The words on the medical record had changed—Die tonight, without specifying who would die tonight.
"The Cursed Hospital is trying to come after me. This is their curse."
Without showing themselves, hidden in the shadows, and able to orchestrate a killing through mere bystanders—
Ordinary methods wouldn't work against them. He would need to be doubly careful.
"Unsmiling and the Cursed Hospital are openly trying to stop me. Why are they doing this? Do they want to devour the Netherborn alone? Isn't that a bit too ambitious?"
Chen Ge put away the medical record. With the word "you" removed, this medical record from the Cursed Hospital should be transferable to someone else.
"Maybe they just want the curse to cling to me, to weaken me, so they'll have a better chance of carrying out their plans behind the door."
The Cursed Hospital's appearance at this moment served as a warning to Chen Ge. Tonight, besides watching out for the Netherborn, he also had to guard against the Cursed Hospital's underhanded strikes.
"They haven't even entered the door yet, and they're already scheming against each other. Those who live in the city's shadows really do have the dirtiest hearts of all."
Unscrupulous, employing every trick in the book—battling opponents like these day after day, Chen Ge felt it was already remarkable that he'd managed to keep his sanity intact until now.
Chen Ge used the young man's phone to send a message to his family, informing them of his current location, then left.
He had something critically important to do tonight. He couldn't waste too much time here.
At eight in the evening, Chen Ge took a taxi to Jiuhong Agency. The entire street was pitch-black without a single light in sight—deeply unsettling.
"It's only eight in the evening. Do the people here really go to bed this early?"
Jiuhong Agency was already closed. Chen Ge walked toward Jinhua Neighborhood alone.
"When I came earlier today, the walls on both sides of the street didn't seem to have this many flyers posted." Chen Ge stopped and glanced at the wall. Every single flyer bore a photo of Xiang Nuan's mother, calling her a fraud, accusing her of being morally depraved—a mistress kept by the agency owner.
"All of these flyers are freshly posted." Chen Ge tore one down and noticed some remnants underneath: "It seems like someone comes to put them up every day, and someone tears them down every day. The person tearing them down is probably Xiang Nuan's mother, and the one putting them up is very likely a resident of the neighborhood."
Upon entering Jinhua Neighborhood, Chen Ge felt a wave of discomfort. He could smell a faint stench—the same odor he'd encountered in Ying Tong and Yu Jian's rooms.
"With the other chosen children, only their rooms had this stench. But here at Xiang Nuan's, the entire neighborhood is drenched in it."
This was not good. Only Chen Ge could smell that stench, and every time he did, something bad happened.
The neighborhood was exceptionally quiet tonight. In Jinhua Neighborhood's two residential buildings, a few lights flickered here and there, but the adjacent Jiuhong Neighborhood was pitch-black—as if every building was haunted and uninhabited.
Standing at the entrance of Building A's stairwell, Chen Ge called Xiang Nuan's mother. The phone rang for quite a while before she picked up.
"Hello, I'm Chen Ge. I came to see the apartment earlier this afternoon." Chen Ge introduced himself. Through the phone, he could hear a child wailing continuously, along with the sound of things being smashed.
"Sorry, I'm having some trouble over here..." The woman's voice carried a note of urgency.
"Do you need help? I'm downstairs. I'm coming up." Before the woman could respond, Chen Ge hung up. After entering the stairwell, he found the stench had grown even more intense.
The exterior of Jinhua Neighborhood's residential buildings looked perfectly normal, but the inside hadn't been cleaned in what seemed like ages. The stairwells were cluttered with all manner of junk and garbage. The walls were plastered with various advertisements, along with numerous flyers slandering Xiang Nuan's mother.
Each flyer bore a photo of Xiang Nuan's mother. The woman in the black-and-white picture wore a serene smile, forming a stark contrast with the unspeakable filth written on the flyers.
Chen Ge had a keen eye for people. After their brief encounter, he was certain Xiang Nuan's mother was nothing like that. Someone was deliberately smearing her.
Without taking the elevator, Chen Ge walked through the filthy, cluttered stairwell and arrived at apartment 401.
"Are you okay?"
Standing outside the door, Chen Ge could hear things being thrown and smashed. After a moment, footsteps approached, and the door opened.
Xiang Nuan's mother stood in the doorway holding two black trash bags. Her fingers were bleeding, seemingly cut by shards of glass.
"I might not be able to go see the apartment with you today. Xiang Nuan suddenly had an episode, and the medication isn't working anymore." The woman was frantic. She set the trash bags down by the door and was about to close it and go back inside, but Chen Ge grabbed the security door first.
"You can't handle this alone."
The moment the door opened, Chen Ge was hit by a pungent, putrid stench—worse than anything he'd smelled at any of the other children's homes.
"Where on earth is this stench coming from?" Chen Ge had smelled it long ago, but he had never been able to pinpoint its source.
At first, he suspected the stench emanated from the chosen children themselves, but after he entered behind the door and helped them recover their missing body parts, the smell on them had vanished.
So even now, he still couldn't determine the source of the stench. However, he had a feeling that a question that had troubled him for so long might finally be answered tonight.
The living room was in complete ruins. The floor was covered in water stains and garbage. The cheap fabric sofa had been gnawed full of holes, the light fixture was shattered, and drawers had been ripped out of cabinets and piled haphazardly together, on top of which sat cold leftovers.
The woman had wanted to stop Chen Ge, but another pained cry from the boy rang out from the bedroom. She had no choice but to ignore him and rush into the bedroom.
"Xiang Nuan, what's wrong with you? Please tell Mommy, okay?"
Instead of an answer, the sound of a lampshade shattering met the woman's pleas. Xiang Nuan seemed unable to control himself. He kept uttering strange syllables, running back and forth as if searching for something.
"He's afraid. He's afraid of something."
Panic, terror, dread—Chen Ge had seen all these emotions on many visitors' faces, but Xiang Nuan's display was far more thorough. It was as though the fear was spreading outward from the depths of his heart, consuming him step by step.
Those caught in the thick of things are blind; only the onlooker sees clearly. Looking around the chaotic room, Chen Ge reached out and pulled the woman aside.
"Has anyone strange visited your home recently?"
"No. Besides you, no outsider has set foot in this home for a long time." The woman was distraught. As a mother watching her child suffer like this, it was pure torture.
"Has he ever lost control like this before?"
"He does lose control sometimes, but like you saw this afternoon, a little coaxing and he'd calm right down. He's never been like this before—not even medication helps." The woman was on the verge of tears. "Maybe I should call an ambulance? I'm afraid he'll hurt himself."
"If he hasn't recovered within fifteen minutes, we'll have to take him to the hospital." Chen Ge had no better solution.
The boy finally stopped his frantic actions only when he was completely spent. He lay on a floor littered with chopsticks, like a fish tossed onto dry land, his chest heaving violently.
What caught Chen Ge's attention was Xiang Nuan's expression. His teeth were clenched, a sound still escaping from his throat, his features twisted with hatred—yet his eyes brimmed with tears.
"Is he... crying for help?"