Chen Ge's words resonated with Scissors on some deep level.
He had grown up in an orphanage — solitary, withdrawn, unable to fit in. The only friend he'd ever had was his brother.
Whenever he was bullied, whenever he was treated unfairly, whenever he was drowning in pain and despair with no reason to keep living, his brother would always step forward to help him, shielding him from the wind and rain.
To Scissors, his brother had been the most special person in his entire life. And precisely because of that, when his brother went missing, Scissors had come to investigate regardless of the danger.
Watching Chen Ge walk away, Scissors replayed what had just happened — he had been cornered by the filth inside the hospital, pushed to the absolute brink. He had already given up completely, and then Chen Ge appeared.
That warm voice had dragged him out of hell and into heaven.
Life was full of wild ups and downs. Scissors would never say it out loud, but deep down he was profoundly grateful.
Bound by his persona, he couldn't bring himself to thank Chen Ge openly. He could only keep it in his heart and hope that someday, when the chance came, he would repay the man.
The colder someone appeared on the outside, the more fiercely they might burn within — because the warmth of their life was sealed beneath a thick shell of ice, and only when that shell was shattered did they let their true feelings show.
He licked his lips lightly, then turned his head and spat out the black dog's blood from his mouth. Following behind Chen Ge, he caught a faint glimpse of his own brother's shadow in the man's silhouette.
"Stay calm. He might actually be a serial killer — better not to get too close. When he runs into trouble, I'll lend him a hand then."
Scissors's opinion of Chen Ge had already shifted. He trailed along in silence.
Realizing that Scissors had finally settled down, Chen Ge grinned to himself. In his eyes, Scissors was a rare talent. Being timid didn't matter — what counted was the courage to give everything when it came down to the wire.
"Hey, I found several different sets of footprints downstairs. Besides yours, there should be other passengers still in the hospital. Did you run into them before?" Chen Ge turned his head and asked Scissors.
"I came in alone." Scissors silently wondered what footprints he was talking about — he hadn't noticed any on his way in. But since Chen Ge had brought it up, and in order to maintain his image, he had no choice but to play along: "I saw the footprints you mentioned too… Oh, right. When I was fighting for my life with those monsters on the second floor, I heard footsteps coming from the emergency stairwell. They probably ran that way."
Chen Ge nodded and studied Scissors for a long moment.
"What are you looking at?" Scissors felt a twinge of guilt.
"The red high heels from the Route 104 bus are gone. I remember that every time you took a step, two sets of footsteps sounded — that thing was probably following behind you." One of the reasons Chen Ge valued Scissors was precisely the red high heels. Those shoes had even made the Smiling Man wary. At minimum, they were Red-clothed level, at the very least.
"After I entered the left corridor, the sound disappeared. She must have sensed danger and left early." Scissors raised the scissors in his hand and stared at the sharp blades: "Clearly, she was afraid. She was frightened. She was terrified."
Chen Ge very much wanted to clamp a hand over Scissors's mouth. There had to be some limit to posturing. If those high heels actually heard him, Scissors probably wouldn't even know how he died.
"Fine, pretend I said nothing. Let's go find the other passengers." Chen Ge led Scissors out of the room. The Doctor and the Drunk were standing guard outside, and the moment they saw that the blood-drenched figure was Scissors, they were too terrified to come any closer.
In their eyes, Scissors now perfectly matched their mental image of a deranged killer — drenched in blood, wearing a sickly smile, his expression one of twisted enjoyment, as though suffering and slaughter gave him an unprecedented rush of pleasure.
"I feel like I've fallen into a wolf's den," the Drunk muttered, standing alone at the foot of the stairwell. His face was pale, and looking at the bloody tracks on the soles of his shoes, he felt like throwing up. Of everyone present, he was the only one who truly seemed normal.
"You just fought those things alone for so long — you must be exhausted. Leave the cleanup work to me." Chen Ge thoughtfully provided Scissors with an excuse, then began searching the rooms one by one.
The hospital only had three floors and wasn't particularly large, but Chen Ge searched meticulously. It took him half an hour to make a full circuit.
In the second-floor emergency stairwell, they found footprints belonging to a family of three and a small boy's shoe prints. The tracks ran along the stairwell to the other side of the hospital.
That family had happened to pass by just after Chen Ge — they had slipped down the opposite staircase and sneaked out after he had battered the door open.
"Those people are unbelievable. We came here to save them, and they didn't even bother to say a word — just ran for their lives. Selfish to the last." The Drunk had put himself in Chen Ge's shoes. He felt that if he were Chen Ge, he definitely wouldn't have come to meddle.
"Don't blame them. Running away out of fear — that's only human nature."
"You're awfully understanding about it." The Drunk was genuinely impressed by Chen Ge's composure. Through their time together, he had come to see Chen Ge as a good-natured soul who never held grudges about anything: "The people we were supposed to rescue are gone. Shouldn't we be leaving too?"
"Not yet. We've given the hospital a once-over, and there are three spots worth paying attention to." Chen Ge stood in place and recalled for a moment: "The first room on the left on the second floor — there's a diary inside that documents how a patient was driven insane by the ghosts in this hospital and ultimately became one herself. That case probably isn't an isolated one."
Of course Chen Ge knew it wasn't isolated. The ghost with plaster-cast legs, one gouged-out eye, and a wretched appearance was currently inside Yan Danian's comic album.
Following Scissors's directions, he had gone straight for the wardrobe the moment he entered the room and quickly located the ghost residing within the diary.
"But what does any of that have to do with us?" The Drunk kept feeling that this hospital was steeped in a sinister energy — more dangerous than the "Doghouse" they had been trapped in before.
"The patients played a game of hide-and-seek, and after they die, they're trapped in this hospital forever, becoming part of the game. But have you ever thought about one question — who was the very first person to start this game of hide-and-seek?" Chen Ge looked at the other passengers. "Someone had to propose playing the game first, and only after that were more and more patients left behind."
When he saw the other passengers exchanging baffled looks — clearly never having considered the question — Chen Ge gave up on asking them entirely. They were thinking about the problem from completely different angles. It was a gap in awareness.
"I said earlier there are three places in this hospital worth noting. The room with the diary is the first. The second is the records room. I leafed through the files on the ward where incidents occurred and noticed something very strange — every patient who had been admitted to the same ward where the diary was found met a terrible end. That ward was even labeled by the nurses and doctors as Ward 201: one to avoid."
Chen Ge paid no attention to the others' reactions and continued on his own: "The records are very clear. The first incident in Ward 201 occurred five years ago. As it happens, that same year, this private hospital received a patient transferred from another facility."