A chill rose from Song Qingxiao’s feet and quickly spread to her limbs.

Under extreme tension and stimulation, her blood flowed faster, her scalp tingled, and she pressed the dagger tied to her other wrist, trembling all over.

The doctor sitting behind the desk, staring at her, was clearly the trial participant she had killed in the last trial!

She was afraid that she was hallucinating due to extreme tension, so she closed her eyes tightly. When she opened her eyes, the doctor was still sitting there, wearing a doctor’s white coat, with a calm expression bordering on indifference.

There was a name tag on his white coat, which read: Liu Yixun.

The doctor’s arms were resting on the table, holding a form in one hand. Because of this movement, his sleeve slightly rolled up, revealing a piece of wrist. That wrist was the one that had shown a watch that wandered around due to magnetic field disturbances in the first trial space.

The desk was neatly arranged, with a computer and a pen with the cap removed placed on a medical record. Song Qingxiao was familiar with this pen, and her cheek twitched slightly.

The wound that had been scratched by the doctor with the pen had already healed, but it was still slightly painful at this moment.

What was going on?

Song Qingxiao was speechless. She wanted to step back and stay away from the doctor, but her body had already stiffened and she couldn’t move.

The surrounding environment was eerily quiet, and the sound of ‘tick tick tick’ in her ears was still ringing, like a timed bomb that could explode and destroy her at any moment.

The doctor’s face turned slightly pale, and above his forehead, the strange numbers were still counting down: 119:58:46.
“Are you okay?”

The doctor’s gaze fell on Song Qingxiao, furrowing his brow.

His voice was strange, flat and straightforward, seemingly devoid of any emotions, giving a mechanical and rigid feeling.

Song Qingxiao’s memory was still stuck in the final battle between the two of them, and her throat felt like it was still being strangled by the doctor with a mouse wire, bringing back the pain of suffocation.

Without looking in the mirror, Song Qingxiao knew that her complexion must be very ugly at this moment.

The strange events that followed made Song Qingxiao’s mind stretched to its limit. If she hadn’t noticed that the doctor didn’t immediately attack her when he saw her, she would have already collapsed by now.

The rapid beating of her heart and the ‘tick tick’ sound in her mind almost drowned out the doctor’s voice.

Song Qingxiao forcibly suppressed her sense of fear and tried to calm herself.

She had already entered the trial space, and everything that happened here was beyond her normal understanding.

Moreover, the doctor wasn’t that terrifying. Since she could kill him once, she could kill him a second time!

She touched her wrist, where the dagger was tied, and her chaotic heartbeat calmed down a bit.

“Are you okay?”

The doctor asked again, his gaze falling on her covered arm.

Song Qingxiao’s body stiffened, and she swallowed several mouthfuls of saliva, restraining her instinctive reaction with strong willpower, releasing her hand that was pressing the dagger and nodding slowly.

This action seemed to have drained all her strength, and a crease appeared between the doctor’s eyebrows. He seemed to doubt the sincerity of her expression that she was “fine”, but in the end, he didn’t dwell on this question. Instead, he stiffly pulled the corners of his mouth into a strange smile:

“It’s good that you’re fine. I’ve read your resume. Although you have limited experience, the hospital is currently short of staff.” He put down the paper in his hand and stood up. “Song Qingxiao, welcome to our hospital as a colleague.”

His smile felt forced and didn’t put her at ease. Instead, it reminded Song Qingxiao of the photo in the card that was flipped over after the doctor’s death in the last trial, which made her even more horrified.

“Next, I’ll have Nurse Zhang show you around the hospital and familiarize yourself with the environment and work. You should also change your clothes.”

With so many things happening in a short period of time, Song Qingxiao was already numb. When she saw the doctor shouting loudly and the sound of the door opening, someone came in.

If the person called in by Liu Yixun was someone she recognized from her memory, she might not have been more surprised.

But the scene that Song Qingxiao imagined didn’t happen. The person who came in was a young woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a nurse uniform, with her hair neatly tucked into a hat. She held the door handle with one hand and asked:

“Dr. Liu, did you call me?”

Her voice was crisp, injecting a bit of vitality into this eerily quiet office. When she saw Song Qingxiao standing in the office, the woman smiled, revealing a beautiful arc with a pair of cute tiger teeth. Compared to Liu Yixun’s stiff and creepy smile, her smile seemed much more genuine, giving Song Qingxiao a moment of relaxation from her tense mood, like a string that could break at any moment.

“Yes.”

The doctor nodded and introduced Song Qingxiao’s identity and the tasks assigned to her, and Nurse Zhang nodded.

When Song Qingxiao came out of the doctor’s office, she was drenched in sweat, as if she had been pulled out of water. She kept wiping her forehead with her hand.

Her legs were tense from excessive nervousness, and it was uncomfortable when they relaxed. With each step, the soles of her feet tingled and hurt, giving Song Qingxiao the illusion of walking barefoot on a path full of thorns.

The sound of ‘tick tick tick’ continued to interfere in her mind, and in the scene before her eyes, the numbers were still rapidly counting down.

“Our hospital is a heavy-duty psychiatric hospital that is strictly managed in a closed manner.” Nurse Zhang led Song Qingxiao through a corridor while introducing the situation of the hospital.

At this moment, Song Qingxiao noticed a troublesome thing. The sound of ‘tick tick’ in her mind was constant, and she had to concentrate to hear what Nurse Zhang was saying. Otherwise, she would easily ignore her words.

The scene of this trial was different from the last one, and the situation was much more complicated. She knew very little about the current situation and had many doubts. Some things still needed to be explored by her. If she was influenced by the ‘tick tick’ sound in her mind at this time, she might miss some important clues.

In this situation, the more information she could grasp, the more advantageous it would be for her.

Putting aside the stimulation of seeing the doctor earlier, the interference from the ‘tick tick’ sound, the countdown numbers, the changing scenes, and the appearance of the strange doctor repeatedly disrupted her thoughts. The clues seemed to be right in front of her, but she was just a little short of reaching them.

In this situation, Song Qingxiao gradually became restless. Nurse Zhang turned to look at her:

” Our hospital has a total of twenty-seven patients, six doctors, and eleven nurses. But after you join, it will be twelve.”

Nurse Zhang paused when she said this. She noticed that Song Qingxiao had been wiping sweat and had a pale complexion. Since coming out of Dr. Liu Yixun’s office, she hadn’t said a word. It had been Nurse Zhang doing all the talking. She quickly stopped walking and apologetically asked:

“Did I talk too much?”

“No.”

Song Qingxiao quickly shook her head, thinking that she had used a lot of strength to shake her head, but in Nurse Zhang’s eyes, it seemed that she had just lightly swayed her head a few times. Hearing this, and seeing her performance, Nurse Zhang thought that the new colleague was very shy and introverted, and smiled again:

“Are you afraid because you just changed jobs?”

This is a psychiatric hospital, and it is a severe psychiatric hospital. Most of the incoming patients have a tendency to attack, and new people seem to be a little scared.

Song Qingxiao listened attentively, afraid to miss a single word she said. As she spoke, Song Qingxiao nodded along:

“Yes.”

She was indeed very nervous, but it was not because she was entering a mental hospital. However, Nurse Zhang was able to come up with a reasonable excuse for her, so Song Qingxiao naturally admitted it. Hearing this, Nurse Zhang consoled her as expected:

“There’s no need to be so afraid. When we first came here, we were all scared, but we got used to it over time.” She smiled, “They are all patients, we shouldn’t pay too much attention to them.”

The sunlight shone through the corridor’s glass, and Nurse Zhang’s face looked warm and gentle in the sunlight. “Take it slow.”

“Tatatata…”

Song Qingxiao turned to look at her. Above her cheek, the countdown numbers had already changed to: 119:51:23…

She blinked, 119:51:18…

Nurse Zhang was still smiling, but Song Qingxiao couldn’t help but think of her mission this time: to protect the public.

From Nurse Zhang’s words, she learned that this was the severe psychiatric ward, and patients might make aggressive moves. Does the trial of protecting the public mean protecting these doctors from being killed by non-aggressive psychiatric patients?

She wanted to raise her hand to rub her throbbing head, but after a few attempts, she couldn’t move voluntarily.

Today’s stimulation was too great, and she hadn’t fully recovered yet.

Nurse Zhang noticed her movement and reached out to pull her. When her fingertips touched Song Qingxiao’s palm, Song Qingxiao felt an electric shock and instinctively wanted to shake her off.

“Oh, your hand is so cold.”

Nurse Zhang immediately grabbed Song Qingxiao’s hand and didn’t pay attention to her struggle. She even said with a smile when she saw Song Qingxiao’s defensive reaction:

“You look quite similar to our patients with that expression.”

She said it unintentionally, but it was like an alarm bell that made Song Qingxiao raise her head. After Nurse Zhang finished speaking, she pulled Song Qingxiao and said:

“We work on a five-day rotation. During work, we have to stay in the hospital for food and accommodation. Since you’re new and not used to it, why not stay in my dormitory?” She paused for a moment and continued, “Come, let me take you to see the dormitory and change your clothes…”

“Tatatata…” The sound continued, and the countdown numbers had jumped to 119:46:57.

Five days!

Song Qingxiao noticed that Nurse Zhang had mentioned this word twice in a row.

The vehicle comes every five days, and the nurses rotate every five days. She felt that this time should be crucial for the mission. However, the distracting noise in her mind and the countdown numbers in front of her kept distracting her, making it difficult for her to calm down and think carefully. She felt restless. What does five days mean?

Nurse Zhang was still talking with her mouth open, pointing out the buildings in the hospital to Song Qingxiao. She nodded absentmindedly, repeatedly slowing down her breathing, trying not to be influenced by her emotions.

Five days, the sound of the ticking clock in her mind, the countdown numbers, and the mission to protect the public.

All the clues came together, forming a single thread. Song Qingxiao captured the key, time! Five days, the ticking clock sound, all pointed to time. The mission to protect the public might also have a time limit.

As for the strange countdown numbers appearing in front of her, although they had already counted down to 119:44:27, she vividly remembered that when she first discovered them, the numbers were 119:59:59.

At that time, she was startled by this sudden situation and immediately had to make a choice based on her awareness of the mission. She didn’t have time to think, and after entering the scene, she encountered the doctor she had killed, making her unable to focus on the numbers.

But now, thinking about it carefully, this set of numbers seemed like a countdown, and after calculation, it happened to be five days!

In other words, this group of numbers most likely represented the countdown for her in this mission. She needed to complete the mission of protecting the public within five days!

Realizing this, Song Qingxiao couldn’t tell whether she was relieved because she had discovered an important clue to the mission or because of the urgency of the mission’s time limit.