Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo reached out to grab a tissue, casually wrapping the capsule hidden in his sleeve before making a trip to the restroom.

After flushing the medication away, he returned to the ward but didn’t sleep, instead walking over to the window.

Outside, the sky was dim with bright streetlights illuminating the spacious lawn. Though the distant perimeter wall stood five to six meters high, it was still evident this was a well-equipped psychiatric hospital.

And now he was a schizophrenic patient, admitted for four months and undergoing medication treatment.

Xu Huo couldn’t determine whether this was inside a dungeon.

Because he still hadn’t received any game prompt, and furthermore, he had lost some abilities—unable to open the game panel, unable to use items, even the evolutionary characteristics of his body had vanished.

After he and Yan Jiayu were surrounded by Mutants and climbed over the wall, struck by a strange force, he woke up bound. Yan Jiayu was missing, while Tang Guangbo, Yu Qingqing, Dai Wenqian, Zhou Ning—these people either appeared in person or by name—had materialized instead. Tang Guangbo became a doctor at the psychiatric hospital, while Yu, Dai, and Zhou became nurses... If this wasn’t a dungeon, could it be an illusion?

Testing with the simplest pain method, he could perceive pain and didn’t feel any detachment of consciousness.

He was completely lucid, as clear-headed as if he had just washed his face after waking up in the morning.

Turning around, he lifted the hospital bed to confirm his evolutionary strength had indeed disappeared, then lay down to rest, only getting up again late at night.Opening the door and stepping out, the nurse on duty was dozing with her head on the desk. However, the iron door leading through the rest area to the treatment room and doctor’s office had a code lock.

Not rashly touching the lock, he approached the duty station. Reaching through the guardrail, he took a hospital brochure and borrowed the nurse’s phone left on the desk.

The brochure described Seventeenth Hospital as a private psychiatric facility with fifty years of history. In recent years, it had hired domestic and international experts with high salaries, achieving significant accomplishments in psychiatric treatment and winning numerous awards.

Online platforms also contained information about this hospital—past promotional materials, feedback from families and patients, records of the hospital’s multiple renovations and repairs—all searchable.

Moreover, the outside world appeared peaceful, with no players, no Evolvers, and certainly no invaders. The most discussion about the Dimensional Rift game existed only on a single gaming forum.

”Do you play this game too?” someone suddenly spoke behind him. Xu Huo whirled around to see a pale, gaunt patient staring fixedly at him before revealing an eerie smile. The patient pressed his index finger to his lips, then headed toward the wards, gesturing for Xu Huo to follow.

Xu Huo returned the phone and brochure before following him to the ward.

The room housed two other people besides them. When they saw Xu Huo, they frowned and questioned the one who brought him, ”Why did you bring a stranger here?”

The patient licked his lips, ”Do you think the few of us can escape Seventeenth Hospital? I’ve tried before—every time I get caught before even making it out. Then it’s injections, medication, and confinement in the treatment room. That’s no way to live.”

The tall dark-skinned man among the three sighed and looked up to ask Xu Huo, ”Did you receive the game prompt?”

”No,” Xu Huo said. ”What about you?”

”Neither,” the tall man replied. ”And we’ve lost our characteristics and items too. I think this is the game’s power—only by escaping this psychiatric hospital or triggering the dungeon’s key point will our player status reactivate.”

”But we’ve been here for several days without finding anything,” another person said. ”How do we reactivate it?”

”I’ve been everywhere accessible in the hospital,” the tall man said. ”I’ve seen everyone except the director. Neither people nor events can trigger activation. So we can only try escaping—maybe we can leave the dungeon’s territory.”

The gaunt patient maintained his smile, ”As long as the dungeon isn’t triggered, we just need to leave the psychiatric hospital. Outside is the new world.”

Noticing the patient’s clearly abnormal mental state, Xu Huo asked, ”Where are you from? How long have you been here?”

”Me?” The gaunt patient paused, taking a moment to process before responding sluggishly, ”Me... I’m from... Ting City. Don’t remember how long I’ve been here... but the doctor said almost half a year.”

The origin of this incident lay in that strange fog. Xu Huo asked the others in turn—while not all were from Ting City, they had all entered from there. The tall man even described the buildings that appeared in the fog wall.

”Wait...” the gaunt patient said again, ”Ting City seems to be a game district in Dimensional Rift. I often log into this district—there’s no Ting City in reality.”

The others in the room fell silent. The tall man told Xu Huo, ”Don’t take the medicine the doctors and nurses give you. I suspect it’s mind-control drugs meant to make us believe we’re sick.”

”I won’t believe a single word from those doctors and nurses, and you shouldn’t either.” The group encouraged each other, as if only this could alleviate the unease from losing their evolutionary abilities.

Xu Huo wanted to ask them something, but the words escaped him as he tried to speak. He returned to his ward, only remembering when he closed the door that he had meant to ask those players about the hospital’s name and the doctors’ and nurses’ names.

How could he forget something so important?

Just as he thought to go ask again, footsteps sounded outside. He immediately returned to bed, lying facing the door with his eyelids slightly cracked.

Zhou Ning appeared outside the door—the familiar face peered through the glass window with a small light before quickly leaving.

Xu Huo fell asleep like this and was awakened the next morning by his roommate’s snoring.

He sat up, staring gravely at the lump under the covers on the opposite bed, rubbing his temples hard. Not only had he forgotten important matters, but he had also slept deeply.

Was this an illusion or the dungeon’s effect?

”Hey.” The person on the opposite bed also sat up, hugging the blanket while studying him. ”Are you a player?”

Xu Huo didn’t answer, so the man continued on his own, ”I’m not crazy. Black Players, Player-Eaters—they’re all real, but no one believes me... Hah! Truth is only held by a minority. You’re just pitiful creatures trapped at the bottom of a well, completely unable to understand the world of Evolvers like me.”

After finishing his monologue, he looked at Xu Huo again, ”You don’t believe me either, do you? I’ll prove it to you—I have incredibly powerful items!”

He raised his hand as he spoke, but it was empty.

His eyes froze momentarily before quickly recovering, ”How could I forget? My powers are restricted in this dungeon... Let me tell you secretly—don’t trust the doctors and nurses here. They’re all dungeon bosses specifically tasked with killing players.”

Xu Huo narrowed his eyes at the person leaning close, feeling everything had become utterly absurd.