The treatment plans written on the photographs looked strangely familiar to
Photos packed the walls in dense rows, the vast majority taken after the victims had died, recording the scenes of their deaths.
"The Ghost Story Society, the victims, the underground morgue, a core area built entirely from corpses…"
A thread connected everything in Chen Ge's mind. His eyes widened as the sheer scale of the mastermind's scheme sank in.
"The owner of this underground morgue is the president of the Ghost Story Society! He needed a massive supply of corpses, so he went to the Third Ward and offered to help the madmen there — treating them in an even more deranged way, turning them into his accomplices. While they created one urban legend after another and 'cured' one member after another, he transported everyone who died in those legends here and built his own kingdom of corpses!"
The Third Ward had been abandoned five or six years ago, and the old director had gone missing through the door around the same time.
By that timeline, the Ghost Story Society had been active in the shadows of this city for five or six years. They never clashed with the police head-on — instead, they left behind countless urban legends through eerie, untraceable methods.
Chen Ge pulled another photo off the wall. The victim was a woman in her twenties with a striking figure. Beneath her photo, several lines of text were written.
"Wednesday. Patient No. 107."
"Diagnosis: anorexia, depression."
"Treatment plan: Decreased estrogen and thyroid hormone secretion, elevated cortisol levels. Patient No. 107 is under dual physiological and psychological oppression. Investigation reveals she was mocked and deceived by her 'best friend' since childhood due to her figure. Recommend preparing a special appetizer for the patient — the main ingredient to be her best friend."
"Follow-up feedback: Patient No. 107's anorexia has been successfully cured, depression shows mild improvement, but she is suspected of developing a new psychiatric condition — a compulsion to boil everything she loves in a pot."
"Treatment plan: Pending. Recommend re-admitting the patient as a Society member for a second round of treatment."
The symptoms and treatment plans described in the second photo reminded Chen Ge of the radio host —
The story Lychee had told on that Wednesday night was all about boiling and consuming things.
"The Ghost Story Society's treatments are truly unreliable. They're not curing patients — they're creating demons, pushing ordinary people step by step into the abyss."
Lychee was a perfect example. She had started with a simple eating disorder and ended up as something monstrous.
Standing in the center of the room, staring at the photos lining every wall, Chen Ge suddenly realized the most deranged person of all was the president of the Ghost Story Society.
After carrying out so many insane acts, he could still maintain absolute composure and rationality, writing out new diagnosis after new diagnosis. The world as seen through this man's eyes had to be completely different from that of a normal person.
"Half the missing persons cases in Jiujiang every year are probably accounted for here."
Every photograph represented a victim — though most of these victims had brought their fates upon themselves. The middle-aged man who had abused a child and shoved their head into a sink, or Lychee's childhood "best friend."
Every death had a reason. They had deserved to die, though that justification wasn't measured against the law — it was measured against the patients themselves.
Those people, alive, had been the patients' lifelong torment. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — the most direct and brutal form of treatment.
The Ghost Story Society had probably started as nothing more than a mutual-support group for the mentally ill. But as time passed, everything changed.
The mad were never cured. Their warped view of the world gradually took root and was embraced. They immersed themselves in the darkness, believing they were the truly sane ones.