The woman in the photograph wore no makeup, looking as though she had recently recovered from a serious illness, giving off a special sort of beauty.
Back when he had been sorting through things at the Heming Apartments, Chen Ge had remarked that Men Nan's father was never satisfied — having such a beautiful wife yet choosing to live apart. Now he finally understood the reason.
Chen Ge shifted his gaze to the shy, timid little boy in the photograph.
"Is this child really Men Nan? A child who showed all sorts of abnormalities even as an infant — how could he grow up to be someone who couldn't even handle a mirror ghost? Did certain physical functions deteriorate as he got older?"
There really were similar stories in everyday life — children who could see all kinds of strange things when they were very young, only to not only become normal as they grew up but also lose all memory of what they had witnessed.
"It probably isn't that simple." Chen Ge recalled something Dr. Gao had told him before coming over: after conducting in-depth testing, he had discovered three separate personalities inside Men Nan.
One was a self-protective personality that manifested in the form of his mother. This was most likely the lingering attachment left behind after his mother's accidental death, clinging to Men Nan and protecting him at all times.
The second personality was Men Nan's primary identity — the one that had grown up alongside Men Nan, the Men Nan that everyone on the outside saw as normal.
The third personality was buried in the deepest recesses of Men Nan's mind. According to what Dr. Gao had said at the time, this personality had remained frozen at the stage of Men Nan's early childhood. It could not be communicated with, and its appearances were extremely brief — but whenever the third personality emerged, Men Nan displayed talents far beyond the ordinary.
"Could it be that the third personality, the one that stopped growing, is the real Men Nan? What happened to him? Why does this personality exist?" Before entering the Third Ward, Chen Ge had researched a great deal on this subject. He understood clearly that for most patients suffering from dissociative identity disorder, each personality's emergence had deep underlying reasons.
It could be born of loneliness, or from a desire to be protected, or any number of things. He didn't yet know why Men Nan's third personality appeared, but he had a vague feeling that it might have something to do with that door in the Third Ward.
Putting the photograph away, Chen Ge began reading the third letter.
"Every night at midnight, the door would appear right on schedule, remain for roughly a minute, and then vanish."
"I sealed off the Third Ward. After dark, no one was allowed anywhere near Room Three. I instructed the on-duty nurses and orderlies to keep a close watch on that bleeding door at all times."
"After only three days, the night-shift nurse told me that strange sounds were coming from behind the door. Once it returned to normal, she pushed it open and looked inside — Room Three was completely empty. There wasn't even a mouse in there."
"On the fourth day, I stood guard at the door myself. Someone was definitely moving around on the other side, and I could faintly hear the sounds of gnawing and chewing."
"On the fifth night, the thing wandering behind the door seemed to sense something. Knocking came from inside Room Three."
"A room with no one in it, producing knocking from within — if I hadn't just given myself a mental health screening a few days earlier, my first reaction would have been to think there was something wrong with my brain."
"I had the door sealed shut with wooden planks and spent several anxious days. On the tenth day, violent pounding erupted from behind the door."
"Blood flowed outward, staining the entire door panel red. The scene was like something out of a nightmare."
"I contacted the orderlies to have the door removed and called in the on-duty doctor to keep watch outside Room Three through the night."
"On the eleventh day, just seconds past midnight, everyone present heard the sound of the door panel being pushed open."