Volume 6: Days of Being Zapped in the Lab
It’s Here
In the end, the strongest one will be the sole winner.
Bringing other players along meant bringing trouble.
Shen Maomao had a damn good sense of the situation; Lou Jingmo could absolutely just dust off her hands and leave on her own1, there was no need to take this risk. When she first proposed the request, she hadn’t thought Lou-jie would agree.
The game world was cruel; it wasn’t surprising what people might do when facing death. If Lou Jingmo abandoned the other players and got on the elevator herself, she wouldn’t feel disappointed, yet she had actually agreed…
She glanced at Lou Jingmo’s expressionless face, her heart burning hot, as if a fire had been lit, setting her whole being ablaze.
Ever since entering the game, she had been protected by Lou Jingmo. She hadn’t experienced the game’s cruelty, which was why she was willing to help these complete strangers, these “sinners.” But Lou Jingmo’s current abilities were accumulated bit by bit from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Perhaps she had witnessed countless instances of human treachery, or perhaps she had personally experienced betrayal from humans on her own side…
But even so, she was willing to fulfill her wish, to help those who didn’t necessarily need helping—how could Lou-jie be so good!!
Lou Jingmo: “What’s with that expression? Do your eyes hurt?”
Shen Maomao: “…” Never mind, that must have just been my imagination.
The broadcast announcement was loud, enough to awaken some strange and peculiar things. There were still over fifty minutes until the assembly time. They could wander around the vicinity a bit more; there was no need to waste time waiting at the elevator entrance.
Because of that face that had escaped earlier, standing in the broadcast room was definitely unsafe now. The best course of action was to leave here and find another place.
The corridor was still empty; as far as the eye could see, everything was cold and sterile. Shen Maomao squinted for a while, feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Power had been restored, and light could bring a huge sense of security. The two prepared to go check out the laboratories; maybe they could find a computer without a password and grab some experiment data or something.
There were many laboratories, but the one Lou Jingmo was most interested in was B Experiment.
A Research studied human psychological endurance limits, C Treatment treated homosexuality; at first glance, they seemed completely unrelated to the mutations brought about by the IM Virus. Only B Experiment directly placed subjects within the IM Virus. For them, the data from B Experiment was the most useful for understanding the mutation situation.
Just as they arrived before the large door to B Experiment that Lou Jingmo had slashed open, Shen Maomao heard a series of “clatter-clatter” sounds.
She frowned, suspecting the situation here was the same as the fifth-floor cafeteria—don’t tell me some monster has spawned inside again?
Lou Jingmo also listened closely for a moment and said, “It’s keyboard sounds.”
The two squeezed through the opening in the door. The situation inside the room was now completely different from what Shen Maomao had seen before.
A large hole was broken in the glass room, bloodstains were everywhere inside, and there were two corpses lying unattended.
At this moment, all the computers in the room were turned on, strings of green characters flashing rapidly across the screens, dazzling the eyes2.
A man sat behind a computer, the eerie green light from the screen reflecting on his face, making him look like a phantom.
His hands flew across the keyboard, accurately inputting strings of characters. As the last character was entered, he raised his right hand and heavily slammed the Enter key.
“Success!!” The computer screen instantly jumped to the desktop page. The man cried out in pleasant surprise, turning his head to high-five a teammate as they had celebrated countless times after breaking through firewalls in the past.
Shen Maomao raised her arm and completed the high-five motion with him, the two palms meeting with a crisp smack: “Congratulations!”
Man: “???!!!”
This man was 290, who lived across from Shen Maomao.
290 nearly had a heart attack from the fright, but he quickly recognized who these two were. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, collapsing back into his chair: “How come you guys didn’t make any sound!”
Shen Maomao looked at his red eyes, understanding that he had also begun to mutate.
Hearing this, she couldn’t help but say aggrievedly, “You were just too focused yourself, our footsteps were really loud.”
290 let out a long breath: “Alright… You’ve come at the right time. I’ve already cracked the computer passwords here. You can look for clues with me.”
With that, he turned back to the computer, continuing to speak, “I feel like this instance’s timeline isn’t actually far from modern times. And this lab doesn’t seem to care at all if others steal their experiment data; they only put two layers of locks on the computers. Although it took some time to crack, overall it wasn’t very difficult.”
“You two have started mutating too, right? 289, your mutation seems a bit more severe. The air here accelerates mutation; you’d better not stay here too long. What I know currently is limited, but since you two managed to return from the night, you presumably know more than I do.”
“Let me just tell you what happened while you were gone.”
290 clearly had experience being a leader—not a corporate leader, but the leading figure of a small team. He paid attention to all team members, understanding each teammate’s movements and status, which was why he could notice Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo’s situation so quickly—of course, this was also related to how close they were staying to each other.
“Today is the fifth day. On the night of the third day, 289 didn’t return. On the fourth day, 287, you also disappeared. That night, the experimenters didn’t come to distribute the nutrient solution. In the latter half of the night, half the lights blew out, and the red lights of the surveillance cameras all vanished. A monster that looked a lot like an octopus appeared in the cages and went on a killing spree3, so we all scattered like bees.”
“A few players organized the NPCs to take that thing down; the corpse is in the hallway, maybe you’ll see it later. After dealing with the monster, we started looking for a way out, but we searched the entire fourth floor and couldn’t find the elevator card…” His gaze didn’t leave the screen. “Turns out you two had it.”
Lou Jingmo was also studying investigation results at another computer. Shen Maomao, admitting her intelligence wasn’t sufficient to understand the content, took charge of talking with him, selectively telling him parts of her experience, and finally explaining about the elevator card: “At the time, we didn’t expect we’d be gone for so long…”
290 smiled slightly: “It’s okay. I also wondered if the elevator card might be with you, but I didn’t expect… you’d actually be willing to notify the other players.”
Shen Maomao glanced at Lou Jingmo, who was intently focused on the screen, and couldn’t help but reveal a smile: “Can’t be helped, we’re too kind.”
290: “…” Kind people wouldn’t end up in this game.
Aside from the man-eating Face Skin and the octopus monster 290 mentioned, there seemed to be no other alien creatures on the fourth floor.
Moreover, according to 290, these two types of creatures weren’t entirely harmonious. While hunting humans, they also attacked each other, and even engaged in indiscriminate attacks against their own kind, the fight-to-the-death kind.
If one had to find a descriptor—their behavior was very much like raising Gu4.
To cultivate the strongest Gu-insect, Gu masters would typically lock all the Gu together, letting them kill and absorb each other, until the final, strongest one became the sole winner.
Shen Maomao had a whimsical idea: “Then are we considered Gu-insects too? Can we join the killing team and become the strongest Gu?”
Lou Jingmo said: “You dare to absorb them?”
Shen Maomao felt a wave of nausea, shaking her head repeatedly: “Wouldn’t dare, wouldn’t dare.”
—Absorbing that kind of eight-legged humanoid spider, or the octopus whose exact appearance she still didn’t know, the mere thought of such a scene made her feel sick.
290 said: “Look, it says here that fully mutated monsters lose all reason and simultaneously enter a berserk state, destroying all life forms in their path.”
Lou Jingmo continued: “Infected individuals carrying the IM Virus exhibit exclusivity; they can enhance their own strength by absorbing the life force of other virus infectees.”
Those like them, the semi-mutated, were the best supplements for the fully infected.
Lou Jingmo clicked the mouse: “There’s a report on this computer that details the types of mutated bodies and their weaknesses.”
As soon as her voice fell, two heads immediately leaned over.
This was the good stuff5! The kind that could save your life!!!
Lou Jingmo, having already memorized the content, consciously stepped aside, leaving the space for the two.
There were a total of five types of mutated bodies in the entire building. The Spider and Face Skin they had seen, the Octopus on the fourth floor, and besides those, two types they hadn’t encountered yet—Bat and Smiling Face.
That Smiling Face was somewhat similar to the Face Skin, but it wasn’t a human face. The report included a photo showing a huge, circular creature easily as wide as a corridor. This creature was covered all over in long black hair, with several long black legs underneath. Its face was on top of its head, featuring only two large eyes and a gaping mouth. Its eyes were red, and its mouth was filled with sharp teeth, looking both creepy and terrifying.
This thing had a lazy personality and didn’t like to move, but that didn’t mean it was slow. It usually didn’t move around randomly, but if a human actively bumped into it, death was practically certain. Its weakness was a fear of water; it would definitely run upon encountering water. Perhaps they could check the cafeteria later; it would be great if they could get a bottle and bring some water.
The main ones active on this floor were the Face Skin and the Octopus.
They had seen the Face Skin. This time, they also saw a photo of the Octopus—this thing was even more disgusting than Shen Maomao had imagined.
She had thought the mutated part of the Octopus-mutant would be its legs, turning into eight tentacles or something, but it was the exact opposite. The mutated part was its head!
Damn, a person’s head turning into a pile of tentacles was simply disgusting and horrifying.
Because it had no head, its five senses were very weak; it could only sense its surroundings through air vibrations.
The two were reading intently when Lou Jingmo, standing by the doorway, suddenly said: “Did you see the Octopus’s weakness?”
Shen Maomao: “What’s wrong?!”
Lou Jingmo said ominously: “It’s here.”
—At the end of the corridor, the shadow of something with a head full of tentacles was cast on the ground, approaching them bit by bit…
The author has something to say:
Let’s talk about Little Ancestor and Chen Meihan.
Because the chance of re-entering a previously completed, repetitive instance is very small, I only plan to write about one of them—the kind where the instance evolves into a completely new one, totally different from the one previously cleared, and then they reunite with an old acquaintance.
It’s a choice between Chen Meihan and Little Ancestor. The chosen one will be written in detail; the unchosen one will be visited after all the main plotlines are finished, written as a short extra chapter.
✨ Unlock Early Access to Chapters! ✨
Choose your perfect membership at bamboopandatl.net:
📚 Full Access ($4.99)
• Advanced chapters of ALL ongoing novels
• Access to complete finished novels
• Ad-free reading experience
📖 Single Novel Access ($1.49)
• Advanced chapters of ONE specific novel
• Ad-free reading for chosen novel
PayPal is the only current payment option!