Chapter 174: Awakening the Personality
Upon hearing the sound, Chen Ge decisively shut the door.
His hand gripped the lock, a chilling sensation seeping from his palm into his body. He froze outside the door, concentrating all his attention to pinpoint the source of the sound.
"I can only tell it's coming from inside the door, but I can't determine the exact direction."
A scene played out in Chen Ge's mind: a monster with a masked face dragging a corpse down the corridor.
The sound gradually drew closer, then abruptly stopped.
Chen Ge's muscles tensed all over. It was an incredibly strange feeling, as if the door before him were a mirror, two worlds reflecting each other, and the monster stood exactly where Chen Ge was.
Only a door separated them, and neither made a rash move.
A chilling wind swept through the corridor. Three or four minutes later, the sound of a door opening and closing came from the second floor. The female nurse seemed to have given chase.
The situation was turning unfavorable for Chen Ge. The nurse would appear soon, but he couldn't move recklessly now.
The monster on the other side of the door might have sensed him. If he made the slightest move, the monster would likely come out.
It was a silent standoff. The monster inside the door hesitated. Chen Ge, outside, had no intention of confronting it head-on for now. His top priority was to find something to block the door and get through the night.
At the second-floor stairwell, the nurse, having finished searching the second and third floors, finally reached the first floor.
This nurse seemed to have been a particularly vengeful person in life. Spotting Chen Ge, she twisted her body and staggered toward him.
In the sealed ward, on the pitch-black corridor, a madwoman in tattered nurse's uniform running at him—this scene would unsettle anyone.
His brow twitched, and blue veins bulged on Chen Ge's arm. He glanced at the approaching nurse from the corner of his eye.
"I gave back your notes, so why are you still chasing me?"
At another time and place, Chen Ge wouldn't have panicked. The real pressure came from the monster inside the door.
He had heard its sounds but never seen it. The unknown stirs the deepest fears in one's heart, and Chen Ge was no exception.
The nurse was relentless, flailing wildly, soon closing in within ten meters of Chen Ge.
The wounds from the cleaver had all vanished, and the nurse's body, crushed by the skull hammer, had mostly recovered. Chen Ge could even see the camera dangling from her collar.
"Don't push me too far."
When the nurse charged within five meters, he made a quick decision: pick the softest target first. Take out the nurse, then deal with the thing inside the door.
Slowly withdrawing his hand, Chen Ge locked eyes with the nurse a few meters away. He exploded into action, charging at her even faster than she was coming at him.
Swinging the hammer wildly, he fought with reckless abandon. In truth, aside from being hard to kill, the nurse wasn't that strong.
Pulling out the knife, he stabbed it into the nurse's uniform again. Chen Ge didn't linger in the fight, knowing his greatest threat was behind him.
As Chen Ge clashed with the nurse, the door to Ward No. 3 began to seep blood. A substance like blood slid down the door panel, dripping onto the floor and vanishing instantly.
The door, which could only be pushed inward, was being forced open from the other side. The hinges turned, and it slowly swung outward.
"That thing is coming out!"
A few seconds weren't enough to deal with the nurse. Caught between them, Chen Ge was attacked from both sides. He grappled with the nurse, whose twisted body seemed intent on latching onto him.
With the blood door at his back, Chen Ge steeled himself. He stepped back to dodge the nurse's contorted form, then swung the skull hammer into her back.
The hammer from the black phone had some effect on ghosts, a fact he'd just tested on the nurse.
Another hammer blow, same spot, sent the nurse lurching forward, stopping between Chen Ge and the blood door.
By then, the blood door was half open, and something was about to emerge.
"This isn't your place!" Chen Ge attacked furiously. Normal methods couldn't kill the nurse, so he took a risk, trying to force her into the blood door and seal it shut.
Things went smoother—and more terrifyingly—than Chen Ge had imagined. As the nurse neared the blood door, a hairy hand shot out from behind the half-open door.
It grabbed at where Chen Ge had been standing, but because he had charged out to fight the nurse, he had, in the struggle, deliberately swapped positions with her.
The hand seized the nurse's body, yanking her backward with immense force. Her face twisted completely, and she was dragged into the door without even a struggle.
Seeing this, Chen Ge lunged forward, slamming the door shut.
Leaning his back against it, he pressed his full weight on the door, then wedged the skull hammer diagonally behind it.
"Boom!"
A thud came from inside the door. Chen Ge had experienced a similar scene in the haunted house's restroom, but the difference was that the door there only lasted a minute, while the one in the Third Ward seemed to stay open all night.
"Boom!"
The force of the impact was strong, numbing Chen Ge's back. "What the hell is that thing behind the door? How is it so strong?"
He didn't know how to seal the door, and there was nothing nearby to block it. Worse, the banging might attract more monsters.
"This door has to be shut, even if just temporarily. Otherwise, forget the trial mission—I might not even survive the night." Chen Ge bit his tongue hard to stay calm. Pressing his back against the door, he pulled out his phone and dialed Dr. Gao. "Please pick up!"
The dial tone rang four times, then the call connected!
Dr. Gao's voice came through: "Chen Ge?"
The signal was poor, making Dr. Gao's voice sound erratic and broken, heightening Chen Ge's sense of crisis. "Dr. Gao, find Men Nan quickly! It's urgent!"
"He hasn't been discharged yet. Why the sudden need to find him?"
"Life or death! He was born in the psychiatric hospital. The hidden third personality is the real Men Nan." Chen Ge spoke rapidly. Dr. Gao didn't fully grasp it, but his tone conveyed the urgency.
"I'll drive to the hospital right now. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't hang up. Tell me if you need anything else."
"Twenty minutes might be too long." Chen Ge's back ached from the pounding, and noises came from the nearby wards. "Dr. Gao, when you get to the hospital, make sure to wake up Men Nan's youngest personality!"