Deep crimson blood threads filled with despair drilled into
From flesh to soul, the pain was beyond description. Worst of all, Chen Ge found that he couldn't even lose consciousness.
His body's self-protection mechanism had completely failed at this moment. He could do nothing but endure that ultimate agony.
"Was this all part of your plan, Dr. Sun?!"
Chen Ge's mind remained clear. In this most desperate and unbearable stretch of time, he knew he couldn't fight back, so he simply gave up resisting and chose to embrace the pain head-on.
He did something almost no one would dare attempt. While the two forces clashed, he focused every ounce of his brain power and began recklessly rummaging through the memory fragments of his past!
Scenes of sealed memories surfaced in his mind. Familiar faces flickered through his consciousness. The pain was so excruciating that Chen Ge nearly believed he had already died.
Had he been in a hospital, he would have passed out long ago from the pain. But in this place, his body and soul had been seized by the two forces — even if he wanted to lose consciousness, he couldn't.
Watching Chen Ge's wretched state, Dr. Sun touched the scar on his face, at a loss for what to do: "The Brain Maze is just a Night Shift Doctor's innate ability. Why is it producing such an intense reaction in him? Is this the power of Patient No. 1? Simply thinking about him is enough to be affected by him?"
Chen Ge was in so much pain he wanted to die, yet death wouldn't come. Dr. Sun flailed about helplessly, ultimately able to do nothing but look at Chen Ge with a guilty expression.
"If this keeps up, he might literally die from the pain. Dying here won't affect reality, but his situation does look rather unusual!"
Dr. Sun merged with his own malicious intent. Not daring to approach Chen Ge himself, he sent the malicious intent to drag all the severed heads over to Chen Ge.
His original intent was to have the malicious intent carry Chen Ge out of the office, but the moment the malicious intent drew near, it was torn apart by the curses and blood threads.
Countless drops of blood fell upon Chen Ge, and combined with his ghastly expression, he looked like a demon crawling straight out of hell.
"It's over…" Dr. Sun had no backup plan. He could only watch.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the deep crimson blood threads, aided by Chen Ge's own active cooperation, thoroughly suppressed the curse-laden threads. Strange memory fragments began flooding into Chen Ge's mind.
These memories didn't belong to Chen Ge — they should have been the memories of that child's head.
His memories were almost entirely consumed by death. Different ways of dying, one after another, and repeated attempts to find the path back. The child wandered through a blood-red city, constantly pushing open doors caked in crimson threads.
The child's memories fused into the gaps of Chen Ge's own memory. The pain slowly faded, until finally only one sentence remained echoing in Chen Ge's mind — I'm waiting for you in the depths of that city.
Collapsed on the ground, Chen Ge hadn't lost consciousness, but he no longer even had the strength to blink his eyelids.
The glass jars in the Director's office had been smashed. Chen Ge's hospital gown was covered in glass shards and bloodstains. A few severed heads lay scattered around him, though upon closer inspection, the child's head was not among them.
Dr. Sun searched the entire office but couldn't find the child's head. A chill ran down his spine. He tentatively reached out to touch Chen Ge and found that both the blood threads and the curse threads had vanished. He quickly dragged Chen Ge out of the office.
"Can you hear my voice?" Dr. Sun collected the patients' heads, then dragged Chen Ge toward the fifth floor of Ward Three. "There have been some unexpected complications, but overall things are still proceeding according to my plan. You must remember what I told you."
It took nearly fifteen minutes for Dr. Sun to drag Chen Ge and the heads to the door of the treatment room on the fifth floor. "Whether or not you can escape this hospital depends on this one attempt. The hospital is full of their people. I can't communicate with you — once you're out, you'll be entirely on your own."
Dr. Sun took Chen Ge's hand and pushed open the treatment room door, then shoved Chen Ge and all the severed heads inside.
"You must find your true self."
…
Dr. Sun closed the door. The instant it shut, Chen Ge opened his eyes.
"Ahhh!"
A scream erupted from Chen Ge inside the treatment room. His chair toppled over, and his body crashed to the floor.
"Chen Ge?"
"Number Seven?"
The ticking of the mechanical watch grew fainter and fainter. Dr. Gao and the other patients all turned to look at Chen Ge. But Chen Ge was acting as if he had gone completely mad, screaming and howling nonstop.
"Why aren't you dead yet?! Why haven't you all died yet?!"
Chen Ge thrashed the newspaper in his hand with all his might. In the process, he sliced open his own fingers. Blood soaked through the newspaper, which fell away to reveal the sharp shard of mirror hidden inside.
His gaze shifted, and Chen Ge saw his own face in the mirror. He reacted as though he had been struck by an enormous shock. "The killer! He's the murderer! He's the one who killed you all!"
The mirror shattered on the ground into several pieces, and every shard reflected Chen Ge's own face.
Dr. Gao, seated in his chair, slowly rose to his feet. He pocketed the mechanical watch from the table, and the ticking sound ceased. The other patients gradually returned to normal — they merely looked a bit pale — but Chen Ge seemed to have truly lost his mind.
"Inside the hospital, you killed everyone." Dr. Gao produced a document and began recording something on it. Every other patient regarded Chen Ge with naked fear in their eyes.
"Today's session ends here. Chen Ge stays. The rest of you, return to your respective wards."
After the patients left, Dr. Sun and Dr. Gao attempted to communicate with Chen Ge, but Chen Ge appeared to have suffered too great a shock. He began speaking incoherently, growing more unhinged by the minute.
Watching the apparently insane Chen Ge, Dr. Gao pondered for a long while before writing the word "Recovered" on one page of the file.
After finishing, he handed the medical record to Dr. Sun. "You were following him inside the Brain Maze the entire time. Did you notice anything unusual?"
"Everything proceeded according to the treatment plan. I'd say it was an overwhelming success." The scar on Dr. Sun's face was oozing fresh blood, giving him a rather terrifying appearance.
Dr. Gao seemed to be aware of certain rumors surrounding Dr. Sun. Seeing that Dr. Sun had also written "Recovered" in the file, he let out a breath of relief. "Take the file to the Deputy Director. I hope our first collaboration goes smoothly — and I hope it will also be our last."
After speaking, Dr. Gao opened the treatment room door. From the locked rooms on either side, five orderlies emerged.
Together they dragged Chen Ge toward the isolation ward. When only Dr. Sun remained in the treatment room, he flipped through Chen Ge's file, his fingers tapping casually against the desktop — six taps in total.
Chen Ge, who had been struggling with all his strength, heard those six taps. He noticed that Dr. Gao's expression was slowly beginning to change, though Dr. Gao himself had not yet realized it.
"The Night Shift Doctor possesses an innate ability called the Brain Maze. It seems to be triggered through sound — much like the ticking of the mechanical watch in Dr. Gao's pocket…"
A conjecture crystallized in Chen Ge's mind. The first time Dr. Sun entered the treatment room, he had knocked six times on the door — at that point, Dr. Gao had not yet taken out the watch.
In other words, Dr. Sun had already made his move against Dr. Gao from the moment he walked through the door.
Dr. Gao used his own innate ability to treat Chen Ge. But before Dr. Gao even activated that ability, Dr. Sun had already struck first.