Non-Human Seeking Re-employment

(Dream painting)

"Drink it quickly," the little boy urged.

Mary echoed: "This is delectable. Not as good as mother's meat, so a little worse than the last time." She even sucked in her drool while saying this.

"Mary!" exclaimed the little boy.

Only then did Mary realize she had been exposed. "Big brother, you didn't hear anything, did you?" she slapped her palm over her mouth, her eyes darted around, and she murmured in a low muffled voice.

Shen Dongqing: "I heard you."

Mary appeared to have taken a major blow and gazed at her brother with tears in her eyes: "He knows! What do we do now?"

The little boy scolded: "Idiot! Since he knows, we can only…" He had a ravenous expression in his eyes, but he feigned to be embarrassed, "We can only make him stay."

Shen Dongqing set the wooden spoon down and looked at the two children with great interest. He was curious to see what tricks they could devise.

Mary nodded eagerly after hearing her brother's remarks. Her short legs leaped up and she wrapped around Shen Dongqing, while the little boy dashed into the kitchen and dragged out a little axe used for wood chopping.

Even though it was a small axe, it was too hefty for the little boy. He was panting and the axe had left a large bloodstain on the ground.

Shen Dongqing blinked at the small axe, then glanced at Mary, who was still hanging on his body. His right hand lowered and drew the big axe from beneath the sofa.

Small Axe vs Big Axe.

The little boy was stunned.

His eyes practically popped out as he compared the two, threw down the axe that was impeding him, and took to his heels.

Shen Dongqing was also taken aback.

Why is the villain running away again?

What was wrong with the NPCs in this game instance? It was so cowardly to flee just as the fight was about to begin. They didn't even attempt to attack.

Shen Dongqing tsked and chased the little boy.

He lightly pushed Mary, who was pulling on him, but she didn't move. She was nimble with her hands and feet, and she climbed Shen Dongqing like a tree. She didn't budge an inch, no matter what.

Shen Dongqing looked down and noticed that the fair and chubby Mary had changed significantly. Her once full cheeks had sunken, and her skin was grayish white, like a starved ghost crawling out of hell. Her tiny mouth parted, exposing her fine, pointed teeth. She raised her head, ready to chomp down on Shen Dongqing's flesh.

Shen Dongqing quickly lifted his hand and yanked the kid away.

Mary had not anticipated that the prey in her mouth would flee, and she had taken no precautions. The upper and lower rows of teeth snapped furiously, causing pain simply by hearing it.

Shen Dongqing looked down and noticed that Mary's body was devoid of flesh. Only a sliver of meat clung to her bones, and she was essentially a dry skeleton. Perhaps all of her flesh had ended up in a pot.

Mary kept waving her hands about, attempting to get closer and take a mouthful.

Shen Dongqing saw no need to feed a starved ghost. "Have your parents been eaten as well?" he asked, holding Mary away.

Mary might have been muddled due to hunger. Her speech was incoherent, with not a single complete word emerging from her mouth.

There was a "bang" outside the window at this time, as if something was knocking against it.

Shen Dongqing set Mary down and went to open the window, only to discover a small bird on the ledge.

Birdie wanted to sing at first, but when it realized it was Shen Dongqing, it swallowed the sound that had reached its throat.

Dlu fsfr rajglcu ja ilaaif fsfr, bcf qfgrbc jcv bcf ylgv.

"P'v yfaafg rafk sbe," Vtfc Gbcudlcu wegwegfv delfais.

Dlgvlf: "Vdejkx—"

Pa kjr rb afgglolfv atja la oifk eq jcv ijcvfv vlgfmais bc atf peclqfg agff, pewqlcu atgff offa tlut lc bcf ub. Snfc ktfc la gfjmtfv j tlut qblca, la vlvc'a offi qjgalmeijgis rjof, jcv yfujc rlculcu juuglfnfvis.

"My mother severed my head,

my father devoured my flesh…"

Shen Dongqing interrupted it before it could finish singing, noting, "It's too awful, stop singing."

Birdie: …

Shen Dongqing had almost come to understand.

The little boy's mother wanted to kill him, but she was slain instead, or he returned to exact retribution after his death, bringing his parents and sister along neatly and tidily.

But Shen Dongqing still didn't get it. What did all of this have to do with his secret?

With such doubts, Shen Dongqing tossed Mary, who was trying to climb him again, aside and strode out of the wooden house.

The little boy did not flee far, but instead waited for him under the juniper tree.

Just as Shen Dongqing was about to step forward, the little boy shrank behind the juniper tree, as if frightened. Shen Dongqing followed to have a look, but once again, the person had disappeared.

When he turned around, a flower flashed before his eyes, and he found himself back in the plain white room, facing the painted window.

Lizzie, who'd been chasing butterflies, had vanished from the window painting. She'd been replaced by a happy family of three. Lizzie, her father, and her stepmother smiled brightly as they stood in the garden full with small daisies. It was impossible to tell that they'd been accusing each other before.

Shen Dongqing touched the painting again, but this time he did not enter it. He turned around and walked straight to the other side, where there was a door painted on the wall.

The door was initially clean and bare, but Shen Dongqing went into the painting to investigate and returned to see a line of writing on it.

The font was crooked, and the writing paint had slid all the way down the wall before it had dried entirely.

— What's your secret?

Shen Dongqing looked at it for a long time before saying, "Didn't you say you couldn't tell others?"

After a while, another line of characters scrawled in blood appeared next to it out of nowhere.

— You must tell me the secret to get out of here.

Shen Dongqing pondered for a moment: "As if I'd tell you! I'm not stupid."

The game gave him a nice scare when he first came in. Although he didn't take the game's threat seriously, anyone would be skeptical now that such words had suddenly appeared on the wall, right?

What's more, he didn't know anything about this "secret" and had no idea what was going on.

Shen Dongqing disregarded it, returned to the hospital bed, and sat.

He closed his eyes and napped for a few minutes while seated. When he awoke, the walls were covered with bloody writing.

The room's walls and ceiling appeared to have been splattered with paint. People's eyes hurt because the room appeared to be dripping with blood. Shen Dongqing squinted and stared for a while before recognizing what was written on it.

— Secret.

Perhaps the game was super displeased with Shen Dongqing's easygoing attitude, but it couldn't do anything about it and was forced to disclose the answer.

After all, the game couldn't continue without him.

Shen Dongqing's secret was hidden under the word "secret" written in various sizes.

Murdering mother and relatives.

"So that's how it is," Shen Dongqing finally saw the light as he sat up.

The three short stories in the painting's world were all similar.

Lizzie had a stepmother who disliked and despised her. She ultimately struck first and gained the upper hand by murdering the stepmother. Bangier and Coranti were abandoned in the woods because of their stepmother. Mary and her brother also had a stepmother who hacked the lad to death but died as a result of the boy's vengeance.

In all three cases, the stepmother actively courted disaster.

"Do I also have a stepmother?" Shen Dongqing wondered.

There was a "boom" at the door at this point.

Shen Dongqing looked up and noticed that the initially painted door had split open with numerous cracks, then collapsed, leaving a hole in the wall for entry and exit.

Shen Dongqing waved away the dust in front of him and took his time walking over, poking his head out of the hole.

Outside was a clean and plain corridor.

Shen Dongqing walked out, stepping over the rubble on the ground.

With white walls on the left and windows on the right, the corridor was long and narrow.

Shen Dongqing leaned against a window to gaze out. It wasn't a painting this time, but a genuine window. However, it was so dark outside that nothing could be seen. He pushed hard, but the window latch was so tight that he couldn't get it open at all.

He didn't want to bother since he was hungry. He strolled down the corridor. When he reached the end of the corridor, he was met with a beam of white light instead of stairs.

The white light was extremely harsh, and Shen Dongqing involuntarily closed his eyes, temporarily losing his vision.

He felt his entire body lighten in the dark spot of light, and there was a "didi" sound in his ears, as well as noises of frantic footsteps and talking.

"Heartbeat has stabilized."

"Inject medicine."

"Give me the forceps."

… … …

Shen Dongqing simply felt as if he were walking on soft clouds. His legs felt weak, and his eyes were heavy. It took a massive effort to even get a chink open.

What he saw was the spotlessly white ceiling.

However, he appeared to have awoken in a different room this time.

Next to the hospital bed was a sophisticated medical instrument. The instrument's screen was on and it was beeping.

Shen Dongqing turned his head and looked over.

When a girl in a nurse's uniform noticed Shen Dongqing was awake, she hastily exclaimed, "Don't move a muscle! You're doing great. Tell me what you want."

"I want to eat," Shen Dongqing licked his dry lips.

"I need to ask the doctor if you may eat. Please wait," the young nurse replied, hurrying out the door with the medical record book in her arms.

Shen Dongqing refused to obey her. He sat up as soon as he had the strength and easily pulled out the tube at hand. He noticed his face mirrored on the reflective glass when he gazed out the window sideways. His hair looked unkempt, and he was a little frail.

What kind of game mode is this?

Shen Dongqing scratched his hair, perplexed.

He assumed he'd already begun the game, but was it all a dream?

He casually placed the controller in a secure game field, but he had never played in it before and had no idea what was going on inside. As a result, when he entered the instance, he was baffled and didn't have the slightest understanding of the situation.

But he'd worry about the controller later. Where had Zhou Wenyan disappeared to?

The young nurse hurried back. When she noticed Shen Dongqing had moved on his own, she was so scared that she turned pale: "Are you alright?"

Shen Dongqing was not only fine, but he could even perform and devour three bowls of food on the spot.

After ascertaining that the patient was fine, the young nurse breathed a sigh of relief and stated, "The doctor says you may eat, so I'll get you a sick meal."

"I want three," Shen Dongqing said, raising his fingers.

The young nurse had never seen a patient recover so quickly. She ordered the meal for him after a brief moment of surprise.

It's just that because this sick meal was intended for a recovering patient, it was light, with less oil and salt. Shen Dongqing thought it was gross.

The young nurse looked on for a while, then inquired gently and cautiously, "Don't you remember?"

Shen Dongqing forked a carrot, and asked in confusion: "What?"

The young nurse tentatively said: "What happened before you passed out…"

Shen Dongqing thought for a moment. What happened before the coma was most likely related to his secret. He was too lazy to deal with it, so he nonchalantly lied: "I lost my memory."

"How come?" cried the young nurse. "Are you in any pain right now?"

Shen Dongqing tilted his head and mulled for a while before saying, "Yes."

The young nurse appeared to be confronting a formidable foe: "Where is it uncomfortable?"

"This sick meal is awful; I want to eat hot pot," Shen Dongqing explained.

The young nurse: ?

Shen Dongqing blinked at her: "Can't it count as an upset stomach?"

The young nurse laughed dryly: "Yeah, I guess…"

But the young nurse had no intention of ordering hot pot takeout for this exotic flower of a patient. She rushed back to see the attending physician and explained the patient's amnesia.

Soon after, the doctor arrived and asked Shen Dongqing to perform certain tests.

Shen Dongqing was incredibly cooperative.

Following the examination, the doctor held the examination sheet and thoughtfully asserted: "Amnesia can also occur as a result of being stimulated. In general, if you come into contact with the stimulating factor again, you will be able to recover."

The young nurse's expression brightened slightly. She left to answer a phone call, and when she returned, her face was beaming: "Your friend is here to visit you."

Shen Dongqing's first thought was that Zhou Wenyan had arrived. He instantly sat up and brushed his disheveled hair in front of the window.

As a result, after some time, he didn't wait for Zhou Wenyan and instead saw a little brat stroll in.

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