Chapter 11
When Tang Xiao stepped out of the buffer zone, Rocky was hesitating over whether to turn on the lights.
His wristband showed a message Tang Xiao had sent him ten minutes earlier.
[Come to the lab! It’s urgent! If you call for me and I don’t answer, go find the armed forces!]
Rocky looked into the pitch-dark laboratory and called Tang Xiao’s name several times. When there was no answer, he was about to grit his teeth and turn to look for him.
“Wait...”
A hoarse male voice sounded behind him. Rocky hurriedly turned around and saw Tang Xiao emerge from the shadows of the tunnel. Before Rocky could say anything, the young man suddenly swayed and nearly stumbled to the ground.
Rocky instinctively rushed forward to support him. The moment he got a hand on him, he realized something was wrong, and his pupils contracted. “What is this...?”
The lighting had been too dim to see clearly before, but up close, Tang Xiao looked alarmingly gaunt beneath his lab coat, his face as pale as paper.
Rocky gritted his teeth, turned around, and carried him on his back. “Hang in there!”
At that, Tang Xiao instinctively checked his health and spoke weakly. “Y-You’d better hurry.”
His health was almost gone, aaaaaah!
Rocky said nothing, striding toward the infirmary. Carrying Tang Xiao only made him more certain something was wrong. The person on his back was far too light—not the weight of a normal adult man, more like a child.
And Tang Xiao had clearly come from that experimental subject...
A string of guesses flashed through Rocky’s mind, but none of them slowed his pace.
When Rocky carried Tang Xiao into the infirmary, the doctor had just finished the shift. But the moment the doctor saw Tang Xiao on Rocky’s back, their eyes widened, and they immediately unlocked the emergency room.
“Hurry, put him on that machine!”
Rocky had barely set the young man on the bed before the doctor ushered him out. He waited outside for a full hour before the emergency room’s red warning sign finally turned green.
The doctor came out looking exhausted. “Day in and day out, are you researchers or armed forces? Why does your work seem more dangerous than the armed forces’?”
Rocky: “He’s an exception.”
“Quite an exception.” The doctor dropped onto a stool. “You didn’t see it... Never mind. We had to use fourth-level authorization to treat him. And I’m telling you, don’t take advantage of the good medical care here and recklessly put yourselves through the wringer. You work in research too; you should know the human body’s ability to recover has its limits. You may not notice it while you’re young, but you’ll pay for it later.”
Rocky listened in silence without arguing.
“Sigh, anyway, talk some sense into him. You two are good friends, right? Get him to rest for a couple of days and give his body some time to recover.”
“All right.”
The doctor’s expression softened a little. The doctor nodded with a touch of self-importance. “You can take him back once he wakes up. Make sure he gets some rest when you do.”
“I understand. I’ll pass that along.”
With the doctor’s permission, Rocky was finally able to enter the ward. The first thing he saw was Tang Xiao lying flat on the hospital bed.
Tang Xiao’s face was still pale. Without his glasses, his raven-black lashes cast shadows beneath his eyes, and his pale pink lips had lost their color. He looked fragile and delicate, as if he might shatter at any moment.
Rocky stared, spellbound. A few minutes later, Tang Xiao’s lashes trembled, and his eyes opened.
A haze clouded those dark eyes, but they quickly cleared.
“You’re awake.” Rocky sat beside the bed and poured Tang Xiao a glass of water. “I’ve settled the medical bill. You scared me to death. What happened? Weren’t you back at the dorm resting? Why were you in the lab, and how did you get so badly hurt?”
“It’s a long story.” Tang Xiao sat up and took the water. After a sip, he saw his health had returned to normal. As soon as he could move again, he checked the little monster’s favorability.
428 Favorability: 25
It had increased by a full 25 points. In a dating sim, that would be enough to reach the initial level of friendship. Tang Xiao drew a soft breath, remembered something, and checked his redeemable points instead.
Unfortunately, his points had only increased by 17. That meant he couldn’t lower the little monster’s favorability on purpose and then raise it again to farm points. The favorability points for each person could only be farmed once.
Rocky looked at Tang Xiao earnestly. “Tang, there’s something I think I should tell you first.”
“What?” Seeing how serious he was, Tang Xiao set down his glass.
“You don’t need to spend so much time and energy on 428,” Rocky said. “You’ve read the project files, right?”
Tang Xiao nodded.
“Then you should know this was originally a Level Five project. The Third Eye invested a huge amount of resources in it and had high hopes, but that’s over now. 428 should have been disposed of by this point.”
“This might sound a little harsh, but compared to 428, you should focus more on other things. Mr. Bard thinks highly of you. This is a great opportunity, and you shouldn’t waste your precious time and intelligence...”
Watching Rocky ramble on after apparently pressing some kind of button, Tang Xiao felt a little troubled. How had he never noticed Rocky’s gift for talking so much before?
Intelligence? What intelligence did he have? Gaming intelligence?
Tang Xiao complained to himself.
But this really was a problem he needed to solve.
Although he had temporarily delayed the Third Eye’s decision to dispose of 428, the little monster would still be destroyed once this extra project was finished—unless it demonstrated some additional value.
Tang Xiao hadn’t been worried before. Judging by the little monster’s current evolution, he only needed to repeat the previous process and get 428 to demonstrate some value. But judging from Rocky’s attitude now, it seemed that wouldn’t be enough.
“Will 428 definitely be disposed of?” Tang Xiao asked in confusion. “Even if it still has value?”
Rocky hesitated, then looked around. The doctor happened to be away—perhaps they had gone to the bathroom—and only then did Rocky speak. “That’s right. I can’t explain exactly what happened, but I can say there was an incident with this project before... In short, the people above no longer trust Bard. He’s already doing everything he can just to keep his own rank from being lowered. There’s no way he can protect 428 too.”
“But isn’t 428 a King of Fungi spore?” Tang Xiao asked. “It’s valuable enough just as a specimen. Why are they so eager to destroy it?”
“428 isn’t the only spore of the King of Fungi. They’ve more or less finished studying it, and there’s no need to keep it alive,” Rocky said. “That way, those lunatics won’t get any ideas.”
“Those lunatics?” Tang Xiao asked, puzzled.
“The Return Sect,” Rocky said. “Don’t you ever watch the news?”
Tang Xiao casually made up an excuse. “I usually read more books...”
“It’s nothing much, really. They’re just a bunch of cultists who worship fungi.” Rocky glossed over the subject. “Anyway, the only reason 428 has survived this long is that Bard fought hard for it. He still needs to wring the last bit of value out of 428, but once this project is finished, 428 will probably be disposed of. I thought I should let you know.”
Tang Xiao lowered his head, deep in thought. Seeing this, Rocky thought he’d persuaded him and continued to ramble. “For researchers like you, your time when you’re young is precious. Your brain is at its most active then, and that’s when you can come up with the most ideas.”
“Rocky.” Tang Xiao interrupted him. “Why are you investing in me?”
To be honest, Tang Xiao had found it strange from the beginning.
Rocky’s abilities and background were far beyond those of an ordinary newcomer, judging by how much he knew about 428’s origins, how easily he’d covered the points, and how familiar he was with this organization.
Did someone like that really need to invest in Tang Xiao? Even if he mistook him for a genius, there was no guarantee that someone with genius syndrome would accomplish anything. And even if he did, research took far too long.
The effort and the return were completely out of proportion.
Rocky met Tang Xiao’s dark eyes. He had initially wanted to laugh it off, but Tang Xiao’s gaze never left him.
There wasn’t really anything he couldn’t say. The only reason Rocky had taken an interest in Tang Xiao was that he liked smart people.
Just as some people liked money and others liked good looks, Rocky was naturally drawn to people with high IQs.
This work environment was his comfort zone.
As for Tang Xiao, to be honest, Rocky hadn’t thought much of him when they first met in the lab. But after the attack, when he saw the young man again in the kitchen, Tang Xiao’s strikingly beautiful face remained calm despite his severe injuries—and it instantly struck a chord with Rocky.
Even more so than all the highly intelligent geniuses he’d met before.
The doctor still hadn’t returned, and the infirmary was unusually quiet. Tang Xiao still held the disposable cup Rocky had handed him. The water was pleasantly warm, and his hands, cold from blood loss, were gradually warming up too.
The blond young man still hadn’t said a word. His blue eyes were fixed on Tang Xiao, and Tang Xiao suddenly regretted asking.
Because he suddenly realized this seemed to be a dating sim.
Wait, could this unlock another route too? He was already exhausted from dealing with 428 alone.
“Actually, you don’t have to...”
“There’s nothing I can’t say, really. I just prefer spending time with smart people.” The blond young man smiled softly. “Tang, you don’t need to doubt why I’m helping you. I want to help because you’re smart—the smartest person I’ve met so far.”
“As long as you stay that way, I’ll keep helping you.”
Tang Xiao: “...”
If he let his true self show, would this guy turn on him?
Rocky glanced at the time on his wristband. “All right, it’s getting late. The doctor doesn’t look like they’re coming back. I’ll take you home.”
They barely spoke on the way back. Rocky was very considerate; knowing Tang Xiao was still a patient, he supported him the whole way. When they reached the dorm, Tang Xiao thanked Rocky, closed the door, then lay back on his single bed and let out a deep sigh.
He’d just learned the truth about this game in real life, and then one crisis after another had come crashing down on him, leaving him no time to think.
Next, he had to figure out a way to complete the main quest...
As he thought about it, Tang Xiao began to feel drowsy. Half asleep, he seemed to hear a rustling sound nearby. Since he was surrounded by single dorm rooms, he figured the researchers had finally finished work and come back. He didn’t pay much attention and let himself drift deeper into sleep.
“Xi... xi...”
Who was laughing so loudly in the middle of the night?
Tang Xiao tried to roll over but couldn’t. He frowned. A strange scent filled his nose, like the smell of dew and soil while walking through a forest after the rain.
“Xiao... Xiao...”
“Xiao...”
So noisy. Who was it? Were they going to let him sleep or not?
Tang Xiao impatiently waved toward the sound, but then he couldn’t pull his hand back. His palm had sunk into something soft and damp, and something licked the center of it.
Tang Xiao instantly woke up completely.
The moment he opened his eyes, his entire field of vision was filled with blood red. A blurry, blood-red humanoid monster was leaning over him. It had no head above the neck; in its place were branch-like strands of mycelium, with orange-yellow vertical pupils between them, like clusters of golden fruit.
A sanity-shattering sight.
In that instant, Tang Xiao’s heart rate shot up until he nearly got forcibly logged out of the game. His own heartbeat pounded in his ears as he yanked his hand free and scrambled, trying to climb off the bed.
He couldn’t.
Several whips lined with bony rods extended from the humanoid monster’s back. Like spread-open ribs, they surrounded the entire single bed and trapped their prey securely inside the cage.