The Abandoned Hospital consisted of two buildings, one was eight stories tall, and the other was nine.

The eight-story building was the outpatient wing, while the nine-story one was the inpatient ward.

The two were connected on the 2nd, 4th, and 6th floors, with passageways linking them at those levels.

It had once been the best hospital in town, crowded with patients every day.

But after the incident involving Professor Yang, accidents became frequent. Three years ago, more than half of the discharged patients began experiencing hallucinations, and some even developed schizophrenia. As a result, the town's only hospital was abandoned.

All of this was information Mo Bai gathered from observing the layout outside the hospital and from the system-provided backstory.

Based on that, she had a reason to suspect that the Schizophrenic subjects created by Biological Research Institute No. 7 had once appeared here, but she didn't know whether they were still inside.

The hospital gate was locked, but a three-meter-tall gate was not an obstacle for agile players.

Mo Bai vaulted over it in a few quick moves.

The moment she entered, she noticed that the choking sensation in the air vanished.

To conserve energy, she didn't use her abilities in the town. Instead, she covered her mouth and nose with a damp cloth.

That prevented the town's pollution from entering through her airways, but it couldn't stop it from seeping into her skin.

Before entering the hospital, her skin had already begun to sting with a burning pain.

But once inside, all of that disappeared.

Mo Bai lowered the cloth and took a breath of normal air, feeling refreshed.

Unfortunately, the hospital itself was in disrepair, its outer walls peeling, and weeds were growing everywhere. Above it, dark clouds seemed to gather, giving it the ominous, haunted atmosphere often described in novels.

Feels like escaping a tiger's den only to walk into a wolf's lair, she thought.

"Scan complete. A corpse is located 2.8 meters to your left," Xiao Qi said.

Following the direction, Mo Bai found the body of a black cat in the weeds.

It wasn't entirely black. There was a white spot on its forehead, and all four paws were white, like it was wearing little socks.

Mo Bai liked animals. She crouched down and gently touched the cat.

Its body hadn't stiffened yet, and its fur still had a sheen. It had clearly died not long ago.

There were also no visible wounds, but its limbs were curled in an unnatural posture.

When her fingers brushed the white spot on its forehead, she felt a faint tingling sensation.

"Does the player really like cats? You've been petting it," Xiao Qi asked.

"I like many small animals," Mo Bai said. "Dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, even turtles, fish, and pet lizards."

Her family had always kept dogs. Even before she was born, they had a smart Border Collie. Throughout her childhood, they had several dogs over the years, each cared for until the end of its life. When her accident happened, their newly adopted husky had even grown unusually quiet, lying on the floor and watching her, while its typically goofy eyes were filled with worry.

Mo Bai had once thought that when she had a home of her own, she would definitely keep pets.

"But I'm not paying attention to this cat because I like it," she added. "I'm trying to determine how it lost its life. It just died, and it's inside the hospital. Its cause of death could give me useful clues."

"So how did it die?" Xiao Qi asked.

Mo Bai rubbed her slightly numb fingertip. "I suspect electrocution. When electricity passes through an animal's body, it causes muscle contraction. This cat's limbs are curled, as if it went into spasms. And when I touched it, I felt a mild electric numbness. So I think it died from electric shock."

"Is this hospital still powered?" Xiao Qi asked.

"Doesn't look like it. Either there's a creature inside that uses electrotherapy, or a player did it," Mo Bai said.

"Electrotherapy would require equipment, and entering the hospital is when the instance truly begins," Xiao Qi pointed out.

Mo Bai nodded. "So it's likely a player, and possibly a very strong one."

"How can you tell?" Xiao Qi asked. "I Xiao Qi's eyes, Player Mo Bai is the strongest player!"

Xiao Qi was starting to sound like a blind fan.

Mo Bai smiled faintly. "A player who can use electricity is most likely a Nature-type. In the Infinite World, you can count such players on one hand. I've heard that the strongest are the two Advanced Nature-type players in Neverland.

Also, animals electrocuted to death usually show burn marks. That's electricity converting into heat. But this cat has no burns. It likely died from cardiac arrest caused by a precise electric shock.

The attacker delivered a perfectly controlled current directly to the heart, avoiding any heat buildup, probably to avoid breaking the town's rules.

That means whoever killed this cat has extremely fine control over electricity."

The system mentioned that high-level players existed in this instance, and obviously, this Nature-type user was likely one of them.

What a formidable opponent.

In a town full of danger, encountering a powerful player should have been a good thing. Under normal circumstances, Mo Bai would have tried to team up with them to defeat the Ultra-Star Rank monster together.

Even if they were arrogant or difficult, she could tolerate it.

But she was part of the Observation Group, and the other party was from the Combat Group.

At that moment, Mo Bai finally understood Mo Xiangyou's hostility toward combat-group players.

It wasn't about unwillingness to trust. It was about the inability to trust.

It was like forcing a sheep to cooperate with a wolf, and demanding the sheep to believe in the wolf. How could that ever work?

Mo Bai took a deep breath and headed toward the outpatient building.

The door wasn't locked, just slightly ajar. She pushed it open, stepped inside, and noticed that the doorknob and the floor were spotless, as if someone had cleaned them.

"In a place like this, someone's doing housekeeping?" Xiao Qi wondered.

Mo Bai shook her head. "Not cleaning. Someone doesn't want their footprints to be seen, so they used static electricity to gather the dust."

She pointed to a corner of the lobby where a small pile of dust had been piled.

Standing in the lobby, Mo Bai didn't move forward recklessly. Instead, she took out a B-grade card from her inventory, the Prying Lenses, and put them on.

Her ability required at least 50% understanding of the environment to activate, so seeing through the surroundings was crucial. The lenses were one of her essential tools.

Normally, they could only reveal things within a 10-meter radius. But after enhancement, they could see up to 100 meters. However, objects concealed by special abilities could only be detected at close range with focused observation, and wide-range scanning wouldn't reveal them.

Furthermore, it was still just a B-grade item. Even with enhancement, its durability remained at that level.

From her testing over the past three months, an enhanced B-grade card could only be used about three times before breaking. The stronger the enhancement, the faster it degraded.

Back in the Count's Castle instance, her ability was weaker. The enhanced lenses could be used four or five times and hadn't yet broken before being destroyed by the Count. At the time, she didn't realize that the enhancement reduced durability.

Therefore, she needs to use the Prying Lenses sparingly, only at critical moments.

But the current situation was urgent, and she didn't have time to explore the hospital floor by floor.

She activated her ability, maximizing the range of the Prying Lenses. In an instant, the entire Abandoned Hospital came into view.

What she saw made her inhale sharply.

There were far too many people hiding in this hospital.

First, on the third floor of the outpatient building, there was a burly man, built like an iron tower, climbing the stairs. His hair was blue-white, and faint silver arcs of electricity flickered at his fingertips from time to time.

Just seeing the man through the lenses made Mo Bai's eyes ache, as if she'd been struck by his electricity.

He was heading upstairs, though it wasn't clear what he intended to do.

Looking upward, he was the only person in the outpatient building, but looking downward revealed a much more complex scene.

In the basement level, there was an instance monster covered in stitched seams, slowly walking with a scalpel in hand. He was searching room by room, though it was unclear who he was looking for.

Mo Bai suspected that this was the Dismemberment Forensic Doctor the magician mentioned.

And directly along his path, in a records room, a player was frantically searching through documents.

It was someone Mo Bai recognized: Liu Congyi.

Farther away, in the underground passage connecting the outpatient and inpatient buildings, two people were supporting each other as they moved forward. They were Sheng Yan and Du Heng.

Both of them were in terrible condition.

Sheng Yan's entire body was ulcerated. There wasn't a patch of intact skin left, and every step made him grimace in pain.

And yet, even like this, he was the one dragging Du Heng along.

Du Heng's lower body trailed behind him like limp noodles, completely powerless.

Mo Bai knew exactly what that meant: paralysis.

They were heading resolutely toward the inpatient building, though she had no idea why.

Inside the inpatient building, the situation was split into two distinct zones.

From the basement up to the fourth floor, groups of extremely agitated people wandered about, hurting each other, smashing hospital equipment, and even mutilating themselves.

From the fifth to the ninth floor, everything was shrouded in dense fog. The Prying Lenses couldn't see through it from a distance.

Nowhere in the entire Abandoned Hospital could she find Gu Tiandong or the other two.

Where were they?

But Mo Bai couldn't worry about them now. Sheng Yan and the others were in immediate danger, so she had to save them first.

She slipped on the Spatial Blade gloves and sprinted toward the basement.

Racing at full speed, she finally intercepted the Dismemberment Forensic Doctor just as he was about to open the door to the room where Liu Congyi was.

Since the magician had a decent relationship with the Dismemberment Forensic Doctor, Mo Bai didn't attack immediately. She raised a hand and said, "Tell me what you're looking for."

The grotesque Dismemberment Forensic Doctor stopped. He tilted his head to look at her, and with just that motion, the stitches on his neck split open. His head slumped to one side, hanging by a single thread.

Mo Bai: "..."

It was both horrifying and oddly comical.

"If your body's in that bad shape, maybe don't tilt your head like that," she said.

The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor lifted his head back into place, his nose twitching. "You smell like the magician."

"What smell?" Mo Bai raised her arm and sniffed, but detected nothing.

The magician did carry a faint cologne scent, but Mo Bai was certain she hadn't picked it up.

The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor sniffed again. "You also smell like a player, that unpleasant scent. And Professor Yang… and the Schizophrenics. What are you? A monster, or a player?"

"Both, I guess. You've got a sharp nose," Mo Bai said calmly. "Now tell me what you're looking for. What's your goal?"

She leaned against the door and knocked lightly twice.

Something felt off. Why hadn't Liu Congyi reacted? The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor was already at the door. Did she hear nothing?

"You think I'm here to harm the player in that room?" The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor grinned grotesquely, raising his scalpel. "No, I'm here to save her."

"How?" Mo Bai asked.

The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor's voice was like a leaking bellows, raspy, broken, with air hissing through. He let out a chilling laugh.

"There are many 'viruses' in this hospital. Some cause schizophrenia. Some cause infectious diseases. Some trap people in dreams. And there's another kind… heh… one that affects the brain.

There are secrets here that must not be known. Anyone who learns them goes mad. The only way to recover is to cut away a piece of the brain.

The woman in that room has already seen those secrets. Whether to save her or not… that's up to you. Heh heh."

The moment he finished speaking, Mo Bai heard a heart-wrenching scream from inside the room behind her.

She quickly opened the door.

Liu Congyi lay sprawled among scattered documents, wailing in agony.

Mo Bai rushed in to help her up, but Liu Congyi suddenly lashed out like a madwoman, her long nails slashing a bloody line across Mo Bai's neck.

"Liu Congyi, it's me, Mo Bai!" Mo Bai restrained her with force, but Liu Congyi seemed unable to hear, continuing to scream incoherently.

At that moment, the Dismemberment Forensic Doctor silently stepped up behind Mo Bai with a scalpel in hand.

"She can't hear you," he said. "From the moment she entered this hospital, she hasn't been able to hear anything."

Mo Bai froze for a split second.

Like her, Liu Congyi had been through Biological Research Institute No. 7, and after entering Disease Town, she had lost her hearing.

The Dismemberment Forensic Doctor raised his blade.

"The patient is in critical condition. Shall we perform the surgery? It'll be quick and painless."