Chapter 157: Who's Following Me?
"Someone?"
Chen Ge didn't hesitate. Gripping his tool hammer, he charged forward, unwilling to give the other party any chance to react.
"Come out!" The main door of the ward was locked from the inside, and his whereabouts were already exposed, so he no longer held back.
Man and cat reached the stairwell corner. The corridor was pitch black, empty—nothing there.
"Where did they go?"
At the haunted house, Chen Ge had already tested the white cat. This feline was especially sensitive to certain things, almost never wrong.
"The white cat didn't bristle, just showed aggression. That thing's danger level probably doesn't match up to Muyang Middle School." The white cat had bristled twice in Chen Ge's haunted house—once when entering Muyang Middle School, and once when the blood door appeared in the restroom. Based on the cat's reaction just now, Chen Ge roughly gauged the monster's strength.
"The key now is figuring out whether that thing is human or ghost."
Back at the nurse's station, Chen Ge directly smashed the partition with his hammer and pried up the entire baseboard.
The sight before him was a bit unsettling. On the wooden board were strands of hair tied with thin thread and nailed down. If you flipped the board over, the ends of the hair would dangle downward, a sight that sent chills down the spine.
"Why would someone nail hair to a board? Is that their peculiar fetish?"
All the hair was bundled with fine thread. Some was fine, soft, jet-black, and glossy—clearly well-maintained, likely shaved from a young woman. Others were fluffy, split-ended, and nearly white, obviously belonging to an elderly person.
By comparing lengths, Chen Ge separated the hair; it seemed to belong to four different individuals.
"At least one of these four is still alive." Chen Ge looked at the two large iron cages set up in the nurse's station and gradually understood their purpose. "Truly insane."
He set the board aside and crouched under the counter again. This time, he clearly saw the words carved into the wood: *Everything you've done to me, I'll pay back in full.*
The writing was tiny, followed by fragmented, incoherent sentences. It felt like someone had been writing mid-thought, then suddenly gone mad, muttering nonsense.
"Some psychiatric patients, when emotionally agitated, talk to the air in gibberish no one understands. Ordinary people do the same when sleep-talking." Chen Ge tried to decipher it, but he had no clue what the other person was trying to convey.
Looking at the words on the board, Chen Ge felt a chill run down his back. Countless similar phrases were scrawled on the outer walls of the psychiatric hospital, each containing a person's name. What was more terrifying was that the handwriting was all different—clearly not from the same hand.
It was understandable if one patient occasionally showed such behavior, but when everyone exhibited the same symptoms, the concept shifted entirely.
"Looks like the patients in this hospital carry a lot of resentment." Chen Ge pulled out his phone, photographed the words under the counter, and tied the rooster to the back of his backpack. "The more people, the easier it is to leave clues. Time to check out the second ward."
Chen Ge climbed out of the nurse's station, took a bag of salt from his backpack, tore a small opening, and sprinkled a few lines near the station.
He wasn't doing this to ward off evil, but to catch the hidden madman.
Salt bag in hand, Chen Ge walked to the corridor connecting the first and second wards. Just as he was about to enter the second ward, the white cat suddenly leaped onto the windowsill, scratching at the glass of the corridor window.
"Careful, don't fall." Chen Ge stood by the window. The ward was surrounded by dense forest, and as far as the eye could see, there was no light.
"Who would think a building like this is hidden in the wilderness?" Chen Ge noticed nothing unusual, but the white cat stayed on the windowsill, refusing to leave, lifting its head to meow.
"Is there something wrong outside the window? Above me?" Trusting the white cat, Chen Ge opened the window and looked up.
Right above him, at the third-floor corridor window, a slightly distorted face was looking down.
Backlit, the person ducked away as soon as they heard Chen Ge open the window, vanishing without even closing their own window.
"That face..." Chen Ge hadn't expected the other party to be right above him. They had locked eyes for less than a tenth of a second, and he couldn't get a good look, only noting that the facial features seemed oddly misshapen, not like a normal person's. But he couldn't pinpoint exactly what was off.
Without acting rashly, Chen Ge listened carefully, but no footsteps echoed from the corridor. He couldn't tell which direction the person had fled.
"Something about that face felt asymmetrical on both sides. It should be human."
Gripping his tool hammer, Chen Ge entered the second ward. He had initially thought the first and second wards were similar, but once inside, he realized their layouts were completely different.
The second ward was much darker and emptier than the first. The corridor had no crowded beds. Each single room, besides the basic cot, was equipped with a desk, chair, and lamp.
"The environment is much better than the first ward." Chen Ge casually sprinkled a handful of salt at the corridor entrance and entered the nearest room.
The bedding was tossed aside, the stuffing from the quilt scattered everywhere. Bedpans and utensils were piled together, and the walls were covered in words gouged out with fingernails.
"Taking care of patients like this every day—the nurses and orderlies here must have it rough." Chen Ge left the room and moved on.
The second ward had a much wider variety of rooms: dedicated therapy rooms, recreation rooms, game rooms, bathing rooms. At the end of the corridor, Chen Ge even spotted a small hall with a stage, though the setup inside was odd.
This small hall didn't seem meant for parties or performances. The windows were boarded up, covered with extra-thick black curtains, and all the decorations were either black or white, creating a stifling atmosphere.
Pushing open the door, Chen Ge stopped before entering. He saw half of an enlarged black-and-white photo placed in the center of the stage.
The photo was pasted on the wall, originally a complete image, but someone had cut away half.
From the remaining half, he could tell it was a middle-aged female nurse. She was stout, with a fierce expression.
"An enlarged black-and-white photo, light-blocking black curtains, rows of wooden seats... This place feels like a funeral hall." Chen Ge couldn't understand why a psychiatric hospital would have such an activity room. If the hospital had set it up, what was the purpose?
"Could this female nurse be the victim from the third ward? But why is her photo in the second ward's activity room?"
Memorizing the nurse's face, Chen Ge didn't linger. He closed the door, sprinkled salt at the entrance, and hurried into the stairwell, heading for the third floor.
Thanks to Lengye1986 for the alliance leader! Three chapters tomorrow to make up for it.