“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve discovered the explorer’s persona. This persona comes from the mental patient at the hospital and has been removed by the Pure Hatred.” The head disappeared in Han Fei’s hand as it dissolved into his consciousness. He also gained more mental corruption. “Can these personas be consumed by the greed abyss?”
Han Fei considered that possibility. The doctor widened his eyes in fear. He didn’t expect Han Fei would say something similar to Pure Hatred. “What was I thinking about? It looks like I’ve really been influenced by Gao Cheng. I now want to consume everything.”
After the second doctor turned into ash, the ghost territory started to show problems. It was originally dark outside, but now the weak light had returned. The illusion also became weaker.
“Other than myself, someone else is destroying the black boxes. The director has underestimated the center.” Once Han Fei exited the elevator, his consciousness rang out with No. 2’s voice. “Leave this floor as soon as possible. Run upwards! Follow the crying of children. Do not stop no matter what happens.”
“Run up? Upstairs?”
The ground underneath Han Fei’s feet moved. The tiles shifted. Something was crawling out of the gaps. The walls peeled off. Rotten air wafted off the walls. There was a weak coughing voice. Half a pale face appeared at the corner. He silently followed Han Fei like a shadow.
“Different fears have weaved together. This means that a lot of members have been affected.”
Han Fei couldn’t find the stairs, so he ran as fast as he could. However, he couldn’t shake off the stalker behind him. He was tormented constantly. “Where is the children crying?” Han Fei wondered when he noticed the paintings on the walls had changed.
Han Fei remembered that when he just entered the building, the paintings featured patients conducting cruel surgeries on doctors. But now, there were paintings featuring images outside the hospital, like two young people strolling at the mall, a family at a picnic, boys swimming at the pool, and a priest praying for a girl.
“The members’ fear has been painted on the wall. Their fear has been absorbed into the building?!”
The paintings looked normal at first glance, but there were many horrifying details. After a while, Han Fei slowed down. There was a middle-aged woman painted on the wall. It looked so real that Han Fei thought she was real. The middle-aged woman wore normal clothes and had a great smile. She was telling the children a story. The book she held had a single sentence—There’s where mother is hiding.
The woman was pointing down a director. Han Fei followed the finger and noticed there was a vent in the ceiling.
“I should go up into the vent?”
The woman gave Han Fei a strange feeling, but he didn’t have any other choice. His fear was increasing. He didn’t stop and crawled up into the vent. The vent was small enough for a child but for an adult like Han Fei, and it was very easy to get stuck. “I can’t be scared. I need to face my fear to survive!”
Han Fei was familiar with the tricks of Pure Hatred. However, even if one knew that, one would still feel fear. For example, people knew that they were in a nightmare, but they would still be afraid. That was exactly how the mental hospital made use of that. The more one wanted to escape, the more one couldn’t. The things they feared would come true until they were killed by it. Han Fei crawled forward, and strange voices appeared in the vent.
“Someone has entered the vent. Is it the stalker or the middle-aged woman?” No matter who it was, this was bad news for Han Fei. He couldn’t turn back, so he could only crawl faster. The vent became narrower and narrower. Han Fei soon arrived at a fork. He looked left, and his scalp numbed. There were two people lying in the vent. Their arms were stuck to their bodies. Their eyes bulged, and their mouths moved like they were munching! When they saw Han Fei, they instantly wiggled toward him like snakes.
“They sure look ugly!”
Han Fei crawled faster, but he soon reached a dead end.
The two human snakes were still chasing after him. Han Fei gritted his teeth and continued to move forward. “The whole corridor is dark. Only the entrance has a little bit of light. It feels like someone is purposely making it feel like there’s no road ahead.”
A thumping sound came from behind. Using the weak light, Han Fei noticed that the vent actually curved upward. It was not a dead-end.
Han Fei crawled until his head touched something. He looked up, and strands of black hair fell before his eyes. In the almost vertical vent, there was the dangling body of a middle-aged woman. She wore casual clothes, and her body was covered in colorful tape meant for children. She looked scary.
“Whose fear is this?”
The vent’s exit was next to the body. Han Fei removed the tape from the middle-aged woman and then made his escape. Han Fei felt like his bones were about to shatter. However, before he could catch his breath, he saw a new painting on the wall.
It was a man about 60 plus. He was well-built and looked smilingly at Han Fei. He carried an unzipped pink bag in his left hand. A storybook was peeking out. It was entitled, there’s where father is hiding.
The man’s right hand pointed at a room. The strange smell came out of the room. Han Fei pushed open the door. He saw many giant vats. Before he did anything, he had already appeared inside the room. The door pushed open became a painting on the wall instead.
“When did I get into the painting?” The world of a mental patient was absurd. Nothing made sense, but they also made sense to the patient. The director used the patients’ illusions to construct this crazy ghost territory.
“Do I need to find the man’s body among these vats?” All the vats looked the same. Han Fei contemplated it and decided to open the vat furthest away from him.
“Put it inside it and use the ingredients left from yesterday to marinate it. Do you still remember the taste?”
“The kids are so naughty. We already told them not to come down here to play!” “I lied to them by telling them that a human-eating monster is living down here. They are so scared!”
“Don’t laugh. How can you say that we’re monsters?”
The sound of conversation between a couple appeared in the room. The vats appeared to be soaked with memories. As the voices echoed, sticky blood overflowed the vats.
“The blood water level is still rising! Does it plan to flood the room?”
Han Fei immediately sensed the danger. The doors and windows had morphed into paintings. There was no exit! If he didn’t want to die, then he had to find the dead body as soon as possible. “There’s no hint at all. Do I need to rely purely on luck?” Han Fei scanned all the vats and opened the one closest to him.
“How could there be sour meat in this world? Why would they be covered in brown fur? Could the children have zombified after being placed here for too long? Has it returned to take revenge?”
“Don’t scare yourself. If there’s karma, we would have died a long time ago.”
“If you’re not willing, then we’ll keep it and treat it as our child.”
New memory was mixed into the blood. The blood had flooded Han Fei’s knees. The blood rose faster and faster. Han Fei gritted his teeth and planned to open all the vats in the room. “I refuse to believe my luck is so bad!”
The heavy scent in the room could force a person to go crazy. The more vats Han Fei opened, the more complete the conversation became. This room belonged to a pair of crazy murderers. They only targeted children. One day, they found a deformed child covered with brown fur outside their home. The couple brought the child home and treated it as a pet. The child looked very ugly, but his mind was very sharp. He slowly learned many things, like how to hide his real thoughts if he wanted to live. There were more vats in the room, and the child grew older. Soon, the couple had their own children, and their focus moved away from the child. This made the monster very unhappy. He turned from a pet into a monster.
After the seventh vat was opened, Han Fei finally found the man’s body. His bones were crushed as he was shoved into the vat. Han Fei dragged the man’s body out. Underneath the vat was a black passage. Keys were tied to the man’s body. “The keys should be useful.”
Han Fei jumped down the vat. As he was about to suffocate, he finally saw the exit.
The sound of children crying entered his ears. Han Fei saw a child singing a lullaby. He crawled out of the tunnel and fell to the ground. He had crawled back to the main building. Above him was a broken vent.
“That were layers of nightmares. Whose fear was that?”
Han Fei turned to the singing. There was a giant shadow slowly disappearing around the corner. It was that shadow who was singing.
“I need to follow the sound of children crying.”
Even though the shadow was scary, Han Fei didn’t hold back. He grabbed the keys he had taken from the man and ran down the corner. After turning the corner, Han Fei saw another painting on the wall. There was a child with a tattered jacket. He pointed behind Han Fei with a silly smile—I’m here.
Han Fei turned around and saw the room with the title, Director’s Room.
“Director’s Room? So the nightmares I saw didn’t belong to the members but the hospital director?”
