to-one," meaning it differed for each patient, was highly exclusive, and extremely difficult to obtain.
Yet nowhere did any note explicitly state what it was.
Mu Ke's expression darkened.
It was already deep into the night. He didn't know when dawn would break. Anxiety crept into him. This was clearly the core component of the Life Recovery Medicine—so why were there no clear descriptions? How could the patients have failed to leave any markings on the page containing such critical information? In such dim lighting, they would need some kind of trace to relocate it quickly. Mu Ke even checked for folded corners and hidden creases between the pages.
He found nothing.
"No…" Mu Ke muttered. "Wait."
If there were no folds or notes, there was another possibility.
The page might have been too important.
Instead of marking it, the patient might have torn it out entirely and hidden it for repeated study.
Although destroying books wasn't allowed for players like them—the "new patients"—that rule might not apply to the monster patients, the "old patients." Once the Life Recovery Medicine had been passed on, the books would no longer serve any purpose.
Mu Ke had already searched the beds, cabinets, drawers—any place where torn paper could be hidden. He had even checked the toilet tank.
If the page had truly been torn out, then the only remaining place—the one location he hadn't searched—was…
His gaze slowly shifted toward the rotting monster corpse in the corner.
From its drooping head to its shriveled skin, which had withered like an eggplant within mere hours, the plant-like patient looked utterly lifeless.
Mu Ke swallowed.
He inhaled deeply and approached the corpse.
The patient's dried skin looked as though slender worms writhed beneath it. Faint flowing lines traced across its bluish-purple face before sinking into its pupils. The long, hollow eyes seemed to contract slightly. Its corpse-spotted lips parted just enough to reveal saliva pooling in its mouth. Thick mucus dripped from its sharp teeth and landed on its lowered index finger.
That finger twitched.
The movement was incredibly subtle. It happened in the dimmest corner of the ward, where visibility was poor. Standing so close, Mu Ke failed to notice anything amiss. After all, nothing appeared obviously abnormal. He only sensed that the stench of rotting vegetation was intensifying, as though something was growing wildly.
"What a strong mushroom smell…" Mu Ke wrinkled his nose, waving his hand in front of it in disgust. The scent inexplicably reminded him of the mushrooms that used to grow on the disabled children in the welfare home.
He crouched down.
Suppressing his fear and revulsion, he slid his hand into the patient's pocket.
His fingers brushed against a stack of paper.
But more horrifying than the paper was what he felt beneath his palm—
A pulse.
The pulsation quickened as his hand probed deeper into the pocket.
The patient had a heartbeat.
This plant patient wasn't dead.
Cold flooded Mu Ke from head to chest, as if he had been plunged into an ice bath. This monster's brain had been completely severed by a player at Miao Feichi's level—yet it was still alive. What kind of creature was this?
Mu Ke forced himself not to dwell on the implications. In a few frantic breaths, he steadied his nerves.
The patient wasn't breathing. Mu Ke had personally confirmed that after Bai Liu left.
A creature with a heartbeat but no respiration—
What was that heartbeat?
He didn't have time to analyze further. He snatched the papers and yanked his hand back.
All he needed was enough information to pass on to Bai Liu. Even if he died here, he still had 50% health remaining tied to little Mu Ke. He trusted that Bai Liu would complete the task and lead little Mu Ke to clear the instance.
After mentally reinforcing himself several times, Mu Ke lowered his head and unfolded the papers.
"Blood Ganoderma lucidum—a type of Ganoderma that requires the blood of pure boys or girls. It is also a variant of the panacea mushroom and is rumored to 'restore life to the dead and flesh to bones.' Also known as Blood Tai Sui or Demonic Tai Sui."
"It is recorded in the Compendium of Materia Medica that long-term consumption lightens the body and prolongs life… The Shennong Ben Cao Jing states that it supplements vital energy and resolves chest stagnation…"
"The investors may select children of pure blood, pour their blood onto the fungus bed, and sleep upon it day and night. The fungus bed must remain damp and protected from light. If one sincerely wishes to recover, one must use a special inducing medicine to allow the Blood Ganoderma to enter the body. As long as the Blood Ganoderma is not destroyed, the body will not perish, and life will be extended. The purer the child's blood, the stronger the Ganoderma cultivated within. If the blood is impure, the Ganoderma will also be impure…"
[System prompt: Congratulations to player Mu Ke for completing the main task: Find the Life Recovery Medicine.]
[System prompt: Congratulations to player Mu Ke for triggering a new main task: Cultivate your own Blood Ganoderma lucidum using the hospital's fungus bed to extend your life.]
"Fuck!" Mu Ke cursed aloud. "What the hell is this?!"
While Mu Ke had been reading, the red lines writhing beneath the patient's shriveled skin began to move faster. The red markings, like creeping mycelium, spread from the patient's heart to his limbs. Soon, bright crimson streaks surfaced on the back of his hands.
These capillary-like, pulsating lines filled the plant patient's body, swelling beneath his pale, bruised skin. In the blink of an eye, the corpse transformed into a thin shell encasing peristaltic "blood vessels."
Only the eyes retained their black-and-white clarity. Everywhere else, the skin turned red. The taut vessels writhed violently, as though muscles were turning inside out. The blood-like lines extended from the patient's body to the ground, spreading through the ward like an infection. Eventually, the creeping vessels reached the hospital bed.
There, the red lines thickened and throbbed more intensely, as if pumping blood toward it. A strange, dark red glow engulfed the entire ward. Something began to sprout beneath the rotting straw mattress.
Bright red mushrooms burst forth, growing rapidly until they reached the size of millstones. They formed a grotesque mass with a head and tail, resembling an undeveloped embryo.
The cluster of fungi pulsed rhythmically, like a beating heart. It emitted a soft crimson fluorescence from atop the hospital bed. There was no metallic scent of blood. Instead, it exuded a warm, almost comforting fragrance. The unmistakable aroma of food.