Chapter 158: Uroborus
Wen Jianyan’s expression became solemn as he took two steps back, slowly distancing himself from Luce, who was lying on the ground.
“…”
He raised his gaze and surveyed his surroundings.
In the darkness, there was an eerie silence, with only a few jars containing various human tissues slowly rolling into the distance, emitting a gradually fading rolling sound.
Drip, drip.
A vague, dripping sound seemed to come from somewhere.
Where his vision reached, everything was shrouded in an ominous shadow. Unknown dangers lurked in the darkness, making one’s throat tighten.
This speculation… was very bad.
Wen Jianyan remembered that when he entered the instance, the symptoms displayed on his wristband were “intellectual disability.”
In essence, it wasn’t a mental illness, but given the twisted context where “homosexuality” was treated as a “sexual perversion,” people could naturally be sent to mental institutions for “intellectual disability.”
As for the “sexual perversion” label he added for himself, whether it was true or not wasn’t crucial. After all, desiring any gender wouldn’t affect Wen Jianyan’s progression.
But intellectual disability was different.
In a dangerous instance like this, even if Wen Jianyan had mobilized all his energy and intelligence, he couldn’t guarantee a 100% chance of escaping.
If this symptom turned out to be true, he would likely lose his ability to think, equivalent to losing the chip to survive.
In such a perilous place, it meant certain death.
His heart pounded, his brain heated up within the skull, and cold sweat seeped from his palms.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
The most crucial thing at the moment was to understand why this ailment had appeared.
Had they violated some taboo? Broken a rule? Or was it simply that entering this laboratory would result in contamination over time?
Wen Jianyan was most concerned about the last possibility.
This judgment was too broad and almost impossible to guard against, akin to a death sentence.
He adjusted the fingers holding the flashlight, his sweaty and sticky palms warming the cold flashlight. Twisting his wrist, he quickly scanned the vast, dark room.
Clearly, there were only two people in this hall, Luce and his teammate.
Su Cheng, Blond, and Shao Yao, who belonged to Luce’s team, were not present.
There were no other branching paths on the fourth floor of the west building, and Wen Jianyan had not seen anyone along the way. In other words…
Wen Jianyan turned around, and the flashlight’s beam pierced the darkness, shining on the iron door with a gap wide open behind him.
—Obviously, they should have entered here.
Amidst the tangled clues, Wen Jianyan finally found a somewhat clear lead.
If that’s the case, the determination of “symptom occurrence” was not due to simply “entering the laboratory” or the broad and simple reason of “staying in the laboratory for too long.”
Otherwise, as teammates who acted together with Luce, Su Cheng and the others could not have escaped unharmed.
Another crucial point…
From the chaos in front of the iron door, it could be inferred that something had happened here.
Even though two teammates had already been affected, Su Cheng and the others didn’t turn back to escape but instead fled deeper into the laboratory…
What could be the reason for this?
Wen Jianyan lowered his gaze, wearing a pensive expression.
Under the heavy iron frame, Luce had stopped struggling. He silently curled up in the dust, resembling a frightened beast, instinctively shivering. It seemed like he was muttering something under his breath.
As a precaution, Wen Jianyan activated an advanced protective shield for himself.
Since upgrading to Level B, the level of the purchased protective shield has also increased. Not only was the duration extended, but it also became more convenient, covering the skin like a thin film without affecting Wen Jianyan’s movements.
Wen Jianyan crouched beside Luce.
Carefully, he used his hand to lift Luce’s eyelids, shining the flashlight to observe the constriction of his pupils and feel his pulse.
Even through the protective membrane, Wen Jianyan could sense that Luce’s skin was hot and his pulse was irregular and rapid.
Although his condition was poor, there didn’t seem to be an immediate life-threatening danger. The question was whether this state was reversible.
Under the flashlight’s beam, Wen Jianyan suddenly noticed something…
He furrowed his brows slightly and used his fingers to push Luce’s head, making him turn to the side, exposing his neck.
On the sweaty and pale skin, strange red patterns were visible, branching out like twigs and densely packed like a spider’s web, but not entirely the same…
Among them were more than one small central point, connected by irregularly thin branches, resembling tiny neurons linked together.
Wen Jianyan’s brows furrowed even tighter.
He reached out and touched the middle area of the web-like pattern—
There, a small red dot was faintly visible, along with some not yet dried blood.
As if left by a needle, or perhaps…
Drip, drip.
In the darkness, a vague sound of droplets falling could be heard.
It seemed closer than before.
Luce’s body, pressed against the iron frame, suddenly tensed. It was as if he had seen something particularly terrifying; he involuntarily trembled. However, he no longer made any sound. On the contrary, he became extraordinarily quiet, almost eerie.
Wen Jianyan seemed to realize something.
He involuntarily held his breath, and the flashlight’s direction slowly turned, moving toward the top of his head.
The slightly swaying beam of light entered the darkness. The dim light quickly moved to the ceiling, illuminating a small part of the high ceiling.
The entire ceiling was covered by a strange reddish membrane, with branch-like fine lines connecting massive neurons, disappearing into the depths of the darkness.
Thin, needle-like appendages hung down silently, undulating, and viscous, crimson liquid dripped from them.
In the darkness, there was the faint sound of dripping.
Those were mouthpieces.
Thin and sharp, capable of easily piercing the skin.
Staring at the densely packed and eerie membrane, Wen Jianyan felt a tingling sensation on his scalp.
…At least now he knew the reason.
Under the swaying beam of the flashlight, those numerous, slender, tentacle-like threads hung down, seemingly alive, silently floating, extending downward without a sound—
The ones closest to the iron door were the longest.
Wen Jianyan estimated and found that there were only a few centimeters between himself and the nearest appendage tip.
He swallowed hard, pressing the flashlight down to avoid shining the bright light directly on those eerie things.
Wen Jianyan turned his head again, looking at the two people in front of him.
Even though they had fallen into negative states influenced by the instance, the instinct for survival still governed their behavior.
They were unnaturally quiet.
Quiet to an excessive extent.
Some scattered clues wove together.
Yes, these eyeless, membrane-like things, seemingly undulating with breath, could probably only identify prey by sound.
Su Cheng and the others arrived at the iron door, and after making a noise, they were captured. Faced with the attacks of their crazed teammates due to the ailment, they desperately fled into the iron door.
The commotion just now was evidently enough to “awaken” these tentacles.
But…
Wen Jianyan’s gaze fell on the jars on the ground that had stopped rolling—on the top of each jar, the tendrils were slightly longer than those nearby.
He let out a slow, long breath, and layers of cold sweat seeped out on his back.
Thank goodness.
If he hadn’t casually knocked over the shelves, causing the jars to roll in all directions, creating sounds from different directions and disrupting the eerie membrane’s sense of direction, preventing them from accurately locating his position, he might have already been silently infected.
In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:
[Wow, I’ve never seen the lab ceiling so clearly… This is quite a show.]
[Hahaha, it’s not my first time. I remember someone “discovering” this pattern before, but unfortunately, they continued through the iron door and didn’t make it out alive.]
[If you explore this lab, it’s actually better to have fewer people. After all, as long as someone in the team goes crazy, there will be continued noises. One crazy teammate is scarier than a hundred enemies.]
After confirming that Luce and the other wouldn’t move randomly or make more noise, Wen Jianyan held his breath, silently moving backward with light footsteps toward the direction of the iron door.
The young man tilted his body slightly and wriggled toward the door crack, disappearing into the darkness in the blink of an eye.
Although the iron door blocked those eerie membranes, Wen Jianyan remained vigilant. He took a deep breath, adjusting his stiff fingers and gripping the flashlight.
After all, the principle in these instances was that it only got more difficult as you progressed.
He raised his wrist, shining the flashlight ahead.
The ceiling was covered with sticky, crimson membranes. However, since he hadn’t made any sound, the tendrils hung far above, not preparing to grow downward.
Wen Jianyan lowered his wrist, and the light column fell before him.
He paused, a surprised expression on his face.
What appeared before him…
Was actually a staircase.
The stairs extended upward, disappearing into an unknown darkness at the top.
Wait, wasn’t he currently on the highest floor? In other words, Ping An Asylum had a hidden fifth floor?
There were distinct, messy footprints on the stairs.
Following these traces, Wen Jianyan stepped forward, ascending the stairs.
His steps were light, advancing in the darkness like a shadow.
As he ascended, the membranes seemed to expand, not only on the ceiling but also clinging to the walls. A shallow red meat web covered them, irregularly pulsating like neurons. The humidity in the air gradually increased.
Soon, he reached the fifth floor.
Similar to the floors below, the iron door was partially open, covered with membranes resembling fungal spots irregularly distributed on the door panel.
A strong, almost rotting smell seemed to penetrate his nostrils, making it almost suffocating.
Wen Jianyan’s face turned pale, and he raised his hand to cover his mouth and nose.
Carefully lifting the flashlight, he swept it across the iron door.
The nearby iron nameplate was mostly corroded, but faintly recognizable English letters could still be made out intermittently.
Wen Jianyan squinted, carefully identifying them, his lips moving to produce a subtle and barely audible sound: “spiritual…u…”
He paused.
“Uroborus.”
These were the only two English words that could be identified.
The first one meant “spiritual.”
As for the second one:
Ouroboros.
At this moment, a faint, muffled voice came from inside the door.
“Hey, is it you?”
Was that voice… Su Cheng?
Wen Jianyan squinted, hesitating. However, before he could react, the voice from inside the door sounded again, strained:
“Come in.”
“Quickly!”
Chapter 158: Uroborus
Wen Jianyan’s expression became solemn as he took two steps back, slowly distancing himself from Luce, who was lying on the ground.
“…”
He raised his gaze and surveyed his surroundings.
In the darkness, there was an eerie silence, with only a few jars containing various human tissues slowly rolling into the distance, emitting a gradually fading rolling sound.
Drip, drip.
A vague, dripping sound seemed to come from somewhere.
Where his vision reached, everything was shrouded in an ominous shadow. Unknown dangers lurked in the darkness, making one’s throat tighten.
This speculation… was very bad.
Wen Jianyan remembered that when he entered the instance, the symptoms displayed on his wristband were “intellectual disability.”
In essence, it wasn’t a mental illness, but given the twisted context where “homosexuality” was treated as a “sexual perversion,” people could naturally be sent to mental institutions for “intellectual disability.”
As for the “sexual perversion” label he added for himself, whether it was true or not wasn’t crucial. After all, desiring any gender wouldn’t affect Wen Jianyan’s progression.
But intellectual disability was different.
In a dangerous instance like this, even if Wen Jianyan had mobilized all his energy and intelligence, he couldn’t guarantee a 100% chance of escaping.
If this symptom turned out to be true, he would likely lose his ability to think, equivalent to losing the chip to survive.
In such a perilous place, it meant certain death.
His heart pounded, his brain heated up within the skull, and cold sweat seeped from his palms.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
The most crucial thing at the moment was to understand why this ailment had appeared.
Had they violated some taboo? Broken a rule? Or was it simply that entering this laboratory would result in contamination over time?
Wen Jianyan was most concerned about the last possibility.
This judgment was too broad and almost impossible to guard against, akin to a death sentence.
He adjusted the fingers holding the flashlight, his sweaty and sticky palms warming the cold flashlight. Twisting his wrist, he quickly scanned the vast, dark room.
Clearly, there were only two people in this hall, Luce and his teammate.
Su Cheng, Blond, and Shao Yao, who belonged to Luce’s team, were not present.
There were no other branching paths on the fourth floor of the west building, and Wen Jianyan had not seen anyone along the way. In other words…
Wen Jianyan turned around, and the flashlight’s beam pierced the darkness, shining on the iron door with a gap wide open behind him.
—Obviously, they should have entered here.
Amidst the tangled clues, Wen Jianyan finally found a somewhat clear lead.
If that’s the case, the determination of “symptom occurrence” was not due to simply “entering the laboratory” or the broad and simple reason of “staying in the laboratory for too long.”
Otherwise, as teammates who acted together with Luce, Su Cheng and the others could not have escaped unharmed.
Another crucial point…
From the chaos in front of the iron door, it could be inferred that something had happened here.
Even though two teammates had already been affected, Su Cheng and the others didn’t turn back to escape but instead fled deeper into the laboratory…
What could be the reason for this?
Wen Jianyan lowered his gaze, wearing a pensive expression.
Under the heavy iron frame, Luce had stopped struggling. He silently curled up in the dust, resembling a frightened beast, instinctively shivering. It seemed like he was muttering something under his breath.
As a precaution, Wen Jianyan activated an advanced protective shield for himself.
Since upgrading to Level B, the level of the purchased protective shield has also increased. Not only was the duration extended, but it also became more convenient, covering the skin like a thin film without affecting Wen Jianyan’s movements.
Wen Jianyan crouched beside Luce.
Carefully, he used his hand to lift Luce’s eyelids, shining the flashlight to observe the constriction of his pupils and feel his pulse.
Even through the protective membrane, Wen Jianyan could sense that Luce’s skin was hot and his pulse was irregular and rapid.
Although his condition was poor, there didn’t seem to be an immediate life-threatening danger. The question was whether this state was reversible.
Under the flashlight’s beam, Wen Jianyan suddenly noticed something…
He furrowed his brows slightly and used his fingers to push Luce’s head, making him turn to the side, exposing his neck.
On the sweaty and pale skin, strange red patterns were visible, branching out like twigs and densely packed like a spider’s web, but not entirely the same…
Among them were more than one small central point, connected by irregularly thin branches, resembling tiny neurons linked together.
Wen Jianyan’s brows furrowed even tighter.
He reached out and touched the middle area of the web-like pattern—
There, a small red dot was faintly visible, along with some not yet dried blood.
As if left by a needle, or perhaps…
Drip, drip.
In the darkness, a vague sound of droplets falling could be heard.
It seemed closer than before.
Luce’s body, pressed against the iron frame, suddenly tensed. It was as if he had seen something particularly terrifying; he involuntarily trembled. However, he no longer made any sound. On the contrary, he became extraordinarily quiet, almost eerie.
Wen Jianyan seemed to realize something.
He involuntarily held his breath, and the flashlight’s direction slowly turned, moving toward the top of his head.
The slightly swaying beam of light entered the darkness. The dim light quickly moved to the ceiling, illuminating a small part of the high ceiling.
The entire ceiling was covered by a strange reddish membrane, with branch-like fine lines connecting massive neurons, disappearing into the depths of the darkness.
Thin, needle-like appendages hung down silently, undulating, and viscous, crimson liquid dripped from them.
In the darkness, there was the faint sound of dripping.
Those were mouthpieces.
Thin and sharp, capable of easily piercing the skin.
Staring at the densely packed and eerie membrane, Wen Jianyan felt a tingling sensation on his scalp.
…At least now he knew the reason.
Under the swaying beam of the flashlight, those numerous, slender, tentacle-like threads hung down, seemingly alive, silently floating, extending downward without a sound—
The ones closest to the iron door were the longest.
Wen Jianyan estimated and found that there were only a few centimeters between himself and the nearest appendage tip.
He swallowed hard, pressing the flashlight down to avoid shining the bright light directly on those eerie things.
Wen Jianyan turned his head again, looking at the two people in front of him.
Even though they had fallen into negative states influenced by the instance, the instinct for survival still governed their behavior.
They were unnaturally quiet.
Quiet to an excessive extent.
Some scattered clues wove together.
Yes, these eyeless, membrane-like things, seemingly undulating with breath, could probably only identify prey by sound.
Su Cheng and the others arrived at the iron door, and after making a noise, they were captured. Faced with the attacks of their crazed teammates due to the ailment, they desperately fled into the iron door.
The commotion just now was evidently enough to “awaken” these tentacles.
But…
Wen Jianyan’s gaze fell on the jars on the ground that had stopped rolling—on the top of each jar, the tendrils were slightly longer than those nearby.
He let out a slow, long breath, and layers of cold sweat seeped out on his back.
Thank goodness.
If he hadn’t casually knocked over the shelves, causing the jars to roll in all directions, creating sounds from different directions and disrupting the eerie membrane’s sense of direction, preventing them from accurately locating his position, he might have already been silently infected.
In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:
[Wow, I’ve never seen the lab ceiling so clearly… This is quite a show.]
[Hahaha, it’s not my first time. I remember someone “discovering” this pattern before, but unfortunately, they continued through the iron door and didn’t make it out alive.]
[If you explore this lab, it’s actually better to have fewer people. After all, as long as someone in the team goes crazy, there will be continued noises. One crazy teammate is scarier than a hundred enemies.]
After confirming that Luce and the other wouldn’t move randomly or make more noise, Wen Jianyan held his breath, silently moving backward with light footsteps toward the direction of the iron door.
The young man tilted his body slightly and wriggled toward the door crack, disappearing into the darkness in the blink of an eye.
Although the iron door blocked those eerie membranes, Wen Jianyan remained vigilant. He took a deep breath, adjusting his stiff fingers and gripping the flashlight.
After all, the principle in these instances was that it only got more difficult as you progressed.
He raised his wrist, shining the flashlight ahead.
The ceiling was covered with sticky, crimson membranes. However, since he hadn’t made any sound, the tendrils hung far above, not preparing to grow downward.
Wen Jianyan lowered his wrist, and the light column fell before him.
He paused, a surprised expression on his face.
What appeared before him…
Was actually a staircase.
The stairs extended upward, disappearing into an unknown darkness at the top.
Wait, wasn’t he currently on the highest floor? In other words, Ping An Asylum had a hidden fifth floor?
There were distinct, messy footprints on the stairs.
Following these traces, Wen Jianyan stepped forward, ascending the stairs.
His steps were light, advancing in the darkness like a shadow.
As he ascended, the membranes seemed to expand, not only on the ceiling but also clinging to the walls. A shallow red meat web covered them, irregularly pulsating like neurons. The humidity in the air gradually increased.
Soon, he reached the fifth floor.
Similar to the floors below, the iron door was partially open, covered with membranes resembling fungal spots irregularly distributed on the door panel.
A strong, almost rotting smell seemed to penetrate his nostrils, making it almost suffocating.
Wen Jianyan’s face turned pale, and he raised his hand to cover his mouth and nose.
Carefully lifting the flashlight, he swept it across the iron door.
The nearby iron nameplate was mostly corroded, but faintly recognizable English letters could still be made out intermittently.
Wen Jianyan squinted, carefully identifying them, his lips moving to produce a subtle and barely audible sound: “spiritual…u…”
He paused.
“Uroborus.”
These were the only two English words that could be identified.
The first one meant “spiritual.”
As for the second one:
Ouroboros.
At this moment, a faint, muffled voice came from inside the door.
“Hey, is it you?”
Was that voice… Su Cheng?
Wen Jianyan squinted, hesitating. However, before he could react, the voice from inside the door sounded again, strained:
“Come in.”
“Quickly!”
