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C14 —- Contaminated – UntamedAlley
11-14 minutes
Mu Sichen might have just been a college student living in a peaceful era, but he wasn’t naive or childish.
The death of the four players made it clear to him that this was not a safe world and it was impossible to complete the mission without any sacrifice.
But first of all, the sacrifice had to be a decision made by himself, not others, and no one could make the decision for Shen Jiyue.
More importantly, the cost of this sacrifice was too great.
Shen Jiyue was able to maintain a strong faith and remain unmoved despite his mutation into a monster, and he could even face the ugliness and weirdness in himself.
This proved that for Shen Jiyue, faith was more important than life.
The so-called cure for the patient, on the contrary, wasn’t to kill Shen Jiyue, but precisely to contaminate his spirit and lose the faith that sustained his mind.
This was probably more upsetting to Shen Jiyue than the loss of his life.
Mu Sichen could not approve of this kind of behavior.
If possible, Mu Sichen would like to hit Yao Wangping with his pickaxe, knocking his sensible and indifferent head. But now he still needed to get information from Yao Wangping, it wasn’t appropriate to make a stalemate.
Mu Sichen asked indifferently: “Are you also like me, you were a family member when you entered the sanatorium and became a doctor after ‘treating’ a patient?”
“No, I was a patient.” Yao Wangping said, “This sanatorium automatically distinguishes people’s beliefs, and I could be considered a heretic in the town and became a patient as soon as I came in.”
“How does a patient become a doctor?”
Yao Wangping said, “The family is already transforming into a patient, and by turning the family into a patient completely, the identity of the family and the patient can be interchanged. After this, as long as one more patient is treated, one can become a medical doctor.”
“It looks like as long as I become a doctor, I am safe in this sanatorium.” Mu Sichen said.
“It’s not like that.” Yao Wangping said, “Doctors have the obligation to actively look for patients, and if a doctor fails to turn in a patient every day, he or she will be demoted to a family member the next day.”
“Doctors are also in danger, what about volunteers?” Mu Sichen asked.
Yao Wangping: “Volunteers are the most stable and special, but also the most useless presence in the nursing home. Their identity will not be transformed, but they also have little ability to harm people and will only assist doctors in their actions. Once they become doctors, they can order volunteers to do anything, so don’t care about them, just try to become a doctor.”
With Yao Wangping’s explanation, Mu Sichen finally figured out the rules here.
Among the four identities of the sanatorium, the volunteers were convinced of the transformation of the believers of the big eye, even if their bodies were full of blister eyes, they would only feel happy, they had no possibility of turning into patients, the identity was the most stable, and they could be put aside for the time being without consideration.
The next three identities were patients – family members – medical staff, in fact, all three were transformed from ordinary townspeople or heretics. They didn’t believe in the big eye, they were the only remaining mentally normal people in the town of Tongzhi, that was, survivors.
These three identities were pitted against each other. Patients could become family members by turning them into patients, and family members could become doctors by treating patients, while doctors needed to go outside to find people and find patients to bring into the sanatorium in order not to be demoted.
The more Mu Sichen thought about it, the more he felt that this rule was very similar to a pyramid scheme. With this rule in place, it allowed survivors to kill each other and victimize other survivors just so they could become doctors and be safe for a day.
Big Eye didn’t have to do anything and the survivors would send believers for him.
“What happens to the patients who are treated? They become volunteers?”
“No, they will be discharged.” Yao Wangping said, “They will accept the body mutation from the heart, go to the ground floor to get their medical records and then leave the hospital with devotion.”
Mu Sichen: “Discharge? What about us?”
Yao Wangping: “When a patient is discharged, the family and doctors get contribution points and can leave the sanatorium after 19:30 to go back to rest and continue to come to the sanatorium the next day to take care of new patients. Volunteers can get enough contribution points to leave freely when the time comes, as long as they work on time every day and do not leave their posts without permission.”
Mu Sichen found a hint of disobedience in this regulation, and asked, “Then wouldn’t it mean that except for patients who are discharged and become volunteers, survivors cannot leave this sanatorium at all? That is to say, as long as one does not believe in the big eye, it is simply impossible to leave this place.”
“So what? Our purpose is not to escape the sanatorium, but to find the ‘pillar’. You should stop nagging and go treat your patients, we have to search rooms for clues to the ‘pillar’.” Yao Wangping urged.
“What exactly is the ‘pillar’? Why do we have to search for it room by room?”
Yao Wangping shook his head: “Each ‘pillar’ has a different form of existence, and no one knows exactly what it will look like. It may be a dependent object, it may be an item with evil properties, it may be a painting, a piece of paper, a mirror, a cloud of air …… In short, it is a huge energy that is enough to support the field and can be attached to any object and living being without a specific shape.”
“Then how to find it?”
Yao Wangping: “‘Pillar’ must be in the sanatorium, we check each room and find the special energy collection.”
Mu Sichen thought Yao Wangping’s approach was too simple and crude, and he had a strong sense of unease in his heart.
He felt that if he acted according to the rules of the sanatorium, he would only be bound by the rules and trapped in this sanatorium, and it would be impossible to complete the mission.
“This is also your first time in the sanatorium today, right? Where did you learn about these rules?” Mu Sichen asked.
Yao Wangping looked at the time and said with some impatience, “Why do you have so many questions, of course it was the other companions who passed on the news, do you think we are the only one who came to Tongzhi Town?”
With the rules of this hospital, could someone really pass the message on? What kind of person passed on the message to Yao Wangping? Mu Sichen fell into deep thought.
When Yao Wangping saw that Mu Sichen still didn’t act, he said urgently, “The doctors will go out to search for patients before 14:00, 14:00 to 19:30 is the treatment time, now it’s 10:30, we still have three and a half hours. I’ll give you half an hour to become a doctor, come quickly to meet me on the first floor at that time.”
After saying that, he walked out of the office and no longer paid attention to Mu Sichen.
Mu Sichen was full of doubts, he felt that the current information in the sanatorium wasn’t clear enough, rash action may cause him to fall into the trap.
If he were the Big Eye, how could he not know that the “pillar” was crucial and not use the strongest power to guard the “pillar”?
Would Big Eye really let the heretics operate in the sanatorium and destroy his “pillar” when he was aware of the existence of heretics in Tongzhi town?
It must not be that simple.
Mu Sichen spread his hand, the blister eyes on his palm and the back of his hand didn’t disappear because of Qin Zu’s totem, but became more vivid, the black dots in the blister eyes like eyes began to turn back and forth, as if they had their own consciousness, and were watching Mu Sichen.
Mu Sichen’s gaze was aligned with the blister’s eye, and a chill arose in his heart, almost causing his San value to fall.
He didn’t dare to look at the blister eye again, he quickly hid his hand under the cloak.
Anyone with a normal mindset, seeing their body turn into this, would be eager to get out of trouble, and even without hesitation, harm others for this.
Once such a thought arose, they would be governed by the rules of the sanatorium, the patient contaminated the family, the family treated the patient to become a doctor, the doctor went outside to get a new patient in order not to lower his status, and like a horror movie, this chain of contamination went on indefinitely.
Mu Sichen returned to the ward and saw Shen Jiyue lying on the bed, peacefully closing his eyes as if he was waiting for death.
He didn’t even look at Mu Sichen.
Mu Sichen picked up Shen Jiyue’s medical record again, and his eyes fell on the third entry, “family persuasion”.
It was recorded that yesterday a family member was blessed by the big-eye in front of Shen Jiyue, and Shen Jiyue was so shocked by this scene that his spirit was loosened.
Combined with the rules described by Yao Wangping, Mu Sichen had reason to suspect that the family member yesterday, because of the treatment failure, didn’t receive contribution points, and went mad after being transformed into a patient, bringing great excitement to Shen Jiyue, but he still withstood the blow.
Mu Sichen felt that he needed to understand Shen Jiyue’s thoughts.
He moved a chair and sat by Shen Jiyue’s bed, “Shen Jiyue, let’s have a chat.”
“You’d better stay away from me.” Shen Jiyue closed his eyes, “I won’t believe in that disgusting eye.”
Mu Sichen asked, “Do you know that when families cure patients, they become relatively safe doctors; if they don’t cure patients, the families become patients under constant contamination?”
Shen Jiyue opened her eyes and looked at Mushen seriously with those bulging frog eyes.
“It seems you know, then why did you still kick me out? Shouldn’t you try to turn me into a patient?” Mu Sihen asked.
Before, Mu Sichen knew nothing about the rules, if Shen Jiyue also didn’t know, that was okay, but he obviously knew, So, the family members who were unwilling to join the big eye in the past were just acting.
Because in the face of the know-nothing Mu Sichen, the best option was to contaminate him and turn him into a patient so that Shen Jiyue could become a family member to get out of it.
But Shen Jiyue didn’t do that.
“It seems that you already know the rules,” Shen Jiyue said, “I advise you not to do what you do to help the enemy, and rather become a patient than try to become a doctor.”
“Why?” Mu Sichen asked.
Shen Jiyue said, “Once you act according to the rules of the sanatorium, it means that this person identifies with the underlying logic of Tongzhi town from the bottom of his heart. Even if his will is strong, he will be invisibly contaminated and will never be able to escape from here.”
“Contaminated?” Mu Sichen remembered how Yao Wangping, who was clearly the person sent by Xiangping Town to save the survivors, was able to push the patient who was a survivor into the fire without hesitation.
Mu Sichen thought at the time that Yao Wangping was extremely sensible to the point of ruthlessness, but now that he thought about it, maybe he had been silently contaminated without realizing it.
Could Yao Wangping be contaminated even though he was guarded by Qin Zu’s totem? Mu Sichen frowned.