DSMC Chapter 95.2

Yan Jiyun couldn’t determine the other party’s identity. If it really was a case of humans and animals exchanging consciousness, with human consciousness projected onto animals, then whose body had his been projected onto?

He still needed to find the patients and the experimental information associated with them in the experimental area. He had to confirm the patients’ identities before he could rescue “them.”

These tasks were really one more of a trap than the next. None of them were easy.

The experimental area was full of people. How was he supposed to find their records?

The patients’ bedside clearly listed identity information, yet they didn’t fill in the corresponding “species.”

Of course, he could also understand it as the researchers being cautious.

After grumbling internally for a few seconds, Yan Jiyun’s invisibility cloak expired.

The researchers’ footsteps were getting closer and closer. Were they about to enter this room?

With a “click” the door was opened.

His luck could really be this bad. He randomly entered a room, and it just happened to be the patient they were about to check.

There was nowhere in this room to hide!

Yan Jiyun reacted quickly and used a Human Form Time Card to slip under the bed. He felt that if he used the experience card two more times, his popularity points would go into the negative.

There was still one hour until 5 PM, the players’ off-work time. Who knew how many popularity points would be deducted by then?

The researchers only checked on the patient on the bed. The door wasn’t closed, and Yan Jiyun quietly crawled out from under the bed.

No one happened to be passing through the corridor outside. He could leave Room 05 for now.

Fortunately, Patient 5 corresponded to Room 5, making it easy to remember.

The decor here was all in light tones. Dressed in black, Yan Jiyun was extremely conspicuous walking here. He needed to find the medical records room immediately.

However, this wasn’t a hospital he was familiar with, so he wasn’t sure whether there was a corresponding records room.

He recalled that Number 5’s admission date. He had seen the current time at the zoo entrance. Thus, Number 5 had been admitted two years ago. That meant there should be two years’ worth of records for Number 5. From what he had just seen, there were 20 patients in total here. There really had to be a medical records room or archive room, as they had to keep files.

Taking advantage of the people inside not having come out yet, Yan Jiyun ran toward the other side. This area consisted of offices and patient wards. Further ahead were various testing rooms. Further back should be the archive storage room.

In all the NPC conversations, aside from the already deceased gorilla Tata, no one mentioned any other patients. That meant the information about the other patients had to be discovered by the players themselves.

There was only one floor, and the signage was very clear. It’s simple to search.

Yan Jiyun quickly found the medical records room, and he didn’t need to search through computers.

Based on the basic patient information in Room 5, it was possible that they were all patients who had suffered some injury and never awakened, then were secretly sent here for experiments. Their families might have hoped they could continue living in another way.

If their consciousness had truly been projected onto animals, did they retain their full awareness, or only a small part of it?

Among the twenty people, not all might have successfully transferred their consciousness onto animals. Did “they” refer to those humans whose consciousness had already been successfully transferred?

Yan Jiyun had interacted with Orange and the others. He only felt that they were smarter than ordinary animals. They didn’t seem like humans.

For example, himself. He was truly a soul embedded in a body: human consciousness, cat body.

He carefully recalled his own situation. He had indeed been in an accident, and when he woke up, he was a kitten. There shouldn’t have been any experiment involved. If there had been, it would have been quite complicated. Would relatives even agree to send them here?

Yan Jiyun pondered at the entrance of the records storage room for a while. He couldn’t get in, and he heard the system deducting his popularity points again.

[(Public Screen) Player Yan Jiyun violated regulations by wandering off during work hours. 200 popularity points deducted.]

Why had the popularity deduction increased?

In anger, Yan Jiyun jumped up and pressed down on the door handle. Wait, it wasn’t locked?

Would the system really be so kind? He was a little suspicious.

After turning on the light and seeing the shelves full of medical records, he knew the system wasn’t that kind. It was easy to get in, but hard to find the information.

Judging from his experience looking for Dr. Zhou’s records earlier, was it possible this was another smokescreen?

He pulled out the file in the last slot of a stack of records. It was labeled No. 202.

It should refer to Patient No. 202 in the experimental area.

The time to revert to human form hadn’t arrived yet, so Yan Jiyun could only use his claws to tear open the file bag. On the first page was a high-definition personal photo — a boy with a bright, sunny smile. Perhaps before being sent here, they had carried a beautiful hope, wishing the child could live in this world in another way. But unfortunately, beneath the photo was stamped a blue “FAILED.”

The records showed that the boy’s life ended at eighteen. He had fallen from a high floor while saving a girl, suffered brain damage, and became vegetative. His family couldn’t afford the high medical costs, so they sent him here.

The rest of the file consisted of data and feedback from each experimental attempt. Without exception, all were ineffective. In the end, the boy was declared brain-dead.

It was indeed a pity. Such a promising life just gone.

Yan Jiyun looked through three files in succession. Without exception, all were failed cases. He flipped through more records further back. Still the same, all ending in “failure.” Some patients were transferred away; some died.

No wonder the door to the records room wasn’t locked. This place was full of failed cases.

So where were the records of the successful cases?

Could it be that the twenty rooms outside were all successful cases? Excluding the gorilla Tata, that would leave nineteen people.

Of course, it wasn’t certain that all twenty rooms were successful cases. Some experiments might still be ongoing.

Yan Jiyun didn’t rush to leave the records room. He carefully counted the number of files. Although there were many documents, it was just that there had been many experimental attempts. Not that there were many people.

The files were arranged in numerical order. He checked. They should have been numbered from 1 to 202, but the innermost file was No. 2, not No. 1. He counted again. There were no files for 1, 5, 9, and twenty other patient numbers.

From the 202 numbers, he removed those twenty numbers and identified the twenty numbers that were not among the “failed” records.

As long as he found the patients corresponding to those numbers and the experimental animal “species” used on them, he could determine the identities of “them.”

He was now certain that “different species” referred to animals combined with human consciousness.

The black panther, Orange, Caesar, the alpha wolf, the brown bear, Xixi. They must all be.

However, that was only from Dr. Peng’s perspective, since at the time he was carrying out Dr. Peng’s task. Of course, Dr. Peng’s task might also have misled his thinking. The game would never directly tell him the answer. Often, the more obvious the answer, the more likely it was a trap.

Therefore, Yan Jiyun believed there were other small animals as well. For example, Xixi might also have been combined with human consciousness. Its language talent had already surpassed all the other animals capable of speech.

He needed to find the earliest-numbered patients and then identify their corresponding experimental animal “species.” That would basically allow him to make an inference.

But while guessing was easy, the known animals had already been locked up by Dr. Peng. He still had to rescue them. Just not sure where they were being held, or how he would get them out of the zoo next.

Yan Jiyun had already reverted to human form.

The invisibility cloak still had a cooldown period. It wasn’t convenient for him to go out now. It would be better to wait. According to what the earlier researcher said, they might be trapped here for the next three days. Thinking about it that way, he wasn’t in a hurry. It would be better to calm down, sort through his thoughts, and wait for the right moment.

Yan Jiyun placed a few files under himself as a cushion, turned off the lights, and sat on the floor, propping his chin on his hand as he thought.

He reviewed everything he had encountered since entering the instance, making sure there were no omissions, and only then cleared his mind to rest.

It was still more comfortable being a cat. Being human was really too hard. From birth, parents compared their children’s looks and talents; in old age, people compared pensions and how many children and grandchildren they had; and even after death, they compared whether their grave plots were expensive or cheap, whether the feng shui was good or not.

He wondered whether his shit shoveler had been caught up in comparisons as a child. He felt that when his shit shoveler first entered the game, he must have been quite competitive. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been pushed out of a guild and ended up forming his own team.

While Yan Jiyun was lost in random thoughts, someone entered carrying a cardboard box.

The person muttered complaints about whoever had assigned him the task.

“They always call me to deliver files, just because I don’t know how to refuse. If it weren’t for the high salary, who would stay in this basement that never even sees sunlight?”

Yan Jiyun saw that the person was wearing rimmed glasses and a mask. Without hesitation, he circled behind him, closed the door, and knocked him unconscious with a fire extinguisher from behind the door.

Yan Jiyun looked through the file he had delivered. It’s Number 6. 

A man in his early thirties, occupation: fitness coach. An accident had left him paralyzed. He ultimately chose to become an experimental subject.

Cause of death: death of the consciousness composite.

Patient Number 6’s consciousness had been projected onto Tata. Yan Jiyun knew that among the currently deceased animals, only Tata had died.

He rubbed his arms, goosebumps rising. This experiment was even more horrifying than his own “borrowing a corpse to return to life.” How could anyone be willing to participate in an experiment that exchanged human and animal consciousness? Was it about refusing to face reality? Escaping it?

However, after he accessed this file, the system did not prompt him to confirm the identity. He guessed that deceased subjects were not within the scope of the task.

From this, it could be seen that if the composite died, the original body would definitely die. That raised a question: if the original body died, would the composite die as well?

He needed to quickly determine the corresponding identities between “them” and the animals.

Yan Jiyun changed into the researcher’s clothes and glasses, took a new mask from his pocket and put it on, then left the records room.

T/N:

Moral of the story: If you don’t know how to refuse at your job, you will suffer.