Chapter 160: The Patient in Room Eight (3)
"He's retaliating—purposeful, targeted revenge." In an instant, Chen Ge's mind raced with many thoughts.
The middle-aged man's story revealed a wealth of information, and that information closely aligned with a clue in Chen Ge's mind.
Among the nine patients in the Third Psychiatric Ward, one person's situation closely resembled the protagonist in the middle-aged man's story. Both had once been doctors, both had developed psychological issues from witnessing too many twisted, suffering patients, transitioning from doctor to patient. Most crucially, both were highly aggressive.
Standing still, a name surfaced in Chen Ge's mind—Xiong Qing.
This man lived in Room Eight, suffered from hemispatial neglect, was under isolation treatment, and had an extremely high danger rating. Xiong Qing had the intelligence to become a psychiatrist, at least above average. He only did terrifying things when he went mad; normally, he seemed about the same as anyone else.
"Could he be the hidden killer in this psychiatric hospital?"
This person knew the rehabilitation center inside and out. As both a patient and a doctor, he was fully capable of such acts.
"He holds an absolute geographical advantage; he won't be easy to deal with." Xiong Qing was a fearsome figure in his own right. Hemispatial neglect wasn't the most horrifying illness, but those afflicted imposed on themselves the need to correct those erroneous perceptions, leading Xiong Qing to do chilling things.
Everything he saw was wrong, distorted. Even a whole person standing before him would look better to him missing half a limb. Most hemispatial neglect patients know they're sick and try to change this flawed perception, but Xiong Qing was different—he used this dangerous, mistaken perception to change others.
With the hospital's shabby, dilapidated conditions, if someone truly lost a limb, the outcome was sealed: no chance of survival.
Four people's hair had been found in the building, but Chen Ge had only located three so far. The missing one was likely already dead.
"Midnight hasn't even arrived, and so much has happened before entering the Third Ward. Tonight's going to be tough."
The difficulty of this three-star trial mission had exceeded Midnight Escape and Muyang Middle School from the start. One wrong choice could mean life or death.
A killer had been identified, but Chen Ge had never seen Xiong Qing. He didn't know if the man with the deformed face was Xiong Qing, or if the middle-aged man locked in the cage before him was Xiong Qing himself. He knew so much about the old man's past—it was highly likely he was Xiong Qing.
Crouching outside the middle-aged man's iron cage, Chen Ge checked the lock on it. All three cage locks were identical, no different from each other. Even if the man had a key hidden on him, under Chen Ge's watch, he couldn't possibly unlock it and escape to hurt him.
Shaking his tool hammer, Chen Ge stared into the middle-aged man's eyes, thought for a moment, and decided to ask directly: "How do you know all this? Are you the old man's son?"
"Me?" The middle-aged man caught the suspicion in Chen Ge's tone and said something baffling: "I knew you wouldn't believe me. You're all suspicious of me, just like I'm suspicious of all of you! Leave me alone! I've hidden myself here, so why can you still find me? Stop monitoring my life!"
"Suspicious of all of us? Monitoring your life? What are you talking about?" Chen Ge had no idea what madness had seized the middle-aged man.
"Every time I expose you, you put on that innocent face! That's why I hate you the most—I've seen through you, and you still try to fool me? How long will this go on?" The middle-aged man spoke with perfect rationality, but Chen Ge couldn't understand a word: "Should I call you Wang Ming? Or Xu Fei? Li Yichang? Ma Yong? Or have you taken a new name?"
"What are you talking about?"
Chen Ge signaled him to calm down, but the middle-aged man only grew more frantic: "Next, you're going to say you don't know any of them, right?"
"But I really don't know them."
"Stop acting! You're all played by the same person! Your fake smiles make me sick—end this pointless charade!"
"All played by the same person?" Hearing this, Chen Ge recalled another piece of information Dr. Gao had given him.
The patient in Room Five was named Xu Tong, suffering from Capgras syndrome. He believed everyone around him was disguised as the same person, that he lived in a manipulated world.
This middle-aged man's behavior matched the patient in Room Five. He could talk normally at first, but when Chen Ge showed suspicion, his latent illness erupted.
This was Chen Ge's first encounter with a severe mental patient. One second, he seemed perfectly normal; the next, he was rambling incoherently, his face twisted in terror.
Looking at the man in the iron cage, Chen Ge's mind was on another question.
Why had former patients of the Third Ward returned here? Was something here drawing them? Or were they all controlled by ghosts, forced to come back?
The simplest way to get answers was to ask the middle-aged man, but his current state made that impossible.
Unable to communicate, Chen Ge walked back to the woman.
Sensing someone approach, the woman pushed off the steel bars with her feet, shifting her body away from Chen Ge.
Shining his flashlight on her face, she looked to be in her early twenties, plain-looking, nowhere near the two female patients in the Third Ward.
"This girl and the old man both had their heads shaved—they might be the real victims." Chen Ge still hadn't figured out why the killer shaved people's hair. If it was about revenge, maybe the killer had been subjected to similar coercion.
"Relax."
Chen Ge reached his hand into the iron cage. The girl dodged frantically inside, and after about three or four minutes, she exhausted herself and finally stopped.
"I mean you no harm. Trust me." Chen Ge gently grabbed the pillowcase in the girl's mouth and pulled it out.
The moment the pillowcase came out, the woman screamed at Chen Ge like a madwoman: "Hand! Hand! Hand!"
"What?"
Her voice was loud and piercing. Chen Ge had no idea what trauma she'd endured to react so violently.
Hearing her voice, the old man in the left cage, who had been staring blankly, suddenly lay flat on the ground, not daring to move.
The middle-aged man on the right also stopped his frenzy, staring straight at the door, his eyes full of terror.
"Hand! Hand..."
The woman kept shouting, and Chen Ge shoved the pillowcase back into her mouth.
"She's crazy too."
It seemed there wasn't a single sane person in the entire ward, and that unsettled Chen Ge.