Chapter 200: Fanghua Yuan Residential Complex
"Even you can't find any information on those patients?" Chen Ge was a bit surprised. "Can you tell me who the three are? Maybe I can give you some leads."
"You know about things from four or five years ago?" Chen Ge had brought Captain Yan many surprises before, and it was partly because of Chen Ge's contributions to the Ping'an Apartment massacre case that he decided to share some information. "Those three patients were in Room 7, Room 9, and Room 10 of the Third Ward five years ago."
Chen Ge silently noted Captain Yan's words and cross-referenced them with the data Dr. Gao had given him. The patient in Room 7 had Cotard's syndrome, believing that all his internal organs were failing and even thinking he was already dead.
According to what Dr. Gao had said at the time, that patient had been confirmed dead, but Dr. Gao had only seen it through hospital records. No one had actually seen the body, so the possibility of falsified records couldn't be ruled out.
The patient in Room 9 was Wu Fei, the person the boy's main personality had repeatedly warned Chen Ge to be careful of.
Finally, Room 10 housed the one the doctors and patients called the devil. The hospital had no information on these people, which was definitely connected to the old director, since he was in charge of the entire rehabilitation center. Outsiders simply couldn't access these records.
Unfortunately, the old director had been torn apart by Zhang Ya, leaving only a head inside the door. Getting information about the patients from him would be extremely difficult.
Chen Ge's mind raced. After Xu Tong and the phantom limb patient died, his task completion had increased by five percent, pointing him in a clear direction.
"Is it that as long as I kill or capture all the escaped patients, the task completion will keep going up?"
Thinking it over, that was indeed possible. The patients had gained a "new life" inside the door of the Third Ward, and they bore the mark of that place. Strictly speaking, they were part of the Third Ward's scene.
Noticing that Chen Ge hadn't responded for a long time, Captain Yan continued, "We questioned doctors and nurses who once worked in the Third Ward, and we discovered something even more serious."
"What is it?"
"The doctors who knew about these three patients have all died in recent years. The causes of death were bizarre—some accidents, some suicides." Captain Yan paused, as if weighing whether he should tell Chen Ge what came next.
"Captain Yan, I won't tell anyone what you're sharing with me."
"I'm not worried about that. I'm afraid you'll be scared if I say it." Captain Yan's voice changed over the phone. "The most unusual case was a female doctor. She and her boyfriend left Jiujiang, but they still couldn't escape their fate. All the deaths seemed unrelated—different locations, large time gaps—so they didn't attract much attention. But when you connect them, the picture changes completely. All the victims share one thing in common: they were connected to the Third Ward. And when coincidental deaths share a commonality, ninety percent of the time, they're meticulously planned murders!"
Captain Yan was subtly telling Chen Ge that his situation was truly dangerous.
"That bunch really has some nerve." Chen Ge let out a dry laugh and headed toward the exit of the haunted house. He wanted to leave quickly and get back to New Century Park.
"They're a group of madmen. Their thinking is completely different from normal people. They'll do anything, and the key is that they don't think they're wrong. Self-righteous criminals are the hardest to deal with." Captain Yan sounded a bit frustrated too. "Anyway, be careful yourself. Contact me immediately if you find anything."
"Got it." Chen Ge, before Captain Yan hung up, asked another question. "Captain Yan, besides those three patients, you should have records on the others, right? Could I take a look? After all, I'm the only one who's actually fought them."
"I'm warning you, don't take any reckless actions or do anything dangerous."
"Don't misunderstand. I'm just curious. Since you already have information on some of the patients, why not just arrest them and interrogate them slowly?" His life was at stake, so Chen Ge couldn't afford to be careless. "Are you afraid of tipping them off? Planning to catch them all at once?"
"If it were that simple, I wouldn't have called specifically to warn you to be careful." Captain Yan didn't elaborate, as if they were facing some trouble too. "The specific records aren't for public release, but since you're a victim, you have a basic right to know. I'll pick out some that you can see and send them to you."
After a few more exchanges, Captain Yan hung up. Not long after, he sent Chen Ge several files.
Each patient had their own unique number, and all the information was compiled into dossiers. What Chen Ge saw was the content Captain Yan's team had organized.
"Patient in Room 1: Wang Shenglong..."
The first page was Wang Shenglong's file. Among all the patients, his was the most detailed, including where he had sought treatment, how many times he had moved in five years, and who he had come into contact with—everything was thoroughly investigated.
The second page was a woman's file. She was perfectly beautiful, with symmetrical features that had no flaws, yet she gave off an unsettling feeling, as if that face didn't belong to her.
Chen Ge remembered the patient in Room 2. Dr. Gao had said she had Dorian Gray syndrome, terrified of aging, undergoing multiple plastic surgeries and using excessive cosmetics.
Police records showed that this woman had gone missing six months ago. The last place she was seen was Fanghua Yuan Residential Complex.
When Chen Ge saw that location, he froze. Everything seemed to revolve around one place—this couldn't be a coincidence.
He quickened his pace toward the passage exit, passing through all the scenes until he finally found the exit of Tian Teng Hospital.
At the end of the dim corridor, a long-missed light appeared. Just a few meters from the exit, six or seven people were huddled together, grimacing as they slowly shuffled forward.
"What are you doing?" Chen Ge walked toward them, carrying his tape recorder.
"Wait!" The manager shouted at Chen Ge through a megaphone. "You... are you okay?"
"What could be wrong with me? You didn't think I was possessed by a ghost, did you?" Chen Ge walked past the manager and the six or seven haunted house staff as if nothing had happened. "Your haunted house is safe now, but let me give you some advice: Heaven watches what you do. It's not easy to make money off ghosts and gods."
Stepping out of the haunted house, the light was a bit blinding. As Chen Ge emerged, all the tourists' eyes fixed on him.
This was a man who had gone into a haunted house and scared all the "ghosts" out of it. Same tourist, same scene, but he had played it on a whole different level.