Chapter 168: The Wardrobe
"The nurse will probably come back after handing out the medication. When she finds the notebook missing, she'll definitely search everywhere. But I feel like she's only slightly stronger than Xiao Xiao and the Ouija board spirit. Even if I have to fight her head-on, I don't think I'd lose."
Chen Ge gripped the skull-crushing hammer as he ventured deeper into the corridor. Under the same circumstances, anyone else would have been scared out of their wits long ago, with no mind left to ponder such things.
He pushed open the doors of one ward after another, finding nothing. Chen Ge kept walking until he reached the third-floor restroom entrance.
"The sound of the door opening came from downstairs. The third-floor restroom probably isn't the room where the 'door' is." He could feel the unease of the white cat on his shoulder. Chen Ge tried pushing open the restroom door; inside was pitch black, not a trace of light.
Rows of low cubicles looked somewhat unsettling. The bathroom in the psychiatric hospital was different from those in schools—perhaps worried that patients might have accidents in the restroom, none of the stalls had doors installed.
After circling around and finding nothing unusual, Chen Ge finally stopped in front of the mirror above the sink. The design of this mirror was interesting.
At the top of the mirror frame hung a cloth curtain, like a window blind. With a pull, it could easily cover the mirror.
This small detail in the third ward's restroom reminded him of his own horror house: "Looks like this mirror isn't clean either."
Chen Ge pulled aside the cloth curtain over the mirror. The surface was covered in smudges, as if someone had been constantly rubbing it with dirty hands, making even the reflection of the person inside unclear.
"The door isn't here." Having understood the internal layout of the third ward's restroom, Chen Ge felt more grounded. He left the restroom and took the stairs on the other side down to the second floor.
The closer he got to the lower levels, the stronger the stench in the air became. What surprised Chen Ge even more was that strange things began to appear on the walls and floor of the second-floor corridor.
Whether due to years of neglect causing structural deformation or other reasons, certain spots on the second-floor walls bulged outward inexplicably. These bulges even turned red, as if they were human skin that had been violently struck, causing subcutaneous blood vessels to rupture and the surface to swell.
Cracks in the floorboards also held remnants that looked like bloodstains, as if blood had once seeped through the gaps, only to dry up later.
The second floor was completely different from the third; the horror factor had nearly doubled.
If the third floor was eerie and uncanny, the second floor had already reached a level of danger that made one want to flee at any moment.
"Could these things really be blood?" Chen Ge picked up some clumps from the ground and crushed them in his hand. "No smell of blood. It's probably just ordinary red dirt."
The bedding on the corridor was somewhat obstructive. As Chen Ge passed by, he lifted a few of them.
He noticed that the closer he got to the ground floor, the more realistic these mannequins became—not in a visual sense, but in the way they gave him a feeling akin to living beings.
"By the time I reach the first floor, will the mannequins under the bedding get up on their own?" He wasn't joking; he was seriously considering it.
Crossing the long corridor and passing through several wards, Chen Ge spotted a few special rooms near the corner of the hallway.
The doors of the wards all had windows installed, allowing doctors to see inside easily, but the doors of these rooms were different.
"Director's office?" Chen Ge had nearly run through all three wards of the rehabilitation center, and this was the first time he'd seen a door with a sign on it.
Entering, the room was very large, as if it had been converted by knocking down three wards.
Against the walls stood several pots of dead plants, next to empty bookshelves and a desk for office work.
Inside was a smaller suite, about half the size of the outer room, with a single bed and an absurdly large wardrobe.
Closing the door behind him, Chen Ge stepped inside. The floor was littered with a large number of case files, but unlike those in the nurse's notebook, these files had not been altered. In other words, the owners of these case files were still alive.
During the more than ten years the Third Mental Rehabilitation Center had been in operation, it had treated a vast number of patients—far more than Chen Ge had initially guessed.
Compared to Jiujiang's population of millions, mental patients made up only a tiny fraction. Yet the city had only two official public mental health treatment centers, which could accommodate fewer than a thousand people at full capacity. Combined with the high relapse rate of mental illnesses, the hospitals were woefully insufficient, leading to the emergence of many private wards like the Third Rehabilitation Center.
Masquerading as public institutions, they were actually private facilities with rigid, monotonous treatments and chaotic internal management, frequently resulting in various accidents. And because of the特殊性 of mental patients, many incidents were eventually swept under the rug. Wang Haiming being forcibly confined to the rehabilitation center was a prime example.
Picking up a few case files at random, Chen Ge quickly lost interest. The diagnoses most doctors gave to patients were nearly identical, and even the treatment plans were the same.
"Dr. Gao—that's what it means to save lives and treat illnesses. These doctors are just killing thoughts and souls, turning patients into puppets without selves."
Continuing his search, the bookshelves and desk drawers were all empty. Chen Ge went into the inner room, lifted the bedboard, tore open the mattress cover and pillow, but found nothing.
Finally, he turned to the absurdly large wardrobe—the only place in the director's office he hadn't checked.
"This wardrobe could easily fit two adults. Could the missing director be hiding inside?" Chen Ge raised the skull-crushing hammer and scanned the wardrobe.
The cabinet door was sealed with police tape, which appeared untouched since it was applied, with intact edges.
"Why did the police seal this wardrobe? Was a body found inside?"
There were many other strange details. The cabinet door bore police tape, the edges were sealed with adhesive, strange symbols were written on the corners, and half-palm-length red nails were hammered into it.
"I feel like there's something very important stored in this wardrobe." Chen Ge placed the white cat by the door, tore off the police tape, and used his tool hammer to pry the cabinet open.
There was no bloody scene as he had imagined, nor were there clothes or other oddities inside—only sheets of paper covered in writing and a few letters that had never been sent.
Picking up the top sheet, the first line made Chen Ge's heart race.
"The child in Room Three has started going mad again. He was the first to see the 'door.' I suspect the appearance of the 'door' is related to him."
Wasn't Room Three unoccupied? Where did this child come from?
Chen Ge continued reading. The documents sealed in the wardrobe clearly recorded how a single 'door' had destroyed the entire hospital.