Heyo, check the previous chapter for some changes! My dumb ass wrote “evolves every twelve hours” instead of two… Thank you, dear editor mine for catching that 
Edited by Izrate
[Scenario 3: You completed the mission. (Checkmate)]
The moment the guy began talking, the system had immediately given them the stage clear requirement. Shan Ziwei didn’t dawdle or hesitate, swiftly activating the “Three of Clubs – Tracker Tagging Gun” and “Three of Clubs – Multipurpose Tracker” Scenario Cards.
[Scenario Two: You can consume one bullet to use the tracker tagging gun to shoot and tag a target.]
[Scenario Three: You can consume one battery to use the multipurpose tracker to investigate your surroundings.]
The tracker tagging gun was a small calibre rifle like the M16. This was the first time Shan Ziwei had touched a “real gun” like this, and it made his heart jump with excitement. Every guy had a dream about using a real gun. Though this hypersexual had tried out all kinds of guns in all sorts of shooter games like CF, etc., but a gun in a screen wasn’t quite the same as the weight of one in his hands.
A kind of distress surfaced along with the excitement. Though having a real gun was cool, he wasn’t sure if he would do well with it… In the past he was a pro at drag shooting and blind firing, all those fancy techniques, but that was in the past – now what he had to move wasn’t a mouse, but a real muzzle.
There wasn’t any more time for Shan Ziwei to feel sorrowful. Shan Ziwei walked towards the hospital as he investigated the multipurpose tracker on his wrist. Fiddling with it, an AAA battery slot appeared on the very sophisticated-looking device. Shan Ziwei had just taken out a battery and placed it in, when he realized something was wrong. He stopped and turned his head to look at the three who hadn’t moved at all.
“Are you guys not coming?”
“Oh yeah, coming!”
The only one who responded was Sha Po Lang. She copied Shan Ziwei and equipped herself with her given Scenario Cards. Instantly, an AWP sniper rifle appeared in her hands, and a pair of googles appeared on her head. Combined with her feral style, it made her stunningly handsome.
“C’mon guys, suit up. We’re heading inside!”
Sha Po Lang slapped Guoguo Qing’s back, causing her to stumble forwards a few steps, but she still hesitated and stopped in her tracks. She stared straight at the building that was enveloped in green light, her voice even softer than usual from fear, “Are those… vines?”
What Guoguo Qing was referring to were the long, thin lines on the outer walls of the hospital, hanging on the white surface in strange, curving patterns. Due to the green barrier of light, they couldn’t clearly see exactly what they were. They looked like withered, leafless vines, but softer.
“Maybe.” Little Shuai immediately comforted her, “Don’t be afraid; I’ll protect you.”
“Thank you…”
Shan Ziwei helplessly watched their lovey-dovey display of affection. By the time they had all equipped their given equipment and were finally ready to enter the green barrier, three minutes had passed. Shan Ziwei glanced over Little Shuai and Guoguo Qing’s equipment: one had a shotgun and blast shield, while the other had a tranquilizer and medical tank.
“Yo, your equipment looks pretty rad.”
Little Shuai grew smug at the rare compliment from Sha Po Lang – though she had complimented his equipment and not him. “Of course, I’m an assault hunter, after all!” He didn’t forget to turn to Guoguo Qing and add, “The one who can best protect you.”
Guoguo Qing smiled sweetly, and with that encouragement, Little Shuai puffed out his chest and took the position of leader, heading through the green barrier first. Shan Ziwei followed, head bowed. He was still fiddling with the multipurpose tracker on his wrist. After putting the battery in, the multipurpose tracker whirred to life. Two numbers appeared on the round, watch-like display: ①, and ②.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Shan Ziwei was just trying to recall what the different modes of the tracker did, when he almost walked headfirst into Little Shuai’s back. The hypersexual managed to use his well refined reflexes to take a hurried step back, when he suddenly heard Guoguo Qing scream from behind, “Yaaaah!”
Vtjc Ilkfl’r tjcv agfwyifv, jmmlvfcajiis qgfrrlcu bc j gjcvbw yeaabc. Lf tegglfvis gjlrfv tlr tfjv, bcis ab rff atja atf batfg atgff kfgf mgjclcu atflg cfmxr ab ibbx ja j rqba ojg jybnf.
Xeiq.
Vtjc Ilkfl rkjiibkfv atlmxis. Mfjg kjr bcf bo atf wbra mbcajulber fwbalbcr, jcv atf ojmfr bo atf batfg atgff tbgglolfv tlw. Lf raloois obiibkfv atflg ujhfr eqkjgvr.
–– It wasn’t the monster.
What Little Shuai and the other two were looking at was the “vines” that they had seen before from outside the barrier. Without the obstruction and tint of the green barrier, the true form of the curved patterns was exposed to their eyes. They weren’t vines, but thin, red flesh tendons growing on the snow-white walls of the hospital like bulging veins, evil and disgusting.
Despite his disgust and discomfort, Shan Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief. He was more afraid of an ambush by a monster. As for this “scenery” that was there to try and make things more stressful for players, this hypersexual with a relative age of twenty-three and an absolute age of two-hundred and thirty-three clearly had better resistance to it than these “children”.
“Beep! Beep!”
Shan Ziwei looked down at his beeping multipurpose tracker. As he had accidentally hit one of the options just now, the multipurpose tracker was currently projecting a diametrically twenty centimetre wide radar display. There was an abnormal blue dot that stood out in the revolving green light of the radar scanner.
This was…?
Shan Ziwei stared at the blue dot that had its x, y and z axis coordinates labelled. The multipurpose tracker had two modes, one where it displayed tagged targets and another that displayed heat signatures. Currently, it was clearly displaying tagged targets. If it were in its heat mode, then there would be more than one dot on the display – all things that produced heat would be there.
Now here was the question. He had never tagged any targets, so what was the blue dot on the display…?
Shan Ziwei’s heart thudded rapidly in his chest and he turned his head to yell at the bald black guy who was on the outside of the green barrier, “Is there a tag on the monster?”
In response to Shan Ziwei’s question, the guy grinned widely. “That’s right, pal. How else would we have known that it’s in the hospital? But the tag’ll be gone soon – the concoction only lasts two hours – around the time the monster evolves. As soon as the concoction loses its effect, the monster’ll melt down that tagging bullet like butter.”
Holy crap, couldn’t you have told us something so important sooner!? There were still nine minutes until the monster was going to evolve. They could make it!
Shan Ziwei immediately called out to the other three, “Let’s hurry up and head ins-“
“No!” Guoguo Qing shook her head furiously and took a step back, looking as if she were about to cry, “I’m scared…”
“Guoguo, don’t be afraid. They’re all just effects to try and scare us.” Sha Po Lang hugged Guoguo Qing’s shoulders. “Don’t look, don’t look. Just look at me, yeah?”
Guoguo Qing hid herself in Sha Po Lang’s arms, still shaking her head furiously.
“How about I stay outside with Guoguo?” Little Shuai’s eyes moved, clearly hatching a plan. “You two can go inside to deal with the monster… Er, don’t look at me like that. That monster is just a pawn-level pawn right now, no? Even if it evolves, it’s still only knight level. Two people are more than enough to deal with it.”
Sha Po Lang gave him a middle finger in response.
Shan Ziwei knew that they couldn’t waste any more time, so he also joined them in trying to persuade the other.
“The sooner we deal with that monster, the sooner we can complete the chessboard and leave.” Shan Ziwei told Guoguo Qing, “Look behind you. We can’t go back anymore.”
Not only Guoguo Qing turned to look, Little Shuai and Sha Po Lang did too. That was when they realized that camp had been set up around the barrier. A row of heavy weaponry was aimed at the entrance of the hospital through the green barrier of light. As Guoguo Qing had stepped back, some of the machine guns had taken aim at Guoguo Qing and the other two. Seeing them look over, the bald black man slapped the gatling gun beside him, shouting “go, go go!” in time to his slaps.
No one would feel good about having a bunch of machine guns pointed at them. Guoguo Qing’s face was deathly pale. In the end, she bit her lips as the others ushered her into the hospital gently.
After getting inside, Guoguo Qing’s complexion recovered some colour because the interior of the hospital was much more normal. Some patients were scattered around the clean, white lobby and the nurses were taking their shifts as usual. They didn’t seem to have noticed anything strange at all, making expressions of surprise as the armed four made their way inside.
“Excuse me, might I ask what you’re here for…?
A nurse carefully approached them. When she recognised Shan Ziwei who stood at the front, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh it’s you! You just came back from a mission, didn’t you? No wonder you’re dressed like this. Unfortunately, you still missed it.” The nurse smiled. “Congratulations! Your wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy one hour and fifty minutes ago. You should hurry and check up on your baby~”
“Yo~” Sha Po Lang teased, “Congrats, ‘daddy’.”
Compared to how Sha Po Lang and co seemed to relax, Shan Ziwei tensed further. Normality in an abnormal situation was the least normal. Even if no one in the hospital had noticed anything strange inside, they should’ve noticed the quarantine isolation barrier outside, no?
He nodded jerkily at the nurse and then turned to speak to Sha Po Lang and co, “There’s six minutes left. The monster is currently in the nine o’clock direction. We…”
Shan Ziwei paused. He saw a new Scenario appear in his System Scenarios.
[Scenario 4: You’re worried for your wife who is in the hospital, so you personally go to check up on her wellbeing. (00:05:00)]
… As expected, the system was here to screw them over again.
Shan Ziwei continued as if nothing had happened, “… We should hurry and go take care of that monster.”
“Huh? Haven’t you seen the newest scenario?” Sha Po Lang asked, “The system wants me to go check up on my grandpa. You got something similar, right?”
“Once we kill the monster, we pass the stage. We won’t need to go check up on our families.”
“What if we fail to kill it? The system only gave us five minutes. Can you be certain that we’ll be able to catch and kill that monster within five minutes? That monster will definitely run,” Guoguo Qing argued in a quiet voice, “Scenario 4 wants us to check up on our family. From the previous pictures and letters, we know that Shasha’s grandpa is in the Chinese Medicine Department, A’Shuai’s aunt is in internal medicine, my… is in the surgical department, and your girlfriend is in the maternity department. The system wouldn’t give an impossible scenario, so we can definitely find our families within five minutes. We can just go and check up on them before going to hunt down the monster.”
“That’s right, that’s right! Guoguo is so clever!”
Little Shuai was completely and unconditionally on Guoguo Qing’s side. Shan Ziwei shut up, deciding to not waste any more time on explaining and turned, running in the direction of the blue dot alone.
“Hah… hah…”
Upstairs, left turn, right turn, up another set of stairs… faster, just a little faster.
“Hah… hah…”
There were four minutes left… three minutes… two minutes… shit!!!
Shan Ziwei panted like a dog, half from exhaustion and half from anger. He wanted to smash this dumb multipurpose tracker against the ground for suddenly running out of battery – mother fucker!
Each battery only lasted ten minutes? What the hell! This was clear such a high tech device why did it rely on a power source so low tech as batteries – huh? How come this sounded kinda familiar… _(:з」∠)_
The place the blue dot was before the display died pointed to a spot barely five meters away from Shan Ziwei. Seeing the empty corridor and the single room in the corridor, Shan Ziwei decided there was no need to keep using the tracker anymore.
The monster… was in that room.
Shan Ziwei could feel his nerves rising. He quickly took out the concoction the black bald man had given him and smeared it over five bullets, loading them into the tracker tagging gun.
No need to fear. It was just a pawn level mob. Think of the rabbit soldiers in the City of Toys who couldn’t really do anything but act cute. Think of the prisoners who were used as puzzle pieces in the prison. Pawn level pawns were just there to look cute, no danger at all!
Shan Ziwei didn’t have any more time to spare for preparing himself and calming his nerves. He held the tracker tagging gun and kicked open the door, charging into the room.
Fwoosh….
His entrance into the room brought a breeze that caused the translucent curtains to flutter. This was a very clean and neat hospital room. Shan Ziwei looked around but didn’t find anything that could be considered a monster. His gaze landed on the open windows – was he too late? Had the monster escaped through the window?
Shan Ziwei carefully approached the window, glanced down and noticed that the bulging flesh tendons were all over the white wall under the window. It was disgusting, so he retreated his gaze from the window and turned his head in the direction of the bed next to it. Sunlight streamed in from the open windows, brightening the bed to an abnormal whiteness. The only part that wasn’t white were the red words at the headboard that read “Laughter Hospital”… Wait, this looked kind of familiar.
This clean, tidy white room… this hospital bed with the words “Laughter Hospital” on it…
Just as Shan Ziwei realized that this was the very room the photo with Maria had been taken in, he heard the door open behind him.
“Ah, my love.”
A gentle feminine voice came from behind. He didn’t even need to think to know who it was. Shan Ziwei’s heart trembled. To him, her voice even sounded so much like that girl from his past; perhaps it was because of his memories influencing him.
He couldn’t deny that one of the reasons that Shan Ziwei didn’t want to follow Scenario 4, was because he didn’t want to face the “wife” who wore the face of his first crush.
“You’re finally back. Hurry and turn around to take a look at our baby.”
Maria continued to call out to Shan Ziwei with that loving voice of hers. Seeing that Shan Ziwei had no response, she seemed to pause and began walking towards him.
Step, step, step.
Listening to the approaching footsteps, Shan Ziwei mentally prepared himself and swiftly turned around.
And then he saw the single most terrifying scene he had witnessed yet.
Aaaannnd we’re at 20 chapters! Yay! Thank you, everyone, for your support and comments so far!!! Hope y’all continue to stick with me~
Next up, Scenario Twenty-One: Monster Hunter (III)
I am scared. What will happen next?
Why are they such pig teammates? Dx
Oho~ so his first love birthed.. some thing..? :’DD
Thx for the ch (≧▽≦)/
+1
According to the time that nurse specifically mentioned, it’s likely that the monster is either Shanzi’s wife or the newborn… I wonder what will come in the next chapter?
On the other hand, those three ‘teammates’ are pretty annoying. They should’ve at least been through the tutorial chessboard, right?? Geez.
+1 Especially the girl teammate..completely ruining any chances of passing the instances.
Ps. I think the monster is his newborn kid.
I noticed that the author has a particular liking to use ” (:з」∠)” at the end of some sentences in their writings. In the reader and protagonist, it was often used, especially in MC’s pov. Is this particular kaomoji really popular in China or chinese novel these days? 🤔
Shan Ziwei can’t run away from the horror and even If he tries, he’ll fail.
Thanks for the chapter!
thank you for the chapter! The monster must be Maria, ML can’t have anyone snatching his wife after all
Nehehehe I’m ready to see Shan ziwei in that one fanart with tentacles 👀👀 lolol
Thanks for the update!! And congrats on 20 chapters!!
Where can I get the link for the discord? 🥺
Dear god Guoguo and little Shuai make me so annoyed. Oddly enough Guoguo is more annoying to me. Bring back Rice Lover (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ is the baby the monster? Or maybe it’s Maria? Are women even capable of walking around after giving birth so soon?
If I was Shanzi and I get teammates like this I would’ve start solo-ing even if it could be a bad idea. I’m pretty sure they should’ve already known how to play the game more than Shanzi by now since they got the unfair advantage of using RPG and knowing more about it just by existing.
I dunno why but Guoguo annoys me more than anyone else in the teammates, probably because I keep getting White Lotus vibes?
Thank you for the chapter 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
PIG!!! TEAMMATES!!!!!!
Oh my god
Guess it’s kinda good for Shan Ziwei who’s a bit scarred from the whole jail arc to take a break from working together (and then getting betrayed) but F……..
I think the monster might be Maria tbh +1 hhhhhh the first love thing is just sending off flags
Thanks for the chapter!!
It’s probably the baby coz the nurse said the exact time the baby was born.
Also, a damsel in distress and a knight-in-shining-armor wannabe? I hope Gougou and Xiao Shuai fails.
did i guess right??
Do a host and ignore the useless team mates 😎