Chapter 155: Dog Cage? (Part 3)
"Psychiatric hospitals and regular hospitals handle different treatment work. Though both are within the city, the vast majority of people will consciously or unconsciously keep their distance from them," Chen Ge said to the camera on his wrist. "No one can refute this point. After all, no matter how they argue, they are somewhat different from us. But sometimes, we don't know whether it's them who are wrong, or us who consider ourselves normal."
Climbing over the wall into the rehabilitation center, Chen Ge's attention sharpened. "The hospital before me is steeped in countless legends. In the dead of night, eerie screams echo from the wards; blood-red words inexplicably appear on empty corridors; the director vanished without a trace and has never been found—some speculate he might be hiding somewhere in the building."
After laying out all that groundwork, Chen Ge glanced at his phone screen. The viewers weren't buying it, and some were even comparing his stream to Qin Guang's.
"Horror streamer, another man walking the line of death."
"Through the screen, I can already see your fate. Some streamers are only meant to live in memory."
"I can understand everything else, but can you explain why you're holding a chicken? Are you making horror cuisine? Starting a new genre?"
"Night*Ward? Just for your bold choice of material, I'm following!"
Chen Ge watched the viewers' comments. These guys were slick with their banter, but none of them seemed scared.
"A live rooster wards off evil. I'll bring you a different kind of thrill tonight. Speaking of which, this gloomy, terrifying hospital—I took a two-hour bus ride to find it—and you're not even a little afraid?" Chen Ge explained patiently, but the viewers remained unfazed.
"Afraid of what? Another streamer said the same thing, and now he's fixing his car."
"Ah! The cat is so cute..."
The atmosphere lightened, and Chen Ge calmed down. After chatting a bit more with the viewers, he began his real exploration of the Third Mental Illness Rehabilitation Center.
This private hospital occupied a large area, surrounded by cement walls. In the middle was a courtyard for patients to move freely, with only a few patches of concrete ground; everywhere else was overgrown with knee-high weeds.
Ahead was the connected building Chen Ge had seen earlier. Three ward buildings formed a U-shape. From the second floor upward, all floors were interconnected.
"The ones facing the sun are the First and Second Wards. The one with its back to them should be the Third Ward. Strange—why would the hospital design it this way? The Third Ward gets no sunlight. Could it be that some patients can't be exposed to sunlight?"
The hospital's layout alone felt eerie. "There must be a reason for its existence. Whether for the trial mission or the clues my parents left behind, I have to go into the Third Ward tonight and take a look."
Chen Ge walked ahead, with the white cat following closely behind him.
The moonlight was bright that night, casting a pale white glow over the concrete ground. Chen Ge stepped onto the stairs and arrived at the entrance of the First Ward.
The ward's door was made of iron. Chen Ge just试探性地 pushed it, and to his surprise, it swung open directly.
"The lock is broken." Having accumulated plenty of experience from previous trial missions, Chen Ge picked up his flashlight and examined the lock mechanism. "The spring clip snapped—clearly forced open."
Looking at the deep, dark corridor inside the ward, a question arose in Chen Ge's mind: "Who forced it open?"
After the hospital was sealed off, someone else had come here. Was it a relapsed patient, or his own parents?
Director Luo had mentioned that before his parents disappeared, they had talked about the Third Ward. The note his parents left in the amusement park also contained information about the Third Ward. But there was one key point Chen Ge hadn't figured out.
Director Luo had heard that statement before his parents vanished, while the bloodstained note seemed to have appeared after they disappeared.
"What did they encounter in the Third Ward?"
With a harsh creak, Chen Ge pushed open the iron door of the First Ward.
The corridor was cluttered with trash and beds, painting a vivid picture of the rehabilitation center years ago—overflowing with patients, many lying in the hallways.
Unlike regular hospitals, the psychiatric rehabilitation center had few departments. On both sides of the crowded hallway were rooms of unknown purpose.
Sniffing the air, Chen Ge caught a faint, unpleasant odor. He had smelled it before at the Haiming Apartment, similar to the scent Wang Shenglong gave off.
"I haven't even gone in yet, and I already have a bad feeling." This was Chen Ge's first time entering a psychiatric hospital. With no signs or guides, he could only rely on the map in his mind, supposedly drawn by a patient.
"The internal structure of the three wards should be similar. The First Ward is the least dangerous. I'll take a full tour of this building first to get familiar with the layout."
Just as he took a step forward, the white cat scrambled onto his backpack and jumped onto his shoulder. It seemed to want to communicate something to Chen Ge, but no matter how long he stared, he couldn't understand.
"The white cat jumped onto my shoulder on its own—this is the first time it's made such a close move toward me. What did it sense? Is this out of fear, or does it mean something else?"
As he ventured deeper into the corridor, Chen Ge felt like he was stepping on something. He looked down and saw countless dead insect bodies in the cracked floor tiles.
The ward had been unused for years, so it couldn't be from pesticides. What was going on with these bugs?
All the doors on the first floor were open, and the rooms were similarly arranged—nothing but narrow, moldy single beds.
"How many patients did this hospital once hold?" Chen Ge stepped into one room to get a feel for it. Four wooden beds crammed the space, leaving barely enough room to turn around.
"Living day after day in such a cramped world, even a healthy person would gradually grow numb and lose hope in life." Chen Ge walked out of the oppressive ward and soon reached the first corner.
There was a station resembling a nurse's desk, with a few empty medicine bottles and cards bearing names on the wooden counter.
"It looks like patients had to come here to pick up their daily medication." Chen Ge glanced inside and noticed two things that shouldn't have been there.
Inside the nurse's station were two welded iron cages, not very large, resembling dog cages from a pet market.
"What are these cages for?" Chen Ge jumped into the station and shone his flashlight inside the cages, making a more startling discovery.
In one of the iron cages lay a half-cooked duck with its feathers not even fully plucked.
"It hasn't rotted or gone bad—the duck was thrown into the cage recently." Chen Ge gripped his tool hammer, pressing himself tightly against the wall. "There's someone else in this hospital besides me."