Chapter 175: The Monster's Weakness
"The youngest personality? Men Nan's third personality is deeply hidden and rarely surfaces. I can't guarantee I'll succeed—you'd better prepare yourself for failure." On the other end of the line, Doctor Gao's door creaked open as he rushed out of his home in a hurry.
"Only that child personality knows what I'm dealing with, Doctor Gao. Use whatever method it takes—wake him up!" The door panel behind Chen Ge thudded repeatedly as something slammed against it, the noise clear enough for Doctor Gao to hear through the phone.
"I'll do my best!" Doctor Gao had met Chen Ge through Gao Ruxue. At first, he saw Chen Ge as just an ordinary psychology enthusiast, but after Chen Ge voluntarily helped him treat Wang Xin and Men Nan, his impression of Chen Ge shifted dramatically, though it also sparked some doubts.
Especially that night at the Haiming Apartment—he'd seen something unusual too, but he kept it to himself, burying it deep, determined to find answers on his own.
The call stayed connected as Doctor Gao drove toward the hospital where Men Nan was staying, while Chen Ge braced himself against the door, struggling to hold it shut.
After about two or three minutes, the banging didn't stop. Worse still, from Ward No. 8, not far from Chen Ge, came the sound of chains sliding.
The specially reinforced iron door slowly cracked open.
A lopsided, asymmetrical face peered out, its neck stretching as a figure in a psychiatrist's coat stepped out of the room.
"That guy was hiding in the ward." Chen Ge had tried opening the door earlier without success, and now he realized the deformed face must have been the one causing trouble inside.
The skull-crushing hammer was propped diagonally against the door of Ward No. 3, leaving him with only the butcher knife.
"He's just a mental patient—should be easier to handle than the female nurse. If he were really strong, he wouldn't have needed to flee back in the laundry room of the Second Ward."
Chen Ge eyed the deformed face, considering whether to trap him inside a door as well.
"I wonder what happens when a living person enters the world behind a door. If he dares to attack me, I'll use him as a test subject." The more dangerous the moment, the calmer Chen Ge became. He tightened his grip on the butcher knife and adjusted the skull-crushing hammer's position to create a pivot point. That way, even if he stopped pressing against the door, it wouldn't swing open immediately.
After midnight, subtle changes crept over the deformed face. His expression grew more manic, and empty-handed, he walked toward Chen Ge at a steady, unhurried pace.
"Something's off." Chen Ge's sharp instincts caught the problem. Back in the Second Ward, this guy had fled in panic even while holding an axe. But now, in the Third Ward, he dared to approach Chen Ge bare-handed, despite Chen Ge wielding a blade and a hammer.
The white cat bristled too. After the fight with the female nurse, it had jumped off Chen Ge's shoulder and now hissed at the deformed face, baring its teeth.
Facing the pair of them—man and cat—the deformed face behaved completely differently from before. His surgically altered visage twisted into an ugly grin.
He slowed his pace, as if burdened by something heavy, shoulders sagging, each step a struggle.
"That posture looks a bit like Wang Shenglong..."
The butcher knife held crosswise in front of him, Chen Ge saw the worst-case scenario unfold.
The deformed face's mouth split wider, and a second head emerged from his back.
It was just an ordinary head at first, but the truly horrifying part came next. Like someone slowly rising from a crouch, a lanky, nearly two-and-a-half-meter-tall monster peeled itself out from the deformed face's back.
Its lower half was fused to the deformed face's spine, while its upper half stretched to the ceiling, bending forward like a human-headed serpent reaching for Chen Ge.
"What the hell is that?" Even with some mental preparation, Chen Ge was startled at the sight of the creature.
The monster's body was gaunt and elongated, draped in a white cloth stitched together from a doctor's coat. Through gaps in the fabric, Chen Ge could see several other numb, silent faces embedded in its flesh.
It probably hadn't always been this tall. It must have started small, leaping onto people's shoulders, devouring them one by one, until it grew into this.
Chen Ge recalled something: Wang Shenglong had once used a painting to describe his relationship with a monster. In the picture, he stood below, and the monster perched on his shoulders.
But the relationship between the deformed face and this monster was different. The monster had emerged from his back, their bodies connected.
"Is the deformed face the monster itself? Or did they strike some deal and become symbionts?"
There was no time to think further. The deformed face stopped about two meters away, but the lanky monster on his back had already stretched over Chen Ge's head.
The monster's face was utterly ordinary—the kind you'd forget the moment you looked away in a crowd. Who would have guessed that beneath such a plain appearance lurked a horror like this?
"Let's play a game. If you win, I'll let you go. If you lose, you give me your body." Both the deformed face and the monster spoke simultaneously, their voices echoing directly in Chen Ge's mind. "The game is called 'Whoever Speaks First Loses.'"
It was a rigged game from the start, with no time limit. Wang Shenglong's fate was a cautionary tale.
If you agreed to play, the monster would jump onto your shoulder and slowly torment and assimilate you. If you couldn't hold back and spoke, the monster won. If you stayed silent forever, the monster would just squat on your shoulder indefinitely, and the game would never end.
Looking at the faces exposed through the white cloth's gaps, each one likely represented a living person.
"Fine, we can play a game. But we need to set new rules." Chen Ge spoke calmly, his voice steady. Doctor Gao was on his way to the hospital—everything he did was to buy time.
The monster paused half a meter above Chen Ge's head, its face momentarily frozen, as if it had never encountered this situation before.
After a brief hesitation, it turned to look at the deformed face, as if asking how to respond.
Wasn't a normal person supposed to scream in terror at the sight of this thing?
The deformed face's grin stiffened. Feeling mocked by Chen Ge, he snarled and pointed a finger at Chen Ge's head.
The monster understood. Its lanky body pressed downward, bony hands reaching for Chen Ge's face as it stretched even longer.
Seeing that he'd provoked the monster, Chen Ge didn't panic. Instead, his thoughts grew sharper: "This thing has a weakness! When it attacked me, it only moved its upper body—its lower half stayed attached to the deformed face. That means its lower body probably can't move freely."
"No wonder it plays that game. If it could just jump onto someone and take over their body, there'd be no need for the pretense."
Chen Ge dodged, knife in hand, his eyes bright. "When it shifts from one person to another, that's probably when it's at its weakest."