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Chapter 226 - Two Hundred Twenty-Three: "Number Thirty, He’s Gone Mad

Chapter 226: Chapter Two Hundred Twenty-Three: "Number Thirty, He’s Gone Mad

Mo Yan rolled over on the bed.

He glanced at the wall clock.

One o’clock in the morning.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock."

The noisy second hand ticked away, second by second. What was usually white noise now sounded like a drumbeat in his ears, loud and obtrusive.

He rolled over again, clinging to the soft white sheets, trying to bury himself in the soft bed.

He closed his eyes, reached out his hand, and covered his ears, not wanting to hear those strange sounds.

...But it was useless.

Footsteps were constantly echoing around him, accompanied by a creepy nursery rhyme. It was as if dozens of children were dancing and singing around him.

The moment he closed his eyes, he could see blood-red lines entwining and twisting in front of him, trying to bore into his brain from his eyes.

"...Mo Yan, Mo Yan."

He could even hear someone softly calling his name, like a siren gently singing to a sailor. If he responded, she would drag him to the bottom of the sea.

He buried himself under the covers, not sparing his hands or feet, covering himself completely as if this would prevent him from being attacked by ghosts.

But it was no use.

All sorts of noises were ringing in his ears, as if they simply wouldn’t leave him alone.

It was exactly this eerie situation that caused him, who had intended to get a good night’s sleep to recover spirit, to toss and turn for two hours without falling asleep.

...He knew the reason.

His San value was too low.

Although Mo Yan’s San value was still at 60, for an ordinary player without a high number of Mentality Points, 60 was already considered low. Lower and there would be a risk of falling into madness.

Every time he closed his eyes, his mind would be invaded by a variety of horrifying scenes. Blood-red, black, and various deep, dark colors would envelop him, as if once he closed his eyes, he’d never be able to open them again, completely dragged into darkness.

He had naively thought that if he just slept well at night, his San value would recover, just like in the old PC survival games he’d played.

But to his dismay, he discovered at night that a low San value wouldn’t even let him sleep.

With the noise growing more and more frenzied in his ears, he couldn’t stand the bizarre atmosphere any longer. He threw off the covers and sat up in bed.

...I won’t sleep!

I won’t sleep, alright?! So, I’m not allowed to sleep, huh!

He knew the game mechanics wouldn’t just leave him in a dead-end situation; there had to be a way to recover San value even if it was low. Since he couldn’t sleep, he might as well look for another way.

He got out of bed, ready to search the room once more, but suddenly heard a rapid knocking at the door.

"...Please, open the door, please, open the door..."

He heard a faint cry for help from outside, as if his room was perceived as a place of safety.

"Who are you?" Mo Yan was not foolish to open the door for just anyone in the middle of the night. What if there was a problem?

Moreover, he also suspected this could be another of his hallucinations, that in fact, there was no one outside.

"Number three, please, I beg you, open the door. Number thirty has gone mad..."

Upon hearing this, Mo Yan immediately went to open the door.

The figure outside squeezed in through the crack and quickly closed the door behind her, locking it.

She leaned against the door, gasping for breath, looking like she’d just survived a disaster, as if she was safe now.

Mo Yan warily examined this player who sought his help. She was a girl with pink twin ponytails, fair skin, and sunken eyes, her nationality indiscernible. Clearly visible, however, were the traces of something very thin that had cut through her patient’s garb, fine blood trickling down her arm and slowly dripping onto the floor.

"Number Thirty... tell me what happened to Big Brother clearly," Mo Yan had no intention of showing mercy.

He opened the door only because the other person mentioned Big Brother, otherwise, he had no habit of being charitable in the middle of the night.

The girl was still gasping for air as if her soul had not yet settled, leaning against the door, sweat continuously sliding down.

In the quiet room, only the sound of her breathing could be heard.

...But Mo Yan soon heard noises.

Outside the door.

It was as if someone was walking slowly toward them, the floor outside making a rhythmic creaking sound, step by step, sound by sound, that pace exceptionally steady, as if announcing the arrival of something.

Accompanied by the girl’s panicked breathing, reminiscent of having a narrow escape from death, those footsteps seemed all the more terrifying, like a hunter cornering their prey.

No escape.

Mo Yan furrowed his brow; he knew something had definitely happened outside, and he somewhat regretted letting trouble in.

"If you don’t speak up, I’m going to throw you out," Mo Yan gestured as if he was about to open the door.

If it wasn’t for the mention of "Number Thirty," and his desire to know what happened to Big Brother, he wouldn’t bother with this player at all.

In such a sinister instance, he had no habit of being charitable.

"—Don’t! Don’t!"

The female student was terrified, as if stepping out was akin to entering hell, she hurriedly blocked his hand: "Number Three, you’re quite familiar with Number Thirty, right! I saw you during the day, you were talking together... now, only you can save us!"

"What in the world happened?" Mo Yan heard those footsteps getting closer.

"Number Thirty, Number Thirty he..." the girl swallowed: "...he’s a doctor."

"So what?"

"He’s a doctor!" the girl’s eyes widened.

"And then?" Mo Yan spread his hands: "So Big Brother is a doctor, or a student, what does it have to do with me. It’s just a role, Big Brother won’t harm me, he has saved me, I don’t care what his role is."

He pulled away the girl’s hand, getting ready to push her out the door.

"Wait, please wait—But Number Thirty has gone mad!" the girl cried out in desperation, nearly hoarse with exertion.

Mo Yan was taken aback.

The footsteps outside halted, and the creaking of the boards stopped abruptly too.

He looked up to see the door that had been shut tight being silently and stealthily opened, exposing a sliver of the secluded darkness.

...He had almost forgotten.

Big Brother had the skill to pick locks.

The girl leaning against the door lost her balance and involuntarily staggered backward, she clenched her teeth, seeming to have thrown something round. The next moment, a blinding smoke began to rise.

Before Mo Yan could see what was outside, his eyes were shrouded by the smoke, and a "dizziness debuff" appeared in the upper left corner of his vision. He stood still, momentarily stiff, also hearing the sound of colliding limbs beside him, but for the moment, he could see nothing.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

The thick smoke rose before his eyes, mingled with a strange aroma, he coughed a few times and tears formed in his eyes. When he dried his eyes and opened them again, he then saw the scene as the smoke slowly dissipated.

The doctor in a white coat stood quietly at the entrance, the reflective surgical knife in his hand stained with a streak of fresh blood, its edge as if gilded with the indoor lighting.

In those eyes that appeared so clear in the warm light, there was now an accumulation of something, the meaning within it not intense but nearly drowning.

Merely watching, Mo Yan felt a rising sense of dizziness. The feeling arrived swiftly and strangely, like some sort of debuff.

The doctor in front softly vibrated the surgical knife in his hand, the splendid fresh blood of a slit throat shaking off onto the floor, like a crack of blood on the boards.

He walked in, kicked the body on the ground aside, brushing past Mo Yan’s shoulder as he entered.

"Big, Big Brother..."

Mo Yan originally thought that the identity of a doctor didn’t matter much—after all, his big brother was still his big brother.

But it wasn’t until he opened the door and truly faced his big brother, who was a doctor, that he felt the wave-like pressure.

He couldn’t help but feel fear welling up from the depths of his heart.

It was like an instinctive fear response that the body automatically produces, as if his body was instinctively retreating.

...like an animal encountering its natural predator.

It was the natural fear that "student" players felt when facing a "doctor".

It was because of this fear that he didn’t even think of fighting back; at this moment, he just wanted to run away.

No wonder... that female player was so scared.

He froze in place, watching as his big brother searched his room, and then saw his big brother’s gaze turn towards him.

"There isn’t any clue," his big brother said.

"...Ah."

Hearing his big brother’s calm voice, Mo Yan finally managed to find his own voice with difficulty.

"I’ve already searched it; there’s just a diary..." Mo Yan dragged a diary out from the temporary props bar and handed it to his big brother.

Su Ming’an opened the diary—it was different from the one in his room, but the text was legible, roughly about a child who was suddenly snatched away, wanting to rebel against the teachers and the headmaster to escape from this place.

The content was so vague that he didn’t receive any clue notifications.

He closed the diary, only to see that Mo Yan was looking at him with eager eyes.

"Big brother, I’ve looked through it already. I can’t make sense of the stuff inside, it’s like gibberish..." Mo Yan said.

"You can’t understand it?" Su Ming’an opened the diary in front of him, but Mo Yan still shook his head blankly.

Su Ming’an took another look himself, everything was clear, without any reading difficulty.

...Strange.

His current sanity points were not low, yet he could still understand these strange texts.

Was there something wrong with him... or was it Mo Yan with the issue?

He gave the diary back to Mo Yan and was about to leave.

"Big, big brother, are you okay..." he heard Mo Yan’s somewhat stuttered words behind him.

"I’m fine." He found it odd that Mo Yan would ask such a question.

Earlier, upon discovering that killing students could restore sanity points, he had run into another person on the first floor, which was that girl with peach-colored hair.

The girl seemed to be coming out to check the noise, and just as the door opened, her eyes met his.

At that moment, the girl looked extremely scared, she closed the door quickly, and then locked it.

Su Ming’an had extinguished the door’s opening, and was about to ask her a question when he saw her running out like she had seen a ghost, all the while shouting that he had gone mad.

At that time, his sanity points were 52, just the right level; he didn’t plan to go higher nor did he want to go lower, aiming to always maintain this value. This way, he could see things invisible at higher sanity points, while keeping his mind fundamentally stable.

He had decided not to actively kill students anymore.

...But unexpectedly, this girl, she sought death herself and even said he was mad.

But he was clearly normal.

After she ran into Room No.3, he could only follow her and enter to kill her.

Then, he saw Mo Yan, also looking terrified.

"...Do I look that frightening?"

Su Ming’an was puzzled.

He felt no different from usual, but one by one, they all seemed as afraid of him as mice are of a cat.

"..." Mo Yan stood there stiffly, seemingly trying to lighten the mood, he forced an embarrassed smile:

"Ahahaha..." He laughed, but the laugh was very stiff: "A little... compared to the daytime."

"It’s probably a natural fear aura that comes with the identity of a doctor," Su Ming’an said.

...He now had as many as 62 sanity points, how could he be abnormal?

Rather, he felt that it was Mo Yan and these players who had become overly sensitive under high pressure; they were the ones who were not normal.

To say that he had gone mad... Seeing him and running like rabbits, shouting at the top of their lungs, with a panic-stricken appearance... The crazy ones were them.

However, his identity was probably exposed now.

Su Ming’an glanced at the tightly closed wooden doors beside him, silently inside.

...He and Mo Yan were talking with the door open in the hallway, with no sound barrier; the people inside the doors on both sides must have heard it.

They should all know by now that he is a doctor.

But that didn’t matter.

"Doctor" was only aimed at the student files of each night, and for other people, there were no restrictions on him, and they were free to choose whether to kill.

And at night, the doctor seemed to have a huge bonus—night vision, surgical knives, and the fear aura that Mo Yan mentioned, which made students not want to resist.

At this moment, the hallway maintained a weird silence.

No players dared to open their doors, nor did anyone dare speak out in their rooms.

The door to Room No.3 was open, with a ring of light leaking out.

He turned around, walking towards the depths of the corridor.

And this time, he heard no plea for him to stay coming from behind.

The wooden door remained open, the light receding bit by bit from him, and as he ascended the stairs, he heard a dull sound of a door closing.

He paused in place for a moment, then continued walking upwards.

...

Su Ming’an originally thought that the Sixth World was not a competitive instance, leaning more towards players collaborating to decipher puzzles and then collectively escaping as a cooperative instance.

However, after killing the first student and seeing his sanity points rise, he discovered the deep malice hidden behind the rules.

The Underworld scenario during the day, electric shock therapy, copying the eerie regulations... They were all intended to lower the players’ sanity points.

And when sanity points were lowered, players began experiencing hallucinations repeatedly, craving to return to mental normalcy.

To restore normalcy, they needed to kill.

...To kill fellow students like themselves.

This created a situation where during the day because of the White Sand School’s rules, students got along harmoniously as if there were no conflicts.

But come night... the night without teacher supervision, the night with doctors lurking, the unavoidable struggle for life and death would start.

Doctors needed to execute the students, and the students wanted to return to normal.

And it seemed that because of Xia Luoyang’s mental suggestion, even as his sanity points increased, he was still able to read those weird texts.

...How interesting.

Su Ming’an looked up, gazing towards the large classroom in front of him.

The floor creaked beneath his feet, surrounded by silence.

And the large classroom, empty during the day, was now filled with people.