HM Chapter 19

Gold felt goosebumps rise on her back.

Although Yuan Yuxue's words were unfinished, she seemed to understand their underlying implication. Her fingers, resting on her knees, dug slightly into her soft skin. Her throat bobbed nervously as she hesitantly said, "It shouldn’t be...right?"

No one spoke.

In the unbearable silence, the door connecting the two areas suddenly closed. Some of the silver, smooth surfaces of the equipment reflected the players' images like mirrors.

With countless reflective surfaces, the number of shadows multiplied infinitely.

As Yuan Yuxue sensed something amiss and looked over, countless pale, boneless hands suddenly sprang from the equipment, targeting the three players still standing there.

The hands moved too quickly, far beyond normal human reaction time.

Even though Yuan Yuxue clearly saw their shapes, the sheer number was overwhelming. A slight pause in such a situation was fatal. Being touched by one hand meant being quickly entangled by countless others.

Curly and Gold faced the same predicament.

Countless hands wrapped around them, trapping the players tightly, engulfing them and forming them into seamless cocoons.

After the mutation, the area fell silent again, the players’ figures obscured, leaving only three large, bizarre spheres made of countless intertwining hands.

The smooth silver equipment shone brightly under the light.

……

Yuan Yuxue woke up.

He forgot why he lost consciousness. This was an extremely rare occurrence for him.

When Yuan Yuxue opened his eyes, he found himself in an enclosed medical room with no windows. Next to him was a surgical table over a meter high, the only light source coming from the operating lamp.

He was strapped to a mechanical chair.

It was the same chair they had seen in the area with the medical equipment, the most sinister-looking one.

There were some subtle differences, though. The chair Yuan Yuxue had seen earlier was old and mottled, with some parts slightly oxidized and the connecting pipes stained with dried blood. This machine, however, looked brand new—so new that when Yuan Yuxue turned his head slightly, he could see his masked face reflected in the polished mechanical arm, down to the fine trembling of his eyelashes.

It looked like it had just been meticulously cleaned.

This mechanical chair had never been used.

That was an easy conclusion to reach.

Of course, it might be used now. Yuan Yuxue thought calmly.

The heavy silver shackles were all fastened on Yuan Yuxue. His wrists were tightly bound in an upward, precarious position. His legs were similarly shackled, locked in a narrow space, making it difficult to change his posture.

The shackles were so tight that the skin around them turned slightly red, looking rather pitiful.

Yuan Yuxue experimentally tugged on the chains.

The sharp tools hung above his head, very intimidating.

He wasn’t alone for long. Just as he tried to escape for the second time, clear, rhythmic footsteps approached from outside the door.

Accompanying the steady footsteps were two hurried and uncertain ones, making it sound like three people in total—

The door was suddenly pushed open.

A young man in a white doctor's coat entered first. He wore a blue medical mask, covering his face completely. Tall and quick, he reached the mechanical chair in a few strides, his eagle-like gaze locking onto the shackled Yuan Yuxue.

A dull and sinister voice emerged from under the mask.

"Come here," he said.

The hesitant footsteps followed.

Though his hands and feet were tightly bound, Yuan Yuxue's gaze was still free. He turned to look at the two people who had come in.

It was Curly and Gold.

They were wearing ill-fitting surgical gowns, without masks, their eyes darting nervously towards Yuan Yuxue.

Apart from their uneasy glances, they made no other movements.

The unfamiliar young man then spoke, "This is our test subject."

He scanned Yuan Yuxue's body with his eyes, speaking in a lofty and arrogant tone, "He is also our patient. We need to find a cure for malignant tumors from him."

Yuan Yuxue: “.”

"First, we need to bleed him," the man said. "Impure blood is the primary cause of sickness."

At his urging, Curly stepped forward, his fingers trembling as he rolled up Yuan Yuxue's sleeve. He picked up a sharp scalpel and made a shallow cut on Yuan Yuxue's wrist.

Curly's hands trembled so much that the cut was extremely shallow, like a red line on his wrist.

Yuan Yuxue looked up at him without any intense reaction.

"That's not enough," the man reprimanded Curly sternly. "How many times have I taught you? Such a shallow cut will dry up before the impure blood can flow out properly."

After his scolding, he said, "Continue! Until you do it right! If you remain this inept, practice on yourself before assisting me again!"

The threat seemed to be too terrifying. Curly closed his eyes slightly in apparent fear.

He gritted his teeth and made several more cuts of varying depths and directions, causing blood to flow. The wounds quickly bled, appearing as if inflicted upon an enemy.

Yuan Yuxue, feeling no pain, remained calm.

He watched as Curly fixed his wrist in a connected groove, allowing the blood to flow into it.

The bright red tubes filled up.

Even though the blood loss seemed small, it was near the dangerous limit for a human. Yuan Yuxue did not struggle. Against the backdrop of such massive blood loss, his skin looked exceptionally pale and translucent. His eyelashes trembled slightly, and his fingers twitched, tightening the chains.

"After draining the impure blood, we can examine the lesion," the man said, seemingly somewhat satisfied with Curly's performance. When the blood filled the tube, he nodded slightly and adjusted the mechanical chair's position.

Yuan Yuxue was laid flat by the chair's movement, his gaze now on the high ceiling and the terrifying array of tools above.

The man took one of the knives down. It was a thin blade about twenty centimeters long with fine serrations. He positioned it over Yuan Yuxue's chest, preparing to cut off his clothes when a knock came at the door. Someone called, "Director," followed by a slightly anxious voice, "There's a problem with patient number 27."

The urgent voice made the man set down the knife, somewhat displeased. "I have to handle this. You two, open the patient's chest and remove the diseased organ—oh, and remember to soak the organ in the solution for my examination."

After giving these instructions, he left hurriedly.

The small medical room fell into a tense silence, with the three players left staring at each other.

Curly broke the silence first, swallowing nervously. "How about we untie Yuan Yuxue and escape?"

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Gold exploded after a long silence. She trembled with fear and anger, "Even if we escape, how will we complete the task? We’ll be punished when we return! Didn't you hear what the doctor said? We need to soak Yuan Yuxue's organs in the solution."

"That’s the human specimen, that’s our task item."

She took a deep breath, speaking painfully, "We've searched everywhere. There’s no specimen. The essence of this task… is to make us kill each other."

"I know you can’t do it, but do you think I can?" Faced with Curly's silence, Gold's expression grew colder. "This is the last chance. If you hesitate, I'll do it."

She pushed Curly aside, picking up the scalpel the man had left, and stood before Yuan Yuxue.

"I'm sorry, don’t blame me," Gold murmured. "But our luck is different. Curly and I were made interns, but you were made the patient. So you’re the most suitable to be sacrificed..."

As she moved to plunge the scalpel into Yuan Yuxue's chest, the shackles Yuan Yuxue had been subtly pulling against snapped. Though his wrists were still shackled, he had enough freedom to maneuver. In that instant, he brought the shackle towards the scalpel, the sharp blade cutting through the chain.

In the moment Gold's pupils contracted, Yuan Yuxue reached out and swiftly snapped her neck.

Without hesitation.

A faint "crack" sounded, and Gold's body went limp, collapsing to the ground. Her head struck the mechanical chair, causing blood to flow from her forehead. She lay there with her eyes open, dead and unfulfilled.

Curly stepped back two paces.

Though Yuan Yuxue's legs were still firmly shackled to the mechanical chair, preventing him from moving freely, Curly stared at him as if seeing a terrifying monster. "I didn't mean to kill you. Please don’t kill me, Yuan Yuxue. We’re teammates..."

"We're not teammates," Yuan Yuxue, who had been quiet, suddenly spoke, his eyes lifting to look at Curly with a confused expression.

"From the start, I thought your conversation was strange," Yuan Yuxue tilted his head slightly, finally understanding, "You were mimicking my teammates."

His expression turned into one that conveyed: “I don’t understand but I respect it”.

Curly: “??”