The situation had become extremely unfavorable for the Cursed Hospital. The White-Robed Director was being forced back by Zhang Ya, every Malevolent God was pinned down, and the Cursed Prison that walled off Blood City was on the verge of collapse.
Seated amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, the Blood-Robed Director finally made his move.
One corpse after another slammed into the next. Countless black threads burrowed out from within them.
His first target was not Chen Ge and the others, but the White-Robed Director.
Before anyone could react, the thin threads emerging from the corpses had already coiled around the White-Robed Director's body.
"You did well enough."
Chen Ge had said the same words to Xiao Sun before, but the White-Robed Director's fate turned out to be nothing alike.
For the Cursed Hospital, a "person" who was no longer useful was simply trash—something to be discarded whenever it had served its purpose. The Blood-Robed Director dragged the power-stripped White-Robed Director into the sea of blood, where countless black threads tore him to shreds.
Throughout the entire process, the White-Robed Director offered only feeble resistance. He had long known his own ending. The two were destined to become one.
Having swallowed the White-Robed Director, the Blood-Robed Director rose from his throne of human bones. Flesh and blood melted and reformed, and the mountain of corpses and sea of blood beneath him shifted with his every movement.
That terrifying aura was beyond what any single Malevolent God could match.
"I still need a little more. My dear family—it's your turn to protect me now." The Blood-Robed Director swept his arm, and within "Paradise," those adults and children who eternally wore nothing but smiles began walking of their own accord toward the sea of blood.
Not Laugh—the family members the Director had created. Between them and the Director existed a special blood bond, a cursed bloodline they could never shake free of no matter how much they suffered. All they could do was keep smiling.
The sole reason for everything they had done was that the Director believed Paradise should be filled with smiles.
None of them had their own expressions. Every one of them leapt into the sea of blood with a smile on their face, sacrificing their lives to become threads of blood.
These blood threads represented the bonds of home and kinship. They swam through the sea of blood before piercing into the bodies of Chen Ge's parents.
"All the suffering and hardship in the world—only family can break through their hearts' defenses." The Blood-Robed Director watched his own family members throw their lives away, his eyes devoid of any emotion. "I truly cannot understand—what use are family members who don't even smile?"
As the blood threads continued to burrow deeper into the bodies of Chen Ge's parents, the Director's aura grew ever stronger. At the cost of his own family's lives, he injected blood saturated with curses into their bodies.
Their obsession with home had become the sole weakness of Chen Ge's parents. To exploit this weakness, the Blood-Robed Director had spent the past ten years crafting one family member after another to meet his requirements.
It could be said that the very existence of Not Laugh was made for this day.
Seeing all of this, Chen Ge clenched his teeth. The countless Red Dresses at his side had long since launched their assault on the Blood-Robed Director.
The Director was Chen Ge's mortal enemy—and the very cause of Dr. Gao's family being torn apart. Both successive Presidents of the Paranormal Society had fought until their eyes ran red with blood.
The enormous mountain of corpses and sea of blood was besieged by the Red Dresses, chunks of flesh torn away by the dozen. In the midst of everyone's madness, Xiao Sun quietly slipped closer to that sea of blood.
He wore a bloodstained white lab coat. His gaze swept over one Not Laugh after another until, in a corner of the room formed by assembled corpses, he spotted a child.
The boy wore a tattered dark blue raincoat, curled alone in the shadows. Tear tracks covered his face, yet his mouth remained fixed in a smile.
"Found you!"