Fleecing

Fleecing

After Chi Lian knocked Ke Yi unconscious, she was honestly terrified and had no idea what to do.

Who would have thought that just then, her benefactor would appear in front of her again, as if he had come specifically to save her.

This made Chi Lian even more grateful to her benefactor. Worship filled her heart, as though her benefactor were her god.

She gazed at him yearningly, only for her benefactor to look back with a strange expression, as if she owed him eight million.

Chi Lian was utterly confused. She checked herself over, saw nothing unusual, and asked innocently, "Benefactor, is something wrong with me? Have I been contaminated by someone?"

"No. Nothing." Mu Sichen shook his head.

He was the one who had almost lost control over losing 20 Energy Value, and he badly wanted to hold Chi Lian's head down and scrape the Self Sticker off the back of her neck.

Were Followers the kind of existence that constantly fleeced him? Then what did he need Followers for?

There had to be other uses. It was just that for now, he had too few Followers, so he had to pay wages and support them first. Once he had more Followers, or once he found the "Pillar" and completed his novice mission, he would be able to collect interest from his Followers, right?

Mu Sichen currently regarded Chi Lian as a debt-ridden teammate who owed him money and would keep borrowing from him in the future.

"Let's discuss how to complete the mission," Mu Sichen said. "After you entered the game, did the System issue you a mission?"

"Yes." Chi Lian had no guard up around Mu Sichen and answered frankly. "At first, the System told me to find the "Pillar" and build the 'Security Department,' but later the mission content suddenly changed."

Mu Sichen asked, "What did it change to?"

Chi Lian said, "It told me to assist a player named Mu Sichen in establishing his ideal town. Benefactor, who is Mu Sichen? Do you know him?"

Mu Sichen: "...That's me."

The name written on his name badge was "Sha Big-Eyes," so Chi Lian had probably been thinking of him as "Benefactor Sha Big-Eyes" this whole time.

Chi Lian said in delight, "That's wonderful! When the System issued the mission, I was actually pretty unwilling. I was thinking, why make me help a player I don't even know? So Benefactor, you're Mu Sichen. That means you're my captain! Just tell me whatever you want me to do!"

Mu Sichen asked, "When did your mission change?"

"I only noticed the mission had been modified after I left the plaza. Before that, the Feather-Eyed Apostle scared me too badly, and I didn't have the energy to check my System panel, so I'm not too sure exactly when it happened," Chi Lian said.

Then it must have happened after she put on the Self Sticker, Mu Sichen analyzed silently.

Although he had lost 20 Energy Value and would lose even more in the future, having a teammate he could trust, especially one with such a special ability, was still a good thing overall. Mu Sichen comforted himself silently.

Especially since Chi Lian was now a doctor.

Because Yao Wangping had once supplemented the rules, doctors could now enter any room in the sanatorium, while the real doctor, Ke Yi, had become a patient in Chi Lian's place...

Mu Sichen suddenly realized that there might be no need to add another rule. They could sneak into the discharge registration office on B1 and take a look.

All they had to do was treat Ke Yi, then have Chi Lian bring Ke Yi to B1.

This could save Shen Jiyue, but the moment he or Chi Lian treated Ke Yi, it would mean they acknowledged the sanatorium's rules, and they would become Big-Eye's followers.

And destroying the "Pillar" required Qin Zhou's power. Chi Lian was his Follower, and he was nowhere near as strong as Qin Zhou. He could not lend Chi Lian the strength to destroy the "Pillar."

This route would not work.

But Chi Lian's existence still had benefits. Their team now had an uncontaminated doctor.

Mu Sichen did not know what role that could play, but he had a feeling it would be very useful.

"Oh, right, Captain Mu." Chi Lian had changed the way she addressed Mu Sichen. "I looked through Ke Yi's office just now and discovered something."

Chi Lian took out a diary and handed it to Mu Sichen.

Mu Sichen: "..."

Why did the people of the Town of the Eye love keeping diaries so much?

Chi Lian flipped the diary to a page in the middle, pointed at it, and showed Mu Sichen. "It says here that the director, the Feather-Eyed Apostle, once told Doctor Ke that as long as she returned nine lost children to the embrace of the Eye of the Sky, the doctor could be discharged."

Mu Sichen looked at the diary, but he did not see what Chi Lian had seen. All he saw were prescriptions like ghostly scrawls. The handwriting looked very much like doctors' prescriptions in reality.

"Ke Yi wrote down herself that she had already found eight lost children and would go find the last one today. Do I count as the ninth? Now that I've replaced her identity, doesn't that mean I can be discharged?" Chi Lian said.

Mu Sichen frowned. "I don't see any of the words you're talking about."

He took a pen and notebook out of his game inventory, copied down what he saw, and showed it to Chi Lian.

Chi Lian: "...Captain Mu, what kind of ghost scribbles did you write? You can't see what this diary says? You can't read it? Every word is very clear. Doctor Ke's handwriting is very neat!"

"If you aren't deceiving me, then there's only one answer. Only medical staff can read the contents of the diary." Mu Sichen's expression grew grave.

"I swear on the sticker on my neck, I could never lie to Captain Mu!" Chi Lian's expression was resolute, looking as though she were one step away from cutting off a finger to prove her resolve.

"I wasn't doubting you," Mu Sichen said.

If Chi Lian were the sort of person who wanted nothing and trusted Mu Sichen as if bewitched, Mu Sichen would instead suspect she had been contaminated by something. But now Chi Lian was a money pit, a Follower raised with Energy Value, so it was very hard for Mu Sichen not to trust her.

Because without sufficient faith, there was no way to borrow power from him.

The truth was truly heartbreaking. Mu Sichen felt he had to find a way to increase his energy cap and recover Energy Value quickly as soon as possible, or else he really would not be able to afford his Followers.

"I knew you would definitely believe me!" Chi Lian said happily.

Mu Sichen, however, was not happy.

Although he did not doubt Chi Lian, this matter made Mu Sichen wary. He began to doubt Shen Jiyue's words.

This did not mean Mu Sichen doubted Shen Jiyue as a person. He doubted the information Shen Jiyue had obtained.

Because patients, family members, and medical staff obtained different information. Was the information Shen Jiyue had risked himself to obtain truly the whole of it?

Clear-Sight Sanatorium... clear sight... what kind of person could gain clear sight in this sanatorium and obtain all the information?

Shen Jiyue had once said that only patients could truly leave the sanatorium, and that everyone else had no way out. That was why he believed the "Pillar" was located on B1, where patients were discharged. But this was information Shen Jiyue had obtained as a patient, so he had only obtained intelligence about patients being discharged.

And Chi Lian, as a doctor, had seen a doctor's method of leaving and being discharged in another doctor's diary.

Yao Wangping had also turned a doctor's office upside down. Mu Sichen recalled the scene from when he interacted with Yao Wangping and remembered that there seemed to have been a diary just like this lying open on the desk.

That diary had also been filled with ghostly scrawls Mu Sichen could not read.

Could those scrawls have recorded content more or less like what Chi Lian had seen?

Patients, family members, volunteers, medical staff. There were four kinds of identities in Clear-Sight Sanatorium. Was it possible that each of these four identities actually had its own corresponding method of discharge, but because the four identities opposed one another and could not read the writing seen by the others, all four of them had actually failed to see the complete picture?

Big Eye's title was "Eye of the Sky." His manifested form was a giant eye shrouding the sky. His powers were related to eyes. He could use fog to obscure people's vision and use hallucinations to drive people mad.

Judging by the power Big Eye had displayed so far, blocking people's vision and making different people see different words should not be difficult for Him.

No one could obtain true information in this sanatorium, because the content each person saw was completely different.

Mu Sichen sank into deep thought. Beside him, Chi Lian imitated her benefactor's expression: brows faintly furrowed, eyes half lowered, one hand lightly propping her chin as though deep in thought. In reality, her head was empty, and she could not think of anything at all.

"We don't have enough people," Mu Sichen suddenly said. "I need manpower!"

"There was another player who chased after you with me before, but the fog was too thick. We walked and walked and got separated." Chi Lian raised her hand. "You saved him before too. Although he didn't put on a Self Sticker, if he entered the sanatorium as well, he should be able to form a party with us, right?"

Mu Sichen thought for a moment and knew that Chi Lian was talking about Pushcart Player.

So he shook his head and said, "Even if he entered the sanatorium, he would only be a family member. Right now, we already have three identities: patient, family member, and doctor. I need a volunteer. But a volunteer has to be Big Eye's follower. That makes things a little difficult."

"You can turn a family member into a volunteer," Chi Lian said, pointing at herself. "I have Cut and Paste functions. It's just swapping a name badge."

Mu Sichen said, "Your energy bar is already bottomed out, and one person's energy bar isn't enough to use that skill."

Chi Lian's eyes lit up. She looked at Mu Sichen and said, "Captain Mu, you must have a way, right?"

Mu Sichen: "..."

He clutched his chest and only felt his heart ache. A boss in the start-up phase did not have any money in his account either. He was only a novice player himself. His energy cap was only 100. He simply could not withstand this kind of spending!

But if they did not use this method, the volunteer identity would be entirely opposed to theirs, and they could never obtain the information that only volunteers could see.

Mu Sichen worried so much that his SAN was about to drop.

Just as Mu Sichen was agonizing over the dilemma, a faint pain tugged in his chest again. The octopus totem was whipping his chest again.

Who knew whether Qin Zhou could hear their conversation or was urging him to act.

Mu Sichen thought it should be the latter.

All of his thinking was happening inside his mind and had not been spoken aloud. Even if Qin Zhou could hear their conversation through the totem, He could not possibly read his thoughts.

Mu Sichen had once had his mind read because of a tentacle's touch, so he knew what it felt like to have his thoughts seen through. It was the sensation of his sea of consciousness being enveloped and gazed upon by an enormous force. He believed that even for Qin Zhou, using this ability would cost a great deal when His true body could not reach the Town of the Eye.

At this moment, Mu Sichen did not feel as though his mind was being read. He believed Qin Zhou had not guessed his thoughts and was only urging him to act as soon as possible to increase Qin Zhou's Followers.

Why wasn't Qin Zhou afraid of gaining more Followers? Did He really have that much Energy Value, so much that no matter how many Followers fleeced Him, they could never use it all up?

Since Qin Zhou had already delivered Himself to the door, Mu Sichen would not stand on ceremony.

Mu Sichen said to Chi Lian, "We can't do this openly. Go trick a few volunteers into coming to the office and have them come in one at a time. Just say... there's a patient in the office who needs to be transferred to a ward, and you need their help."

Volunteers were supposed to assist medical staff, so Chi Lian had this authority.

Chi Lian agreed readily and ran out of the room at top speed.

Mu Sichen summoned his pickaxe and stood behind the door.

Before long, the office door opened, and a volunteer walked in.

Mu Sichen showed no mercy. He swung the pickaxe and smashed it down.

When he raised the pickaxe, Mu Sichen felt an immense surge of power pass from his chest into the pickaxe. This was the power Qin Zhou had lent him.

If Mu Sichen had had time to check his status at this moment, he would have discovered that his MP bar cap had changed to "infinity," with no cap at all.

The pickaxe came down, and a blue number, "-2847," appeared above the pick head.

This meant that this one use of the "Undermine" skill had consumed 2,847 of Qin Zhou's Energy Value.

A silver Self Sticker fell into Mu Sichen's palm, the design on it clearly visible.

The designs on the previous Self Stickers had been blurred. Mu Sichen could only make out vague shapes and had no idea what his Self Sticker actually looked like.

Only now, with Qin Zhou's power, did Mu Sichen finally see the design clearly.

It was a pattern that resembled both wings and hands: two hands, or perhaps two wings, spread open to cover three markings that symbolized Sky, Ocean, and Earth.

With just one glance, Mu Sichen understood the meaning of the pattern.

They were hands that no sky, ocean, or earth could imprison, hands that controlled their own Fate.

This was his totem.

He had to borrow another god-class monster's power just to see his own totem clearly. Mu Sichen laughed in self-mockery.

A tentacle marking suddenly appeared on the back of the head of the volunteer Mu Sichen had knocked to the floor, repairing the wound the pickaxe had smashed open.

The volunteer climbed to his feet, knelt on one knee, and looked toward a distant direction. With solemn sincerity, he said, "General Qin, I will definitely liberate Pupil Town and make the Town of the Eye peaceful and secure."

Mu Sichen: "..."

This really was a large-scale conversion scene.

Luckily, Big Eye's eyes were closed during the "Night." Otherwise, this series of actions would never have escaped Big Eye's gaze. They did not have much time. They had to destroy the "Pillar" inside the sanatorium before "Daylight" descended!

Unfortunately, the name badge on this volunteer's chest also soon changed to "patient."

He had lost his volunteer identity.

Using this method, they could not obtain a companion who possessed the volunteer identity.

Just then, diligent Chi Lian tricked another volunteer inside.

Mu Sichen swung the pickaxe without hesitation.

But this volunteer was actually stronger than the previous one. He had installed a pair of eyes on his own back too, and had cut two holes in his clothes. The pair of eyes stared unblinkingly at Mu Sichen, and he nimbly dodged Mu Sichen's attack.

The volunteer with eyes on his back immediately shrieked, "Fall..."

Unfortunately, before he could finish the word, the previous converted volunteer covered his mouth.

The converted volunteer nodded to Mu Sichen and said with a solemn expression, "I'll assist you. Go ahead!"

Mu Sichen: "..."

He swung the pickaxe again. As the blue "-3126" Energy Value was deducted, the volunteer with eyes on his back also became Qin Zhou's follower, becoming another patient.

And Mu Sichen obtained a second silver Self Sticker.

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Author's Note:

Qin Zhou (excitedly waving his tentacles): Chenchen, look, aren't I useful?

Mu Sichen: I still find it a little off-putting, but I have to admit you came in handy for one tiny second.