The reason why the Type II Gas release countdown suddenly triggered during the Escape Room wasn’t because she swiped the wrong card or entered the wrong password.
It was because she touched the smart sensor area inside the door with her dust-covered finger.
Mu Shan looked incredulous.
‘Hygiene, hygiene.’
The air had no foul smell, and the walls glowed white.
Aside from the timer, the entire research institute kept reminding them about ‘hygiene.’
Touching the gas delivery pipes, Mu Shan felt she was on the verge of figuring something out. A neglected guess in her mind was about to surface—
But the pounding and scratching sounds from outside the door suddenly grew louder.
Although the control room’s iron door was very sturdy, with large groups of zombies repeatedly slamming into it, dust and grit actually fell “rustle rustle” from the ceiling.
The four listened to the all-surrounding 3D zombie sound effects from up, down, left, and right, feeling like the turtle trapped in a jar.
Li Mei trembled on her legs in fear. “What do we do? We’ve walked into a zombie nest!”
“Opening the door now would really get us wiped out in one go, right? What if we wait and see, until they go dormant again?” Zhang Haiyang suggested.
“They know there’s food inside; they won’t go dormant.” The Old Driver’s expression was grave. “Waiting now just means waiting for the door to break.”
If they still had that [World Cup soccer field soccer ball] prop, they might have a shot, but unfortunately, the soccer ball had vanished along with the big fire.
The three pulled long faces, but Mu Shan suddenly stood up. “Everyone, stand together. I have a method to try.”
She took out the card. “But I haven’t used it before, so I don’t know the exact effect.”
“Sis, I can pretend I didn’t hear that second half.” Zhang Haiyang swallowed. His feet obediently walked over anyway. “N-No life-threatening danger, right? I’m scared.”
The Old Driver tucked his cigarette behind his ear. “How much worse can it be than right now?”
Li Mei psyched herself up. “Let’s go!”
The four stood back-to-back, relying on each other in a circle, minimizing their footprint as much as possible.
Mu Shan gripped the card and took a deep breath.
【Environment Card: Empty Office
Usage: Materialize the card
Description: In the vicinity of the player’s current location, select the nearest unoccupied office based on proximity principle. Teleport the player and their entire squad.
Note: Teleport location is random】
The moment the card materialized, Mu Shan only felt a wave of dizziness. The frenzied zombie roars in her ears instantly receded. The pitch-black control room was pulled and distorted by giant hands, losing all shape like a Picasso oil painting.
Their brains lost control as well.
The system seemed to refuse letting them ‘perceive, recognize, or think’ about what happened during the teleport.
By the time they came to, she suddenly felt weightless and stood in a new environment.
The scene change was too abrupt. Their eyes stung from the bright light, taking a while to adjust to the new surroundings.
“What is this place?”
Their first reaction was to raise their weapons, bodies on full alert.
A few seconds later, Li Mei pointed at the sign by the door. White background, black letters: Grand Laboratory.
They had accidentally teleported straight into the deepest monster nest. One step into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
But in fact, the horror level of the Grand Laboratory was far inferior to the outer corridor areas. It was like a pre-apocalypse research facility, kept clean and quiet, without a trace of blood.
“Search around for any discoveries.” The four split up to act.
Mu Shan looked at the small glass-sealed experiment rooms before her. The experimental items inside were bizarre and varied, each with different labels. Nearby screens recorded experiment times and data.
There were ferns that had gone wild, spilling out of their pots, stubbornly extending tendrils toward the ceiling lights; fungi that had died in petri dishes, turned into gray clumps; and ugly fish barely clinging to life, surviving on plankton.
These things didn’t look like ordinary creatures at all. They seemed eerily creepy, who knew what pathogens they carried. Fortunately, they were sealed in glass rooms and couldn’t escape.
“You scared me—!”
Zhang Haiyang suddenly let out a yelp nearby.
“What happened?” He drew the others’ attention.
The Rookie patted his chest. “Nothing, nothing. Just a pile of dead rats. Died way too creepily.”
Mu Shan tiptoed to look from afar. Inside the glass compartment, a pile of white lab mice had been gnawed beyond recognition by something, scattered in pieces, everywhere covered in blood and leftover fur.
The Old Driver had an important discovery too.
“Look—” Feng Wei pointed to a thick iron door marked with an × at the deepest part of the Grand Laboratory. He gestured with his hands, utterly convinced.
“Boss’s location.”
He said to Li Mei, “I remember your side quest is [find evidence of the research institute’s illegal animal experiments]. I guess there’s an 80% chance the evidence you’re looking for is inside there.”
Li Mei saw everyone look at her and shook her head frantically, shivering. “No, no! My side quest progress already shows 50%. I’m satisfied! It’s too scary in there. I-I-I don’t dare go…”
Mu Shan said, “Then forget it.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Truth be told, they didn’t want to face whatever was in there either. Normal humans wouldn’t run into a monster nest voluntarily. Of course, crazies like [Rogue] were exceptions.
They searched the entire Grand Laboratory but found nothing else. The group cautiously headed out and discovered a changing room outside the laboratory, used by the researchers to swap clothes.
The changing room was very quiet, divided into male and female halves. In the women’s half, one metal locker door stood open.
There were no other traces.
The four split up to search the lockers for any valuable supplies.
The Old Driver saw Mu Shan squat down.
“What is it?”
“There’s blood.” She pointed at the ground below the only open locker door.
Two round drops of blood, not much, and long dried, turned black.
Inside the locker was a set of women’s casual clothes, along with a small round mirror, comb, hair clip, lipstick, hand cream, and such sundries.
The nameplate on the locker read: Wang Yanzi.
Mu Shan pocketed the hand cream, small mirror, and hair clip.
She asked Zhang Haiyang, who stood farthest out, “What’s outside the changing room?”
“Storage room. Full of medical and lab equipment, seems like some medicines too. There are four or five zombies inside. Do we fight our way out?”
“Is the storage room connected to the corridor?”
“Seems like it.”
Mu Shan said, “Got it.”
Zhang Haiyang was baffled. “Sis, what do you know?”
“I know how the zombie virus spread through C City, and how Sun Lizhou was killed.”
“Huh…?” Zhang Haiyang’s mouth fell open. “Did I miss something?”
The other two looked over too.
Mu Shan pointed at the blood spots on the ground. “This changing room is the true first site of the zombie outbreak.”
“Wang Yanzi, as the first human infected with the zombie virus, still retained some sanity. That’s why there’s no trace in the changing room. She staggered to the storage room looking for medicine, probably trying to save herself.”
“But soon she lost her reason and went berserk biting people. That’s the massive blood trail we saw starting from the corridor.”
As she explained slowly, everyone seemed to see a female researcher in a white coat, dragging her steps, rummaging for medicine everywhere, accidentally knocking over alcohol.
Colleagues in the storage room noticed her abnormality and kindly came to help, only to get bitten on the neck.
“Changing room, storage room, corridor, stairwell—from the third floor to the second, the traces match the scenario.” The Old Driver affirmed it.
【Cannon Fodder Player 537099, your [Zombie Siege] side quest progress:
Task 1: Find the cause of the badge owner’s death (5/10)
Task 2: Find the reason the zombie virus spread to the city (8/10)】
Mu Shan frowned.
Zhang Haiyang whispered, “Is something off? It’s not 10 yet.”
Li Mei covered his mouth. “Shh!”
Mu Shan suddenly understood. She looked at the Rookie. “You’re right, it’s off! The outbreak path is correct, but Wang Yanzi didn’t carry the zombie virus out of the laboratory!”
Zhang Haiyang was stunned. “Then who was the jerk who did?!”
“The white lab mice.”
“Huh???’
“Those ones I saw? The pile gnawed to bits by something?” Zhang Haiyang gaped.
“Exactly.”
“The first mutation happened to the white mice in the Grand Laboratory. They first ate their own kind. Whether it was an ancient glacier-melted revived virus or a new one from the institute’s illegal animal experiments, the cause doesn’t matter.”
“The zombie mice crawled through the air vents to the changing room and bit Wang Yanzi, who was changing clothes. That started the one-to-ten, ten-to-hundred spread.”
Mu Shan walked to the wall and looked up at the ceiling air vent. “An institute with this much history must be storing plenty of viruses and bacteria. Type II Gas is specifically for disinfection.”
“As for why they had no power to resist, it’s probably because of Qian Bo.”
Zhang Haiyang clutched his head. “H-How does this tie back to the deputy director murder?”
“The zombie outbreak was on the 29th. That’s four days after Sun Lizhou’s death. Even with the AC on, at room temperature, the corpse would rot and stink.” Mu Shan said slowly.
Li Mei had a realization. “So Qian Bo must have wanted to mask the smell, to prevent anyone reporting it before he found what he wanted?”
“Exactly. The police would interfere with his plans.”
“The institute’s ventilation system has two types of gas: Type I for deodorizing, Type II for disinfection.” Mu Shan explained. “Four days later, the corpse stank. Qian Bo wanted to use Type I Gas to cover the corpse odor, but which gas to release is fully computer-controlled. So…”
He stole an access card, sneaked into Control Room 2, and swapped all the gas canisters to Type I Gas.
Thus, whether for sterilization or deodorizing, what the institute actually released was Type I Gas.
That was why everyone felt the air unusually fragrant upon entering.
That was why spraying disinfectant gas on the zombies did nothing.
“After bacteria levels exceeded limits, Type II Gas auto-released, but thanks to Qian Bo, it was actually Type I Gas. The rampant zombie virus wasn’t controlled at all and gradually spread through the entire institute.”
“Qian Bo himself ended up bitten to death by zombies.” Mu Shan said woodenly.
Wang Yanzi went to her death never guessing she’d be the first human infected with the zombie virus, spreading it from her to all of C City.
Qian Bo went to his death never imagining that after all his misdeeds, he’d never get his ‘great peng spreading wings’ moment.
Zhang Haiyang weakly raised his hand. “So what was the murder weapon he used?”
“Sand. Sand from the fish tank.”
“Huh???’
“The chalk outline on the ground showed very little blood from Sun Lizhou’s corpse. Not like a sharp weapon, more like a blunt strike.”
“There are cases abroad of grown men killed by kids with sandbags. Qian Bo probably did something similar—filled something with sand and smashed Sun Lizhou’s head repeatedly until he died.”
“After the murder, he dumped the sand back into the fish tank. No one the wiser.”
“My god…” Zhang Haiyang was dumbfounded. “Sis, how do you know? Do you have a prop that lets you see the past?”
“No.” Mu Shan smiled wryly. “When we first went in, the sand in the tank almost completely covered the water plants. And for a tank that size, there was way too much sand.”
She explained, “For an aquarium enthusiast, that kind of BUG is absolutely unacceptable.”
The Old Driver asked, “What did Qian Bo use to fill with sand and hit him?”
“I think it was an old sock.”
The one draped over the radiator in his office.
Back then, locked in the secret room, she’d groped it twice while looking for the key. No needle or access card hidden in the sock, but there were hard, clumped grains of sand.
Mu Shan was actually pretty speechless about it.
Why did those two, one director and one deputy director, even with a deep grudge, not just poison each other with some biological toxin? They had to pull this stunt, and now they dragged the whole city down with them.
They even wasted the lives of many innocent players in the process.
【Cannon Fodder Player 537099, congratulations, your Zombie Siege side quest is complete.
Task 1: Find the cause of the work badge owner’s death (10/10)
Task 2: Find the reason the zombie virus spread through the city (10/10)】
Mu Shan had no time to check the reward list that the system refreshed. She asked Zhang Haiyang, “How’s your task?”
Rookie’s side quest was to find the cause of researcher Liu Dawei’s death.
“Oh, mine’s done too! Because in the research institute, only Sun Lizhou and Wang Yanzi’s causes of death were different—everyone else was bitten to death by zombies da!”
In other words, he could guess right with a 98/100 probability.
Mu Shan: …Unfair. Was the system going easy on Rookie again?
The team slowly shifted to the changing room door and watched the five zombies in the outer storage room.
“Is there a way to sneak out quietly?” Li Mei asked.
Old Driver poked Zhang Haiyang. “I say, open your invincibility one more time, go to Control Room 2, and swap those two gas canisters back. Type II Gas has to be useful!”
“Huh?” The youth pointed at the zombie blood covering his head and face. “My invincibility can only be opened once a day. And I’m already this miserable—big bro, how can you bear to bully me?”
“Tch. Since your tasks are all done, why not forget about the noise and just kill our way out?” Old Driver pulled out a skyrocket firecracker again, eager to try it.
Mu Shan touched her chin and thought for a moment.
“I have another way.”
【Role Card · One Child Zombie】
After the card materialized, a little girl zombie, at most seven or eight years old and dressed in a tattered skirt, abruptly appeared in the changing room. Her hair hung disheveled, her bare feet stood on the ground, and her pupil-less eyes stared straight ahead.
Old Driver had a trauma with child zombies and jumped up with his fur standing on end. “Fuck!! Where’d this come from! Don’t tell me this is…”
Mu Shan blocked his hand as he reached for his knife. “It’s not. It just looks like one. This is my zombie worker—obedient and cute.”
“Worker?? Cute??” Old Driver doubted his life.
Mu Shan patted the little girl’s shoulder. “Take this access card. Go to the third floor, find [Control Room 2], swipe the card to enter, and swap the gas canisters for Type I and Type II Gas.”
Li Mei looked puzzled. “Can it understand such a complicated instruction? Even without mutation, a kid this age wouldn’t necessarily obey.”
“Other zombies might not know, but it will definitely reach the destination.”
Mu Shan repeated, “Swap the gas canisters. Change all the ones labeled Type I to Type II. Got it?”
The zombie little girl nodded slowly and stared at her face as she gulped with difficulty.
Mu Shan was slightly speechless. She thought for a moment, then took out 【Item Card: Rotten Flesh】. Now the little zombie’s eyes shifted straight from longing to greed.
She did not materialize the meat. Instead, she shook it in front of it, like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. “See this? Only zombies that work diligently get to eat meat.”
gold hahahah