"If we view the park as one giant nest, then the blue text notes are obviously the natives maintaining order in the nest, while the red text notes are the invading cuckoos." Lin Xiao's voice was soft, carrying the calm composure of someone reviewing a situation. "I noticed the changes in dormitory sizes—from six-person rooms, downgraded to four-person rooms, finally becoming two-person rooms. The initiative for these adjustments lies entirely in the hands of the red text."
Zhao Bailu immediately grasped the other person's intention: "Changing to two-person rooms was to facilitate the cuckoo hatching."
As long as they cleared out their roommates, they could fulfill the condition of "the only survivor" in multi-person dormitories, thereby completing the cuckoo's hatching. This tilt in the rules directly led to the birth of a large number of cuckoos.
Lin Xiao unconsciously reached up to touch her ear, as if some damp sensation still lingered there.
—Deep within the nest, chicks that had just grown moist wings followed their most primal instincts, pushing the other eggs in the nest off the edge. They were very clear that only by eliminating their competitors could they monopolize all the nutrients.
In this unequal confrontation, the blue text side representing the natives gradually showed signs of decline.
"Since all intern staff are considered bird eggs undergoing incubation, the park naturally has to provide enough 'nutrition' to ensure our growth." Lin Xiao continued her analysis.
Looking back, the forcibly distributed food paste was the egg white. Refusing to eat meant stunted development, eventually leading to death; while those who obeyed the broadcast's demands would intake nutrients, presenting a well-hydrated state of maturity.
As for the cleaning workshop, it was meant to simulate a sterile environment during the incubation process. Those semi-transparent lightweight protective suits were actually fragile egg white membranes. Once the protective suit was damaged, bacteria would invade, causing the bird egg to rot.
"We were sealed within the eggshell, unable to see the real staff members inside the park, but occasionally we could feel something watching us." Lin Xiao spoke slowly.
Between half-dreams and half-awake moments, she had felt some enormous existence drawing near. If there was even a crack in the eggshell, perhaps one could peer through that gap and see the enormous avian pupil outside.
The empty cash registers, the cafeteria windows, and the body fragments that had vanished into thin air downstairs—all these details hinted at some invisible force existing within the park.
Why couldn't the intern staff see it?
Lin Xiao had realized at the time that this "inability to see" was not due to impaired vision, but rather a limitation of perspective. Since they themselves were bird eggs, their restricted vision was the natural barrier brought by the eggshell.
Lin Xiao paused, then continued: "When I noticed more and more cuckoos appearing around me, I started trying to understand their behavioral logic. What struck me as most dissonant was that these newly-born cuckoos weren't satisfied with monopolizing the current nest, but were urgently wanting to enter dormitories where no cuckoos had yet been born."
According to common sense, after a cuckoo pushed off the host's egg, it could peacefully enjoy the resources within the nest. But those intern staff who had already achieved "solitary living" had not stopped their movements, instead actively searching for host eggs in other dormitories.
Zhao Bailu watched Lin Xiao, waiting for her to continue.
However, Lin Xiao's train of thought suddenly stopped. She wore an apologetic smile: "Sorry, ever since leaving the instance, many memories have been getting fuzzy..."
Zhao Bailu expressed understanding: "It's fine. What you need most right now is rest."
Lin Xiao's complexion truly was poor; the dark circles under her eyes attested to excessive mental exhaustion. Zhao Bailu had seen too many similar instance survivors—post-traumatic stress reactions often came with long-term insomnia.
"It's good that you survived. Forgetting those things isn't bad either." Zhao Bailu comforted her. "Your luck was still pretty good. Though it was a dead-end scenario, the instance collapsed midway."
She didn't know the specifics of Lin Xiao's experience in the Abandoned Industrial Zone Area 17. She had simply assumed that the dissolution of Niesda Park was a consequence of the red-blue faction confrontation.
A slight smile curved Lin Xiao's lips: "It's not necessarily a dead end."
Zhao Bailu's heart skipped a beat: "You... found a way to clear it?"
"It's not an exact clearing method. The situation was too chaotic at the time, I didn't have a chance to verify it." Lin Xiao explained. "The park is a hatchery. Whether cuckoos or host birds, both need to maintain the cleanliness and safety of the incubation area. So after bodies appeared, they would be cleaned up quickly. Following this logic, bad eggs that had lost hope of hatching would be thrown outside the nest. If intern staff disguised themselves as broken eggshells, they might have a chance to slip out among them."
Zhao Bailu instantly understood Lin Xiao's reasoning, and why she hadn't attempted it on the spot.
To pull off this deception, one would need to mix themselves into a pile of blood and flesh from the fallen corpses. This required not only extremely high mental fortitude, but also exceptional psychological resilience.
Moreover, Lin Xiao had only just sorted out the situation and hadn't had time to put it into action. And when two sides clash, the fisherman profits—as the red and blue factions were locked in intense conflict, she felt she might find a better way to exploit the situation.
Lin Xiao didn't say more, simply picking up her water cup and taking a few sips.
Zhao Bailu, reading the situation skillfully, stood up: "I'll be going then. I'll come see you again next time."
"See you then—if you can persuade the medical staff to give me a bit more internet time, I'd be very grateful." Lin Xiao said.
Zhao Bailu nodded vaguely. In truth, the poor signal at Ninth Hospital wasn't a technical issue, but rather the hospital deliberately cutting off patients' contact with the outside world.
Lin Xiao watched Zhao Bailu leave the ward.
Regarding that unfinished speculation, she wasn't without ideas—the matter involved the secret of the identification card, and might even expose the existence of the Abandoned Industrial Zone Area 17.
When she had discovered that the cuckoo chicks were enthusiastic about intruding into new nests, she had entertained two possibilities: either they were trying to eliminate as many host eggs as possible, or they were searching for something within the park.
After careful deliberation, the first reason seemed sufficient—more host eggs meant a weakened cuckoo faction, and killing indeed could strike the enemy. But why did cuckoos choose to directly enter nests to kill, rather than using red text temptation to convert host eggs into their own kind?
Lin Xiao's experience proved that people who could see blue text could also see red text—conversion was entirely feasible. And B-304's situation indicated that while cuckoos would fight each other, that typically happened in the same dormitory under extreme resource scarcity. This meant the internal tension within the cuckoo faction hadn't escalated to the point of needing to snatch resources from each other; they could completely accept new members.
Since the instance contained pathways and conditions for increasing cuckoos, entering new nests purely for the sake of killing seemed redundant.
Thus, Lin Xiao lowered the priority of the "killing theory" and began considering the possibility that cuckoo chicks frequently changing nests was to "search for something."
What convinced her of this were the broken identification cards on the corpses.
Identification cards appeared fragile, but were actually tough and lightweight. Occasionally breaking one was normal, but every single corpse she had examined had their identification card shattered.
Lin Xiao deduced that the shattering of identification cards was directly related to the employees' deaths.
—Or rather, the cause of death for those intern staff wasn't falling from heights, but rather their identity documents being deliberately destroyed.
A thought flashed through Lin Xiao's mind: What was the easiest way to kill an unhatched bird egg?
With this thought, a smile tugged at the corner of Lin Xiao's lips.
The answer was obvious, even children knew it: you just needed to break it.
Intern staff corresponded to bird eggs, so identification cards naturally corresponded to eggshells. Once cracks appeared in the eggshell, that egg was declared a failed hatch.
Lin Xiao also discovered a detail: the identification card in her hand was different from others. Her card had subtle raised bumps she could feel on the underside, while other cards had smooth surfaces.
If one substituted the assumption that "identification cards are eggshells," everything was explained—the bumps represented the inner side of the eggshell, and smooth meant the outer side.
She couldn't stick her head into other people's bird eggs, so naturally she couldn't feel the bumps on other cards.
What the cuckoo chicks were searching for was the information on the inner side of the host egg cards. But the key information existed only on the inner