"Bad luck falls on you the moment you start doubting the world?"
"That's not the same thing." Zuo Han touched the wound on his left eye, as though new flesh was growing and it itched a little. "Your old memories might have come from reality—reality has always been cruel. But everything you're experiencing now is more like a dream, a dream you can't wake up from."
"Ever since I woke up in the hospital, I haven't dreamt at night. If we're looking at it from that angle, your theory does have some merit." Chen Ge poured Zuo Han a glass of water, but Zuo Han didn't so much as touch it. He was extremely cautious.
"You've recovered remarkably fast, and your eyes have grown gentler. I know you actually understand a great deal, but you refuse to acknowledge it right now. Because you've found something beautiful and tasted happiness, you don't want to shatter it with your own hands." Zuo Han was not only clever—he possessed extraordinary insight. From Chen Ge's expressions and tone of voice, he had already read a great deal.
Hearing Zuo Han's words, Chen Ge didn't respond. He, too, had constantly asked himself the same questions, but never found an answer.
"If all of this is just a dream, then doubt will summon misfortune and tear apart everything beautiful. But in the end, even if the dream ends, won't I just return to an even crueler reality?"
"The beauty here is false." Zuo Han stood up and looked at Chen Ge with utter seriousness. "In just a little over a month, what exactly have you been through? The you in that hospital ward was nothing like this. Back then, you gave me the feeling of a vengeful ghost hiding murderous intent."
"I haven't been through anything particularly special. I've just been living the simplest life. If I had to name one thing, it would be that I met
"I originally thought this would go smoothly. Didn't expect I might have made this trip for nothing today." Zuo Han removed his gloves and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. "Dreams eventually end. If you change your mind, you can come find me at this location."
When Chen Ge reached for the paper, he noticed that the fingerprints on Zuo Han's fingers had all been worn away.
"I'm a wanted man now. This is the last time I'll come to find you on my own." Seeing that Chen Ge had accepted the paper, Zuo Han prepared to leave. "This city looks beautiful on the surface, but underneath that gleaming skin, it's nothing but festering wounds. When you refuse to leave on your own, it will slowly swallow you whole."
"I'll give it careful thought."
"Mm. There's one more thing I need to tell you. I once stole a white phone from the hospital. When I turned it on, it was full of all sorts of curse text and a ton of little games related to curses. At first I thought it was an isolated case, but later I peeked at the phones of other orderlies and doctors in the hospital and discovered that every white phone in that place had numerous curse-related games and apps installed on it. If you ever see someone using a white phone, remember not to get too close to them." After saying this, Zuo Han didn't linger. He left through the haunted house bathroom window.
Closing the window, Chen Ge's expression turned gloomy. He leaned his back against the stall door, his mind racing.
"I originally had a great many memory fragments in my mind—memories of a completely different life. The hospital doctors told me those memories were all products of my delusions. But after seeing the seven glass jars in the director's office, I'm certain that those experiences were real." Chen Ge understood all too well that if those memory fragments were genuine, then the city he was now living in was most likely false.
"The hospital only agreed to discharge me after they confirmed that all the memory fragments in my mind had disappeared. But the crux of the matter is that Doctor Sun reminded me as I was leaving—saying the treatment had only just begun."
"Erasing my past memories was only the first step of the treatment. Next, they would begin reshaping my memories, making me completely stop doubting the hospital and this world, turning me into a puppet living within this city."
"They used false happiness and beauty to numb me, gave me everything I craved so I wouldn't bear to let go, and even turned me into a defender of the rules myself."
Chen Ge's gaze turned ice-cold. "Their plan was sound, but too many things went wrong along the way. Patient Zhang Wenyu's escape, Zuo Han's doubt about the world, Doctor Sun's assistance—and most importantly, something seems to have changed about Zhang Ya as well."
He remembered it clearly. When he had encountered Zhang Ya inside the hospital, blood droplets formed from crimson characters had drilled into her body.
"At the beginning, Zhang Ya's purpose was probably to fill my regrets and fulfill my obsessions. But under the influence of those blood-written characters, Zhang Ya began having terrifying dreams every night."
"Those dreams might be the reality. Those dreams have been constantly reminding me and Zhang Ya that beneath this beautiful bubble are face after face dripping with blood."
"This is a beautiful world meant to make me sink into oblivion, but my life is not mine alone." Blurred silhouettes surfaced in Chen Ge's mind. "The second personality who carved out his own heart in the Brain Maze, the patients still suffering in the hospital, that child who was split apart and placed in a glass jar, the scarred Doctor Sun—and even Zhang Ya."
He recalled the day they had gone shopping. When Chen Ge was making a doll, his hands had instinctively shaped the Zhang Ya he held in his heart.
Chen Ge, who was well-versed in doll-making, had already noticed the problem at that time. The Zhang Ya doll he'd produced was dressed in blood-red clothing and covered in inscriptions of negative emotions. That was not Zhang Ya with her fierce ghost makeup—it was a terrifying god of death taken to the extreme.
The Zhang Ya he'd made by instinct was different from the one by his side. Or rather, the Zhang Ya in the haunted house was only a part of the real Zhang Ya.
With this thought, Chen Ge lowered his gaze to the piece of paper in his palm. On its front were four characters—Ping'an Apartment. The back roughly marked the location of Ping'an Apartment.
"Doctor Sun helped me escape the hospital, which means the way to wake from the dream isn't inside the hospital. It's somewhere in this city."
The writer and Zuo Han had left him the same information. After thinking for a moment, Chen Ge turned and entered the staff break room, then emerged carrying a worn-out backpack.
The white cat trotted happily behind Chen Ge. Just before they were about to step out the haunted house door, Chen Ge placed it back inside. "I'm going somewhere dangerous. Stay here and watch the house."
The heterochromatic eyes regarded Chen Ge with confusion. The white cat even felt a strange sense of being flattered. After a moment, it ran back out again, apparently worried that Chen Ge would abandon it.
"This time I'm not going out to have fun. Watch the house properly. I'll be back before dawn."
In the end, Chen Ge did not take the white cat with him. Following the directions on the note, he took a taxi to a specialty restaurant near Ping'an Apartment.
The taxi drivers of Xinhai rarely came to such remote areas. When Chen Ge got out of the car, the driver kept warning him not to wander around the outskirts alone at night.
Chen Ge entered the restaurant, initially planning to throw off anyone who might be tailing him, intending to walk to the apartment from there.
However, since he'd barely eaten anything all day and was quite hungry, he simply went ahead and stepped inside.
Ping'an Apartment was located in the western outskirts of Xinhai—a desolate and barren area. Even before coming here, Chen Ge had never imagined there would be a well-known specialty restaurant in this part of Xinhai.