"Calm down!"
Sandwiched between two Red-coat ghosts, his back was drenched in sweat. Even he found the scene surreal—fierce ghosts locked in confrontation, and a living man risking his life to play peacemaker.
Both sides were at daggers drawn, but after Chen Ge's relentless mediation, the boy and
In truth, the boy was making a unilateral concession. After he awakened, the threads of blood from within Ward Three flowed ceaselessly into his body—the longer this went on, the stronger he would become.
"I don't need that old man's body, but his head is mine." The boy had a special connection to Ward Three. If the ward was a slumbering monster, then he was something like its child—he could command many things within its walls with effortless control.
Fine threads of blood surfaced across the floor and walls, coiling around the old man's head.
The old man, who had been sprawled on the ground with no reaction to the outside world, suddenly threw his eyes wide open and began to struggle. But with Zhang Ya's foot pinning his body to the floor, he couldn't move an inch.
The blood threads bit into his neck and wrapped around it. What followed was rather brutal—the old man's screams echoed through the corridor.
Threads of blood converged from every direction, lifting the old man's severed head and delivering it to the boy's side.
"What did this old man do wrong in the past?" Chen Ge had long since passed the age of indiscriminate sympathy. Pity the wretched, yes—but the wretched usually brought it on themselves.
"When the door first opened, the old man used patients as test subjects." The boy's pitch-black eye sockets gazed at the head in his hands. "He forced patients to enter through the door. My mother was among them."
Cradling the old man's head, the boy smiled sweetly. "He was an incredibly hypocritical and selfish man. Even my being put to sleep was a trick he and a few other patients orchestrated."
"Him and a few patients? There were other people inside the door?" Chen Ge shuffled a couple of steps toward Zhang Ya. All things considered, standing closer to her felt considerably safer.
"I promised
"He was a coward, so just like years before, he sent several patients through first."
"Ward Three was a locked ward, and those patients had no connections to speak of. The whole process was kept secret."
"After probing for a week and confirming there was no danger, the director finally entered through the door alongside those patients." The boy's smile never left his face as he held the old man's screaming head. "Once the door closed, this place became my world. Nothing inside Ward Three could threaten me."
"I never harmed them—I just wanted some entertainment in an otherwise peaceful existence. But what I didn't expect was that these people, in order to escape, actually let the monsters outside Ward Three in. Some of them even had their bodies taken over by the monsters."
"All of this caught me off guard. By the time I realized what was happening, it was already too late. They set a trap and imprisoned me in the electroshock therapy room, leaving the near-dead director behind as my jailer while the others—carrying fear and malice in their hearts—fled."
After hearing the boy's account, Chen Ge nodded slowly. "I encountered a few Ward Three patients in the world outside. They'd been taken over by a tall, thin kind of monster. The old man said those things are manifestations of human desire."
"Exactly. Those are monsters from the world inside the door, but they're the most primitive kind." The boy's words sent a chill through Chen Ge—he'd assumed Mirror Ghosts were the lowest tier, but apparently the slender monsters ranked even below that.
"Four years ago, seven patients entered the door. Four of them were taken over by those low-level monsters. The remaining three—I couldn't see through them." The boy glanced at Chen Ge. "You clearly made it through the door, which means you've clashed with them. Those three are very likely to come looking for trouble."
"Do you remember what the three most dangerous ones looked like?"
"A very beautiful woman, a disfigured man, and one named
As if worried Chen Ge might let his guard down, the boy added, "Wu Fei isn't even the hardest one to deal with. The one you need to watch most carefully is the disfigured man. He's extremely dangerous."
"Noted. Thanks for the warning."
"You don't need to thank me—actually, I have a favor to ask." The boy had been studying Chen Ge for some time, and now he finally revealed his true purpose. "I am merely a personality construct, using Ward Three behind the door as my body. Having lingered here for so long, I've in effect fused with the ward. Outsiders can't truly destroy me—they can only weaken me and force me into slumber."
"They can't kill me, but they can influence me through my alternate personality. They could even manipulate me indirectly—that's what worries me most. So I hope you'll protect my alternate personality when the need arises. I have no family in this world, and he's the only friend I have."
"Absolutely. Your alternate personality and I are friends too—I'd never stand by and do nothing." Chen Ge was doing everything he could to build rapport with the boy, all the while scheming about the day he might convince him to work at the haunted house. He still didn't have a ghost in that age bracket.
"I hope you'll keep your word." The boy carried the old man's head to Room Three on the first floor. "Staying in this world for too long takes a severe toll on your mind and body—you become filled with self-destructive urges. If you don't vent those negative emotions in time, you'll slowly turn into a madman yourself."
He pushed open the door to Room Three and placed the old man's head beside the hospital bed. "I'll send you back. If you encounter something you can't handle, wait on the other side of the door at midnight—I'll open it for one minute."
"One minute?" Chen Ge's eyelid twitched.
"That's the limit of my control." The boy spoke plainly. "This world is vast. There should be other doors as well—some may have guardians like me, and others are probably left unguarded. Normally, if there's someone controlling a door from the other side, each opening lasts exactly one minute."
"Got it." Chen Ge lowered his head, thinking about the door in his haunted house's bathroom.
When both Chen Ge and Zhang Ya had stepped into Room Three, the boy shut the door and stood beside it. "You can go back now."
"How do we get back?"
The boy pointed at the door of Room Three. "Push it open. You have one minute."