[Warning] This chapter contains graphic and gory scenes that may be unsettling for some readers. Please proceed with caution and take care of yourself while reading.
Chapter 2 – The Hanging Heart Finally Died
“What use is a power like defecation, urination, or farting? Who’d use that to kill a mutant? Are we supposed to have a farting contest to the death?!”
Yu Zhi was still reeling from the absurdity of his newfound ability when a loud crash startled him. He turned to see the dreadlocked guy sprawled on the floor beside his overturned wheelchair, face ashen.
Clearly terrified, the man instinctively raised his casted right arm, waving it in front of him as if trying to ward off some invisible threat. “What the hell… What the hell is that?!”
Yu Zhi’s eyes widened. He wasn’t the only one who saw it. This wasn’t tinnitus, hallucinations, or a delusion. This was real.
Oddly, the dreadlocked guy’s panic calmed Yu Zhi. The situation was so bizarre, so utterly detached from reality, it felt like he was in a disaster movie or a survival game. It gave him a sense of detachment, like an outsider observing the chaos.
Yu Zhi remembered the woman’s voice: Main quest… As if on cue, the translucent screen in front of him switched to a new interface.
[Main Quest 1: Kill a mutant nearby.]
[Quest Objective: Countdown of six hours, kill at least one mutant within the current restricted area. You cannot enter or exit the restricted area until the quest is completed. Please make sure to actively complete the quest.]
[Completion Reward: 100 universal coins.]
[Failure Penalty: Death.]
Two lines of small text appeared in the lower right corner.
[Live Room H310000: Streaming]
[Online Viewers: 1]
Quest, live stream, powers… it was all too familiar. It was like that novel. Yu Zhi pressed his lips together, a chill running down his spine. If this “system” could make them see these things, it could just as easily kill them.
He wasn’t ready to die. He had to complete the quest.
With a blink, Yu Zhi dismissed the screen. He walked to the door and tried the handle. It opened. He peeked out, but Dr. Chen was gone. Faint voices drifted from down the hallway.
Yu Zhi closed the door and turned to the window. Outside, the familiar hospital grounds were bathed in the dim glow of streetlights. The road was deserted except for two sparrows squabbling on their way to a two-meter wall. Beyond the wall, a cacophony of car horns blared from the supposedly “no-horn” zone, punctuated by the shouts of passersby.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Yu Zhi cautiously opened the window just wide enough to slip his hand through. He extended a finger, and it met an invisible barrier with a sharp tap.
There was a transparent wall trapping them inside the building. The restricted area was limited to the hospital, but how many floors?
“Bro, bro…” a trembling voice called from below.
Yu Zhi looked down. The dreadlocked guy, face pale and eyes dazed, seemed to have accepted his grim reality. “Did you… did you see it?” he stammered.
“See what?” Yu Zhi replied.
“The system! The live stream! The main quest to kill a mutant!” the man blurted out. “After that creepy woman’s voice, it just popped up in front of me, like a game! Don’t you see it?”
“I saw it,” Yu Zhi confirmed, choosing not to mention his own lack of powers. He felt a strange sense of camaraderie with this terrified stranger. Misery loves company, he thought wryly as he helped the man back into his wheelchair.
The dreadlocked guy, relieved to find an ally, looked up at Yu Zhi with newfound hope. Yu Zhi’s dark eyes, larger than average and devoid of fear, gave him the impression of someone capable, someone who knew what to do.
“Bro, my name is Lu Liming, but you can call me Xiao Ming,” he said, clutching Yu Zhi’s hand like a lifeline.
“Yu Zhi,” he replied.
“Okay, Yu bro,” Lu Liming said, “do you know what these ‘mutants’ are?”
“Not sure,” Yu Zhi admitted.
Not sure, not unaware… Lu Liming was increasingly convinced this was a seasoned pro. He quickly blurted out, “Bro, I’m 25. My parents run a research institute in the capital. We’re loaded. We have houses all over the country, eight in H City alone! Save me, and you can have any amount of money you want!”
Yu Zhi was taken aback. He’d thought this guy was at the bottom of the food chain, but it turned out he was born at the finish line. After a moment of silence, he said, “Money’s useless now.”
Lu Liming grinned. “Bro, as expected! You’ve already figured out the new world order!”
Yu Zhi just stared at him.
“My family also has cruise ships and planes,” Lu Liming continued, desperation creeping into his voice. “What do you think about those, bro?” He’d come to H City alone for a vacation. He had no family here, and his fair-weather friends had vanished the moment he needed them. With his injuries, he was as good as dead.
Seeing Yu Zhi’s continued silence, Lu Liming tried a different tactic. “Bro,” he said with a forced smile, “what do you think of me?”
Yu Zhi frowned, confused.
“I’m 185 cm tall, weigh 130 kg, six-pack abs…”
“What?!” Yu Zhi recoiled, snatching his hand away. “You want me to save you and you’re trying to hit on me?!”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Lu Liming stammered, trying to explain that he was offering to be Yu Zhi’s servant, to do anything he needed.
Before he could finish, a chime echoed through the air. “Ding dong—”
Lu Liming froze, terrified.
A childish, mechanical voice announced: “System warm reminder. The first Earth resident to complete Main Quest 1 has appeared in H City! Please, other Earth residents, take action to complete the main quest and defend the Earth!” The message was repeated three times, each repetition more urgent than the last.
Then, everyone’s system panels displayed a video feed. It was a crystal-clear image, taken from a high angle, showing the interior of an operating room. A tall figure in surgical scrubs stood beside the operating table, raising a scalpel and plunging it into the patient’s heart.
The patient’s vitals flatlined, and the monitoring equipment shrieked. Screams erupted in the operating room.
“Ah—”
“Ah!!!!”
“Someone’s been killed!!!”
A system prompt appeared on the screen:
[Kill Mutant: 1/1.]
[You have completed Main Quest 1.]
The man, unfazed, picked up another scalpel and walked towards the operating room door. Five people were huddled against the door, desperately trying to open it, but it was locked.
A nurse outside the door collapsed to the floor, hands trembling as she clutched her throat. “Dr. Fu,” she pleaded, “I’ve assisted you in countless surgeries! I’m human! I’m not a mutant…”
The man, his face hidden behind a surgical mask, only his dark, narrow eyes visible, stood before her. A streak of blood painted his eyelid, extending up to his temple, giving him a demonic appearance. “The task didn’t specify what a mutant is,” he said calmly. “You could be one.”
He slashed her throat. The nurse fell back, clutching her wound.
System: [Kill Mutant: 2/1.]
The remaining four people were paralyzed with fear. A male doctor cowered in the corner. “Dr. Fu, you’ve completed the task! Can you let us go now…?”
The man scoffed. “Letting you out is too dangerous.”
The male doctor’s face paled. “Fu Suxi, you’re insane!” he shouted. “There are four of us! You think you can take us all on?!” He shoved a nurse towards Fu Suxi, using the distraction to grab a nearby chair and swing it at the man’s head.
Fu Suxi, with inhuman speed, slashed the nurse’s throat with one hand, dodged the chair, and sent the male doctor flying with a single kick.
[Kill Mutant: 3/1.]
“Ah ah ah ah—”
[Kill Mutant: 4/1.]
[Kill Mutant: 5/1.]
[Kill Mutant: 6/1.]
Silence fell over the operating room. Bodies lay sprawled on the blood-soaked floor, the crimson liquid pooling and flowing, consumed by milky-white cockroach larvae that crawled across the tiles.
The video ended.
The system’s voice echoed once more, urgency lacing its tone: “System warm reminder. Please, other Earth residents, take action to complete the main quest and defend the Earth!”
A deathly silence descended upon the outpatient room. Lu Liming, his face drained of all color, swallowed hard. The message was clear: killing humans also counted towards completing Main Quest 1. Mutants could be anything, anyone. To each person, everyone else was a potential mutant. And killing was undeniably easier than hunting down unknown creatures…
Lu Liming glanced at Yu Zhi, his heart pounding. He can’t be thinking of killing me, can he?
But Yu Zhi wasn’t thinking about the quest at all. He was frozen, fixated on the name he’d just heard: Fu Suxi. The man in the video was the spitting image of the protagonist from the novel.
The tension that had been building in his chest finally snapped. The real world had become that apocalyptic novel. He was just a nameless passerby from H University, destined to be a footnote in the grand scheme of things.
And to make matters worse, he now knew where this psychotic protagonist was here in H University First Affiliated Hospital. The very hospital he was in.
Yu Zhi couldn’t help but curse his luck. Life is precious, and now I have two life-threatening problems to deal with! There’s no such thing as the worst luck, only worse.
So he became oart of the novel world not the other way around?