Chapter 51 Empty and Void

"Liang Dan, you peerless do-gooder, defiling a corpse, you're dead!"

*

Liang Dan smiled slightly.

"Aaaaaah!"

Zhang Xiaoli next to her covered her eyes and screamed, "So bloody, so terrifying!"

Liang Dan bowed. "Rest in peace."

Zhang Xiaoli stared in wide-eyed shock. "You killed him and you're telling him to rest in peace?"

Liang Dan shook her head. "You have that wrong. I didn't kill him; I was merely acting in self-defense."

Zhang Xiaoli gave a thumbs-up. "You're truly amazing."

Liang Dan pulled her over, checking her from behind. "You're fine now."

Zhang Xiaoli hopped up and down vigorously. "That's magical! That stinky guy just patted near my wound, and snap, it's all better!"

Zhang Xiaoli's tone held genuine regret. "It's such a pity he died just like that. You should have extorted this skill from him."

"You can't get it," Liang Dan said. "A skill this powerful is usually a signature skill, and signature skills can only be given to someone whose favorability towards you is over twenty percent."

Zhang Xiaoli asked, "Do all players have signature skills?"

"Yes," Liang Dan replied. "Signature skills come standard. Subsequent skills and weapons have to be obtained by clearing instance dungeons yourself."

"Why are you in such a miserable state? Before you blackmailed that old man, you had nothing except a signature skill?"

Liang Dan said, "I've only been in one dungeon before this. This is my second."

Zhang Xiaoli looked deeply curious. "What did you get in that first dungeon?"

Liang Dan said, "A guaranteed win on ten lottery draws. I used it to buy a scratch card and won one million."

Zhang Xiaoli was shocked. "You went through all that mortal danger, and it was only one million? Even if you scratched ten cards, that's only ten million."

Now it was Liang Dan's turn to be shocked. "Ten million is 'only'?"

Zhang Xiaoli said, "Staying at the Health Hospital for three months costs ten million."

Liang Dan gasped. "That expensive?!"

Zhang Xiaoli said, "It's a bit pricey, about the equivalent of an ordinary person's three months' salary, but hospitalization and things like that are expensive to begin with."

"Oh," Liang Dan realized. "The currency in the dungeon world is different from the real world."

Zhang Xiaoli looked displeased. "This is clearly the real world, too. Just because a whole bunch of inexplicable players show up, does that mean my home becomes a game world? How on earth did I end up becoming an NPC?"

"Sorry," Liang Dan said. "I used the wrong phrasing. In your eyes, this is indeed the real world."

Zhang Xiaoli glared at her. "What do you mean 'in our eyes'? This *is* the real world. I've lived for over thirty years, surely I'd know whether I'm an NPC or not?"

Liang Dan was a bit flustered. "Sorry, I misspoke again."

Zhang Xiaoli deflated instantly, holding up the keys in her hand. "Alright, fine. Let's not argue about whether it's a real world or not. We need to hurry up and get your medicine, and bandage your wounds."

At Zhang Xiaoli's reminder, Liang Dan instantly felt all her symptoms return. A dull ache flared across her back and hands.

When she was killing him—acting in self-defense—her adrenaline had spiked, leaving her no time to notice the pain.

Now that she had calmed down, she realized just how badly her hands were hurting.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss."

Liang Dan dropped the whip onto the ground, holding her hands out in front of her. Beads of blood pooled across her palms, and the holes beneath them were clearly visible.

Zhang Xiaoli frowned. "Gang San's body wasn't in good shape to begin with, and now this crappy game has suddenly popped up. What's going to happen to her body... Liang Dan, will Gang San come back?"

Liang Dan answered honestly, "I don't know."

"Right," Zhang Xiaoli said. "You're just a newbie yourself, you haven't even figured out the game's mechanics."

Zhang Xiaoli blinked rapidly and forced a bright smile. "Come on, let's hurry up and go open the door. Who knows when another player might pop up to hunt you down."

Having lost too much blood earlier, Zhang Xiaoli no longer had the strength to support Liang Dan, so the two of them could only shuffle forward, pressed tightly against the wall.

To her astonishment, Liang Dan discovered that after killing that young man, she no longer felt terrified of being ambushed along the way.

The two of them arrived safely at the first-floor main entrance.

The heavy door was made of iron, pitch black, making it completely impossible to see what lay outside.

Zhang Xiaoli pulled out the bunch of keys, each one labeled with its purpose, so they easily found the key to the front door.

The crisp click of the lock turning sounded in the air, and Zhang Xiaoli said excitedly, "Outside this hospital is a super gorgeous lawn, and the building across from it is pretty too, looks just like a castle."

The door was pushed open. Zhang Xiaoli looked expectantly at Liang Dan, but Liang Dan was dumbfounded. "Where's the lawn?"

Zhang Xiaoli looked bewildered. "The lawn is right—where's the lawn?!"

The space outside was completely empty.

It was completely empty.

There was no grass on the ground, not even dirt. There was no blue sky or white clouds in the heavens, not even a sun.

In all her life, Liang Dan had never seen such a space.

"No," Zhang Xiaoli muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose hard. "I need to go back and ask the doctor for a dose increase. My hallucinations are getting worse."

Liang Dan shook her head. "These aren't hallucinations."

Zhang Xiaoli argued, "Don't forget, you're currently using the body of a psychiatric patient. Your eyes aren't reliable."

Liang Dan asked, "Is there any precedent of two psychiatric patients sharing the exact same hallucination? What I see is utter emptiness. What about you?"

Zhang Xiaoli slammed the door shut. "You players are right. We might really be NPCs. This is obviously the dungeon map being restricted."

Liang Dan pressed her temples, feeling her head swell to an unbearable size. "Then what do we do? I'm so dizzy, and my ears won't stop ringing."

Zhang Xiaoli said, "If that's the case, we have no choice but to go back. This crappy game can't possibly let you players suffer psychosomatic symptoms forever. If that's true, there must be medicine inside this building. Or at least, something equivalent to medicine."

Liang Dan thought deeply. "Something equivalent to medicine?"

Zhang Xiaoli and Liang Dan spoke in unison: "Players!"

"Right!" Liang Dan said. "Since so many players entered this dungeon, surely more than one person has healing abilities?"

Zhang Xiaoli asked, "When you guys enter the game, do you need to eat?"

Liang Dan replied, "In the last dungeon, we used our own bodies, so we needed to eat and sleep, but we didn't need to use the restroom."

Zhang Xiaoli asked, "What about after coming here?"

Liang Dan said, "I arrived at noon. It's been a long time past the evening medicine time, but I haven't felt the urge to use the restroom once."

Zhang Xiaoli asked, "Are you hungry? Are you tired?"

Liang Dan said, "I wasn't hungry or tired before, but now that you mention it, I suddenly feel both starved and exhausted."

"It seems the dungeon is consistent on those fronts," Zhang Xiaoli remarked. "If you put it that way, wouldn't you players just need to stake out the restrooms every day to figure out who else is a player?"