Moreover, they had yet to see an announcement about the crash of the Death Taxi instance. This implied that Chen Beidou was still safe.
Why had the Doctor and Brother Chu so confidently predicted that he wouldn't survive? Were there things he didn't know about?
Fatty was completely confused.
Chu Changge was sitting on a high stool to the side, adjusting his glasses. "We discussed earlier that the game can hardly interfere with plot development. Therefore, it could hardly interfere with the physical conditions of characters in the instances either."
In other words, the game couldn't directly restore Chen Beidou's health, but at the end of the instance, Chen Beidou's condition was already critical.
Chu Changge continued, "The instance kicked us out to save Chen Beidou, so it's certain that Chen Beidou's injuries will be healed after our departure."
Fatty was a bit puzzled. "If the game can't interfere directly, how will Chen Beidou recover from his injuries?"
"I guess—" The light reflected off Chu Changge's glasses. "The game can't interfere directly, but it can send players into instances. And so, it can send other things into instances too. Do you remember the rules of this global game at its start?"
Fatty answered honestly, "I forgot already."
Chu Changge seemed to have expected this answer. He continued, "There's one point in the instructions. To summarize it concisely: 'Once Instance A accepts a group of players and starts the game, other players who haven't yet entered the game can no longer be matched into Instance A.'"
In other words, an instance can only accommodate one group of players at a time.
"That's why the Taxi instance was so eager to kick us out. As long as we were gone, the next group could enter the instance."
Chu Changge paused before adding, "But it's still unclear whether the next group to enter the instance are players."
Fatty seemed to grasp onto something. "Could it be... a maintenance crew for the instances?"
This was a name he came up with on the spot, but it seemed to hit the mark.
"That's pretty much it," Chu Changge nodded. "I think the game might send a team in to rescue Chen Beidou, who's on the brink of death."
Gu Mian joined in the conversation. "By now, Chen Beidou should be out of immediate danger."
Fatty turned to him and saw that he was holding a large object. Upon closer inspection, Fatty realized it looked like the brick Gu Mian had taken out in the Death Taxi instance.
Having realized this, Fatty took another look at what Gu Mian was holding.
Now he saw clearly. "This is not a brick…"
At that moment, Fatty seemed to understand why Chen Beidou was presumed dead.
"After the maintenance crew finishes their work, they'll leave, and then the instance will restart and accept new players," Chu Changge adjusted his glasses. "The Taxi instance is probably running again now."
"It's only been half a day, right?" Fatty glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Time in the instance is different from the real world," Gu Mian explained. "You could summarize it as 'one day in reality, one year in an instance.' Of course, I'm using hyperbole here."
Chu Changge looked in the direction of the ticket booth. "So now…"
"Even if there was a maintenance crew, they should have left by now. It should be all right," Gu Mian added.
As they had guessed, the Death Taxi instance was still running.
It was still late night in the instance, as if this particular instance had no daytime at all.
An old taxi was driving on the road, with a gentle-looking, middle-aged man in the driver's seat.
There was another passenger in the back seat, who looked a bit flustered.
Yuwen Hao clung to the rear window, staring out. "Looks like it's going to rain. Driver, can you speed up?"
"No problem," the driver's gentle voice came from the front.
"Speaking of which…" Yuwen Hao looked at the driver. "Why are you wearing gloves in the cab?"
The driver had on a pair of thin gloves—inadequate for warding off the cold.
"Oh," the driver replied gently, "A few days ago, I had a doctor as a passenger. I got hurt a bit when driving him. My hands got injured too, and it doesn't look very nice."
"I see…" Yuwen Hao nodded hesitantly.
Got injured while driving a doctor...
For some reason, he subconsciously thought of a doctor he'd encountered in an instance named "Gu Mian."
The name Gu Mian wasn't on the wanted list yet when Yuwen Hao was first matched with him.
The driver spoke again, "By the way, you must have seen a lot of doctors. What do you think of them?"
Yuwen Hao hesitated for a moment.
He had already changed three cars since he entered this instance. The driver in front of him looked the most normal—he felt that he had found his lifeline in this instance.
The other drivers are all ghosts; only this driver is human. If I get in a human's car, I'll be safe.
It's understandable for humans to be a bit talkative.
With this in mind, he picked up the conversation, "Most of the doctors I have seen are in the hospital. I can't really see much more than their consultations, prescribing medicine, and so on..."
"But not long ago, I met a strange doctor outside the hospital."
As he said this, images of Gu Mian flooded Yuwen Hao's mind.
"He particularly likes saving others..."
The car suddenly swerved slightly, but Yuwen Hao didn't mind too much.
"Whether they are good or bad, as long as they are sick, he wants to help."
"But his way of saving people...is a bit questionable...."
That's when Yuwen Hao noticed the driver's face was stiffer than before. He looked at the driver's increasingly dark face in the rearview mirror, wondering what he had said wrong.
The driver spoke again, his tone still deceptively light, "He sounds like an interesting doctor. Do you still remember what he looks like?"
Of course, I remember.
Yuwen Hao looked at the driver a little suspiciously. "He's unique. You can spot him in a crowd. Of course, the most striking thing about him is the big guitar he carries on his back." Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭⚑𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥
Of course, he knew that it wasn't really a guitar.
At this moment, he heard the driver suddenly laugh.
In the dark, with the rain POURING down, the driver's laugh mixed in, sounding somewhat eerie.
Yuwen Hao began to feel uneasy, swallowing dryly.
The driver was beaming. "Are you friends?"
"Kind of," Yuwen Hao nodded cautiously. "I consider him a friend."
As soon as he finished speaking, the driver's laughter became more intense, as if he were going to laugh himself to death.
At the same time, the entire car suddenly stopped in the rain. Yuwen Hao was horrified, wanting to pull open the door and leave, but he found that the car door had been locked, and he couldn't open it at all.
The driver in front turned his head around, a twisted smile on his face.
His eyes were almost narrowed into a line from the laughter, and his mouth was stretched wide.
Yuwen Hao heard his exaggerated tone—"Turns out you guys are friends."
What's going on? Yuwen Hao shrank back. "Do you know him?"
"More than just know him," Chen Beidou laughed wildly, reaching out his hand to pull something out as he laughed. Yuwen Hao noticed it was a broken axe.
He saw the driver's expression turn savage, a terrifying look he had never seen before.
Then, he heard a voice filled with resentment:
"Since you're friends—then you can go die!"
A furious voice came, followed by the sound of an axe swinging through the air.
Yuwen Hao was horrified. In a panic, he raised his hand instinctively to block the incoming axe. However, even after he raised his arm, the axe didn't fall.
After a long time, he finally dared to look up.
He saw a large gash on the driver's collarbone up front, from which blood was gushing. The gravely wounded driver was slumped against the seatback, eyes wide with disbelief as he clutched his wound.
Outside the instance, Gu Mian was fiddling with an Archive Device in his hands.
[Function: Archive. Press the green button to archive the user's current life status. Press the red button to load the archive, restoring the user to their state at the time of archiving.
This Archive Device can only archive once per month. If the archive is not loaded within one month, the archive is destroyed. If the archiver dies, the archive is destroyed and cannot be used for revival.]