As the illusion of Ward 214 receded like the tide, the suffocating pressure vanished with it.
Everyone’s taut nerves finally eased for a brief moment, but every face was still grave.
“Report your status, all of you!” An Mu’s voice broke the silence, his sharp gaze sweeping over each team member.
“I’m fine…” Mo Fei climbed up from the floor, rubbing his aching chest where he had been hit, lingering fear filling his eyes. “That old lady was ridiculously strong! I almost thought my ribs were broken.”
“Lu Yueqi… suffered considerable mental energy depletion. Physically unharmed.” Lu Yueqi leaned against the wall, her face a little pale, but her eyes were far more resolute than before. Successfully using her own strength to help the team had given rise within her, amid her fear, to a courage she had never known before—the courage to protect her teammates.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Lan Ce.
Lan Ce pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, which had nearly slipped off, and took a deep breath, calming his still somewhat ragged breathing.
He lowered his head and glanced at the psychic contamination index on his tactical tablet, which had just withdrawn from the yellow warning zone. His voice carried a dryness even he did not notice. “Lan Ce, status… stable. Cognitive system recalibrated. That memory intrusion just now actually acted directly on my emotional cognition layer… I underestimated the danger level here.”
It was rare for Lan Ce to admit his own “mistake” so bluntly. For someone who regarded data and logic as guiding principles, the experience of having reason overwhelmed by emotion was undoubtedly a tremendous shock.
“This isn’t your fault,” An Mu said in a low voice. “All of us underestimated it. The nightmare entity here doesn’t fight us directly. It uses our most cherished memories as weapons, turning us into part of itself. That’s even harder to deal with than physical attacks.”
He walked to the empty wheelchair and picked up the glass marble. It was cold in his hand, yet it seemed to still retain a trace of the warmth left behind by the old woman’s lifelong obsession.
“Bai Yu,” An Mu said, turning to look at Bai Yu, who had remained silent all this time. “You said this place is a collection of ‘memory bubbles.’ This room… was only one of them?”
Bai Yu nodded. Reflected in his eyes was the endless corridor. “Yes. This hospital is like a massive beehive. The obsession of every patient who died here formed an independent ‘cell’—a ‘memory cage.’ We merely broke into one of them just now. And in this hospital, there are at least one hundred and fifty-eight such ‘cages.’”
One hundred and fifty-eight…
The number sent an involuntary chill through everyone. It meant that every step they took from here on might lead them into a new trap with unknown rules.
“Then what about Ruan Bo, the one we’re looking for?” Mo Fei asked. “Don’t tell me we have to break into them one by one. If we do that, before we ever find him, we’ll probably forget who we are!”
“No.” Bai Yu shook his head. He raised his left hand. On the back of it, the “Eye of the Vortex” mark, so faint it was almost invisible, was transmitting a different signal. “The mark of the ‘Tower of Ten Thousand Heads’ can sense the remnants of another power from the same source. Ruan Bo… shouldn’t be here.”
“Not here?” An Mu frowned.
“This corridor is only the outer perimeter. The first layer of defense of this memory hive.” Bai Yu’s gaze turned toward the deeper end of the corridor. “The true core area—or rather, the place where Ruan Bo vanished in the end—should be over there.”
Everyone followed his gaze.
Deep within the corridor shrouded in darkness, there seemed to be a set of double doors painted dark red, utterly different from the other white ward doors.
“What is that place?”
“According to the hospital’s original structural plan,” Lan Ce said, quickly pulling up the data on his tablet, “beyond the corridor of Area A wards should be… the children’s rehabilitation center and recreation room.”
Children’s rehabilitation center…
The phrase instantly connected with that eerie nursery rhyme and that glass marble.
“It looks like our real game has only just begun.” An Mu put the glass marble into his pocket, his voice returning to its usual steadiness. “Rest period over. Target: children’s rehabilitation center. Everyone maintain maximum vigilance. Move out!”
The team set off again.
This time, they encountered no further obstruction. The tightly shut ward doors on both sides of the corridor seemed to have fallen into sleep, and no more sounds came from them. But this calm only made the atmosphere even more oppressive.
They were walking from the shallows toward a true abyss.
After about five minutes, they finally arrived before the dark-red double doors.
A wooden sign hung on the door, painted with balloons and smiling faces in faded colors. In the middle, four crooked words were written: “Sunshine Home.”
The warm name formed an unbearably jarring contrast with the gloomy, terrifying surroundings.
Mo Fei reached out and pushed open the doors. A smell even more complex than that in the ward rushed toward them.
It was a mixture of rust, dust, colored crayons, and faint traces of milk and blood.
Behind the doors was a hall far more spacious than they had imagined.
Scattered throughout the room were child-sized tables and chairs, a ball that had long since deflated, several rusty toy tricycles, and a building-block pit covered in dust.
But the most eye-catching thing in the room was the walls.
All four walls were densely covered in graffiti.
The strokes were childish and chaotic, the colors so vivid they were almost blinding. At first glance, they seemed to depict ordinary things: the sun, houses, grass, flowers…
But if one stared carefully for even a few seconds, one would discover maddening details hidden within the drawings.
One picture showed a “doctor” in a white coat. He had no facial features, only a huge grin stretching to his ears, sewn full of stitches. His ten fingers were ten enormous syringes gleaming with cold light.
Another picture showed a girl locked in an iron cage. Her eyes had been colored into two black holes, and her mouth was open extremely wide, as though she were silently screaming.
There was also a drawing of an “operation.” Several faceless doctors surrounded a “patient” lying on a bed. What they held in their hands were not scalpels, but spoons, with which they were scooping something out bit by bit…
“My God…” Lu Yueqi only glanced at it once before her stomach churned violently. She quickly looked away, not daring to look again.
“This is Director Wen Maoran’s ‘memory stripping therapy,’” Lan Ce said, his voice so cold it carried not the slightest trace of emotion. “This place is not some ‘Sunshine Home.’ It is a gallery of hell.”
“That bastard Wen Maoran!” Mo Fei’s fists clenched until they cracked, the fury in his eyes nearly bursting out.
“He has already paid the price for what he did,” An Mu said in a low voice. “Now, our mission is to find Ruan Bo. Spread out and search. Stay alert. Don’t stare at the pictures on the walls for too long!”
Everyone immediately dispersed and began carefully searching the eerie recreation room.
Bai Yu did not move at once. He merely stood quietly in the center of the room, his gaze slowly sweeping over the graffiti on the walls.
“What exquisite primitive art,” Hei Yan’s voice was filled with admiration. “No technique, no structure, only the purest, most primal fear. The final wails these souls let out before they were crushed are far more moving than those pretentious works that pretend to be profound. Bai Yu, look at that one. That child drew himself as a tree, and the fruits growing from the tree are all his own eyeballs… What imaginative despair.”
Bai Yu’s gaze finally came to rest on the innermost wall of the room.
There was only one painting on that wall.
But it was larger than all the others combined, almost occupying the entire wall.
At the center of the painting was a massive humanoid outline. It wore a white coat, but its body was made of countless black tentacles twisted together. It had no face on its head, only a huge, hollow vortex.
Beneath its feet knelt countless stick figures, all raising their hands high as though offering everything they had to this monster.
The style of this painting was completely different from the others. Its lines were precise and full of power, as though it had not been drawn by a child.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, Bai Yu caught sight of something in a corner beneath the enormous mural.
He walked over and crouched down.
It was a hardbound notebook stuffed into the gap between the wall corner and the building-block pit. The notebook’s cover was badly worn, but its excellent quality could still be seen.
Bai Yu’s heart gave a fierce jolt.
He reached out and took the notebook.
Opening to the first page, a line of elegant yet forceful handwriting entered his eyes.
“I am Ruan Bo. If you are reading this notebook, it means I have failed. But please do not give up. The truth of the ‘Tower’ must be exposed.”
They had found it!
“Captain!” Bai Yu immediately called out.
Everyone quickly gathered around him.
Bai Yu rapidly flipped through the notebook. Its contents shocked him to the core.
Not only had Ruan Bo found this place, but through the notes left behind by his friend and his own professional knowledge, his understanding of the nightmare entity in this psychiatric hospital was even deeper than the Investigation Bureau’s preliminary assessment.
“…The core of this place is not resentment, but an aggregate of ‘passive information entropy.’ Wen Maoran’s experiment was not simply stripping away memories. He shattered all the patients’ memories and turned them into a chaotic pot of ‘information soup.’ And he himself became the ‘chef’ stirring this pot. He attempted to use this method to achieve his so-called ‘spiritual immortality’…”
“…I made a mistake. I should not have tried to understand it. When I began analyzing its composition, my memories were also ‘read’ by it. It began imitating my thoughts, constructing traps familiar to me. We must find its ‘singularity’ immediately and destroy it before my ‘self’ is completely diluted…”
“…I know now. The singularity is not on any physical entity, but within a ‘concept.’ It is that painting! It was not drawn by the children. It is the ‘spiritual coordinate’ Wen Maoran himself left behind, his ‘throne.’ That place is the ‘backstage control room’ of the entire memory cage…”
The contents of the notebook came to an abrupt end there. On the final page, all that remained was an arrow drawn in blood, pointing toward the enormous mural.
The instant Bai Yu closed the notebook—
The entire recreation room shook violently without warning!
“What’s going on?” Mo Fei immediately raised his battle-axe.
“Not good!” Lan Ce cried out, looking at his tablet. “The psychic contamination index of the entire space is rising exponentially! It’s been enraged! We took something we shouldn’t have!”
Before his words had even faded, the eerie graffiti on the walls began to “come alive.”
The bright pigments in the drawings started to drip slowly down the walls like melting wax. They gathered on the floor, writhing, and ultimately rebuilt themselves into hideous monsters one after another!
Monsters “seeped” out from the walls in every direction, staggering to their feet and letting out piercing shrieks that set the mind on edge. They slowly encircled the five people in the center of the room.
“Open fire!” An Mu shouted, pulling the trigger first.
A chaotic battle erupted in an instant!
Each swing of Mo Fei’s battle-axe could chop one or two monsters into a shower of light, but those specks of light would soon condense again elsewhere.
Lan Ce’s sonic disruptor could temporarily throw them into disorder, but it could not inflict any real damage.
Lu Yueqi’s “Deep Chill” could effectively freeze them, but there were simply too many monsters. Very quickly, she began to feel her mental energy running out.
“This can’t go on! We’ll be worn down and killed here! Bai Yu, have you figured anything out?” An Mu shouted to Bai Yu while firing.
Bai Yu’s eyes were locked tightly on the enormous mural at the deepest part of the room.
Ruan Bo’s judgment was correct. That was the root of everything.
If they did not destroy it, these monsters would continue without end.
“Cover me!”
Bai Yu stuffed Ruan Bo’s notebook into his clothes, then shot toward the mural like an arrow loosed from the bowstring.
“Bai Yu!” An Mu was both shocked and furious, but it was already too late to stop him.
“I’ll clear the way!” Mo Fei roared, sweeping his battle-axe horizontally and forcibly carving a path through the swarm of monsters for Bai Yu.
Bai Yu’s figure wove through the monsters’ attacks, drawing closer and closer to the mural.
He could feel an enormous psychic force filled with madness and malice coming from behind the painting, like a huge vortex about to suck in his soul as well.
“Come, come, my dear little Bai Yu.” Hei Yan’s voice was filled with sick excitement. “Let me see what magnificent scenery lies behind this ‘hellscape’ painted by a madman. Go on. Press your hand against it. Let us go… and become its new master!”
At last, Bai Yu reached the mural.
Without the slightest hesitation, beneath the horrified gazes of his teammates behind him, he pressed his right hand heavily onto the center of the mural, onto the huge, hollow vortex that represented Wen Maoran.
Buzz—
In that instant, Bai Yu felt as though his soul had been seized hard by an invisible hand, then violently yanked backward.
The world before his eyes instantly lost all color and sound.
His consciousness plunged as if into an abyss made of black and white.
And in the real world, Bai Yu’s body trembled violently. All light vanished from his eyes in an instant, and his entire body slowly collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Bai Yu!”
An Mu and Lu Yueqi cried out in despair at the same time.
At that moment, the monsters surrounding them seemed to receive some kind of command and all stopped attacking.
They turned in unison, using their hollow or distorted faces to silently “stare” at the young man who had fallen unconscious before the mural.
They were waiting.
Waiting to see whether this new “intruder” would be completely devoured by the torrent of memories… or become their new “king”…