Chapter 162: Even I’m Scared When I See It
"Bang!"
The one-armed man’s body slammed onto the corridor floor, his remaining arm hanging limply.
"One-on-one is much easier." Chen Ge gripped the iron hammer and turned his gaze to the deformed face. This man wore a hospital doctor’s uniform, and his face looked like it had undergone skin graft surgery—overall, it was unsettling.
Without a word or any preamble, Chen Ge’s first reaction upon seeing the deformed face was to swing the skull-crushing hammer at his shoulder.
The main event tonight was the Third Psychiatric Ward, and before entering it, Chen Ge wanted to neutralize as many of these threats to him as possible.
To be fair, this was their first real meeting. The deformed face never imagined the person behind the door would be so brutal.
Such insane, unreasonable behavior even scared the madman. The deformed face retreated, turning and sprinting toward the other end of the corridor.
The one-armed man on the ground was even quicker. He had long adapted to life without hands, his lower body strength formidable. He rolled to his feet in one motion, then fled without looking back, outpacing even the deformed face.
Neither of them offered even token resistance. They decisively ran for their lives, catching Chen Ge off guard.
But he quickly recovered, hoisted the skull-crushing hammer, and gave chase.
In the pitch-black ward, hurried footsteps shattered the night’s stillness. A "victim" trapped in the building, wielding an iron hammer, furiously pursued two "culprits behind the scenes."
The life-or-death chase had reached a fever pitch, with neither side even having time to speak.
Chen Ge chased them from the third floor to the first. The two psychopaths, familiar with the terrain, ran up another staircase. Chen Ge, murderous intent blazing, followed close behind as the trio ran from the first floor to the fourth.
After several rounds, as they passed the third-floor corridor, the two psychopaths ahead split up.
"Sacrificing the pawn to save the rook?"
Chen Ge hadn’t expected the two madmen to suddenly employ strategy. He made a split-second decision: "The one-armed man’s other arm is broken too. All he’s got left are his legs—fast, but not much of a threat. I should focus on catching that deformed face. Once he’s out of commission, entering the Third Ward tonight will be much safer."
His reasoning was clear, but when he went after the deformed face, the one-armed man unexpectedly stopped and turned back to block Chen Ge.
Taking advantage of this, the deformed face ran to the fourth floor, heading for the passage between the two wards.
"There’s an iron gate in the corridor between the Second and Third Wards. The lock on the second floor is rusted shut, I haven’t checked the third floor yet—could the fourth floor’s be functional?"
Facing the charging one-armed man, Chen Ge reacted directly. Aiming at the man’s legs, he swung the hammer down.
It took only a few seconds to shake off the madman, then he turned and pursued the deformed face to the fourth floor.
In the corridor, the deformed face’s eyelids twitched wildly. This was probably the first time he’d encountered prey with such strong resistance.
Entering the passage between the Second and Third Wards, the deformed face shoved the iron gate open and fled into the Third Ward like a shot.
Watching the deformed face vanish into the dark corridor of the Third Ward, Chen Ge didn’t continue the chase.
The pitch-black hallway resembled a monster’s esophagus, giving him an uneasy feeling. The strange, foul smell in the air grew stronger.
"The Third Ward..." Chen Ge stopped in the corridor and inspected the iron gate between the two buildings. The lock’s iron bars had been sawed through bit by bit: "These people really do have a saw. If they caught me, the consequences would be unthinkable."
After sprinting for over ten minutes, Chen Ge was a bit tired. He sprinkled a circle of salt near the iron gate as a marker.
Returning to the Second Ward, he dragged the one-armed man—now unable to move his hands or feet—into the laundry room.
As soon as this man appeared, the expressions of the three people in the iron cage all changed.
The woman in the middle reacted the most violently, slamming her body against the cage’s edge, as if trying to escape this place.
"What did you do to scare someone that badly?" Chen Ge showed no mercy to the deformed face and the one-armed man, largely because they were likely involved in murder—and of a particularly heinous kind.
The one-armed man lay on the ground. Only now did Chen Ge realize that when he’d broken the man’s arm and leg, he hadn’t made a single sound.
"This guy can’t feel pain?" Chen Ge had no sadistic tendencies, so he didn’t bother with pointless experiments. He just tore up some bedsheets and tied the one-armed man to a pipe in the corner.
After finishing, Chen Ge picked up the camera from the floor and reattached it to his wrist: "Now the initiative is slowly in my hands. It’s time to enter the Third Ward."
He took a moment to check the livestream. The viewership had unknowingly surpassed 80,000, and the number was still climbing.
Probably due to the hammer ambush and the frantic chase, Chen Ge’s livestream chat was blazing hot, far outpacing other streams with similar viewership.
"Strong momentum. My stream should be more interesting than Qin Guang’s. At this rate, I’ll definitely steal some of his audience." Chen Ge skimmed through the viewers’ comments. The viewership had broken records, but the chat’s rhythm was starting to spiral out of control.
Between the sudden discovery of a person in an iron cage hidden in a pile of clothes, the arm-breaking scene, and the ten-minute sprint through a mental hospital wielding a giant hammer, the unprecedented livestream spectacle had blown the chat up!
Some praised Chen Ge for his dedication to the show, calling the effect top-notch; others accused him of just seeking attention; and a small, blunt group of viewers had already called the police after seeing the iron cage. The chat was flooded with comments—everything under the sun—and they were just short of a full-platform manhunt.
Chen Ge hadn’t expected such a fierce reaction from the viewers. He felt a pang of relief, grateful that he’d never given the exact livestream address from the start, only mentioning it was a psychiatric hospital steeped in legend.
80,000 people seemed like a lot, but scattered across the country, they were just a drop in the ocean. Even if a few were from Hanjiang, they might not know where the Third Rehabilitation Center was, since the place had been abandoned for years.
Without an address, it was hard for the police to act. Even if viewers tracked down Chen Ge’s actual streaming location through various clues, it would probably be well past midnight.
Hiding the grotesque skull-crushing hammer behind him, Chen Ge chatted casually with the camera to ease the tension, steering the chat toward acting and scripted narratives.
To be honest, it was a bitter irony. Other streamers feared their scripts being exposed, spending big money on elaborate plots, hiring professional actors to play bystanders, and forcing surprises.
But for Chen Ge, the plot was so realistic that even he was scared when he saw it. The "surprises" never stopped, each wave bigger than the last—and they just wouldn’t let up!