Dark Nascency had never known happiness, so it had no idea what true happiness really was. It merely envied the memories of others, forgetting to look back at itself.
When the Faceless Hospital launched its assault on Jin Hua Community Building A, the rag doll dragged its broken body forward and began fighting with everything it had. It didn't even know why it was doing this—everything seemed to be pure instinct.
The rag doll was already missing an arm, putting it at a severe disadvantage. Now that the Faceless Doctor had seized the initiative, its situation grew even worse. Wounds multiplied across its body, and its limbs and torso were shattered several times over, only to be forcibly pulled back together by the black threads of curse.
When the Faceless Doctor saw the rag doll mounting an offensive, his suspicion was confirmed. The faces stitched across his red coat twisted into sinister grins. "Number Four—you actually have something you care about? It seems the director was right. You're merely the patient closest to Number One. You're still far from him."
The deranged Faceless Doctor kept using words to unsettle the rag doll. Normally such words would have no effect on a fierce god at all, but when curses were woven into them, that was an entirely different matter.
Every sentence was a trap. When a person or a ghost began to doubt themselves, they would fall for it.
The foundation of all spirits was obsession. To shake that obsession was to strike at the very roots of the soul.
The faces on the Faceless Doctor's coat all displayed expressions of utmost horror. His speed increased, and the curses swirling around him multiplied. Perhaps he had been holding back earlier out of concern for
"Once I get my hands on the woman in Building A, I'll bring her back to the hospital too. Everything you've gone through will be replayed on her. I believe that even if you manage to be born successfully, you'll come back for her, won't you?"
Mouth after mouth split open, and the piercing sound carried far—so far that even
Xiang Nuan, his shoulders embedded deep in "The Past's" head, began to tremble. Something seemed to stir in his vacant eyes. His limbs, bound by countless severed body parts and memories, slowly tensed. He appeared to be trying to take control of "The Past" of his own will.
Compared to "The Past," which blotted out the entire sky, Xiang Nuan's body was virtually negligible. Yet he wanted to use his own pitiful frame to command that impossibly massive monster.
The Faceless Doctor was closing in on Jin Hua Community Building A. He used Wen Qing as leverage, edging toward the tallest building while pressing his lethal attacks on the rag doll.
This monster from the Cursed Hospital was greedy. He wanted to seize Wen Qing and, at the same time, take advantage of this rare opportunity to severely wound the rag doll. He seemed to covet the body that Dark Nascency had once used.
The rag doll alone was clearly unable to stop the Faceless Monster. Xiang Nuan wanted to take control of "The Past," but he seemed unable to do it.
Everything "The Past" was doing was meant to devour everyone inside Jiu Hong Community and Jin Hua Community. Composed of countless memories and the impurities of black mist, "The Past" had no intention of abandoning its original plan for Wen Qing's sake.
The Faceless Doctor was rapidly approaching Jin Hua Community Building A. Zhang Ya was also shielding Chen Ge as she drew closer to the building.
It wasn't that Chen Ge intended to use Wen Qing to threaten Dark Nascency. What was on his mind right now was protecting his employee.
Everyone had something they wanted to protect, and Chen Ge was no exception—even if, in everyday life, he was usually the one being protected.
Under Zhang Ya's escort, Chen Ge charged into Building A ahead of the Faceless Doctor. The rag doll's arm stood guard within the residential building. This building hadn't been invaded by the black mist and, on the whole, remained unchanged.
Chen Ge entered without any obstruction, but when Zhang Ya tried to follow him in, a shrill shriek erupted from the rag doll's remnant body in the distance—so agonized it sounded as though it were tearing its own vocal cords apart.
After letting out that sound, the rag doll's movements slowed. Its strength was plummeting.
Strangely enough, when "The Past" overhead heard the rag doll's scream, its enormous body began to rotate slowly.
As the rag doll continued to weaken, a faint glimmer of light seemed to expand in Xiang Nuan's eyes. The confusion in his gaze was fading, little by little.
"The Past" slowed its efforts to reinforce the prison. The intervals between heartbeats grew longer, and its attention shifted toward Zhang Ya—as though the moment she dared set foot inside Building A, it would launch a frenzied assault regardless of the cost.
Zhang Ya didn't act rashly, but her eyes never left Chen Ge inside the building.
There was no black mist inside Jin Hua Community Building A, yet that heartbeat could still be heard rumbling up from beneath the ground.
Chen Ge clutched his backpack with one hand and pressed the other against his chest, fingers digging in. That wrenching, heart-rending sensation was nearly impossible to describe—as if his heart could be torn out of his body at any moment.
"Calm down, calm down!" Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Chen Ge recalled where Wen Qing's voice had come from earlier. "Wen Qing seems to be on the top floor. The heartbeat is coming from underground. The top floor is the farthest from the surface, so the influence should be weakest there! Dark Nascency must have thought of this—that's why it moved Wen Qing to the highest level!"
He burst into the stairwell and stumbled his way upward. The heartbeat hammered against him relentlessly, and his fingers pressed against his chest had turned white.
Using both hands and feet, gasping for air, Chen Ge climbed to the fifth floor, where the heartbeat's hold on him weakened slightly.
"It's working!"
The employees inside the comic book were also feeling a bit better, but Chen Ge didn't dare let his guard down, because the heartbeat pulsing up from underground was still growing stronger.
If he didn't stop it at the source, hiding on the top floor would be pointless. The kill zone that Dark Nascency had spent over a decade setting up had been designed from the very beginning to devour everyone. It wouldn't leave any blind spots where someone could take refuge.
Back then, it had despised everything—it certainly never imagined that one day it would come to care about someone.
Chen Ge climbed higher, grateful that he had already cleared every degenerate out of the building. Otherwise, those lunatics would have become obstacles at a time like this.
Without wasting a single second, Chen Ge reached the seventh floor. Just then, a tremendous crash echoed from outside, and the building shook violently. He nearly lost his footing on the stairs and tumbled down.
He peered through a window. Zhang Ya had clashed with "The Past" once more, but this time she didn't try to meet it head-on. She made full use of her agility, dodging the brunt of the damage.
Without Chen Ge to serve as a distraction, "The Past" found it extremely difficult to land a real blow on Zhang Ya.
The various factions had fallen into another stalemate. This kind of prolonged standoff favored Dark Nascency above all else. In the end, it would achieve its goal—everyone, every ghost, including the two fierce gods, would become nourishment for its birth.
If Dark Nascency could be born at the cost of three fierce gods, then even with defects remaining in its body, it would be an entity terrifying beyond the limits of imagination. Perhaps it could truly shatter the boundary between life and death.
Everything was still unfolding according to Dark Nascency's plan, but its seemingly airtight strategy had already accumulated numerous oversights. Those oversights converged, and ultimately a critical link in the chain had gone awry.
The rag doll, its strength dwindling by the moment, fought with everything it had to hold the Faceless Doctor back. But missing an arm, missing its heart, and influenced by Chen Ge, it ultimately failed.
Its body, cobbled together from a garbage heap, was shattered over and over, only to reassemble again and again. The rag doll knew this process well—from the day it had become the shadow's vessel, it had lived through nearly the same cycle every single day.
The agony of being pulverized, the pain of having one's heart ripped apart—for anyone else, it would have been unbearable. For the rag doll, it was merely a familiar, trivial matter.
It never gave up because of pain. It told itself: the rag doll cannot feel pain.