Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Abo Dammen, Proofreader-adjective
The hospital where Miss Xiaoying worked was not far from where they were, but it wasn’t a safe enough distance to walk.
Now that everything had been settled, they decided not to waste any more time and returned to the truck, allowing Miss Xiaoying to drive.
Along the way, Teacher Dagen asked about the two girls.
Zhang Ying, a 24-year-old nurse, worked in the emergency department of the central hospital.
And her best friend, the more petite and slim girl, named Min Qingqing, was a white-collar worker in a foreign clothing trade company.
They were high school classmates who had known each other since they were students. They stayed in the city after graduation to work together, and their friendship naturally became tighter.
Their vacation had been unplanned. When they boarded the unfortunate maglev train car and were flung out of the carriage during the derailment disaster, they didn’t know what happened next.
When the girls recovered consciousness, they discovered that they had returned to their hometown hundreds of kilometers away—but the city they had lived in for many years had become an empty city of ashes, so bizarre that they didn’t recognize it.
“Well, no matter what’s going on, I just want to leave this damn place as soon as possible.”
Min Qingqing felt quite unsafe because of the broken glass pane. When she spoke, she automatically tilted her body slightly and retreated as far as she could inside the carriage. “It’s unsettling to see our hometown become like this…”
Zhang Ying in the driver’s seat also nodded sadly.
Although from Brother Jie’s words, they had vaguely guessed that the city where people were now was not really “real”.
The gaming environment they were in seemed to be modeled after real-life places. As long as the technology was powerful enough, it could even recreate a location that was indistinguishable from reality—but no matter how perfect it was, it couldn’t recreate a place you used to be extremely acquainted with, since the people who made you feel warm and pleasant were long gone.
Furthermore, there were a plethora of creatures in this city capable of carelessly killing people.
To avoid upsetting the “things” walking around in the dark night, Zhang Ying tried to drive silently and didn’t even dare to switch on the headlights.
Their journey went unexpectedly smoothly.
When the truck drove through this city’s iconic artificial lake park, everyone was startled to see that the lake, which was once green with rippling waves and crystal clear water, had changed into a pool of boiling magma.
Yes, the lake was no longer filled with water; it was indeed molten lava, churning and bubbling with sulfur-scented vapor as if it had just erupted from a volcano crater.
“So the so-called ‘world’ is really simulating a city that has experienced volcanic eruptions?”
Mo Tiangen looked out of the window and came up with such a conclusion.
“Come on, where are the active volcanoes off the southeast coast of China?”
Ji Dong had long been familiar with Teacher Dagen’s cheeky, straightforward way of criticizing. “Besides, which volcano stores a large pool of magma in the artificial lake after the eruption?”
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.
“Ktlr lr jc liierlbc! Piierlbc! Gb sbe ecvfgrajcv?!”
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“Tbe rff, atf wbcrafgr kf wfa jibcu atf kjs, vgjubcoilfr, ilhjgvr, jcv bkir, jii tjnf rbwfatlcu ab vb klat atf fifwfca bo olgf, gluta?”
He paused and gave a simple example.
“Just like when you play online games, every time you enter a copy of the map, you will encounter monsters that fit the map? For example, when you are in the forest, you will encounter foxes, wolves, bears, and mountain thieves; when you arrive in the ancient tomb, there will be a screen full of zombies, paper men, and paper horses.”
Teacher Dagen shook his finger.
“Therefore, whether it is the continuous falling ash from the sky or the strong smell of sulfur, it is the ‘world’ that reminds us that we have to face all kinds of fire monsters here!”
“Well, it makes sense.”
Ji Dong agreed. The two girls also listened carefully and nodded in agreement like a chicken pecking rice.
“But how does this help our situation?”
Ji Dong asked his most concerned question, “Or, Brother Dagen, can you guess what monsters are still in this city?”
“I teach biology in a key high school, not magic animals in Hogwarts!”
Mo Tiangen reached out his hand and slapped Ji Dong on the back of his head, but the wound on his shoulder immediately stung, causing him to take a quick pained breath.
“By the way, the one in the back…”
With that, Teacher Dagen nudged his chin towards the rear. He referred to Brother Jie, who was lying in the truck unconscious because of excessive blood loss.
“Didn’t that guy say that there’s still an animal like a wolf dog in the city?”
He took out his rich gaming experience and speculated wildly.
“Maybe it’s a three-headed dog from hell…”
As they were saying this, they heard a faraway wolf howl from the thick, sulfur-smelling breeze.
All the people quivered simultaneously.
“Damn, your crow mouth!”
At the sound of howling, goosebumps rose on Ji Dong’s arm, and he hurriedly covered Mo Tiangen’s mouth. “You be quiet and don’t draw the three-headed dog from hell!”
Fortunately, the howl sounded quite distant.
They opened the window and took a peek around. On the other side of the lava-filled lake, there were faint flames crackling and occasionally numerous wailing wolf howls could be heard.
“Go, leave, let’s go before those creatures catch us!” Mo Tiangen urged Zhang Ying as he wrenched away from Ji Dong’s hand that was covering his mouth.
Naturally, the nurse dared not delay. She stepped on the accelerator and drove quickly through the park towards the hospital two blocks away.
————————-
The truck sped through the central hospital’s main gate.
Zhang Ying pulled up in front of the emergency department entrance, opened the door, and leaped out first.
Ji Dong and Mo Tiangen walked to the trunk and extracted the blue-clad guy who had lost consciousness.
There was a little disagreement on how to handle the wounded.
Brother Jie wasn’t even cognizant, let alone able to move on his own.
Among these people, the strongest was Mo Tiangen.
But even Teacher Dagen didn’t think he was strong enough to carry such a muscular man through the long emergency area corridor and down to the air raid shelter equivalent to the depth of six floors underground.
At this time, the nurse jiejie suggested that she could go to the emergency department to find a wheelchair or stretcher first, but Ji Dong felt that the risk of turning back was too high. After all, no one was sure whether or not the “wolves” they heard by the lava lake had followed them.
Finally, they took down a canvas from the truck roof’s waterproofing and constructed a basic stretcher. Ji Dong and Mo Tiangen collaborated to carry Brother Jie.
The air raid shelter had two entrances, according to Zhang Ying.
The first was the elevator, which was utilized to go in and out during the week, and the second was the doorway-like access to the parking garage, which was used in case of an emergency evacuation.
But, regardless of which, the air raid shelter’s entrance was locked. Although Zhang Ying knew the password to open the door, the entire city, not just the Central Hospital, was out of electricity. The password lock was obviously futile.
However, the nurse jiejie stated that the nuclear fortification had its own separate backup power supply, with the switch located in the electrician’s chamber at the end of the emergency department hallway.
She would be able to activate the backup power source if this “world” was perfectly modeled like the actual world.
So Ji Dong and others decided to go to the electrical room first and turn on the air raid shelter’s backup power source.
Hospitals in major metropolises are always teeming and overcrowded on weekdays. Even the late-night emergency department was crowded with people and medical workers.
But there were no other individuals in the city but them at the time. The vast hospital was both eerily calm and frighteningly dark.
Several people walked along the empty hallway, and the sound of several squeaky footsteps on the smooth floor reverberated, each step felt as if they had stomped on their heartbeat, making them automatically quicken their pace.
“Soon, soon.”
Zhang Ying tried to make her voice sound calmer.
With the help of the flashlight, she pointed to the darkness deep in the corridor. “The mahogany door in the front corner is the electric workshop.”
Ji Dong and Mo Tiangen nodded.
In fact, none of them saw the so-called “mahogany door”.
On the way to the hospital, Zhang Ying had briefly told them the structure of the emergency department and the location of the elevator.
The emergency department of the central hospital was a big “T” shape.
In the middle of a long corridor, there was an umbrella-shaped lounge at the end, which was the registration area and the waiting area. The two wings of the “T” are the medical and surgical clinics, and further down were their respective infusion rooms and observation wards.
The electric room they were looking for was behind a little wooden door in the center of the hallway.
The overhaul elevator to the air-raid shelter was placed in the emergency surgery department’s corner. It was a “work elevator” that was normally off-limits to regular patients. To open, they would need to enter the password “6677”.
Two minutes later, they finally stood in front of the mahogany door of the electrician’s room.
The door was, of course, locked.
However, they had little trouble unlocking it.
Mo Tiangen picked up his shovel and with two clangs, broke the doorknob with a few hits.
“Okay, I’ll go in with beauty Zhang.”
Mr. Dagen grabbed his steel shovel crosswise with a heroic appearance, as if he was a man to defend a key position single-handedly and can hold out against ten thousand enemies. He lifted his chin and looked at the others, “You wait outside for a while…”
He had barely finished talking when he heard a loud “bang.” Something struck the glass of the window closest to the people.
“What the fuck!”
Everyone was terrified, and the two girls screamed reflexively.
They pursued the sound and discovered a large dog with crimson fur lying outside the window.
That creature resembled the mythical “hell dog” of Europe and America from folklore.
It had blood-red eyes, short hair, wrinkled skin, wide and flat nostrils, a pointed mouth, and a long snout, with fangs as sharp as barbs.
What made everyone feel more petrified was that the dog suddenly “stood up” in the following second.
Ji Dong and the others could clearly see that the dog resembled an ape below the neck, with slender arms and broad hands showing five fingers.
At this point, the monster, which was neither an ape nor a dog, grabbed the window frame with both hands and banged its head against it.
The monster’s skull broke the window glass, and the monster that hit the window was seriously injured. The dog’s head fell down, and his pouring blood covered his forehead.
However, when such a scene occurred, everyone’s mind went blank.
The next moment, a second, and third canine-apes climbed on their companions’ bodies, shattered the glass, and plunged into the corridor!
thank you for the chapter！
Thank you for the chapter 😊
Wait, is everyone forgetting that that the Jie dude raped one of the girls? I know none of the boys knew because they left but at least one of the girls have to be angry about it…
From what I understood it was only assault because there was no time for full rape, and he is currently badly wounded and (apparently) disabled for life because he wanted to use them, which can be considered as a sufficent revenge. The girls are close friends so both of them should be angry. But I suppose there is also no time to be angry when you’re still terrified and running for your life.
the one molested was the prettiest one out of the three so most likely the dead guys girlfriend. But Jie did slap one of the friends face.
I think ‘hell dog’ might be better translated as hell hound, as it is the more popular term for the same sort of supernatural creature.
Regardless, this story is super fun so far! Thank y’all so much fr translating!I wonder how they’re going to get out of this one 🫠
Thank you for the suggestion! ❤