Fang Xiu couldn't help but turn his head to look at the mental hospital gate, only to find it gone.
In its place was a wall.
He took two steps back and looked around. There was no mental hospital anymore, only the magnificent Bailiu Academy.
Fang Xiu blinked subconsciously, and when he opened his eyes again, the mental hospital had reappeared! Security guard Zhao had vanished.
What on earth was going on?
He fixed his gaze on Qingshan Mental Hospital.
Then, a strange scene occurred. Bailiu Academy began to slowly appear, like a fade-in/fade-out movie, first a shadow, then solidifying, its colors gradually becoming more intense.
And strangely, Qingshan Mental Hospital was there too!
The two buildings seemed to overlap. A time-space distortion? An overlapping space?
At this moment, Fang Xiu felt dazzled, seeing double everywhere, the mental hospital and Bailiu Academy overlapping. He shifted his position and reached out, only to find his hand passing through the wall of the mental hospital, stopping only when it touched the wall of Bailiu Academy.
He immediately concluded that this mental hospital was likely the same as those other strange things: an illusion, something that could only be seen, requiring certain conditions to be met before it could be touched.
This place was still Bailiu Academy, and the mental hospital loomed over it like a holographic projection.
Fang Xiu no longer had any desire to find Wu Dahai; he wanted to quickly uncover the secrets of the mental hospital.
Why were all the other strange things living, but only this one was a strange building?
"Hey, Xiao Fang, why didn't you say anything and just walked away?" Security guard Zhao's voice came from behind him, but Fang Xiu ignored it, his focus completely on the mental hospital.
He walked slowly, because the two buildings overlapped so much that it was difficult to tell which was real and which was illusory, and he was prone to bumping into walls.
For example, right now, Fang Xiu was clearly near the green belt of Bailiu Academy, but before him was a ward with dilapidated walls. Without a moment's hesitation, Fang Xiu plunged through the ward wall, diving into the air as if plunging straight inside.
The scene before him shifted, revealing a corridor lined with benches and walls stained with long-dried, dark red blood.
It felt like something out of a horror movie.
It felt like a hospital from decades ago. The walls were drab, and the floor wasn't the usual marble, but grayish-white concrete.
Fang Xiu didn't take the usual route, instead traversing the walls, searching everywhere.
It seemed as if something horrific had occurred in the mental hospital. Blood and even rotting flesh were everywhere.
He walked through the halls, the dining room, the restrooms, the activity room...all deserted.
Until he reached a ward, he paused.
This ward was unique. The entire door was a dark red, as if someone had poured a bucket of blood into it and let it dry.
From a distance, it resembled the bloody maw of a demon, eerie and terrifying. The ward was labeled 104.
Ward 104? Fang Xiu, eager to find out, took a step forward, walked straight through the door, and entered.
The room was ordinary, with only a tattered bed. In the corner, a little girl in a hospital gown lay curled up, her head buried between her legs, her arms folded. A tattered flower string clasped around her pale wrists, her face indistinct.
Fang Xiu stared intently, as if he didn't see the little girl at all, but out of the corner of his eye he could discern her.
He wasn't naive enough to believe that there were living people in this eerie mental hospital,
even if they looked human.
The little girl seemed to sense Fang Xiu's approach and suddenly raised her head.
Fang Xiu's peripheral vision immediately withered, because the little girl's face—featureless.
He walked straight ahead, and the little girl, with her featureless face, stared at Fang Xiu until he left Ward 104. After passing Ward 104, Fang Xiu encountered many more wards, each numbered.
He entered each one, encountering numerous creatures of varying forms.
Most of them were brutal and bloodthirsty, their first instinct being to attack anyone who entered.
Fang Xiu, without blinking, allowed them to attack.
He roughly counted and found dozens of similar wards.
This meant that the mental hospital held at least dozens of creatures!
"This mental hospital must be hiding a great secret."
As he walked, he suddenly stopped.
He was shocked to discover that the doors to Wards 162, 169, and 177 were open, empty and barren.
Had the creature escaped?
He continued to explore, but his path was blocked by a real-life villa. He didn't have the key, so he had to take a detour.
After completing the detour, he found himself in a doctor's office within the mental hospital. Inside the room sat a desk, strewn with stethoscopes and several blood-stained case reports.
Fang Xiu stepped forward to examine the reports, his pupils shrinking!
On the blood-covered report, a few lines of text were exposed.
It read, "Subject 128... (blood-stained) Transformation Level 21.64%, Transformation Failed."
Transformation into a strangeness!?
Could it be that all strangeness is transformed from humans? Were all the strangeness in the wards once humans?
Fang Xiu's heart was shaken. He wanted to continue flipping through the papers, but then he suddenly stopped.
Because everything was illusory, like a hologram, he couldn't pick up the reports and read them one by one.
Damn it!
Seeing the secret so close, yet still untraceable, his anger surged.
Suddenly!
A few wisps of black hair appeared before Fang Xiu's eyes. These strands of hair dangled from the air, connecting to something unknown.
Fang Xiu couldn't just look up, so he pretended to wander around, then pulled away and glanced out of the corner of his eye.
He saw a "beautiful" doctor in a white coat, her limbs as long as spiders, perched on the ceiling, staring directly at him.
Her face was pale, her eye sockets dark and etched with sinister lines. Her eyes were white, pupilless. Her hair, over a meter long, cascaded down from the ceiling. In one hand, she clutched a gleaming silver scalpel.
Doctor!?
Fang Xiu's heart fluttered.
She wrote these case reports?
Could she have been human?
All sorts of speculations flooded his mind, but they offered no answers. Strangeness would never answer his questions.
Fang Xiu could only continue on. If there were clues in the doctor's office, there must be others within the mental hospital.
And the director's office!
That must be the heart of the mental hospital. Perhaps all its secrets lay there. He continued to wander the mental hospital, searching for the director's office.
Soon, he located an office area. Based on the layout of a typical hospital, Fang Xiu deduced that the director's office should be located there.
As he approached the office area, he discovered that it was actually located at the sales office of Bailiu Academy.
This was also where Fang Xiu worked.