"You've heard them talk about it?" Chen Ge's excitement flared up at once.
"Yes. The day before your parents went missing, they came to see me. They said someone wanted to send me a gift, but that person couldn't come in person due to various reasons, so they would deliver it on their behalf." Director Luo retrieved a wooden box from the bookshelf beside him and opened the ornate container. Inside was a very crudely made roly-poly doll.
He cradled the doll in his palm. "The craftsmanship is rough, but I think the meaning behind it is wonderful. No matter what difficulties it encounters, it can never be knocked down."
Chen Ge could barely contain himself and pressed further. "What did my parents say after that? And where did you hear those words?"
"Your parents left the gift and that was it. But I have a habit of leaving my office door open, and I happened to overhear their conversation in the hallway." Director Luo thought for a moment. "They hadn't gone far yet. Your father said one sentence — 'The door to the Third Ward has been opened again.' Your mother replied, 'The door to the Third Ward was never closed.'"
"That's it? Just those two sentences?"
"I only heard those two. They kept talking after that, but I can't make out what they said."
After a few more minutes of conversation yielded nothing further, Chen Ge left Director Luo's office.
"The door to the Third Ward is definitely not an ordinary door. Could it be the same kind of door as the one in the haunted house's mirror — a doorway to another world?"
He couldn't figure out why his parents had said what they did. He pulled out the black phone and cross-referenced it with the hints from the trial mission.
"The mission brief says 'he' came from the Third Ward. Could that mean he came from that blood-red world — the same as the monster in the mirror?"
His parents had mentioned the Third Ward in their conversation the day before they disappeared. Could the reason for their disappearance have something to do with the Third Ward?
He knew his parents had gone missing at an abandoned hospital in the suburbs. The police had searched every surrounding building without finding any trace of them. Now he was starting to wonder — had his parents stepped through that door and entered that blood-red world?
"I still can't be certain that the trial mission location for the Third Ward is the same hospital where my parents disappeared." Chen Ge lightly slapped his cheeks, forcing himself to calm down. When it came to his missing parents, his thoughts had gotten a little tangled. "A three-star scream index mission is going to be incredibly dangerous. Even if I accept it right now, I might not be able to complete it. Better to take things one step at a time and finish the mission in front of me first."
The Haiming Apartment trial mission was connected to the Third Ward to some degree. Completing it would give him a preliminary understanding of the Third Ward mission, so he wouldn't be caught completely off guard.
After four in the afternoon, the number of visitors dwindled. Chen Ge handed the haunted house keys to Xu Wan and ducked into the tool room to prepare for tonight's trial mission.
The cloth doll left behind by his parents had the park's guardian spirit bound to it, which was only useful inside the park, so this time Chen Ge didn't bring it along as he had in the past.
He sorted through his gear and ultimately packed only a charger, a lighter, a safety rope, and the crowbar that felt incredibly natural in his hand.
"That should be about everything." After a moment's thought, he also stuffed the remaining bounty from solving the family massacre case into a hidden pocket of his backpack. "There's still plenty of time before my appointment with Dr. Gao. I'll swing by the custom doll shop first — if the prices are reasonable, I'll buy a batch."
The sooner he completed Muyang Middle School's hidden mission, the sooner that scene could start generating revenue for him.
Once he was done packing, Chen Ge passed by the makeup room and happened to catch sight of Xiaoxiao hiding behind the door. The room was splattered with artificial blood, and she herself was covered in quite a bit of it.
"Are you trying to overthrow heaven or something?"
Chen Ge picked Xiaoxiao up, carried her out of the makeup room, asked Xu Wan to come clean up, and then slipped into the employee break room.