Entering Ward 0011,
The interior furniture and decoration were ostensibly the same, yet it felt suffocating — just standing in the living room made it hard to breathe.
The oppressive atmosphere came from every direction, as if every piece of furniture harbored something extremely dangerous.
"Don't touch any of the furniture in this room. Something isn't right here."
Layers upon layers of paint covered the walls, but still couldn't conceal the large patches of dried blood. The floor tiles were laid neatly, yet the gaps between them were a dark crimson, stained with bloodstains that would be nearly impossible to clean. Every detail pointed to the fact that something horrific had once happened in this room — more than once.
"Three wards, each scarier than the last. This cursed hospital is like a gu jar, constantly throwing the cloth doll into other wards to trigger its latent abilities and completely twist its world."
Chen Ge paced around Ward 0011, searching every corner for a diary but finding nothing. "That's odd. The patient in this room left no clues?"
The world behind most doors was woven from the door-opener's memories. Xiang Nuan's door was special — his memories and those of the Nether Fetus were entangled together, like the buildings in Jiuhong Estate and Jinhua Estate, interwoven and inseparable. That was why two worlds had merged into one.
"These wards should all be the cloth doll's memories. As long as it read the patients' diaries, those diaries should appear here — unless Patient 0011 simply never had the habit of recording their condition."
Chen Ge's state was deteriorating. His vision blurred, and his body seemed on the verge of being consumed by darkness.
Fortunately, Wen Qing had followed him behind the door this time, and the world behind the door had no effect on her. Whenever his mind drifted, she was always the first to snap him back to reality.
It took a full half hour before Chen Ge found Patient 0011's diary beneath a hollowed-out floor tile. The diary was in tatters — every page soaked in blood and marked with scorch traces, strikingly similar to
"The person who wrote this diary tried to destroy it multiple times. When they couldn't succeed, they decided to hide it in the room instead."
Chen Ge sat down on the sofa, placed the Skull-Crushing Hammer at his side, and opened the diary.
"Many people say I was born to be a psychiatrist, that I possess countless so-called traits suited for the profession. But only I know that all of it was something I deliberately put on to become a psychiatrist."
"I didn't choose this field to help lost souls. I chose it to heal myself."
"I knew from the very beginning that something was wrong with me. As my studies deepened, I became even more certain."
"*Year*Month*Day — Today is an important day for me. I took off my white coat and put on a patient's gown. The hospital locked me in a room with a stinking monster."
"I hate keeping a diary, but it's one of this hospital's treatment methods. I don't know whether to tell the truth or lie, so why not play a game of half-truths and see if I can drive my doctor insane."
Chen Ge studied the handwriting in the diary. It looked vaguely familiar — he felt he had seen it somewhere before, but when he tried to recall, nothing came.
"Everyone holds a most precious part of their memories. For me, it was my wife and my daughter, who had just learned to speak — they were my entire world."
"My story is painfully ordinary. To give them a better life, I chose this private hospital located at the border of Xin Hai and Han Jiang."
"To be honest, before receiving the invitation, I had no idea there was a hospital like this near Han Jiang. Because it was too far from my home, I originally intended to refuse, but the compensation they offered was simply too generous."
"I skipped the intern phase entirely. On my first day, I realized this hospital was nothing like a proper one. There were only a handful of day-shift doctors, and patients were almost nowhere to be seen, yet there were plenty of night-shift doctors."
"The hospital was in a remote location, making it nearly impossible to hail a cab. It took forty minutes on foot just to reach the nearest bus stop. On the morning of my third day, my supervisor asked if I'd be willing to live at the hospital. I refused without hesitation."
"Over the first two days, I had already discovered numerous problems. The hospital had many doctors — at least there were many photos on the wall — but in two full days I had only seen a handful of them, and every single one was new. The longest-tenured among them had been there less than a month."
"The pay was excellent, the day shift was practically idle, and the income bore no relation to the workload. If this wasn't a charity, it meant they were after something else entirely from their doctors."
"By this point, I was already prepared to resign. My supervisor sensed my intention to leave and asked me to work one night shift, after which my wages for these days would be settled normally."
"He didn't try to persuade me to stay, and that made me uneasy. There were plenty of night-shift doctors — they didn't need me. So why ask me to work the night shift?"
"Any situation that defies logic harbors hidden dangers. I wasn't going to risk it for a bit of money. Others might think I was a fool for working three days without collecting a wage — I won't argue the point."
"I didn't work the night shift. In fact, I didn't even finish the day shift on the third day. I went home the moment I left my supervisor's office."
"My wife thought I was suffering from paranoid delusions. I wished that were true, but what happened next made me understand that all of it was real."
"Whether you are a patient or a doctor reading this diary, I have one piece of advice: do everything in your power to get out. If you were to find the place closest to hell on earth, it is here."
"After I fled home, the curses followed me like shadows. Bizarre, inexplicable things began happening to me and my family."
"Those things could not be explained by science. I exhausted every means to protect myself, but I had no way of ensuring my family's safety."
"I knew what that hospital was after, so one night, I went back."
"This time, I became a night-shift doctor. And I finally understood the meaning behind those photos on the wall."
"My story up to this point could still be considered normal. What followed grew increasingly absurd, defying all common sense. I gradually developed a feeling — perhaps in this hospital, I might be able to cure the illness within me."
The diary broke off here, with several pages torn out in the middle. They likely contained the doctor's account of life on the night shift.
"The specific information about the hospital has been torn out. Was it the cloth doll who did this? Or did someone enter this building before me?"
Chen Ge continued reading.
"I successfully integrated into the hospital and became an outstanding night-shift doctor. In order to explore a way to cure my own condition, I began conducting some interesting experiments on the patients. Of course, I was probably the only person in the entire hospital who was genuinely trying to save them — the other doctors were guiding them toward greater despair."
"As time passed, my abilities earned everyone's recognition. One night, I finally met the hospital's director."
"He was a very stern man with an utterly ordinary face — the kind you forget the moment you look away. My impression of him was terribly bad, though I couldn't quite say why. It seemed as though he had tampered with my memories."