"Those attendants in the hospital all have the surname Chi, and there might be some connection between them. I shouldn't linger here."
After walking over a hundred meters along the narrow path, Chen Ge glanced back. The lights inside the restaurant had all gone out, and the surroundings were pitch black—he couldn't see a thing.
"To me, this city seems incredibly beautiful, yet Chi Longtou said it's a place meant to punish patients. And he mentioned the word 'door'—does 'door' have some special meaning in this city?"
Chen Ge thought of the door in the bathroom of
Also, when he was receiving treatment in the hospital, the key turning point when Dr. Gao pulled him into the brain maze had been pushing open a door.
After pushing it open, the hospital outside was eerie and terrifying—the inside and outside of the door were practically two different worlds.
"Maybe the way to escape this city is through one of the doors hidden somewhere within it."
Following the location Zuo Han had provided, Chen Ge finally found Ping'an Apartments at eleven forty that night.
It was a nearly abandoned old apartment building, situated behind a desolate village in the western outskirts of Xinhai, in an extremely remote location.
"Why did both the writer and Zuo Han want me to come here? Have they already met in advance?"
The leaves rustled as Chen Ge passed through the abandoned village. There wasn't a soul in sight.
"I get the feeling I've been here before." Chen Ge looked at the cluster of graves outside the village and the crooked old scholar tree at the entrance—gnarled like a ghost. Yet this terrifying scene didn't stir any emotion within him.
"What exactly have I been through in the past? Why do these things that would terrify any normal person not frighten me at all—why do I even feel a sense of familiarity?"
Chen Ge didn't think there was anything wrong with himself, but he felt this mindset must have deep-seated reasons behind it.
As he reached the back of the village and was about to keep walking, he suddenly noticed a man squatting on one of the graves beside him.
The man seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, or perhaps he had been there all along.
When Chen Ge saw the man, the man also saw Chen Ge. Their eyes met, and neither found anything strange about it. Neither spoke a word, and they simply parted ways.
The man continued squatting on the grave, while Chen Ge walked a few more steps before suddenly realizing that the man who had been squatting on the grave looked somewhat familiar.
When Chen Ge turned back to look, all that remained behind him was a solitary grave.
"Where did he go?"
"A man squatting on a grave in the dead of night—something so obviously abnormal. Why could I accept it so easily? And that man didn't give me any bad feelings either."
Ever since he had made up his mind to come to Ping'an Apartments, Chen Ge gradually noticed that incomprehensible events around him were growing more frequent.
To get to Ping'an Apartments, he had to pass through the abandoned village. After traversing a graveyard, a dirt path strewn with branches and garbage appeared before him.
Beside the road stood a sign that read "No Entry."
However, it had fallen into disrepair over the years. The sign was crooked, and the characters had become extremely faded.
"What kind of people would insist on living in such a decrepit apartment?"
Walking along the rutted dirt path, Chen Ge looked curiously to both sides. Funeral wreaths and spirit banners hung along the road, and paper funeral money was scattered everywhere on the ground—some of it already half-buried in the soil, clearly scattered a long time ago.
White cloth was wound around tree trunks, tombstones were faintly visible among the woods, and grave mounds appeared and disappeared in the gloom, making one feel deeply uncomfortable.
If an ordinary Xinhai resident had been placed here, they probably would have turned around and left by now.
"The horror of the setup feels deliberate, like someone is trying to hide something and doesn't want anyone to approach."
The path before him seemed to lead straight to the underworld. Chen Ge didn't know how long he walked before he finally reached the end.
Deep in the dense forest stood a dilapidated apartment building, three stories in total—none too tall. All the windows on the third floor had been boarded up with planks, and scorch marks from a fire were still visible on the walls.
It appeared a fire had occurred here at some point. The owner had probably been short on funds and had only renovated the bottom two floors, leaving the third almost exactly as it had been.
"Ping'an Apartments?"
After crossing an overgrown courtyard, Chen Ge spotted the sign at the entrance of the apartment building.
The building seemed to have had many names over the years. The characters on the sign had been revised over and over, giving it a messy appearance.
"Is anyone here?" Chen Ge unzipped his backpack, slipped his hand inside, and cautiously entered the hallway.
The interior of the apartment was extremely rundown—floor tiles were cracked, walls had gaps, and occasionally he could see black insects crawling through them.
"It looked pretty small from the outside, but I didn't expect so many rooms inside." Chen Ge didn't dare move carelessly along the corridor. His gaze swept over door after door before he made his way toward Room 101.
He knocked lightly on the door and stood there for a long time without anyone answering. He pressed his ear against the door panel, listening intently.
The room was utterly silent, as though no one lived there at all.
"What are you doing?"
A man's voice suddenly came from behind Chen Ge, startling him. He immediately turned to look behind him.
"It's you! The man who was squatting on the grave earlier!" Chen Ge recognized the man behind him at once.
"This isn't a place you should be. Leave now, before you've disturbed the other tenants." The man stood just a few steps behind Chen Ge. His footsteps had made absolutely no sound—Chen Ge had no idea when the man had approached.
"It's too late. There are no more buses leaving tonight. Can I stay here for one night?" Chen Ge stared at the man, committing every one of his movements to memory.
"The rooms are all full." The middle-aged man kept urging Chen Ge to leave. "Go on. Even sleeping outside would be better than staying here."
"Full? But I get the feeling every single room here is empty."
"Empty doesn't mean there are no tenants inside..." Before the man could finish, something seemed to fall from the third floor, rolling down the stairs like a ball.
Chen Ge turned to look, but the man moved first, blocking his view with his body.
"Did something just fall down?"