N-A-A Chapter 84
Chapter 84
Chapter 84: Collateral and Exchange
Seattle Mercy Hospital, 19th-floor lobby.
"Keep up—if you get lost… don't expect me to come looking~"
Silk-Stocking Desperado hummed an unknown little tune, casually pulling a blood-stained red rope from her windbreaker pocket and tossing it back.
"Grab it, and keep your mouths shut."
The people behind her—Ye Yilin and 5 prison guards—immediately seized the rope with both hands, as though clutching the only lifeline available to them.
Zzt… zzt… zzt…
This was the hospital's 19th floor. The corridor lights had long gone dark, leaving only the emergency lamps emitting the stuttering crackle of faulty circuits.
Dense fog filled every inch of the space, compressing visibility down to 1 meter.
Up ahead, Silk-Stocking Desperado walked with complete ease.
In that fog, she was even spinning
Leaping
Eyes closed
The people behind her, however, treated every single step as though they were walking on thin ice.
The prison guards kept one hand on the red rope and the other pressed firmly against the holsters at their waists.
That was where their last resort was holstered—their Type 64 pistols.
Gulp…
Someone swallowed a mouthful of saliva—it wasn't clear who.
In the darkness, it felt as though countless pairs of eyes were watching them.
Sizing up this fresh, living flesh.
Just as the group rounded a corner—
Liu Rui, the young prison guard bringing up the rear, was far too tense.
He didn't notice the snapped chair leg jutting out from the fog.
Clatter!
Liu Rui stumbled. The instant his balance gave out, the unsecured pistol at his waist slipped free.
Clang!!
"!!"
Liu Rui's eyes went wide. His instincts screamed at him to crouch and grab it.
Smack!
A large hand locked around his wrist. Another clamped over his mouth, and he was yanked bodily backward.
It was the veteran prison guard in the group—Shi Zhongshan.
Shi Zhongshan stared at him, making a sharp silencing gesture, his eyes blazing with warning.
‘Don't pick it up! Move!’
Liu Rui understood in an instant what he had almost done.
In a place like this, any unnecessary movement could bring death.
His eyes filled with terror and remorse. He bit down on his teeth and nodded.
The two completed their exchange without a word. Shi Zhongshan didn't release his grip—he simply dragged Liu Rui along and quickened his pace to close the gap with the rope ahead.
The Type 64 pistol was left lying alone in the dark fog.
Then.
Not even 5 meters after they moved on.
Rustle… rustle… rustle…
A crawling sound erupted from the fog behind them.
And then.
Crack!
Crunch… crunch…
The sound of chewing.
The pistol…
had been eaten.
The back of Liu Rui's uniform was instantly soaked through. If he had turned back to grab it just now, what would be getting chewed up right now…
was probably his skull.
……
"Hmm… let me see… where is it?"
A minute later, Silk-Stocking Desperado stopped in front of a wall.
She ran her hand across it, searching.
"Found it!"
Click.
She grabbed a metal handle and pulled hard.
Hum!
The door swung open.
A wash of dark-red light poured out from inside.
What it revealed was an enormous card room.
At the entrance, positioned like a hospital reception desk, stood a tall counter.
Behind it sat a female ghost dressed in a nurse's uniform.
Its entire body was the color of dead ash. Its face had been ravaged beyond recognition by fire—its features melted together, fused in a grotesque mass.
This place…
looked like the welcome desk of a casino in hell.
The Nurse Ghost paid no attention to Silk-Stocking Desperado and the shivering group of living people who had just walked in.
It simply bent down, reached beneath the counter, and produced a blood-smeared iron strongbox.
It was a cashbox.
Except…
it did not accept paper money. The scraps of flesh clinging to its edges made it clear—it only accepted fresh organs.
It then slapped down a yellowed【Human Body Price List】.
Palm: 5 Ghost Coins (Collateral) / 10 Ghost Coins (Buyout)
Arm: 10 Ghost Coins (Collateral) / 20 Ghost Coins (Buyout)
Kidney: 20 Ghost Coins / 40 Ghost Coins
Lung: 30 Ghost Coins / 60 Ghost Coins
Heart: 50 Ghost Coins / 100 Ghost Coins
……
【Admission Fee】: 10 Ghost Coins per person.
【Rules】:
Direct Exchange (Buyout): Sever the organ, receive double the listed price.
Organ becomes hospital property. Non-redeemable.
Collateral (Loan): Retain the organ, receive the base price.
A contract must be signed. Full repayment with interest due within 12 hours.
Interest: For every hour past the deadline, interest increases by 100% of the principal.
Default: If repayment is not made within 24 hours, the hospital will initiate a forced extraction procedure.
……
Reading the price list, everyone felt a chill shoot straight to the top of their skull.
The higher the price…
the more it cost in lives.
And the admission fee per person was 10 Ghost Coins.
Which meant, if you didn't choose the extreme risk of collateral—
you had to cut off your own hand just to buy a single ticket inside.
Silk-Stocking Desperado swept a glance over the price list without any hesitation.
She turned, and looked directly at Liu Rui, the one standing at the very back.
"You."
She extended a finger.
"Go exchange your palm."
"Wh—what?!"
Liu Rui went pale. His hands instinctively shot behind his back.
The expressions of the other guards and Ye Yilin shifted at once—turning ugly.
But faced with Silk-Stocking Desperado's terrifying oppressive presence, no one dared object immediately.
"Desperado sis… this… this is a buyout! That means cutting off a hand!"
Liu Rui's voice came out in a whimper, his whole body shaking.
Exchange…
That meant actually cutting it off and feeding it to the ghost!
At this point, Shi Zhongshan finally couldn't hold himself back any longer. He stepped forward, placing himself in front of Liu Rui, and pleaded.
"Desperado, can you… let Xiao Liu off just this once?"
"He really didn't do it on purpose just now! And he knows he made a mistake!"
"Not on purpose?"
Silk-Stocking Desperado tilted her head.
"That makes it carelessness!!"
"Or have you already forgotten how the rest of your squad died?!"
Shi Zhongshan lowered his head under the force of those words, his fists clenching until his knuckles went white.
Yes.
There had been far more of them to begin with.
They were all from Huaxia Nation's Xingcheng Prison.
On the first day of arrival, this squad—12 members at full strength—
had been transported into this hellish lobby together with several dozen female inmates.
And now?
Most of them were dead.
Dragged away by the monsters lurking in the darkness—drawn in because someone had "accidentally made a sound"—and chewed apart.
Only this small handful remained.
As for the rest of the prison's people, they had likely been transported to other floors.
Because they had once seen the watch of a guard from another squad inside this cashbox.
Along with the hand that had been sold.
"If you want to get to the lower floors—if you want to escape this god-forsaken level—opening the elevator door to the floors below costs exactly 1,000 Ghost Coins!"
Silk-Stocking Desperado pointed toward the ceiling.
"Opening the rooftop safe zone earlier burned through every last coin I had saved."
"Right now… we have nothing."
"Make a mistake, pay the price. If you want to live, you pay for it."
Silk-Stocking Desperado walked up to Liu Rui and kicked the bone-cleaving knife—used by who knows how many ghosts and humans before—
to his feet.
"Out with the old, in with the new."
"Be a good boy… go chop it off."
"Once I get in there and win big, I'll buy you a nicer ghost hand to put on!"
"Move it!"
"I……"
Liu Rui looked at the bone-cleaving knife on the floor, then looked around at everyone.
In the end, the fear in his eyes dissolved into resignation.
"Shi—Big Brother Shi, you don't need to speak up for me."
"It was my mistake… I nearly got everyone killed."
"I'll pay this cost… myself."
Liu Rui picked up the knife with trembling hands and walked to the counter step by step.
He placed his left hand on the surface, shaking. He closed his eyes, and raised the blade.
Whoosh!
Just as the edge was about to fall—
Smack!
A hand shot out from the side and seized his wrist!
Everyone froze.
Silk-Stocking Desperado's brow furrowed. She tilted her head, looking at the one who had intervened.
"You again?"
"What do you think you're doing?"
The one who had stopped Liu Rui was the young prison guard who had stood up to her on the rooftop earlier—Guan Ming.
Guan Ming ignored Silk-Stocking Desperado's challenge entirely.
He snatched the knife from Liu Rui's hand and tossed it aside.
"I'll pay this."
"Guan Ming! What are you doing?! Don't do anything reckless!"
Shi Zhongshan's face went white with alarm. He reached out to stop him.
"I'm sorry, Big Brother Shi."
Guan Ming pushed Shi Zhongshan's hand aside, and fixed his gaze directly on Silk-Stocking Desperado.
"I still can't let go of the bias in my heart."
"I'm not asking any of you to follow me…"
"But as a people's police officer—as a prison guard—I cannot accept operating under the command of a murderer."
"And I cannot accept using a comrade's mutilation as the price of survival!"
"So…"
Guan Ming's voice landed like iron:
"I'm going to find a way out. My way."
He turned to face Silk-Stocking Desperado, his eyes carrying no gratitude—only cool indifference.
"Thank you for the protection you've given us during this time. I will repay what I owe you, prisoner miss."
Shi Zhongshan let out a long sigh. "Xiao Guan… stop making a scene, would you? This is life and death!"
"Doesn't matter."
Silk-Stocking Desperado shrugged, spread her hands, and smiled.
"A young man with fire in his chest—I respect that."
"It's just…"
She leaned closer to Guan Ming.
"I wonder if you actually have what it takes?"
"After all…"
"The abilities of someone who lives inside the Ivory Tower up in the Upper City, and us rats who roll around in the gutter down in the Lower City…"
"are quite different, you know~?"
"Hmph! That's none of your business!"
Guan Ming let out a cold snort.
"And Big Brother Shi—I will prove that I have the ability to bring all of you out alive! Without needing to rely on this woman!"
With that.
Guan Ming turned without hesitation and walked up to the Nurse Ghost, his voice low and steady.
"I want to use collateral!!"
"I want to put my kidney up as collateral!!"
The Nurse Ghost's charred, blackened face tilted upward slightly, and it appraised the sturdy young man before it.
Clearly, it was quite satisfied with such a vital, energetic organ.
It nodded, reached beneath the counter, and produced a parchment contract, then pointed at the red thumbprint slot at the bottom.
Press a thumbprint—20 Ghost Coins.
Guan Ming didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat. He bit his finger open and pressed his print down!
Hum!
The contract took effect.
A chill bored into his lower back in an instant, as though something had just been branded with a mark.
The Nurse Ghost tossed out a heavy coin pouch.
Guan Ming snatched it, counted out 2 stacks of coins from inside.
"I want admission!"
He slapped a 10-Ghost-Coin chip down on the counter.
Then he picked up a second 10-Ghost-Coin chip, turned around, and threw it to Silk-Stocking Desperado.
"And her!"