Chapter 68: Artificial Stupidity (4)
68 – Artificial Stupidity (4)
Lin Xun: “!”
Up until now, the most severe task reminder he had ever received was merely “Be careful,” which was during Xiao Xiao’s mission. In that mission, he had encountered two dangerous situations—once when over a thousand people in the stadium were possessed by demon seeds, he redirected the trouble by locking Qi Yun inside the venue and went out to track Xiao Xiao; the other time was when he entered the rift between the human and demon realms deep in the basement and almost didn’t make it back.
That time, if it hadn’t been for Zhi Zhen, he would likely have been lost in the rift. And now, this “extremely dangerous” warning—
Lin Xun had no time to dwell on it. In the blink of an eye, as quick as thought, he pulled the security chain on the outside of the ward door to prevent anyone inside from coming out—this might be a peculiarity of psychiatric hospitals, where doors could only be locked from the outside.
However, the danger extended far beyond the room where the little girl Lin Kexin was.
He raised his eyes and saw that along the long corridor, heavy banging sounds were coming from the iron doors of every ward—the force was far beyond what a child could muster. Under the intense impact, the iron doors trembled slightly at first, then shook violently. Within half a minute, a gap had already been forced open in one of the ward doors to his right.
Lin Xun spoke rapidly in a low voice, “Where’s the fire escape?”
He wasn’t a careless person. There was an evacuation route map on the left wall of the hospital lobby, and he had casually asked the Goddess of the Luo River to scan it earlier.
The Goddess of the Luo River automatically increased her volume, emitting a human-like mechanical voice with a slightly youthful tone, “Turn right, two hundred meters.”
Lin Xun took out his keyboard from his backpack and hurried toward the right.
In the minute or two it took him to walk, the banging on the doors grew louder, the thuds almost reverberating in his eardrums. He felt as though several doors were about to burst open at any moment.
Fortunately, the end of the corridor wasn’t far off. He quickened his pace, almost sprinting like he was running a hundred-meter dash, then turned left—
Lin Xun: “I…”
An iron gate stood before him.
The fire escape was blocked?
What kind of genius hospital would seal off the fire escape? Had patients escaped from here before?
He took a deep breath.
Goddess of the Luo River: “Recommend returning.”
Of course, he knew he had to go back.
The fire escape was at the far right end of the corridor, but the elevator—the elevator was at the far left.
Time didn’t allow him to think. He slammed the iron gate three times with his keyboard, and finding it unmoved, immediately turned around and headed back the way he came.
But right at the corner he had just turned, a dark shadow lunged at him!
His firewall activated, blocking it momentarily, but the next instant, the shadow charged at him with even more ferocious force!
Lin Xun didn’t stop to engage it in combat. Without looking back, he continued toward the end of the corridor while frantically tapping on his keyboard. A flash of snowy sword light shot out with a whoosh.
He didn’t have time to look back and see if the shadow had been injured, but the Goddess of the Luo River immediately spoke up.
“Black shadow monster, HP -1000. Current health: eighty percent.”
Lin Xun glanced sideways at the half-open door to his left—the chain used to lock it had fallen to the ground. The door had been forced open, and the shadow must have escaped from here.
In that split second, a child with rolled-back eyes and a bluish-black face slipped out from the half-open doorway, fingers curled like claws, lunging straight at him!
Lin Xun swung the keyboard and smashed it onto his head!
Goddess of the Luo River: “Monster child, HP -3000. Current health: sixty percent.”
Lin Xun followed up with another strike: “Stop with the flashy talk.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the Goddess of the Luo River’s tone and frequency rose a notch: “Look behind you!”
Lin Xun instinctively dodged to the right, his fingers sweeping across the keyboard as he unleashed another sword beam!
The howling black shadow halted before him, the sword beam copied from Qi Yun proving useful.
Seizing this brief pause, Lin Xun continued sprinting forward.
A metal door crashed down right in front of him!
A girl in a red dress, around twelve or thirteen years old, drifted over like a marionette suspended in midair. The keyboard was too short, so Lin Xun grabbed a nearby IV stand and swung it at her. The IV stand bent violently, and he immediately used the Light Body Technique to kick off the wall, spinning around to kick the girl away.
The little girl’s body felt as if it were made of steel. His leg went numb from the impact, but he had no time to dwell on it. He fired another sword beam to stab the shadowy monster that had appeared alongside the red-dressed girl, then continued racing forward.
As he ran, the Goddess of the Luo River shrieked: “You’re covering my camera!”
Lin Xun adjusted his grip on the phone, thinking that if he survived this, he would definitely install mini-cameras all around himself—top, bottom, left, right, no blind spots—and hand all the monitoring over to Lo.
Lo continued screaming: “You’re shaking too fast!”
Lin Xun: “Did you send a message to my master and the others?”
Lo: “Signal vanished suddenly.”
Great.
So it wasn’t sent.
Lin Xun pursed his lips, dodging a second metal door that came crashing straight toward him.
While fleeing, he glanced back and saw at least twenty doors collapsing in succession. Children—children of all kinds, in bizarre poses—along with the black, shadowy ghosts behind them, some tall and slender, some round and rolling, others grotesquely shaped, surged toward him like a flood of strange colors.
Fortunately, two hundred meters wasn’t a very long distance, and he still had the Light Body Technique.
About ten seconds later, he finally drew closer to the corner.
At the same time, the chaotic footsteps behind him grew nearer, and the peculiar, chilling aura from the black shadows brushed against the back of his head.
Lo: “You’re done for.”
Lin Xun stopped, clutching the keyboard as he spun around abruptly.
Lo: “Go!!”
“Shut up,” Lin Xun said.
He stared directly at the overwhelming horde of monsters charging toward him.
Fine.
He really might end up here.
Each shadow possessed attack and defense capabilities comparable to his own, especially given their sheer numbers. He couldn’t possibly crack so many firewalls and plant his own virus programs in such a short time. Meanwhile, he was alone and outnumbered. As long as these things kept attacking relentlessly, his firewall would soon shatter.
But that was assuming he hadn’t copied Qi Yun’s program.
In that critical moment, Lo continued shouting at a high frequency: “Elevator—!”
Lin Xun took a deep breath.
Perhaps because he was at life and death’s door, time seemed to stretch. Everything in his vision slowed to a crawl. The shadow leading the charge was a tall, slender humanoid figure with an oval head split by a black crack that rapidly widened, like a ferocious gaping maw.
Lo: “Elevator—!”
Lin Xun curled his lips into a cruel smile and pressed a run key.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
In the next moment, Lin Xun drifted backward ever so lightly.
The Goddess of the Luo River’s “elec—” abruptly cut off.
Sword Qi.
Snow-white Sword Qi.
Thousands upon thousands of snow-white Sword Qi slowly materialized before Lin Xun.
A chilling aura spread across the sky, and killing intent fell like snowflakes!
Then, in the next instant, they shot forth like ten thousand arrows loosed at once, or like hailstones or a raging storm, piercing straight toward the cluster of monsters and shadows!
The entire monster horde’s advance froze, and piercing wails echoed through the narrow corridor. Their bodies showed signs of dissolving within the sword light, with wisps of black Qi dissipating.
The deformed child monsters and eerie shadows were all struck by this Sword Qi from the sword cultivator, tumbling into a chaotic heap, their wails unceasing.
Lin Xun was momentarily dazed by the shockwave. Leaning against the wall, he pressed the elevator button with his right hand, gasping for breath.
The Goddess of the Luo River seemed like a chicken with its neck wrung, not uttering a single sound.
Lin Xun picked up his phone and looked at the screen, his voice slightly hoarse from the intense exertion moments before.
“You’re done for?” he said. “Is that how you talk to your dad?”
Three words and a period appeared on the screen.
“Sorry.”
The next second, three more words appeared.
“You’re awesome.”
With a “ding,” the elevator arrived.
Lin Xun slipped inside, pressed the button for the first floor, and the doors closed instantly. He leaned back against the elevator door, panting heavily.
He felt utterly drained, as if hollowed out.
That strike just now was Qi Yun’s thousands of Sword Qi—meaning thousands of identical programs running concurrently at the same moment.
If the essence of humans is repetition, then the essence of computers is replication.
The computational load in that instant was terrifying, pushing the entire machine to its limit. Reflected in his body, it likely resulted in this nearly depleted state.
The inpatient building for the psychiatric ward was on the sixteenth floor. When the patients began to riot, not a single doctor or nurse was present. Lin Xun thought he might find living people on other floors, but he didn’t—right now, he just wanted to escape this godforsaken place.
On the electronic screen, the floor numbers decreased one by one.
Lin Xun watched the numbers and suddenly furrowed his brow slightly.
A habit a normal person should cultivate is to always expect the worst, no matter what they’re doing.
He looked at the floor number “5” and pressed the button labeled “4.”
If nothing was wrong, the elevator would stop at the fourth floor.
But “4” didn’t light up.
Lin Xun pressed it several times in succession, but there was no response. The elevator continued its descent at the same speed, passing “4” and reaching “3.” Lin Xun pressed “2,” but the situation remained exactly the same.
He let out a long sigh, unsure of what he was feeling. At this point, he felt strangely calm instead.
The earlier strike had drained him too much. If he encountered those monsters again in a narrow space, he likely wouldn’t have the strength to fight back. If he disconnected from the network, he might avoid attacks, but he could also be trapped here forever.
A life-or-death question was whether he could get off the elevator on the first floor and escape through the hospital lobby.
Lin Xun had a premonition that he couldn’t.
His gaze fixed intently on the illuminated button labeled “1.”
The fluorescent light on the elevator ceiling cast a stark, cold glow. The sensation of weightlessness persisted, accompanied by a slight sway and faint creaking sounds. Then, the first floor arrived.
It didn’t stop. The button dimmed.
Simultaneously, the lights shifted, and the button marked “-1” lit up.
The elevator descended smoothly at a steady pace, coming to a gentle halt at “-1.”
With a soft ding, the doors slid open.
The lighting was dim and gloomy, and a chilling, icy air rushed toward him. His skin registered the distinct dampness of an underground space, while the faint scent of formaldehyde lingered in the air.
What could the basement level of a hospital be? Based on limited common sense, Lin Xun guessed it was the morgue.
The morgue of a children’s hospital?
He stepped out, and the elevator doors slowly closed behind him.
To manage traffic and ensure efficiency, the hospital had two elevators side by side. The one he had taken was now parked at the basement level, while the other remained on the fifth floor.
Outside the elevator stretched an empty corridor lined with small white doors—at least six mortuary rooms.
The elevator could only reach the basement level, which meant someone—or something—must be controlling it from behind the scenes. Perhaps the goal was to lure him here.
Maybe it wasn’t just about leading him from the sixteenth floor of the hospital to the basement, but guiding him all the way from Chaoyang Community, from outside the incident, to this place. What connection did this have with the shadowy figure wielding an axe that always haunted Mingming? And what about the out-of-control monsters on the entire sixteenth floor?
Lin Xun frowned slightly. He thought perhaps these weren’t the same events.
He continued walking inward, but just as he took his fifth step, a shivering intuition shot up his spine.
Back then, in the basement of Chaoyang Community, he had walked step by step into the rift of the demon realm, hidden deep underground.
He stopped and surveyed his surroundings, letting out a soft sigh. Focusing his attention, he channeled all his concentration into his eyes—if he remembered correctly, this was the process for activating the Heavenly Eye technique.
Sure enough, three seconds later, he felt his body grow weaker, but a warm current enveloped his eyes. The entire world seemed to transform, with faint, flickering lines of code pulsing in the distance.
As he scanned the area, something conspicuous caught his attention.
Just three steps ahead stood a red rectangular cabinet—a fire hydrant. But it wasn’t an ordinary fire hydrant; intricate lines of code flickered faintly around it.
Lin Xun approached, pulled open the glass door of the fire hydrant, and pushed aside the emergency hose. Deep inside, his fingers brushed against something cold.
—He pulled it out.
A long-handled axe, its blade wide and sharp, noticeably heavier than a keyboard.
He weighed it in his hand, thinking, Could this be… the murder weapon used by Mingming’s mother?
Destroying evidence and hiding the tool—this place was indeed hard to discover. Could Mingming’s father’s body also be here? And what about the mysterious phone calls and Mingming’s strange behavior? Could they be his father’s desperate cries for help, lingering remnants of his will guiding others to uncover his body and reveal the truth of the entire case?
Lin Xun quickly pieced together the events. Based on his reasoning, Mingming’s father wasn’t driven by malice. But then, what explained the appearance of the monsters and the countless ghostly shadows? Could there be a rift to the demon realm hidden beneath the hospital?
He had no solid evidence, and the rift to the demon realm was not a place he could venture into alone. However, one thing was crucial—that little girl, Kexin, could see things others could not, or even detect demons that cultivators could not sense.
Not only that, she could also communicate with demons. Perhaps the information such a little girl could provide would surpass thousands of years of recorded cultivation history.
Just as he was thinking, Lo’s voice interrupted him.
“Warning.”
“Elevator One is descending.”
Lin Xun turned and walked back the way he came.
Elevator One was descending. There was no other possibility—the only explanation was that those monsters and ghostly figures were riding the elevator to come after him.
But the advantage of having two elevators was that there was a time gap between them.
He entered Elevator Two—the one he had taken down earlier.
He pressed the buttons one by one: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Only the light for the sixteenth floor lit up.
Carrying the long-handled axe, Lin Xun stepped out of the elevator on the sixteenth floor.
He remembered Mingming’s room number—strangely enough, while most of the iron doors along the corridor had been pried open by the things inside, Mingming’s door remained intact.
He kicked aside a deformed child crawling in the hallway, reopened the iron door he had securely locked earlier, and walked in.
Mingming was still stiff, the old woman remained dazed, and Chen Xiaochen was still howling.
Lin Kexin, however, looked toward him and giggled softly.
But the next moment, she caught sight of the genuine, people-chopping axe in his hand and visibly shrank back toward the head of the bed.
Lin Xun sat down beside her bed.
He placed the axe on the table, rested his right hand lightly on the axe handle, and said calmly, “Shall we talk?”