Chapter 101 - The Institute (42)

Several people walked to the entrance of the dining hall eagerly, going through the familiar medication process again under the eagle eyes of the nurses. The seemingly life-saving process had become more and more strict as the days went by, the nurses would stand over the players like ominous hanging ghosts and maliciously stare at them as they swallowed the pills. The greed and hunger in their eyes only grew stronger and thicker as if what they were staring at weren't actually humans but delicious white pigs that were slowly being fattened to perfection.

Chu Yi swept through the bottles in the hands of the nurses without a trace, took the pills and swallowed it expressionlessly, their cells were being strengthened, then destroyed, then renewed with life again, afterwards the cycle would repeat. Some cells would fail to be renewed and would just continue the process of being strengthened, the destroyed eventually mutating into the monsters. Some cells would strenuously accept life and would under the never ending destruction, be refined into better cells. A newer evolution. But what if, there was a one in a million chance that in this cycle is repeated so many times, a new type of cell was formed. One that would autonomously strengthen and destroy itself but would also create life...on its own.

Because in order to create life, something .has to be destroyed.

Chu Yi stored this inexplicable idea in his heart, when he looked up, he was surprised to know that he could somehow hear the conversation between the head nurse and other nurses walking away some steps away.

"How much longer do we have to wait, it smells so good."

"A little longer, 'they' are almost ready."

The sound without ups and downs gradually drifted away in the empty corridor, and leaving the players to continue to play around.

In fact, the atmosphere of the dining hall is not as good as before,

Somehow the tension between players had propelled to new heights, from the bits and pieces that Chu Yi had put together, it can only be assumed that during a search, two groups of players had collided and some of the players from the yellow group, who had entered the playing field first had intentionally or unintentionally used a few players from the red group as scapegoats by deliberately inducing them to go to the more deadly areas and then running away at the first sight of danger.

A few of the red players were provoked and started a fight although they eventually broke up, the air between them had gone completely sour. 

Chu Yi and the others sat to the corner, although faintly marginalized into the clique of the red group, They neither had any connections nor did they explore the Instance together but regardless, they weren't in Mu Fang's group either.

They were neutral.

There were several such scattered neutral groups in the dining hall, they stood away from the rest and watched the chaos in front of them with the cold eyes of a bystander. 

From the corner of his eyes, Chu Yi saw Mu Fang suddenly stand up, as the only official player, his every move was usually under the watch of all the other players and this new action instantly caused the room to fall into tense silence,

"Everyone, I have a suggestion and it needs the cooperation of all the 'humans' in this room."

Mu Fang was satisfied when most of thebplayers gave him their full attention,

"We can't delay any longer, it is already the third week of the month. We don't have much time left, I believe we've all collected sufficient clues and information on our own to have an idea of what's going on in the Institute. I won't ask you to share, mainly because it's your own progress and we have no right to request it, even if its for the good of all of us– "

Chao Bin scoffed and rolled his eyes, "I usually only see this type of green tea bitch maneuver in K-dramas, you really opened my eyes today."

Chao Bin's voice wasn't low and in the already quiet room, it was frightening clear to the ears of all the occupants of the hall, snickers and low chuckles instantly erupted in the room, although quickly silenced, it still couldn't stop Mu Fang's face from turning green in frustration.

Taking a deep breath, Mu Fang calmed down and continued to speak regardless of Chao Bin's ridicule.

"Considering all this, there is one place I don't believe any of the players have explored as of yet. The basement floor."

The previously casual air, quickly became somber. All the players had happened upon the open basement floor at some point, there was no need to say anything else.

"Rusty iron plates, peeling walls, damp and moldy corners from leaking rain, and moss filling in the gaps. The only thing that barred them from entrance was rusty red iron gate that stood tall against the backdrop of darkness.'

This was guaranteed to be the most dangerous place in the Institute and no one had ventured pass the open gates as of yet.

Seeing that all of then were quiet, a triumphant look appeared in My Fangs eyes, "If we go by ourselves, we're bound to have face all the danger below without anyone to help us. Therefore, I have a suggestion, let all of us including the red group explore the basement floor as a collective. There's safety in numbers, we can pool our intelligence and we can also have more strength to fight off what is down there!"

The room fell silent.

From his peripheral vision, Mu Fang saw that Chao Bin wanted to speak again and with a twitch of his lips, he quickly nudged one of the players in his team with faintly gritted teeth, prompting them pointedly,

"Are you guys willing to put aside a differences and work towards surviving together?"

The players were startled for a second and then quickly caught onto the hint and echoed Mu Fang's words enthusiastically,

"Yes! We're willing!"

Seeing that the players were still not speaking up, one of Mu Fang's group member, took the opportunity to brush favorability points and scolded the others,

"What are you hesitating for!"

The man's voice was shrill and jarring, "If it were not for the kindness of Mu Fang, we would not care about the life and death of you people. Here is not black city where the veterans get rewards for helping out newcomers, who else but Mu Fang would care so much about whether you live or die. Some of you are already not a thing and you still have the gall to doubt Mu Fang's vision. He's the only person who wants to give you guys a way to live!"

The man jeered unkindly, "It's fine if you don't appreciate his kindness, but when you die later, you better not say you weren't given a chance!"

Mu Fang gave the player a warning look, then turned his head to calm down and said to them: "If you stay in the top floor, with the current situation, it will probably be a dead end."

"If you follow me, I will try my best to ensure your safety."

After he had finished speaking, Chao Bin actually had the urge to tear off Mu Fang's face to see if he could find another one hiding underneath–

Only after hypocritically waiting for the man to finish berating them for not appreciating a non-existent kindness, then sleazily hopping in with the savior spiel, did this mans face not hurt from its thickness!

"I'm in."

The sudden voice instantly broke the oppressive stalemate they were in.

Everyone glanced over.

Chu Yi propped his head up lazily, calmly accepting the baptism of everyone's sight and scrutiny and stared deep into the eyes of Mu Fang's.

The eyes that were cast upon him, carried shock, wonder and even some contempt, there were some with unabashed salivation in their eyes and some that carried superiority.

Chu Yi moved his limbs casually as if he hadn't felt anything, even stretched out and yawned boredly as this farce.

Then he continued, "If it'll get you to shut up, then I'm in." 

Chao Bin who had previously been bewildered by Chu Yi's sudden change of heart was immediately set at ease, he didn't care much about what Mu Fang was planning but would never give up a chance to humiliate him, "Me too, my ears are about to develop sores from listening to you for so long."

The air instantly became strange again,

Some yellow players wanted to speak angrily, but they were all stopped by Mu Fang,

He looked at them with sincere eyes, "Although, you doubt me, I'm willing to look pass this and do my best to prove to you all that, that if we work together, regardless our 'differences', then we'll all survive this place."

His words would be much more believable, if he would stop singling out and insinuating to the red group.

Tang Shun glanced between his two teammates and turned to Mu Fang with a signature gentle smile, " I'm in as well, excuse my other teammates–"

Mu Fang's sincere smile grew deeper, in the end they still had to give him face,

"–They're not very tolerant of bullshit."

He almost coughed up blood in anger– what was wrong with these people, he couldn't even continue to keep up his tolerant smile and with a gesture to the others, he sat back down, not wanting to look at the three anymore.

The other players looked around and eventually they all came to the decision to agree, there was not much harm anyways and at the very least, the promise of an official player could count for something.

After the cooperation matter was settled, the players headed by Mu Fang quickly finalized the plan to venture down to the negative second floor for an exploration during the night of the next day.

But in the end, this plan is still not insured. Judging by the attitude of the nurses and the explicit rule to never go down into the basement, then they could already sense the upcoming life-threatening situation that they'd have to go through,

Nevertheless, cowardice wasn't an option, this was most probably the last stretch of the main mission, as long as they managed to survive, most of the players believed their lives would be guaranteed then.

After deciding on the plan, although the atmosphere was still suppressed for a while, eventually the several different groups in the dining hall erupted in discussion.

Under mutual disadvantage, the weaker players had gathered together as a collective much like in the jungle, where the weak animals would gather together to find a way to survive. Some of these small groups look at the heads of the stronger players and flatter them vigorously; others make their own decisions and want to take advantage of everything

The small group: made up of mostly first copy players, who were talking now was just trying to take advantage. They didn't want to follow Mu Fang to risk their lives, and now they were harboring deceitful hearts filled with small calculation.

"Even if we go we won't be of much help.."

As we all know, in horror copies, the night is definitely an eternal theme that cannot be avoided.

The probability of a general terror situation occurring at night is far greater than during the day, and it is also much more dangerous and more likely to end up in death.

"There are so many of us, can Mu Fang really take care of all us? In the end, we who can't provide much to them would probably just be abandoned. And didn't the nurse say that the negative second floor is not a good place, why should we take the initiative to go?"

"That's right... And in this situation, the ward is the safest, right? There is still the matter of the life medicine, what if we get caught up in the basement and miss it. We're all pink players, if we don't take the pill, aren't we just asking for death."

The players in these small groups dragged their feet, hesitating.

"How about this.."

"Otherwise we will stay in the ward later?"

One player quietly raised his eyebrows, "Anyway I'm not going, we really only have to survive for the rest of the month and its not like we can't inferior the mastermind from the clues already here. It's probably the Federation anyways, why do I need to take risks, just stay in the ward and enjoy the benefits."

"Yes. The difficulty of this dungeon is only C...It's good if we can survive, and who cares about finding out more."

"Right, then we'll all stay. When they come back later, just say we overslept. They can't prove anything anyways."

"Exactly. Then that's that."

The Institute was gradually revealing the shortcomings in this fractured player group.