Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 1085: Vanishing into Thin Air

Chapter 1085: Chapter 1085: Vanishing into Thin Air

"It’s Kang..." Miss Ma subconsciously started to utter that name but held back midway, taking a deep breath, "I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to do, but if you keep this up, don’t expect to get anything out of me!"

Xu Huo’s expression remained unchanged as he continued to write unhurriedly. Miss Ma’s forehead veins throbbed, and she reached out to swat the notebook away, but stopped when she touched it, knowing that resisting a doctor or attempting to attack someone would result in being restrained or injected with tranquilizers. In this hallucination, she was powerless to resist.

People with simple and crude thinking often have two extremes; one is being highly susceptible to brainwashing—having not many thoughts of their own and preferring others to guide their thinking. The other is stubborn conviction, where once they believe in something, they won’t change it easily.

The former appears more suitable for psychological manipulation, but being easily influenced by Xu Huo also means being susceptible to others. It’s the latter, once influenced successfully, who can’t change their minds easily within a short period.

Miss Ma doesn’t look like a fugitive, more like a pitiful person who missed the Tickets instance and was forced to enter a high-risk one.

"Miss Ma, look outside." Xu Huo changed the topic, pointing to the window, "The sunshine is splendid, birds are chirping, and flowers are fragrant. There are many wonderful things in life; don’t get lost in the past."

Miss Ma’s expression was numb. "So what?"

Since she arrived here, the sky had been constantly gloomy, raining almost every minute, with the only difference being the intensity. And whenever new Players were transported here, whether they were dead or alive, or whether they found Xiaohe City or not, Xiaohe City would suffer an attack by the instance.

"Why not start over?" Xu Huo said, "If you cooperate with the treatment, there’s a high chance you can recover, despite losing the ability to reproduce. After leaving, you can adopt a child, and walking freely under the sun is a basic right as a person."

"As your attending doctor, I hope you can leave the hospital cheerfully."

Miss Ma’s eyes reddened slightly, then she looked at him with resentment. "Do you think I can really start over? If I could, what would these years of suffering count for?"

Xu Huo fell silent for a moment, then took a handkerchief out from his pocket and placed it on the table.

"You are lucid, just unwilling to accept reality," he said. "Tomorrow I will have Director Kang assess you, and if your condition is stable, I’ll suggest you be discharged. You should contact your family or friends to come pick you up."

Miss Ma looked indifferent, "I’d like to see who you will find to pick me up when the time comes."

That night, Zeng Shangping didn’t return to his room.

The next morning, Miss Ma heard Qian Zi chatting with other nurses about how Zeng Shangping had seen Director Kang and had been discharged, never to return here again.

The commotion outside ebbed and flowed, as regular as many previous days. It wasn’t until she heard that Zeng Shangping had been discharged that Miss Ma suddenly felt disoriented. The room opposite was empty; were the people she had seen real or not?

"Miss Ma Chunchun from room 23, come with me to the director’s office," Qian Zi came over to open the door.

Miss Ma instinctively resisted, but after hesitating for two seconds, she followed suit.

*

"We’re not really going to play cards here until dawn, are we?" Chi Minghong glanced at the Prop he had placed beside him, "What’s with those people, not even one has come out."

Xu Huo did not speak. Although he had learned from several Players that Xiaohe City was unsafe, none could specify the exact danger.

That is to say, they were also unclear about the causes of Players’ disappearances. Perhaps it was conjecture, mere speculation, or maybe some Players in Xiaohe City truly believe it was some monstrous Mutant Beasts at work—otherwise, it’s hard to explain why it seems safe to stay in the rooms—of course, he hadn’t verified this to be sure if it’s really safe in the rooms.

Zhou Yuanzhu contacted Chi Minghong to ask about their situation. Chi Minghong was too embarrassed to admit that he was playing cards, so he simply said, "Nothing found so far. What about you?"

The fourth and third floors were similar; even the Xiaohe City Players who were responsible for patrol had disappeared. They had checked some empty rooms with no findings, only confirming that there were only three Players across these two floors, reaching out to them just to confirm whether they really would need to take action.

"It looks a bit like a trap," Zhou Yuanzhu said. "There’s no movement on the second floor either, not even a person coming to probe."

"There’s a special situation." Xu Huo briefly mentioned the bizarre disappearances in Xiaohe City when new Players arrived, "It’s not just about whether to stay in or leave the rooms. The disappearances last for varying durations, and some may even occur during the day; there should be some pattern."

The accounts from several Players regarding whether the mysterious disappearances all happened at night were inconsistent. Apart from Qian Zi among Miss Ma’s group, they all believed the vanishings were fixed at night, while Qian Zi thought that disappearances occurring during the same time frame in daylight should also be accounted for. However, such cases were very rare, and among the few instances of daytime disappearances, only one was a Player, making the Xiaohe City Players more inclined to believe there was an internal issue.

"So you’re saying they’re not rushing to act not only to drain our energy but also might want us to be the cannon fodder?" Chi Minghong was somewhat puzzled, "But if they know the pattern of disappearances, they ought to be able to avoid it completely."

"Unless it can’t be avoided." Xu Huo said, "This process must result in someone vanishing."

"Then what exactly is it?" Zhou Yuanzhu asked from the other side, "This doesn’t sound like something an Alien could do."

Unfortunately, Miss Ma and her companions were all about getting by day to day, without detailed records or studies on the cause of the disappearances—perhaps they had investigated, but in the end, it led to nothing.

However, at that moment, a panicked whisper came through the Communicator from Zhou Yuanzhu, "Uncle You is missing!"

Xu Huo stood up and opened a door, signaling for Chi Minghong to follow before heading directly to the third floor, where Zhou Yuanzhu and Lin Qiao stood outside the bathhouse, looking at each other in bewilderment.

"What happened?" Chi Minghong, still not over his admiration for the "door," saw Xu Huo teleporting into the bathhouse and asked.

"I can’t make any sense of it..." Zhou Yuanzhu was a bit disoriented, "I was listening to you talk, and in the blink of an eye, I realized Uncle You was gone. Literally in the blink of an eye, he was still standing on my right before I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, he vanished!"

"If he entered the bathhouse, my Prop would’ve detected it," Lin Qiao said to Xu Huo as he emerged, then ruffled his hair, "It’s like he disappeared into thin air."