"He's retaliating — deliberately, with purpose and precision." A thousand thoughts flashed through Chen Ge's mind in an instant.
The middle-aged man's story had revealed a great deal of information, and that information aligned perfectly with a thread Chen Ge had been piecing together in his mind.
Among the nine patients in the Third Ward, one of them bore a striking resemblance to the protagonist of the middle-aged man's story.
They had both been doctors. Both had witnessed so many twisted, suffering patients that their own minds had fractured — transitioning from physician to patient. Most critically, both had exhibited extreme aggression.
Chen Ge stood rooted in place as a single name surfaced in his mind — Xiong Qing.
This man resided in Room Eight. He suffered from hemispatial neglect, was held in isolation for treatment, and carried the highest danger rating.
The fact that Xiong Qing had once been a psychiatrist meant his intelligence was at least above average. He only committed those horrifying acts when he lost his mind — at other times, he was nearly indistinguishable from a normal person.
"Could he be the hidden killer in this asylum?"
This man knew the rehabilitation center inside and out. As both a patient and a doctor, he was fully capable of carrying out such acts.
"The other side holds an absolute home-field advantage. Not easy to deal with." Xiong Qing was a terrifying person in his own right. Hemispatial neglect wasn't exactly the most frightening of diseases, but the compulsion to correct every perceived error in one's visual field drove Xiong Qing to commit truly chilling acts.
Everything he saw appeared wrong and distorted. Even a perfectly whole person standing before him would seem more natural with half their limbs missing.
Most patients with hemispatial neglect were aware of their condition and actively tried to correct these false perceptions. But Xiong Qing was different — he wanted to force his own distorted, dangerous worldview onto others.
Given the sordid, decrepit conditions of the hospital, if someone actually lost a limb, the outcome was already sealed — there was no surviving it.
Hair from four people had been discovered inside the building, but Chen Ge had only found three so far. The missing one had likely already been killed.
"Midnight hasn't even arrived yet, and I haven't even set foot in the Third Ward. This is going to be a long night."
The difficulty of this three-star trial had exceeded both the Midnight Slaughter and Muyang High School from the very start. One wrong decision could mean a life-or-death crisis.
One suspect had been identified, but Chen Ge had never actually seen Xiong Qing. He didn't know whether the person with the deformed face was Xiong Qing, or whether this middle-aged man hiding in the cage was Xiong Qing himself.
The level of detail he knew about the old man's past made it highly probable that he was Xiong Qing.
Crouching outside the middle-aged man's iron cage, Chen Ge examined the lock. All three cages had identical locks — nothing distinguished them. Even if the man had a key hidden on him, there was no way he could unlock the cage and get out to hurt Chen Ge while he was watching.
Chen Ge swung his tool hammer idly, staring into the middle-aged man's eyes. After a moment's deliberation, he decided to ask directly: "How do you know all this? Could it be that you're the old man's son?"
"Me?" The middle-aged man caught the suspicion in Chen Ge's words and said something utterly baffling: "I knew you wouldn't believe me! You're all suspicious of me, just as I'm suspicious of all of you! Spare me — I've hidden myself away in this place, and you still managed to find me! Stop surveilling my life!"
"Suspicious of all of you? Surveilling your life? What are you talking about?" Chen Ge had no idea what kind of episode the middle-aged man was having.
"Every time I see through you, you always put on that same innocent expression! That's exactly why I despise you all — I've already figured you out, and you still want to keep deceiving me?" The middle-aged man spoke with complete lucidity, saying things Chen Ge couldn't begin to understand: "I wonder — should I call you Wang Ming? Or Xu Fei? Li Yichang? Ma Yong? Or have you taken on yet another new name?"
"What are you talking about?"
Chen Ge gestured for him to calm down, but the middle-aged man only grew more frantic: "Next you're going to say you don't know any of these people, aren't you?"