Chapter 184: Return
"Calm down!" Chen Ge rushed to the middle of the corridor. "We're all on the same side—don't hurt each other by mistake!"
Caught between two scarlet-clad vengeful spirits, his back was drenched in sweat. Even he found the scene bizarre—a living person desperately running out to mediate a fight between fierce ghosts.
The two sides were at a standoff. After much persuasion from Chen Ge, the boy and Zhang Ya refrained from attacking immediately.
In truth, it was the boy who unilaterally conceded. After awakening, the blood threads within the Third Psychiatric Ward continuously flowed into his body. The longer this dragged on, the stronger he would become.
"I don't need that old man's body, but his head must be mine." The boy shared a special connection with the Third Psychiatric Ward. If the ward were likened to a sleeping monster, he was like the child born of that monster, commanding many things within this place with ease.
Fine blood threads emerged from the floor and walls, coiling around the old man's head.
The old man, who had been lying limp and unresponsive to the outside world, suddenly opened his eyes wide and struggled. Unfortunately, his body was pinned under Zhang Ya's foot, leaving him unable to move.
The blood threads tightened around the old man's neck, enveloping it. What followed was somewhat gruesome—the corridor echoed with the old man's screams.
Blood threads from all directions lifted the old man's head and brought it to the boy's side.
"What wrong did this old man do in the past?" Those who are pitiful often have something hateful about them. Chen Ge had long passed the age of overflowing sympathy.
"When the door first opened, the old man used patients for experiments." The boy's pitch-black eye sockets fixed on the head in his hands. "He forced patients to enter through the door, including my mother."
Holding the old man's head, the boy smiled sweetly. "He was a very hypocritical and selfish person. My fall into slumber was also a scheme he and a few patients cooked up."
"He and some patients? Are there others inside the door?" Chen Ge took two steps closer to Zhang Ya. Comparatively, being near her felt safer.
"I promised Dr. Chen that after entering through the door, I would stay here until four years ago when the door was opened from the outside." The boy began recounting what had happened inside the door four years ago. "The old man had cancer and knew he wouldn't live long. To extend his life, he wanted to enter the world behind the door."
"He was very timid, so just like years ago, he first sent several patients through the door."
"The Third Psychiatric Ward was a closed ward, and those patients had no background. The whole process was very secretive."
"After a week of testing and confirming there was no danger, the director entered the door with those patients." The boy's smile remained as he held the old man's crying head. "Once the door closed, this place became my world. Nothing inside the entire Third Psychiatric Ward could threaten me."
"I didn't harm them; I just wanted some fun in my peaceful life. But what I didn't expect was that these people, in order to leave, would let the monsters from outside the Third Psychiatric Ward in. Some of them even had their bodies taken over by those monsters."
"All of this was beyond my expectations. By the time I noticed, it was too late. They set a trap, imprisoned me in the electrotherapy room, left the dying director to guard me, and the others escaped carrying fear and evil thoughts."
After hearing the boy's story, Chen Ge nodded lightly. "I've met a few patients from the Third Psychiatric Ward outside the door. They were taken over by a kind of slender monster. The old man said that thing is the embodiment of human desire."
"That's right. Those are monsters from the world inside the door, but they're only the lowest level." The boy's words startled Chen Ge. The slender monsters were considered the lowest level—he had originally thought the mirror ghosts were the most basic.
"Four years ago, seven patients entered through the door. Four were taken over by the lowest-level monsters, and I couldn't see through the remaining three." The boy glanced at Chen Ge. "Since you managed to enter through the door, you've clearly clashed with them. The remaining few will likely come looking for trouble with you."
"Do you remember what the three most dangerous ones look like?"
"A very beautiful woman, a disfigured man, and one named Wu Fei." The boy gritted his teeth at the mention of Wu Fei. "It was Wu Fei who set the trap against me."
As if afraid Chen Ge might underestimate the threat, the boy added, "Wu Fei isn't the hardest to deal with among them. The one you need to be most careful of is the disfigured face—he's very dangerous."
"I understand. Thanks for the warning."
"Don't thank me. Actually, there's one more thing I want to ask of you." The boy observed Chen Ge for a long time before finally revealing his true intention. "I am just a fragment of personality, with the Third Psychiatric Ward behind the door as my body. Having stayed here too long, in a sense, I've merged with the Third Psychiatric Ward. Others can't truly kill me; they can only weaken me and make me fall into slumber."
"They can't kill me, but they can influence me through my secondary personality, possibly even indirectly control me. That's my biggest concern. So I hope you can protect my secondary personality when necessary. I have no family in this world, and he's my only friend."
"No problem. I'm friends with your secondary personality too—I definitely won't stand by and let him die." Chen Ge tried every way to build a good relationship with the boy, already scheming about how to trick him into working at his horror house one day. His haunted house didn't yet have a ghost of this age group.
"I hope you'll keep your promise." The boy carried the old man's head to the third ward on the first floor. "Staying too long in this world severely affects the mind and body, filling you with self-destructive emotions. If you don't vent those negative feelings in time, you'll slowly go mad."
He pushed open the door of the third ward and placed the old man's head beside the hospital bed. "I'll send you back. If you encounter something you can't handle, wait for me at midnight on the other side of the door. I'll open it for one minute."
"One minute?" Chen Ge's eyelid twitched.
"That's the limit of my control—one minute." The boy spoke. "This world is vast. There should be other doors. Some might be guarded by people like me, while others might be unattended. Normally, if someone is controlling things behind the door, each opening lasts one minute."
"Alright, I understand." Chen Ge lowered his head, thinking about the door in the bathroom of his horror house.
When Chen Ge and Zhang Ya both entered the third ward, the boy closed the door and stood by it. "You can go back now."
"How?"
The boy pointed to the door of the third ward. "Push it open. You only have one minute."
Tomorrow, I'll definitely post three chapters. If I don't, I'll live-stream a dance of "Extreme Pure Land" in drag!