Mental Asylum

A person on a worn down, iron-framed bed opened his eyes.

A mouldy white ceiling with traces of water seepage dripping from its corners greeted him.

[

Beep, beep, beep… System successfully linked.]

[Welcome, E-rank Thriller Trainee Zong Jiu.]

It was a room with white windowless walls on all sides, even the interior decor was sparse.

Zong Jiu was lying on his back against a rusty iron-framed bed in the centre of the room, covered by a blanket of the same colour. A chilled cup of boiled water sat on the iron cabinet to his right.

There was dead silence around him. The atmosphere was incomparably chilly in such a cramped environment.

Zong Jiu was wide awake, but he wasn't in a rush to get up. Instead, he quickly mentally digested the information he had thus far; comparing, analysing, and integrating the information he collected from the system with the information he collected from the novel.

The first competition mode was a one-man show. This meant that in this rating match, there was no teamwork necessary, nor any need to care if others lived or died. The participating trainees only had to think about how to play the best to their roles and survive to the rating evaluation at the conclusion of the first match.

The first and foremost priority was to survive. The second was to perform to the best of their abilities. Because even if they survived, they would still face the predicament of being eliminated if they received a poor evaluation from the system and the instructor.

Although the system had phrased it in a palatable way, such as having a revival chance even if they were eliminated, having read the novel, Zong Jiu understood very clearly. The penalty instance wasn't easy to break through. The novel had described the penalty instance as having a mortality rate as high as 95%, which implied that being sent to the penalty instance due to elimination by rating was basically a death sentence.

And as for how to stand out in the instance and achieve better ratings, the system had explained it not long ago.

Turn the tables when surrounded by danger, make a strong comeback against unfavourable odds, recover from seemingly impossible situations and return with vengeance… These were all able to raise the rating during evaluation. Conversely, by being blindly subservient, playing safe and cowering back, the ratings would naturally not be much to speak of at all.

In a nutshell, it would be two words: courting death.

Or, put more bluntly, encouraging everyone to be sent to their deaths.

Such a way of doing things made Zong Jiu keenly aware of a subtle hint of incongruity. The flavour of a conspiracy afoot, even.

Unfortunately, he hadn't finished reading the novel, or he would have known the ins and outs behind it all.

Zong Jiu heaved a sigh in his heart. He turned his head.

There was a rickety iron cabinet by the head of the bed.

Through the reflective metal peeling off the iron cabinet, he could clearly see what he looked like now.

White hair, light pink eyes; a blue and white striped hospital gown neatly buttoned in front; pale and slender limbs, blending in with the pale wall behind him like a large, delicate doll.

The only thing that hadn't changed was the blue E letter attached to his chest.

After looking for a while, Zong Jiu closed his eyes again, opening his own identity card in his mind.

The information on the identity card was very concise, only showing that his identity on this set was a seventeen-year-old albino boy with autism. He was generally taciturn, and had been admitted earlier today. This was a carbon copy of the novel, without any difference whatsoever.

After staying silent for some time to ensure that there weren't any other sounds in his vicinity, the young man finally rolled out of bed and got up.

It was clearly a fluid motion, but the intense dizziness and weakness in his limbs forced him to stagger, along with it an indescribable lagging sensation.

His physiological functions had been tampered with.

Zong Jiu bent his arms, simply pressing it a few times, and he came to a conclusion—

He had taken a psychotropic sedative approximately six to eight hours earlier, and there were still residual drug effects in his bloodstream.

He forcibly tightened his fingers and stiffly tried to pick up the cup of water from the metal table.

It already used to be difficult to exert strength with his hands, now added alongside a layer of drugs in his system, the cup was even more impossible to hold. Resigned, Zong Jiu had no choice but to lean closer for a look.

The cup was an ordinary stainless steel cup, but upon closer inspection, there was also a thick coat of incrustation on its outside, making it look like it had been used for some time.

A small line of blood-red letters were engraved at the bottom of the cup.

XXX City Mental Asylum.

At the same time, the cold system prompt once again rang out in the empty and narrow ward.

[The first one-man show of the Thriller Trainee has officially opened, located in the thirteenth venue: Mental Asylum.]

[Main task: survive for 3 days. Additional task: find out the existence of trainees with different identity cards in this one-man show.]

[Failure of the main task will result in direct elimination. Additional tasks are optional; success will double the rating evaluation coefficient, failure will have no impact.]

[Note that the omnidirectional 360-degree panoramic camera with no dead angles has been enabled. All trainees have entered the uncut live broadcast.]

At once, the live room which was still dark suddenly lit up, with the words 'Thriller Trainee' prominently displayed in the centre.

The contenders who had been camping outside for a long time cheered and swarmed in.

It was no wonder that the contenders were so enthusiastic, as this was the first time that the infinite loop had held such a competition catered to provide entertainment for the masses.

And once they entered, they rushed towards the highest-ranked trainees' live broadcast rooms, whereas no one would waste time to pay attention to small, invisible E-ranks like Zong Jiu.

Zong Jiu looked at the number of people in his live broadcast room, which remained stuck at zero. He withdrew from the consciousness and raised his eyes to survey around him.

The cage-like room spanned no more than a few square metres. It had a metal-framed bed, a metal cabinet, a metal cup, all of which were rusted, rudimentary, and worn out. The room looked utterly empty and isolated.

It was obvious that this place was only for mentally ill patients to rest, and did not provide spaces for freshening up or showering.

There was an iron door directly in front of the

iron-framed bed.

There was no doorknob or lock on the door,

both of which were outside the door. It could be locked from the outside, and the person inside couldn't open the door themselves.

Patients had no human rights, especially those sick in the head.

Apart from that, the only thing that concerned Zong Jiu was the dense scribble of numbers on the wall.

Right then, a clacking sound of the locks being opened came from outside the old door.

The next moment, the deformed iron door was opened with ease.

"Creak—"

A groaning chill swept in from the depths of the corridor.

The owner of the face was an aloof woman with mediocre looks wearing a slightly yellowed white nurse's uniform. When her eyes fell on the smiling Zong Jiu, the coldness and aloofness buried deep in her bones didn't show any signs of easing.

It was like she wasn't looking at a person, but at an object.

She said coldly, "Number 12, it's dinner time. The restaurant is upstairs, go up yourself."

Zong Jiu didn't say anything, dutifully roleplaying as an autistic young man.

The nurse didn't show any concern for him, either. She directly went to open the door next to his and shouted the exact same thing inside, only that this time the starting words were changed to number 13. Afterwhich, without waiting for any response, she turned and continued further downstairs with the lamp in her hand.

The corridor was very dark, so dark that it was impossible to see what was downstairs. Even with the faint glow of a lamp, it was still difficult to illuminate the deep darkness at the corner of the staircase, and all that could be indistinctly seen was the iron plates yellowed with rust and the damaged steps dripping with water.

Zong Jiu's mouth curled. He didn't stay where he was, nor did he even take another look at ward 14 next to his, and headed up the stairs.

Surprisingly, even though the ward was shabby with dirt everywhere, the dining room was unexpectedly tidy.

Light blue tiles covered the walls and the ground. One by one, everyone lined up before the window with a steel tray to get their food.

There were already quite a few people sparsely seated in the dining room, all of whom wearing the exact same hospital gown that Zong Jiu was wearing.

It was easy to tell who the thriller trainees were, as each person's ranking was attached securely to their chests. Apparently, aside from the trainees, none of the NPCs could see the badge.

Perhaps to enhance the plot progression, the dining room was almost entirely filled with patients wearing badges.

The atmosphere in the dining room was already odd before Zong Jiu walked in.

But as soon as he entered, he drew the majority of the attention.

The young white-haired man in a hospital gown walked slowly, his long, wispy white hair sliding down his shoulders like moonbeams spilled from the sky, carrying a frosty, silvery glow in the dimly lit ward.

His deep side profile hid in and out of view past the strands of his hair. Like Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty; like Adonis, the most beautiful male in ancient Greek legends—he had a captivating beauty and a charisma that transcended gender, that even without doing anything, he could effortlessly be the focus of everyone's attention.

The Thriller Trainee live broadcast blew up as the spectators in other trainee broadcast rooms all began to scream.

[Holy fuck! This one is actually here to participate in a talent show, right? That face, I'm sold. He looks even better than the Holy Son. Oh my heavens!]

[Licking it, lick lick licking it! This is what a feast for the eyes means, I finally understand it today!]

[AHHHHH charging straight for this face, I've locked on! Which one is this little brother's live stream room, I'll be right there.]

Naturally, amidst this sea of comments screaming over his attractiveness, there also existed those who sang the opposite tune.

[Come on, that's enough already. This isn't an idol talent show in the real world where you only need to look good, sing, and dance to debut. This is the Thriller Trainee show in the infinite loop that we're in. Just looking at his face is bull.]

[Concur, an E-rank newbie, looks like he'll be blown over by a breeze and like a sissy, most probably won't survive the first round, tch.]

[So what if he looks good? This venue doesn't only have the high-ranker Zhuge An, there's also the Holy Son; don't they look good too?]

"He's an E-rank newcomer."

From another table, He Jianlan, who had been observing this, turned his head back again.

"He looks pretty good."

Qin Ye used the chopsticks whose tips had been polished flat to clip the droopy vegetables in the steel plate in front of him, unworried. "If you still have the mood for that, why not observe Zhuge An and Vincent instead?"

"Vincent didn't even bother to come to the dining room, he should be trying to get a headstart."

He Jianlan's eyes imperceptibly swept across the back row. "Zhuge An is still sitting over there."

They were veterans. Qin Ye had already been through more than ten instances and was an A-rank; even though He Jianlan was only a B-rank, B was still a high-rank, not too far off behind the A-rank.

"There are already two S-ranks and three A-ranks here. And a few dozen E and F-ranks."

He Jianlan didn't finish his words, but both of them were clear on what this implied.

The instances in the infinite loop were also

divided into different levels of difficulty. The fewer people there were, the less difficult the instance would be. If it was more difficult, the relative number would increase.

"…Rather than Vincent, I'm more concerned about Zhuge An."

Qin Ye raised his head and looked across the crowd, his gaze falling on the man at the back of the room.

The handsome man with black hair hanging down loosely was seated there. His face was indifferent; from afar, he looked like an ancient painting slowly unfurling in the distance.

The only difference was the extremely striking S-rank on his chest, with a small '3' written above it.

Of the tens of thousands of thriller trainees, there were only ten S-ranks. They sat on the thrones at the top of the broadcasting studio, overlooking all living things.

And Zhuge An, a high S-ranker, was given the initial evaluation of No. 3 by the system.

There were many revered figures among the contenders of the infinite loop. The most fearsome of whom was the one whose mere utterance of his name would fill people with foreboding.

Zhuge An's name was also amidst these revered figures. He was famous for his ingenuity and possessed an ungodly wisdom, never letting anything slip. People daren't underestimate him.

He Jianlan was well aware of this. If Zhuge An were among the 'trainees with different identity cards' mentioned in the chance task, they would probably not have any power to resist.

He thought about it again, but he indeed could not think of any method to combat him.

"Since it isn't a compulsory task, it doesn't matter if we fail it. Just keep your guard up first. Don't go looking for trouble."

It wasn't wrong to keep their guards up. The main point was that the two of them were only an A-rank and a B-rank, they wouldn't dare to provoke an S-rank.

He was an S-rank, after all. In the top ten among tens of thousands of thriller trainees!

And even if they discussed it from ten thousand steps back, if there was any dire need to provoke a S-rank apart from No. 1, they would rather provoke the other eight than to provoke this unfathomable being.

Not only them, the atmosphere around the other veterans was also slightly strange.

The root cause for this was the chance task issued by the system.

There had never been such a situation in the history of the infinite loop. The instances they experienced were all team-type instances with rewards for supporting newcomers. It was rare for even two teams to meet in an instance, and the conflicts between teams were even fewer. After all, the iron law of the infinite loop was that humans were always inferior to the supernatural. If infighting was laid down in iron alongside that, then there wouldn't be many contenders left.

But now, this task broke this boundary. Just like the thriller trainees, the moment that such a rule was announced, they too knew that they might encounter infighting one day.

Fortunately, they still had to survive to see such a day first, so there was no need to think too far ahead.

After the dining hall granny gave him a stingy portion of food, Zong Jiu went to a corner with his steel tray and began to quietly dig into his meal alone. The food here was neither good nor bad. The asylum's cavalier treatment of these mental patients were visible to the naked eye, but having something was certainly better than having nothing to eat at all.

As the residual drug effects in his body began to recede and his nerve endings returned, the stiffness in his hands improved slightly, but his movements were still sluggish and carried a palpable sense of incoordination.

Zong Jiu turned a blind eye to it.

Although he had undergone numerous major and minor surgeries in the years after the accident, his hands were still unable to recover to the level of a normal person. At their worst, it was difficult to even move them. But now, thanks to his persistent efforts to strengthen them, he was able to take care of himself.

The chilly light projected from the top of the dining room was without any warmth, reflecting the mirror image of the steel tray onto the young man's light pink eyes.

Up to now, although there were many changes to the plot, it was still generally within the scope of Zong Jiu's knowledge. But soon it wouldn't be.

Because… it was less than two hours before the death of the canonical character in the plot!