I picked up a boyfriend in the infinite game

Chapter 239, 4th Hall, 4

It took Song Guicheng and his group a long time to tidy up the place. The distant mountain peaks were gradually swallowed up by the darkness, and the last trace of sunset was also painted over. The night was like a silk cloth soaked in ink, pressing down heavily and hanging low overhead.

The group dragged their weary steps back to their lodgings. The trees along the roadside cast even darker shadows, their branches reaching out menacingly towards the sky.

As soon as the door opened, Zhou Fang and Liu Qinggen were seen busy at a low table in the corner of the room. The only light source was a kerosene lamp hanging from the roof beam, and in its dim yellow light, everything was shrouded in a hazy filter.

Zhou Fang untied the cloth bag, and several packets of hard, coarse grain biscuits rolled out, along with two tin cans printed with the words "luncheon meat." The cans were covered in rust, and the production dates were so blurry that they were almost illegible.

"Everyone's been busy all day, let's grab a bite to eat," Zhou Fang said with a slightly awkward smile, wiping the table with her sleeve. "This is all the supplies the supply and marketing cooperative has in stock. They're a bit old, but make do with them."

Liu Qinggen pried open a can of food with a knife, and a strange smell mixed with grease and rust wafted out. He pushed the can onto the table, a hint of apology on his honest face: "There's nothing good here, what can I do?"

Shi Sui walked over first, picked up a biscuit, weighed it in his hand, took a bite with a "crunch," and chewed expressionlessly: "Wow, this biscuit is hard enough to be used as a weapon." He spat out the crumbs and gestured with his chin to Song Guicheng, "Guicheng, why don't you try it? Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Song Guicheng smiled gently: "Used to swing at you?"

Shi Sui spat and said, "Get lost."

Song Guicheng picked up a biscuit and smelled it. Besides the wheat bran smell of the biscuit itself, there was also a faint, almost imperceptible earthy smell, which smelled like it had been sitting out for a while.

However, no one complained. No matter how good the food was in the dungeon, it wouldn't matter if you died. The most important thing was to figure out how to get out alive. Everyone picked out whatever was edible to eat.

Chen Wenyu glanced at the canned food. The luncheon meat inside looked fresh and edible, but no one touched it. It was a consensus that it was best not to eat meat in the dungeon.

Zhao Xiaoyun didn't touch a bite, her gaze fixed on the dark alleyway outside the window, lost in thought.

Sun Zhida sat on the edge of the bed, ate two biscuits in a few bites, and wiped the corners of his mouth with his rough palms.

Lin Caiwen moved the kerosene lamp to the center of the table, its dim light illuminating her calm face. She said, "Everyone has been busy all day and has worked hard. The clinic and the supply and marketing cooperative have roughly figured things out. Has anyone noticed anything unusual?"

After he finished speaking, the room was quiet for a moment, with only the occasional crackling of the kerosene lamp wick. The light shone on the faces of the people, which had different expressions, making it impossible to tell what they were thinking.

Song Guicheng tapped his fingertips lightly on the edge of the table before speaking first, his voice calm: "There's a faint smell of formaldehyde in the clinic."

"Formaldehyde?" Lin Caiwen frowned. "How come I can't smell it?"

She turned to Su Xiao and asked, "Su Xiao, can you smell it?"

Su Xiao shook her head. The smell in the clinic was so pungent that it could make one lose their sense of smell. She had been smelling disinfectant all afternoon, and her head still ached a little.

Lin Caiwen glanced at Song Guicheng: "How could you smell it?"

Shi Sui chimed in, "He has a dog's nose."

Song Guicheng: "I have a very sensitive sense of smell."

Lin Caiwen's hands tightened: "That's for preservation, how come there's this in the clinic?"

“Maybe it’s something left over from before,” Liu Qinggen interjected, rubbing his hands together with some unease. “This alley has been closed for so long, there might be some old things inside.”

Zhou Fang nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes, there are some wooden boxes with talismans pasted on them in the supply and marketing cooperative. They look a bit eerie, so we didn't touch them."

"A talisman?" Shi Sui's gaze sharpened instantly. "What kind of talisman?"

"It was yellow paper with red writing, it looked pretty scary." Zhou Fang shook her head, "I didn't dare to look closely."

Chen Wenyu swallowed the last bite of biscuit with difficulty while drinking hot water, and said, "I... when I was sorting through the medicine, I think I saw a label that looked a bit strange, but I can't quite put my finger on it..." He scratched his head, a look of frustration on his face, "I forgot about it, it's just... I feel a little uneasy, like something's not right."

Shi Sui chuckled and popped a candy he'd somehow produced into his mouth: "Something's more than just weird." He swung his leg and glanced at everyone. "When we first came in this afternoon, besides Jia Weimin, we only saw Granny Liu alive. We could barely hear anyone else. It was as quiet as a living tomb."

The words "living tomb" seemed to absorb the little remaining atmosphere in the air like a sponge, leaving behind a dry silence. Were those residents no longer alive?

Zhang Haoqing suddenly sneered, his voice laced with sarcasm: "What's the point of a bunch of people guessing all this time? Maybe it's just a decoy deliberately released by the instance. I think we should focus on how to treat patients tomorrow and complete the mission; that's the important thing."

He may not have taken these "discoveries" to heart, or perhaps he simply wanted to go against Shi Sui.

Shi Sui ignored him, put her arm around Song Guicheng's shoulder, took a piece of candy and handed it to him, asking, "What do you think?"

“Those residents are still alive,” Song Guicheng affirmed.

Although he didn't see many residents when he came over this afternoon, Song Guicheng heard heavy breathing, faint coughs, the clatter of bowls and chopsticks, and some other rustling sounds. They were indistinct and eerie, but he was certain that they were still alive.

Sun Zhida, who had been silent until now, said in a deep voice, "I went to check the supply and marketing cooperative's warehouse. The key to the front door is in the cooperative's drawer and can be opened normally. The back door is locked, and the lock is heavily rusted, not like it's usually opened, but I think it was opened recently."

Lin Caiwen frowned: "What do you mean?"

Sun Zhida recalled: "There were scratches on the bottom of the back door, but it was very new."

“This is not good. The last medical team left three months ago. These scratches…” Lin Caiwen turned to Zhou Fang and Liu Qinggen and asked, “Did you see them?”

Zhou Fang and Liu Qinggen exchanged a glance and shook their heads.

Liu Qinggen rubbed his hands nervously: "It's also possible that Jia Weimin or other residents opened it; they always need things."

Su Xiao said softly, "Then they should also go through the front door."

……

Song Guicheng held the candy in his hand without eating it, the wrapper making a rubbing sound, and said, "I'll know when I go and take a look tomorrow."

Lin Caiwen glanced at Song Guicheng and nodded, saying, "Yes, we can go see him tomorrow." She then turned to the bloodstains on the medical record book, layer upon layer, dark and mottled, wondering if they concealed any important information.

Zhao Xiaoyun fiddled with her fingernails and said, "Nobody can say for sure. Maybe it's just a trick of the dungeon. We might go through all that trouble to figure it out, only to find out it's misleading information. It's hard to say."

Lin Caiwen said, "That's true, but with this kind of clue, we'd rather be wrong a thousand times than let one slip by."

Everyone nodded in agreement; no risk, no reward—that was an unspoken rule in the dungeon.

Chen Mo had been fiddling with his camera the whole time, and only when everyone had finished talking did he slowly speak up: "I took a picture of the ancestral hall today, at the end of the south alley. It looks quite old, and the weeds at the entrance have been trampled flat." His voice was indifferent, without any emotion. "It seems to smell of incense."

"An ancestral hall?" Lin Caiwen raised her voice. "Can we see the photos?"

Chen Mo had no objection and handed the camera to Lin Caiwen, and the photos were passed from one player to another.

In this alley, apart from the clinic and the supply and marketing cooperative, the walls of every other house were plastered with yellow mud, which crumbled after being soaked in the rain, and the roofs were covered with broken tiles. The house they lived in was no better.

The ancestral hall in the photo is the only one with solid blue bricks on its exterior. Although the bricks have been eroded by time into fine pits and the base of the wall is covered with dark green moss, they are stacked neatly one after another, more orderly than any other mud wall in the village.

The ancestral hall's gate tower is half a head taller than the surrounding houses. The blue brick pillars are polished to a shine, with flying eaves atop them. The roof tiles at the corners of the eaves are cracked, but one can still vaguely make out auspicious beast patterns. A black plaque hangs above the lintel, its paint peeling off in patches.

There were even three steps of bluestone steps in front of the door, and the surrounding weeds had been trampled flat.

In this alley where even food is scarce, the fact that they are willing to go to such lengths for a single wall speaks volumes about the significance of the ancestral hall.

Song Guicheng took one look and memorized the appearance of the ancestral hall. He thought of Article 8 of the Resident Epidemic Prevention Guidelines formulated by Jia Weimin, which stated that if a large number of patients with coughs gathered, they should immediately go to the ancestral hall square to assemble.

The camera spun around and returned to Chen Mo's hands.

“We need to check out this ancestral hall tomorrow.” Lin Caiwen looked at everyone. “We didn’t find many clues today, but they all seemed strange. Formalin, the back door of the warehouse, the blood on the logbook, the ancestral hall… and those residents.”

She paused, then said seriously, "Starting tomorrow, we can go door-to-door to register residents and begin seeing patients. Everyone needs to be on high alert, especially when interacting with residents. Pay close attention to details. Whether treating people or investigating matters, we must be careful."

Everyone nodded in agreement, knowing full well that this seemingly peaceful first day was merely the calm before the storm.

The glow of the kerosene lamp gradually dimmed, casting long shadows of everyone, overlapping and layering on the mottled wall, like lurking mysteries.

Song Guicheng crunched the candy in his hand, making a cracking sound. The ancestral hall...