Chapter 30

The singing was so noisy that it was enough to drive one crazy. Song Qingxiao shut her eyes. She knew from the start that the task would be extremely complicated because the instructions were so clear, and the reward offered was generous.

If her guess was not a mistake, all the participants had to choose between becoming a medical staff or a patient when they first entered the scene. Hence, it was highly likely that there would be two opposing teams for the task.

The first team was tasked with killing, and the second team had to protect. The loser would face death. That scenario was exactly the same as the previous trial. The trial had split them into two camps, and they were allowed to kill each other.

Doctor Zhou’s death had caused her to lose 50 credits. Song Qingxiao reached out to catch a lock of her hair. Her eyes looked a little glum. If her prediction was correct, it meant that there was a team of participants whose task was to kill the people. However, if she managed to uncover one of them and kill them, would her reward increase by 50 credits as well?

As soon as the idea popped into her head, her heart felt like it had been shocked. It began to beat rapidly. She bit the corner of her lip and felt like she had figured out a huge portion of the task.

If she could uncover the participants who were tasked with ‘killing’ and completely eliminate the threat, she might not need the full five days to finish the task and leave the scene of the test space.

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The task to ‘protect the people’ did not mean that she had to sit and await death. On the other hand, it might be a covert way of telling her to take the initiative. The trial rules allowed them to hunt and kill one another.

In the beginning, she had deeply misunderstood the instructions. After all, the mission to ‘protect the people’ seemed too vague. As soon as she saw the word ‘protect’, she immediately thought that the task would not require the straightforward and brutal killing of the other participants in like the previous trial. However, the trial was still a game of elimination. It was more vicious and more intense compared to the first trial.

Among the six trial participants apart from herself, the large chap with the gun was already out of the running. Out of the four that were left, number five and number six had chosen to be patients. Number four and the bespectacled guy chose to be doctors.

She had no idea who was tasked as protectors or who had received the instructions to be killers. If she could not figure it out, the only other option was to eliminate each of them in turn.

In the darkness of the night, the numbers in her vision continued counting down along with the ticking sound.

109: 17: 26.

Nurse Zhang was fast asleep in the top bunk. She did not rouse from her sleep despite the loud noise that Song Qingxiao made earlier when she got up from bed.

Her entire body felt cold. Song Qingxiao touched the dagger before she slowly regained her composure. She laid back in bed gradually, but her emotions were still highly strung. She was worried that something terrible would happen that night, and she had no desire to sleep. Hence, she kept her eyes open until she could see the sky outside begin to brighten through the thin curtains.

Nothing scary had happened the entire night. Song Qingxiao had just drifted off into sleep when she was awoken by Nurse Zhang.

“Qingxiao.”

Nurse Zhang had not reached out to push her when Song Qingxiao had already opened her eyes. She sat up in bed.

Nurse Zhang had already washed up and gotten dressed smartly. “It looked like you were sleeping soundly. Today, you’ll head to work with me. Our work shift starts from 8am to 3pm. After that, it’ll start again from 8pm tonight until 8am tomorrow morning.”

As soon as Song Qingxiao heard her words, she immediately became alert. She bent down to put on her shoes, and it was already 7am by the time she finished washing up. Nurse Zhang looked a little worriedly at her bloodshot eyes as they ate breakfast.

“Did you not sleep well because of what happened with Doctor Zhou yesterday? You look really tired.”

Song Qingxiao shook her head then looked around to assess the cafeteria. Since it was a space prepared for the medical staff to have their meals, it was separated from the patient area with transparent glass. She could see nurses outside organizing the meals for the patients in their hospital gowns in an orderly manner.

The inner cafeteria had two long tables and two windows where food was collected. Nurse Zhang and Song Qingxiao were quite early, so there was no one there when they arrived. They both grabbed their food then sat down at the table. Other people soon arrived after them.

It looked like Nurse Zhang was pretty popular. All the other nurses came to join them. Song Qingxiao divided her attention between chatting to Nurse Zhang and observing the people who came in.

At the door, a man and a woman dressed up like doctors walked in. It was the doctor who the red whip lady had shadowed yesterday along with Doctor Hu. The red whip lady and the bespectacled guy were nowhere to be found.

When Nurse Zhang spoke, Song Qingxiao had her head turned to glance at those two people. She came back to her senses and responded, “I’m alright.”

Nurse Zhang reassured Song Qingxiao after she heard her response. “It’s okay. After we finish our shift in the afternoon, we can head back to the dorms for a short nap. That might help you feel a little better.”

Song Qingxiao nodded her head and noticed Zhu Xiaoke looked devoid of energy beside her. “Xiaoke, did you have a bad night’s sleep as well?”

Zhu Xiaoke poked at the food on her plate with a fork. Her complexion was deathly pale, and she looked more exhausted than Song Qingxiao. It was clear that seeing Doctor Zhou die before her eyes had a huge impact on her, causing her to not sleep well last night.

When Song Qingxiao called her name, Zhu Xiaoke raised her head absentmindedly and responded after a long pause.

“Yes.”

She seemed to recall yesterday’s incident and her complexion paled even more. “I’ve worked with Doctor Zhou for a long time. It’s such a pity.”

As soon as she said that, she hung her head once more. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. Song Qingxiao was stunned. She put down the fork in her hand and reached out to pat her shoulder comfortingly. She spoke up, “To be honest, that’s really odd. Why would the newcomer yesterday have a gun? Where did he get that gun from?”

As that question was posed, several of the nurses began to engage in the discussion.

“That’s true. Why would he open fire out of the blue?”

“Where did that gun come from?”

The topic of conversation had moved to focus on the gun just as Song Qingxiao had hoped. She stopped for a moment and allowed the others to discuss in low voices for a while before asking another question in a hushed tone.

“What happened to the gun in the end? Is it kept in a safe place?”

She still had the intention of taking possession of that gun. After the incident yesterday, the gun was passed to Zhu Xiaoke for safekeeping and locked up. The hospital was such a large place that to know the gun’s whereabouts, she needed to get the information from Zhu Xiaoke herself.

However, since she was new, Song Qingxiao was not on familiar terms with Zhu Xiaoke. She could only take the opportunity to chat with her and sneak the question into the flow of the conversation.

It turned out that Zhu Xiaoke did not suspect Song Qingxiao at all and answered as soon as she asked.

“Yes, the gun is kept in a safe place. Doctor Liu said that the gun had to be locked up because it was considered evidence. Old Huang is watching over it, and he has the keys as well. Once the mobile signal and roads have been fixed, we can lodge a police report and deliver the gun to them.”

Once Song Qingxiao heard that, she felt mixed emotions of both joy and worry. She was glad because she knew where the gun was. However, she was worried because she did not know how to get the keys from Liu Yixun and obtain the gun without being noticed.

Someone noticed the time and saw that it was pretty late. The nurses rushed to finish their meal. Song Qingxiao followed Nurse Zhang into the patient area and officially started her job.

It was her first day on the job, so she had taken the time to look at the day’s schedule before work started. The doctor on-call for the night shift yesterday was Liu Yixun. The doctor working during the day was Doctor Hu, the man that Song Qingxiao saw earlier in the cafeteria. In the column behind his name, the name of the doctor shadowing him was displayed.

‘Gu Yue’.

Song Qingxiao guessed that based on how the bespectacled guy followed Doctor Hu, he was likely the person who was interning under Doctor Hu. Hence, it was also highly likely that he was interviewed by Doctor Hu when he entered the hospital.

In other words, if things were according to Song Qingxiao’s calculations, Doctor Hu was very likely a participant of the previous trial who was killed by the bespectacled guy.

The doctor working on the night shift was the female doctor, Doctor Ou. It was a lovely coincidence since the red whip lady was interning with her. It meant that they would meet at night.

A full day had passed since the mission started. The number on the timer was 99: 56: 31. There were four days left to complete the trial. The following days would likely be filled with enormous dangers and threats!