614 Real Childhood?
After getting the clue, Han Fei dragged the dead body prop to the seventh floor. All the windows here were sealed up with wooden boards. Han Fei pulled out the guard’s phone and logged in to Xia Yilan’s livestream room. Strangely enough, there was no one featured on the screen. “The plastic surgery hospital is filled with censor hidden cameras. They will capture Xia Yilan once she walks by. Since she is not there, it means she has to be hiding in the blind spot.”
Han Fei slowly moved forward. Suddenly, he saw Xia Yilan in his livestream room. “She is hiding around me?”
Han Fei had just stopped when he felt someone rapidly approaching from behind. He swung the dead body but hit nothing. Based on the previous triangulation of Xia Yilan’s location, Han Fei was certain she was nearby. However, he couldn’t find her. “Where is she?” Xia Yilan might have had some unique experiences, but she was just a normal person. Even if she was possessed, Han Fei was not afraid. He was worried that she was more than being possessed. “There was something trying to get close earlier.”
Han Fei slowly retreated. He found the camera which was broadcasting Xia Yilan’s livestream. The lens was covered in blood…
When he examined the camera, footsteps came from the corridor! They came without warning. When Han Fei heard the noise, it was already very close. Han Fei turned around and saw a pair of white shoes enter a ward. “The white shoes?”
The white shoes’ kindness was kidnapped by Han Fei, so the shoes now only had resentment and hatred. Han Fei took a deep breath. He didn’t chase after the white shoes. He was at an unfamiliar place so what he needed to do was to scoop out the area lest he fell into traps. Han Fei kicked down the doors and examined the wards one by one. The livestream was boiling again.
They were all trapped inside the abandoned building and had to deal with the murderer and unknown danger, but Han Fei’s response was completely different from the other six. Han Fei placed the guard’s camera on the back of his shoulder. It meant that he could observe his back through his livestream room.
Tang Yi highlighted this room, giving the audience the first-person view of the ‘killer.’ Without the others’ scripts and help, Han Fei used some violence and the clues he had to find the dead body prop’s other leg and some internal organs on the seventh floor. He was still missing the heart and head.
The other livestream rooms were chaotic. Everyone was running like mad. Even the cameras couldn’t capture them. Their fans came to beg Han Fei because their idols were in danger. It was a clear comparison. The other celebrities were trying to escape, and only Han Fei was seriously playing the game.
Han Fei was highly tense. He didn’t have time to care about the chat. He focused on the ward the white shoes just entered. As he kicked down the door of the other rooms, he was getting closer to that room.
“This is it.” Han Fei grabbed the doorknob and pushed. The door swung open. The small ward was covered in white paint. It looked like a white canvas. Everything in the room was white. Even after so long, it was as white as snow. It felt like someone still came here to clean this place daily. “Whose room is this?”
The white mattress had a white comforter. The white bedsheet dangled to the floor. A pair of white shoes sat before the bed. The white shoes pointed at a white table. A few white paper dolls sat on the white table. All the dolls’ heads were cracked. They didn’t have any faces or clothes. It seemed to suggest that they had never gotten the chance to develop the concept of self.
As Han Fei entered the room, the sound of rain pattering grew louder. A drop landed on Han Fei’s neck. He touched it, and his fingers were red. “Blood?” He looked up and realized the white room’s ceiling was cracked. It was like a broken pure heart, and stinky blood was leaking out of the gap. More blood soaked through the white walls. The crack widened. The blood smeared the ceiling. It fell like rain. Han Fei was drenched. It felt as if the room was being forcibly torn apart by some external force, exposing the secrets inside the room to blood.
Han Fei lowered his head to glance at the phone. The image on the livestream was completely different from what Han Fei was seeing. In the video, Han Fei stood inside a decrepit white ward. Someone had smeared something that looked like red paint on the ceiling. The paint was dripping on Han Fei’s back. “He used the white shoes to get my attention just to splatter my body with the paint?”
Han Fei knew he was affected. He saw the things the painter wanted him to see, but he had no idea if it was an illusion, a dream, or something else. The painter succeeded, but Han Fei had seen worse in the cryptic world. He was calm, so the audience didn’t notice anything was wrong.
The red paint slid down his hair. Something burned on the back of Han Fei’s head. The pain pulled on his nerves. The memories he found in the cryptic world surfaced, and most of them were related to the red orphanage. The red memories seemed to be connected to the red paint. Han Fei wanted to know his past, so he leaned into the trap and submerged into the illusions. After his training in the cryptic world, Han Fei had confidence he could escape from the illusions actively.
His vision blurred. The footsteps came from the corridor again. Han Fei looked outside. The white shoes smeared with red paint, walked down the corridor, and entered another room. The hospital in Han Fei’s eyes was different from before. The red paint was like the devil’s paint. Strange images and messages spread on the walls.
“Only good kids can go for fresh air and see the outside world. But for monsters like us, our world is our small rooms. We can’t leave or escape.”
“I don’t envy the kids who can leave the underground. The light they see is fake. The false light is different from natural sunlight.”
“They are so dumb. They think they’ll become good kids by listening to the doctors. Actually, they are monsters like me in the doctors’ eyes.”
“The kids who got to leave always came back to tell us how wonderful the outside world was. There were bright windows, green leaves, and even a bird could get them so excited.”
“I couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. No matter how beautiful the outside world was, it had nothing to do with them. Our worlds are this room. The black box that defines our lives is the world.”
“The doctors keep lying by telling us how pretty the outside world is. They said we could welcome a new life in the outside world if we accepted their treatment. I know they’re lying. The doctors are not telling the truth. They are only using us. They never wanted us to leave.”
“I miss the artist. He is the only person who really wants to help us. Even though he failed to bring us away, at least he had left behind the windows in the dark room.”
“At the last moments of my life, I wish I could see him again. I had a new discovery in the dark. The red ward at the end of the corridor used to be black. A kid who was a success once lived there. But this near-perfect child had killed everyone.”
“He can’t hear my voice, and I can’t leave.”
“I don’t know what I have to do to see him, so I painted myself in the windows he left behind. Slowly, I grew up in this dark room. Among all the children, I’m the only one who hasn’t left. I know my ending. I’ll die on my 18th birthday as a failed experiment. This should be my last birthday wish. I wish… that artist will not come back again.”
The bloody paint appeared to come alive on the wall. They described a mentally disturbed young man. “The kid really didn’t want the painter to come back? Or was he using reverse psychology since none of his birthday wishes had ever come true?”
Everything was normal in the livestream. The audience saw the dripping blood. Han Fei was affected because he made contact with the paint. He saw the bloody messages. The bloody messages murmured in his ears.
He moved to open the next door. In the dark room, everything was black except the number 4.
Suddenly, the doors of the nearby rooms opened. Every room was decorated differently. Some were painted in multicolor; some were filled with strange asymmetrical objects; some were empty; some were covered in complicated mathematical problems…
Han Fei walked down the corridor, past the strange room to the ward at the end of the corridor. The ward wasn’t numbered, and it was painted fully red.
“I’m sorry. I will not do it again. Please forgive me.
“I was merely following the nurses’ orders. I wanted a face. Go and find the doctors. Find the ones who really harmed you!
“Don’t ruin my face. I have nothing left. Please let me go!”
A scantily-dressed woman crawled out of the red room. She knelt on the ground. Her face and her body didn’t seem like they belonged together.
“Xia Yilan?” The woman heard Han Fei’s voice. She cried and reached out towards Han Fei like a drowning victim. However, something appeared to lock her legs inside the room, and she couldn’t escape. “Save me! Save me!”
“What have you done that all the children want to kill you?” Han Fei remembered when he first visited Qiang Wei, Qiang Wei was threatening Xia Yilan with a name list. Qiang Wei was most likely a numbered child from the orphanage. Xia Yilan was his target, most likely because she had participated in something at the orphanage. Plus, Xia Yilan brought up orders and nurses. Han Fei confirmed his suspicion, and he would use this chance to find out more!
“I haven’t done anything! I am just a middle person, a walking billboard for the plastic surgery hospital!” Xia Yilan cried. “The children are ingredients for personality surgery! I was only responsible for bringing the interested clients to the hospital. I don’t know the rest!”
“Are you sure?”
“They also promised me to help me gain a new face if I managed to find them five clients!” Xia Yilan was dragged into the room. “All the middle persons have their faces changed!” When she said the last sentence, her body disappeared into the red ward. Han Fei dragged the prop and moved forward. As he approached the ward, the more intense the pain from the back of his head!
“All the pain came from where the black box is located!” For a moment, Han Fei thought he was back in the cryptic world. “The messages are left behind the orphans? They have discovered the red room?”
Han Fei walked towards the red ward. He saw that Xia Yilan was fixed on the surgical table. Many children without faces surrounded her. They held the blood cakes and used their small hands to stuff the bloody cake into Xia Yilan’s mouth. Her beautiful face was expanding. Her eyes bulged. She looked scary.
Han Fei had no affection towards Xia Yilan, but he wouldn’t let her die before his eyes. Han Fei rushed into the ward. As he stepped into the room, a familiar feeling appeared in his mind. It felt like he had stayed for a very long time in a red ward just like this.
“Did I spend my childhood… in such a room?”
