The stench in the building had been coming from that severed leg.
After the severed leg was discovered, an astonishing change swept through the building. Every cloth doll on the walls had fixed its gaze on Chen Ge. Their eyeballs protruded inch by inch from the wall surfaces — the sight was utterly horrifying.
"Big bro, what did you just do?!" Xiao Sun clung tightly behind Chen Ge, his eyes brimming with terror. "Why does it feel like all these face doodles have come alive?!"
"Less talk — let's get out of this building first!" Chen Ge led the way with the skull crusher in hand. He had barely dashed out of Room 504 when he heard children's laughter erupt from the room behind him.
He glanced back, and every hair on his body stood on end. The ragdoll's severed leg was standing on the bed.
The blood handprints on the walls had turned wet. Drip, drip — blood droplets kept falling from the ceiling, dyeing the entire room crimson.
"Hee hee…"
A cheerful giggle sounded from directly above. The protruding eyeballs on the ceiling were spinning ceaselessly as blood streamed down. Five blood-soaked fingers clawed at the wall from the other side, and a slightly deformed child slowly crawled out from the blood-red mural!
Blood still clung to its body. Its face was twisted and warped, thin lips split wide to both sides, and its venomous gaze locked unblinkingly on Chen Ge's throat.
Cold sweat broke out on Chen Ge's forehead. Then he noticed something even worse — more and more children were materializing throughout the room, and every last one of them was staring at him.
"Move! NOW!"
Chen Ge charged ahead at full sprint. Wen Qing and Xiao Sun followed close behind.
The ground beneath their feet trembled. Strange sounds were erupting from every corner of the building.
Overhead in the corridor, marbles clattered against each other. The stairwell thundered with dense footsteps. On the windows to both sides, one bloody handprint after another materialized.
"Chen Ge — the note was written by Xiang Nuan. He's in that room. If we run, will he still be in there?" Wen Qing could barely protect herself, yet her heart still ached for Xiang Nuan. Perhaps this was what it meant to be a mother.
"Don't worry about him. That kid probably already got out!" Chen Ge was entirely rational. "Don't you remember being tugged by someone just now? That was him warning you to leave! As long as you're not in danger, he won't do anything stupid trying to save you. Understood?"
Wen Qing nodded. In a situation like this, the safest course of action was to flee as fast as possible — as long as they stayed alive, there would always be a way forward.
"Xiang Nuan…" Without slowing her pace, Wen Qing cast one last glance back as they left the fifth floor.
Deformed, twisted children were crawling out of Room 504 one after another. Their bodies were all incomplete, as though someone had carved away parts of them — some had been stripped of their skin, others of their facial features.
These children, drenched in blood, scuttled across the walls, floor, and ceiling as if driven mad. They seemed to have locked onto Chen Ge and were closing in at terrifying speed.
Just seeing that sight nearly buckled Wen Qing's legs. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to pick up speed, sprinting down the stairs.
Chen Ge had seen the children behind him too, but he wasn't particularly frightened. At this moment, what flashed through his mind was a certain passage from the doctor's files.
The ragdoll had crafted a new body for itself — one that matched the doctor's aesthetic standards.
Chen Ge hadn't paid much attention to that line at the time, but now, after seeing the maimed children crawling behind him, he finally understood just how cruel those seemingly simple words truly were.
Those four patient records had looked straightforward, and reading them was only mildly unsettling. But if you really digested their contents, you'd realize they were nothing short of the devil's own notebook.
Head down, Chen Ge charged toward the building's exit. On the way down, he encountered all manner of strange things, but he didn't stop to examine any of them.
If something didn't block his path, he simply blew past it. If it did block the way or made any hostile move, he swung the skull crusher without a shred of hesitation.
Chen Ge had no choice. The moment he stopped, he, Wen Qing, and Xiao Sun would all be caught by those children — and the three of them would become sacrifices for the wraith's pent-up rage.
At a dead sprint, the three of them finally reached the first floor.
"Stay close to me!"
The layout of those buildings flashed through his mind. Without a moment's hesitation, Chen Ge burst out of Building One of the Jiuhong Residential Complex.
The instant they cleared the stairwell, he slowed his pace. "Grab onto my shoulders — both of you. Now!"
The black mist was far more dangerous than the inside of the building. Not the slightest carelessness was permitted.
Once he felt Wen Qing and Xiao Sun grip his shoulders, Chen Ge made a decisive break in a specific direction.
"Chen Ge — why were all those ghost children in Room 504? The note Xiang Nuan gave me was also thrown from Room 504. Why is that? Is he like those ghost children too?" Wen Qing was besieged by countless questions. She was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable mother — the fact that she could even keep up with Chen Ge was already extraordinary.
"It's complicated. I'll explain everything once we're safely out of here. For now, just think of this as Xiang Nuan's nightmare. He's lost in his own nightmare, and we need to find a way to help him find himself again." Chen Ge spoke at a clipped pace, and understandably so — the moment he entered the black mist, his entire body went cold, as though he could be killed at any second. This place was far too dangerous.
No sooner had those words left Chen Ge's lips than all three of them heard a tremendous crash.
Deep in the black mist, a building was swaying violently. The thunderous noise had come from inside it.
"Someone else has found part of the ragdoll's body!" Chen Ge narrowed his eyes. "Those freaks from the Curse Hospital — they must have done it. They're searching for the ragdoll's body too?"
So someone besides himself was hunting the ragdoll's remaining body parts. On at least one level, this confirmed that Chen Ge was on the right track.
"I already know the locations of the ragdoll's left hand and left leg. The moment my employees wake up, I'm coming back to claim them!"
The building shook for a long time before the tremors finally subsided. Once part of the ragdoll's body had been discovered, the entire residential complex felt different.
The black mist grew more frenzied by the moment. Shadows of every shape began to materialize, clinging to the buildings as though trying to force their way inside.
"Every building in this complex probably contains a remnant of the ragdoll's body. It's using its former body to keep this entire complex from being swallowed by the black mist."