Chapter 56: Powerful Enemy [4K]
The Three Gorges Psychiatric Hospital is located in a hollow on Chijia Mountain. Apart from a road leading directly to the hospital, it is backed by mountains on one side and faces a river on the other. The surrounding area is shrouded in dense vegetation, and the entire hospital is enclosed by thick walls. Under the cement shell of the walls lie specially made metal plates engraved with incantations.
Unlike ordinary hospitals, the psychiatric hospital does not have many departments. Aside from the diagnostic and administrative areas occupying parts of the first floor, there are long corridors lined with “special” wards on either side. Every so often, there is an iron gate that segments the corridors.
On the iron doors flanking the corridors, there are slots for cards. Inside the slots, patients’ information can be seen, resembling simplified files at first glance.
[Zou Hai, C, Selling Addictive Alchemical Potions], [Tong Xia, C, Intentional Homicide], [Shehu Ling, C+, Instinctively Releasing Toxic Substances (Below Level B, Caution Required)]
Tan Qiuming silently followed behind Jiang Li, occasionally glancing at the cards on the doors along the corridors.
Earlier, when he left his ward, he noticed a similar card on his door, reading [Tan Qiuming, ???, Codename M Urban Legend Related].
At the same time, he discovered that on the floor where his ward is located, each ward is spaced more than three meters apart, and most of them are currently unoccupied. The few occupied wards had cards with codename descriptions of urban legends.
After seeing that card, he had been curious about what Codename M Urban Legend was. He planned to ask the person coming for questioning during the second round tonight, whether that so-called Codename M Urban Legend was the monster that often occupied his body. However, an unexpected event occurred.
“Tan Qiuming, may I ask you a few questions?” Just as Tan Qiuming was staring at the cards on either side of the corridor, a cool voice floated into his ears.
“Um.” He instinctively nodded, but after a moment of thought, added, “However, if it’s the same questions as during the day, I might not be able to tell you much more.”
“No, what I want to ask is about a woman named Qing Fangyu.” Jiang Li said calmly, “From the information we gathered at Han Ye Studio, she bought a painting from you previously.”
“Qing Fangyu?” Tan Qiuming was taken aback and asked after regaining his senses, “Is she related to the monster inside me?”
After a pause, he added, “I know her; she often came to the Anti-Cancer Home. However, she hasn’t come since a little over a month ago.”
Upon hearing that Tan Qiuming had met her mother more than once, Jiang Li’s heartbeat quickened.
Taking a silent deep breath to adjust her emotions, she turned to look at Tan Qiuming.
“Could you elaborate? What did she do at the Anti-Cancer Home? Has she also developed malignant tumors?”
Although she was trying hard to restrain her emotions, a hint of impatience crept into Jiang Li’s voice.
Tan Qiuming surveyed Jiang Li with some surprise and recalled slightly, saying, “She wasn’t sick herself; her husband seemed to be ill. Every time she came, she would sit in a corner, rarely participating in interactions, just watching quietly until the activity ended and then leave alone.”
“I heard from other patients that she came to the Anti-Cancer Home to inquire about various medical resources—”
At this point, Tan Qiuming thought of those paintings from Han Ye Studio and sighed, “Sigh, it seems that she hasn’t been back to the Anti-Cancer Home for over a month now, probably because she bought that painting, right?”
The two continued their question-and-answer exchange without realizing that along the way, they hadn’t encountered a single medical staff member. The patients who usually yelled loudly in the wards were eerily silent, as if fearing something, and the long corridor was unsettlingly quiet.
Listening to Tan Qiuming’s words, Jiang Li fell into momentary silence, briefly lost in thought.
Through the powers of spirit patterns, she determined that everything Tan Qiuming said was true, whether it was about her mother’s movements or her mother having a new husband.
Although she detested her father’s actions, before falling into the whirlpool of Dream Come True Entertainment City, he had actually been a good father and husband.
Now, suddenly learning of her mother’s new husband, her emotions became complicated.
If she saw me again, would she be happy or awkward, or even distressed?
Thinking this, she hesitated about searching for her mother.
At that moment, Tan Qiuming spoke again, asking, “Is Qing Fangyu very important to you? If necessary, I can give you her contact information.”
“You know her contact information?”
Seeing Jiang Li’s surprised expression, Tan Qiuming quickly explained, “Um, when people came to the Anti-Cancer Home looking for my help in contacting doctors or medical resources, I would keep their contact information, so I could reach them immediately once I found them.
“You should know that in matters of illness, every second counts! However, if they are unwilling to leave contact information, I won’t force them.”
“Um.” Jiang Li responded, her expression flat, saying, “Then it’s troublesome—”
Before she finished speaking, it was as if she sensed something, and she suddenly looked up at the front, her expression growing serious.
Noticing Jiang Li’s change, Tan Qiuming followed her gaze and stepped back in shock upon seeing the sight at the end of the corridor.
Under the illumination of the lights, the originally clean and tidy corridor changed at a visible rate; the wall paint was peeling, and a red, viscous substance seeped out from the wall, dragging streaks of crimson on the pale walls.
Like spreading bl**d vessels, strands of bright red fibers spread out from the areas where the wall was peeling, and a nauseating smell quietly rose in the air.
In the next moment, the lights along the corridor began to go out one by one, and the corridor gradually sank into darkness.
As darkness completely swallowed the corridor, Tan Qiuming saw a shadow abruptly appear from the shadows.
In a yellowed white dress with disheveled long hair, holding a filthy teddy bear head in hand, beneath the head was a spine still attached to bl**d and flesh.
The shadow laughed “giggle giggle,” slowly walking towards them without making a sound—an icy chill crept up Tan Qiuming’s scalp.
Though he had seen various horrifying scenes difficult for ordinary people to accept countless times after waking up from fainting, his naturally exceptional spiritual awareness felt the ominous spiritual energy fluctuation from that shadow as if it was an organ independent of his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, inducing a feeling of fear.
“Gulch—!”
He swallowed hard and softly asked Jiang Li, “Is that, is that one of your colleagues?”
Though he intended to ask if it was a “patient” from a certain ward who had slipped out, he still chose a relatively tactful way to inquire.
What kind of questioning style is this, akin to Luxianbei? Jiang Li cast a glance at Tan Qiuming and said lightly, “No.”
After saying that, she looked up at the approaching shadow and began to silently observe and analyze it.
Is it a member of that unknown force approaching the psychiatric hospital?
Spiritual Energy Fluctuation Level B+, likely a kind of evil spirit’s spirit pattern, and the eerie doll in its hand is probably a kind of spiritual item, which seems to be at a higher level than his own?
With something like that in hand, no wonder it could infiltrate the psychiatric hospital alone; it seems to be a powerful enemy!
Just then, the elevator door suddenly opened not far away.
“Ding—!”
After a tone alert, the elevator doors slowly opened, revealing a pitch-black space behind them, and a weak but bone-chilling cold wind poured out from the elevator.
Then came the sound of tiny footsteps, and a short figure slowly walked out.
With mottled short hair, a hunched back, floral clothes, and a cane made from a tree branch, at first glance, she appeared to be an ordinary old woman.
In the next moment, the old woman slowly turned to look this way, and Tan Qiuming almost instantly covered his mouth with both hands to prevent himself from crying out.
A grotesque scar, like an impassable chasm, divided the old woman’s face into two halves. On the other half of her face, it was swollen and deformed, thick hair grew over it, and several eyes skittered around like startled insects within the hair.
Without further observation, the moment Jiang Li saw the old woman’s front, her breath caught.
She recognized this old woman.
The Gu-Lian Woman, ranked ninety-third on the Siye Society’s red wanted list, was the source of the evil face pattern widely used among Solar Eclipse Society members to control corpses and low-level urban legends.
The second powerful enemy has appeared.
Seeing the Gu-Lian Woman, Jiang Li hesitated not at all and immediately activated the spiritual pattern.
A sharp long kn*fe silently appeared in her hand, followed by a light clink as a set of green armor with vaguely visible scale-like dark patterns covered her body.
Having released the first stage of the spiritual pattern and entering combat mode, she remained vigilant towards the gradually approaching shadow while infusing spiritual energy into the mourning Gray Owl Badge to send information to Lin Kule and Zhong Hui.
“Senior Zhong, Lin Kule, a strong enemy has infiltrated the hospital.”
Before she could transmit the message, a hand quietly reached from behind, bearing a foul spiritual energy fluctuation, stretching towards her neck.
As her spiritual awareness sensed the threat coming from behind, the message transmission was forced to stop. Jiang Li shoved Tan Qiuming aside and suddenly slashed behind her with a kn*fe.
A piercing sound erupted.
The hand, clad in pale gloves, floating behind her, was torn apart by the blade light.
The broken white cloth drifted down, and Jiang Li saw a face that jolted her spirit.
It was a complexion waxy yellow, with exotic features—a face whose thick eyebrows were divided by scars into several sections, with a peculiar-shaped black mole on the forehead, resembling a flower.
This person was not a spiritual ability user or urban legend on the red wanted list, but Jiang Li recognized them.
She would never forget this face.
This person had appeared at Amber Hall, one of her father’s friends who had invited him to Dream Come True Entertainment City!
Seeing the man, past memories almost instantly flooded her mind.
She saw her haggard mother pleading humbly for her father to stay home for dinner that night.
And then she saw her father responding with the fiercest tone, telling her mother to shut up, shoving her away hard, then turning to greet the friends waiting at the door, laughing and linking arms with them, as if those people were his true family.
The next moment, the man’s words further confirmed Jiang Li’s memory.
“Oh, isn’t this old Jiang’s daughter? You’ve grown up! Do you remember me? I’m your dad’s friend; I’ve been to your home.”
Friend? Jiang Li’s heart jolted violently, and she gripped the long kn*fe tightly until her knuckles turned white, her gaze deepening.
In an instant, the long kn*fe slashed out, the blade light flashing like lightning.
On the other side, in a villa on the outskirts of Huacheng.
The light of the computer screen illuminated the living room, transformed to resemble an e-sports room. Accompanied by the sound of slippers scraping against the floor, a somewhat lewd-looking man walked in from the kitchen, one hand holding a bowl of instant noodles and the other a roll of recently opened tissue.
He sat down in front of the computer, placing the noodle bowl on the table. He lit a cigarette and skillfully maneuvered the mouse to check the download progress of several software.
Seeing that the fastest file still had over ten minutes to finish downloading, he pouted disappointedly, placed the roll of tissue aside, and turned to open a chat application, browsing the messages he received while he went to cook noodles.
After reading two or three pages, he suddenly jumped up from the chair as if frightened, unable to help but exclaim.
“d*mn! Did something this big happen while I was just getting noodles?”
On the screen, two different chat windows displayed different messages.
From the First Backyard 1: “Something happened to X God eight months ago; I have leads now!”
From the First Backyard 1: “According to information leaked internally from X God’s followers, eight months ago, X God was attacked by a certain Cataclysm Grade urban legend in Huacheng, sustaining serious injuries, with his powers also affected. From various clues, this Cataclysm Grade urban legend is intricately linked to calamity.”
From the First Backyard 4: “Big brother, the evil god sires’ blog is updated; just now I couldn’t understand what those cultists were saying. I took screenshots and sent them to you; take a look![Image][Image]”
The image sent from “First Backyard 4” displayed a webpage dominated by dark red and black, the atmosphere extremely uncomfortable. In the center of that webpage, a pale small character was written.
[The dispute begins tonight. In chaos, the deluded d*e in pain; the master awakens in thick ink and color, devouring the bones and bl**d of the ancestors, passing by the pious citizens as they descend to the mortal realm.]
“d*mn! Something big happened!” the lewd internet user muttered lowly, sitting back down in front of the computer, pushing the bowl of noodles and tissue aside, halting all download tasks and entering work mode.
