Chapter 68 - The Institute (9)

Phhwwwwtt !

With a shrill whistle, the residents were hoarded back to the building, like animals into their holding pens.

After being issued the same lumpy pills, the players were once again left to their own devices.

Watching the cold backs of the nurses leave, Chao Bin turned to the two with some consternation, "What should we do now? Do we just wait?"

Chu Yi looked thoughtful, Instead of answering the question immediately however, he tilted his head to Tang Shun, 

"Have you noticed anything unusual about this place."

Tang Shun moved his eyes from where he was observing the state of the NPC's and looked curiously at Chu Yi,

Tang Shun shook his head "Everything is unusual."

Chu Yi glared, he didn't wait for his response this time

"This is a Laboratory", there was no hesitation in his voice as he spoke and neither did Tang Shun and Chao Bin seem taken aback by this sudden conjecture; this was obvious, "-but there are no doctor's .",

Tang Shun and Chao Bin paused , realization clicking in on both their faces.

Yes.

Where are the doctors?

Who exactly operated on them the night before?

"There has to be some sort of doctor in this Institute. Nevertheless since they have been hidden away from us by the system, it shows that they definitely hold critical information that could even be the key to breaking this copy. Finding Information or even finding this doctor himself, is bound to be of absolute importance to us."

The others nodded. 

Chu Yi felt restless as he thought about the mysterious doctor; someone whose medical prowess greatly exceeded even his, it would be great if he could observe his techniques up close-

"Hey! Hey you! Chu Yi! The others too!

"Come here!"

The three turned simultaneously to the source of the voice and to their suprise, it was Mu Fang and his table of lackeys which also included the wardmates of Tang Shun and Chu Yi.

This was shocking because right from the beginning, neither of the two had any plans of walking with the large band of players under Mu Fangs rule. Nevertheless ynder the repeated beckonings of the group, Chu Yi and the others finally decided to hear what they had to say.

Immediately after they arrived at the table, one of the men unceremoniously dropped an unreasonable request.

"Tell us what you've found out so far"

Chao Bin immediately puffed up and with a sneer, he cruelly mocked the man with no hesitation,

"With the thickness of your face, why don't you go and be a road block and stop hurting the eyes of innocent people."

""You-"

"Alright," Mu Fang quickly chimed before the two could start warring, " Shen Ti didn't mean it like that."

Chao Bin rolled his eyes to the high heavens, 

"And pray tell, Oh great wonderful Messiah what could he possibly mean? For I am ignorant and unable to decipher the meaning behind spoken words..."

Tang Shun turned an unexpected look towards the boy who was already tensed with defiance.

This was new.

Mu Fang was somewhat annoyed but in the end, they were the one's who called them here and therefore could only ignore the mockings of Chao Bin in order to not create a bad impression on the rest.

"What Shen Ti was trying to say, is that we would like to propose a cooperation."

Heh.

"For any information that you obtain that you think is important, you can come to us and we can exchange news that we feel are of the same relevancy."

Tang Shun raised an eyebrow and pointed out the loophole in this proposition, "What if the kind of information that we deem as important are decided to be useless by you or vice versa."

Mu Fang shrugged," If that's the case, if later on the information that you've provided turns out to be very important, we'll come back and share another piece of relevant clue with you."

"You're not the only group we plan to reach an agreement with, therefore you don't have to worry about us not being able to obtain information."

"It's a win- win for both of us in the end, and if we want to pass the copy, we have to work together."

"What do you say, are you guys in?"

Chu Yi sneered, did they even have a choice?

Although this seemed like a request, it was nothing short of a back-handed threat that they could neither refuse nor find a way out.

If they refused to join in on the cooperation, there would be a gap in the chain intelligence between the two groups. Their group would also become an outcast and would be subconsciously rejected by the rest of the players as outliers. They would be blocked out from collective planning and exchanging information between players would become hard and they may even lose their lives due to a delay in information flow.

Tang Shun seemed to think of this too and although the gentle smile never dropped, the alienation in his eyes became a point colder.

Eventually they signed a verbal agreement and left the table.

Chao Bin shook his head with a sneer, "A bunch of hypocrites."

Tang Shun looked at him, surprised that he could even figure out the hidden workings behind the seemingly harmless request

"..."

Chao Bin directly wilted.

"I've had players like this in my last instance. In the end, we were eventually pitted and became the shields to test out the kill rate of the dungeon."

Tang Shun didn't ask how he managed to survive but only patted him on the back.

At the helm of his thoughts, Chu Yi was interrupted by a painful cough.

The cough was loud and sounded clogged, as if someone was trying to vomit sticky phelgm from their esophagus. Disgusting and stomach- churning, And yet it didn't just stop, the cough continued on, getting louder and louder still , until it evolved into harsh, choked hacks as the person struggled to even breathe!

Right then, Chu Yi felt a burning itchy sensation burst out from his arm, accompanied by a rapid red rash that traveled up the length of his left hand! His fingers became red and swollen to the touch and underneath the bulging surface of his skin, he could even see that something like small black parasites clogging his veins!

The others were also subjected to various strange reactions, the more weak willed ones directly burst out into screaming! Many of them felt so painful that they could only hunch over to relieve it, Chao Bin even felt like the skin on his face was about to melt off directly to shown the glaring, white bone underneath!

He touched his face in horror! 

Blood! There was blood! 

He turned to Tang Shun and wanted to ask for help, but saw that the man's entire arm had somehow fallen directly to the ground, blood spurting continuously from the broken stump of what was left of his arms!

"Fuck! What's happening!"

Chao Bin's shouts pierced Tang Shun's heart like a sharp thorn. He wore an impassive mask on his face, as if there was no bloody stump on the floor, but he felt a little cold in his stomach. When he looked down, his clothes seemed to have been corroded and to his suprise his stomach and half of his chest were completely exposed to the air, shockingly revealing his writhing organs filled with bluish black blood! 

Chu Yi watched as everyone's bodies become deformed, an then he vomited a mouthful of black blood, followed by bleeding from all his orifices, and the fingers of both hands falling to the floor one by one!

Wow!

Looking down with interest as his body fell apart, he realized that the mangled flesh on his chest had been gruesomely torn open to reveal the red, beating heart suffocated by his cracked rib cages! 

The players cried out as they watched their companions fall to pieces beside them, almost curled up to the corner of the wall in fear, cold sweat flowing like a river on their forehead, "What the hell is going on..."

Chu Yi felt that the blood in his mouth kept pouring out, almost as if he was going to be drained of all the blood in his body! The rash on his arm had completely taken over half his being at this point and it had become so swollen, it was like a balloon that was ready to burst!

Then just as it appeared it stopped, the itching and the feeling of dieing dissipated like a wisp of smoke.

Chu Yi lowered his head and looked at his hands, his fingers were intact and did not fall off.

He immediately looked at Tang Shu, his internal organs, which had been exposed before, had also changed back to the cloth of the suit he wore at this moment.

Everyone has changed back, and what happened just now was like a distant nightmare, but at the same time, not quite.The black and red blood vomited by Chu Yi did not disappear. It still lay on the floor, evidence of the ordeal they just went through.

There was a few seconds of in the dining room as everyone processed the chaos that had just assaulted them, then, the crowd started buzzing and they broke out into heated discussion.

Chao Bin was still feeling the lingering shocks, 

"Was that...all that just now an illusion."

Chu Yi shook his head, with a slight chuckle, 

"Not quite."

"It feels more like our bodies rejection of new microscopic molecules that were injected into our bloodstream and having an excess of anti-bodies created into order to get rid of the unknown structures which in turn creates hallucination and negative reactions.",

'This is usually only the case for extremely toxic venom that is difficult to be metabolized by the human body without countless injections of sufficient dioxins that can neutralize this poison."

"...."

Tang Shun simplified Chu Yi's words for the complete layman,

" We were injected with a type of extremely toxic substance and the medicine we take everyday is the antidote.'

Oh.

"So what do we do now."

Tang Shun shook his head, and answered what Chao Bin asked at the beginning, 

"Wait."

"Unless we can find out what's truly happening in this place, we can only accept what is being done to us for now."

"But I have a feeling that the longer we wait, the more irreversible the effects will be."

Chu Yi didn't respond to Tang Shun's assurance however the light tilt at the corner of his lips betrayed his good mood.

It was only a matter of time before he turned this place completely on its head.

He couldn't forget the bet after all.