007 never thought she would feel the chill of the night wind on her face again.

Severe pain radiated from her shoulder.

Upon waking up, she instinctively looked at her arms, which were sagging down but tightly bandaged. The end was tied into a somewhat ugly butterfly knot. She looked at the knot and managed to smile, even though it looked somewhat awkward.

Fresh, bright red blood was seeping onto the bandage, but not too much.

The pain in her shoulder was particularly noticeable. She remembered her clothes being fused with a part of her back shoulder, which seemed to have been cut off as well.

However, her arm that should have been in severe pain seemed to feel nothing...

Only then did 007 look at the person carrying her on his back.

It was him.

The Doctor with the guitar bag; 007 had seen him twice. She remembered this man either pretending to be a ghost at the edge of the forest or performing on the street...

Although, selling lighters might not count as performing.

Gu Mian felt the movement from the person behind him. He turned his head slightly to see 007's face resting on his shoulder. She was awake, her eyes wide open.

"Awake?" Gu Mian shifted 007 slightly.

This girl was too light; carrying her on his back gave Gu Mian the impression that she wasn't much heavier than his chainsaw.

"Hmm," 007 buried her head slightly, speaking in a soft voice, "Thank you."

Although she didn't know what had happened while she was unconscious, she knew for certain that nothing like a "comatose girl forcibly skinned by a perverted doctor" scenario would occur. If it weren't for this white-cloaked figure, she might still be silently waiting for death in the forest, or she might have already been assimilated by this instance... But now, she was still alive.

The nights in this instance were extremely long.

007 didn't know how long she had been unconscious; regardless, when she woke up, she still saw the nocturnal forest scene.

Moonlight enveloped the entire forest. The tall trees were layered with white light, as if coated in frost.

Even though the cold wind was still howling, 007 felt an unprecedented warmth. Her body, previously frozen stiff, seemed to come back to life, a current of warmth spreading through her, like hope.

Gu Mian did not say much, which left 007 somewhat at a loss.

She was carried on Gu Mian's back for quite a while before she spoke, "Did you give me painkillers? I'll pay you..."

"No, I cut the nerves in your arm."

007: "..."

Following his professional ethics as a Doctor, Gu Mian asked another question, "Does your shoulder hurt?"

007 shook her head, fighting back tears. Although it still hurt, it was much better than before.

The throbbing muscles and blood vessels were still vivid in her memory. The mere thought made her uncomfortable. She couldn't even imagine how much courage it must have taken for her to peel off her own skin back then.

She paused for a moment, then said, "You used a hemostatic on me, didn't you?"

Otherwise, the bleeding from her arm wouldn't be so minimal.

Gu Mian nodded slightly.

Frankly, this girl's way of speaking made him quite uneasy. In all the instances he'd entered, this was the first time he'd met someone so polite to him, using the formal "you" with every address. It practically made him feel like he was from her parents' generation. To save himself trouble, Gu Mian had actually considered chopping off 007's two arms. He hadn't done it in the end, but being addressed so respectfully now still made him feel a little guilty.

He had bought five [Instance-Type D-Coagulant] potions. If injected near a wound, this medicine could coagulate the blood for a short time—effective for two minutes. When Gu Mian used it with his skills, the effect extended to ten minutes. But 007's two bare arms couldn't really be considered "wounds." If she had suffered a fatal injury like a slit throat, Gu Mian could have given her a shot of hemostatic, but for two skinless arms, even twenty shots would have been useless; the surface area was too large.

Fortunately, Gu Mian also carried [Hemostatic Spray]. The spray bottle was even printed with the large characters: "Evil God Product – Guaranteed Quality." Mr. Green had given it to him, saying someone had entrusted him to deliver it to Gu Mian. As soon as Gu Mian got it, he'd sprayed half a bottle, using it to stop a young man's bleeding in the last event, and it seemed he'd wasted quite a bit... He hadn't realized it at the time, but now he found this stuff was really useful. The [Hemostatic Spray] could cover a very large area. For someone like 007 with such extensive bleeding, a few sprays followed by bandaging would almost completely stop the blood flow. And Gu Mian had noticed that the supermarket didn't stock spray-type hemostatic medicines, nor did there seem to be any drugs for large-area bleeding, making this bottle quite rare.

Just then, 007, who was lying on Gu Mian's back, suddenly spoke, "Sir, you've noticed it too, right? This instance is different from the ones we've been in before. So, when you were wearing that little girl's clothes earlier, was it because you didn't want to leave the instance too soon?"

She hadn't failed to notice Gu Mian's nickname. It was rather strange. She didn't feel comfortable calling Gu Mian "Green Doctor," so she had settled on "Sir" for now.

Gu Mian himself deeply detested this title that made him sound old. However, he couldn't very well force a pitiful patient to call him "Big Brother" or something similar.

He suddenly asked, "How old are you?"

007 didn't expect Gu Mian to suddenly ask this and subconsciously answered, "I'm twenty..."

Twenty?

Gu Mian asked, "Still in school?"

007 suddenly tensed up completely. After a long moment, she quietly replied, "No..."

After that, she fell silent.

Gu Mian said nothing and simply continued to carry 007 forward.

He was looking for the NPCs in this instance. Chu Changge had told him to pay more attention to special items related to ghosts within the instance and had also mentioned things like interacting more with NPCs. Gu Mian's data was very strange, and there seemed to be some connection between these game instances. Perhaps he could obtain some information about his data anomaly from the NPCs.

But Gu Mian's hopes were dashed. At least in this instance, they were. He found the NPCs in this instance very odd and couldn't get any useful information out of them.

The stooped Little Dwarfs, the suspicious Princess Heitang. Previously, Princess Heitang had claimed that when she arrived in the forest, the Little Dwarfs were already living in the wooden house. The larger furniture in her room, she said, was all newly acquired later. But Gu Mian had discovered that the furniture in Princess Heitang's room was also very old. If it were newly acquired, shouldn't it be much newer? Moreover, the Little Dwarfs' furniture was very strange. It showed signs of being cut, as if larger pieces of furniture had been sawn apart and then reassembled into smaller, irregular items. That's why they weren't uniform. Gu Mian had played many jigsaw puzzles. He realized that if the Little Dwarfs' small furniture pieces were disassembled and then put back together, they could form larger pieces of furniture. The assembled large furniture matched the set in Princess Heitang's room. This implied that a long time ago, the wooden house had been filled with large furniture, pieces designed for normally-sized people. But later, the normal people inside gradually stooped, shrank, and were assimilated, eventually becoming Little Dwarfs. That was why the large furniture was dismantled and remade into small pieces suitable for that group of stooped Little Dwarfs. Those Little Dwarfs had once been players too—players of normal stature. Including Princess Heitang. She too had likely been a player before, one who had been assimilated long ago and had developed some level of intelligence, becoming an NPC. Gu Mian had no doubt that if he were to gulp down that bowl of meat soup in the dilapidated little wooden cabin, he too would gradually stoop and shrink. Any player who drank the soup, unless they immediately cut out their own stomach, could forget about leaving the instance...

Undoubtedly, there had to be an "Origin" in this instance. An Origin NPC, one who had deceived the first batch of players to enter this instance. This Origin NPC definitely played a crucial role in this instance, perhaps even being its core. Maybe he could get some answers about the data anomaly from this core?

"Because I didn't have the money," the person on his back suddenly mumbled.

It took Gu Mian a good while to realize she was talking about the earlier subject of her schooling. What a strange person...

Gu Mian took a few more steps forward, intending to find the next NPC. Following the trail might lead to some clues.

Just then, a deafening scream suddenly erupted from not far ahead.

Gu Mian recognized it—it sounded like Fatty's scream.

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