“My mental state has problems, I always experience hallucinations…”
Ke Su described his condition, his voice steady.
When Ke Su’s voice trailed off, the consultation room fell silent. The doctor, wearing transparent lenses, sat behind the desk, and his expression was obscured by the reflections from his glasses. All Ke Su could see was a hand on the desk holding a large bundle of cotton, which trembled slightly.
Ke Su glanced curiously at the cotton in the doctor’s hand but, out of respect for others’ privacy, withdrew his gaze, guessing it might be medical disinfectant cotton.
Seeing the doctor remain silent, Ke Su thought he hadn’t been detailed enough in his description and decided to elaborate further on his condition, mainly focusing on the fact that he had recently been having the illusion of eating delicious food.
Perhaps having opened the floodgates of conversation, the socially anxious Ke Su, who hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time, surprisingly mentioned another troubling issue he had been facing recently.
That was, he suspected he had a tendency toward pica, occasionally watching astronomy documentaries while eating, as he felt the stars and celestial bodies within looked very appetizing, especially the sun. He always thought it was warm and felt that taking a bite would certainly release steaming hot soup like a soup dumpling.
As the doctor listened to Ke Su’s description, he trembled inexplicably even more, almost as if he had Parkinson’s disease. The entire Puppet Hospital seemed to shake slightly, as if it had experienced an earthquake. Some of the more rational entities in the hospital looked up but, finding no anomalies, continued to wander around.
“…these symptoms seem to have started only this year; I didn’t have this situation last year…”
Inside the consultation room, Ke Su did not notice the doctor’s odd behavior. He recalled the past with distress and confirmed that he indeed had not exhibited such symptoms last year.
However, as he spoke, he began to feel that these symptoms were quite severe; he hadn’t felt it at first, but upon reflection, he realized these abnormal situations were happening far too frequently.
It was likely that he had stayed at home for too long. The result of long-term isolation from others was this: his mind had fallen into an abnormal state where he wanted to eat everything he saw. He was genuinely afraid that one day he would find himself liking to eat people.
Thinking of this, Ke Su sighed despondently and glanced at the doctor, feeling too embarrassed to tell him that in his eyes, he looked like a dry, moldy piece of black rye bread that had been left out for a week, which was utterly unappetizing.
The doctor trembled under Ke Su’s gaze, his hand shaking as he knocked over a water cup on the desk. However, he ignored the cup and instead forced a stiff smile, revealing a grin so exaggerated that it showed his gums, akin to a nurse's, as he stammered out a few words.
“Y-You’re very healthy, there’s nothing that needs treatment…”
The doctor’s face was white as a sheet.
Ke Su vaguely heard a disturbing sound coming from the doctor, which made him irritably rub his forehead.
Having come all the way to the hospital, he had expected the doctor to provide professional treatment advice, but instead, he received this diagnosis that seemed almost dismissive. Ke Su felt a bit regretful for trying to save a bit of money by coming to this hospital.
But since he had already paid the registration fee, he didn’t want to leave empty-handed. He thought for a moment, lowered his head to fiddle with his phone, and raised it in the doctor’s increasingly dazed gaze.
“However, when I entered relevant information online, you diagnosed me with—an existing possibility of schizophrenia and advised me to come see you.”
Ke Su pointed at the chat interface on his phone, where the name of the online psychologist matched the name on the doctor’s badge in front of him: Wang Dashan.
The doctor looked at the lines of enticing words he had typed himself on the phone screen, trembling even more, and stammered, “N-No, those are just guidelines for patients from the hospital’s specialized customer service. You actually don’t have any illness…”
The doctor’s voice, twisted and sickly sweet to the point of causing nausea, directly revealed that everything online was just a scam and that what he said was false.
Ke Su slowly frowned, looking at the doctor who was being stubborn and refusing to treat him, feeling a bit angry. He said displeased, “At least explain the reasons for my symptoms!”
Ke Su had also suspected he might be overthinking things, but these abnormal occurrences were indeed happening to him, and he couldn’t force himself to pretend everything was fine.
Especially after dying from sudden death in his previous life, he had become sensitive to these mild symptoms of illness, fearing they might be a precursor to something serious.
Moreover, before coming here, Ke Su had researched the psychological treatment process in hospitals and was roughly aware of how it worked. The doctor opened his mouth to say he had no illness without bothering to inquire further or assess his mental state, clearly not taking him, the patient, seriously at all.
Listening to Ke Su’s increasingly cold tone, the doctor’s eyes behind the lenses, devoid of any highlights, reflected a menacing darkness and chaos. In anger, it revealed a glimpse of divine power to him, an eerie and indescribable horror.
In an instant, he froze in place, not daring to speak, lowering his head in trembling silence. The entire Puppet Hospital fell quiet; it was so silent that even a pin dropping to the ground could be heard. It was like a quail terrified by something terrifying and indescribable, huddled in place, too scared to move.
Though he didn’t know why such a terrifying presence had come here or why it asked such a life-threatening question, instinctively, it chose silence, sensing it was the safest response.
Ke Su sat in his chair, expressionless as he waited for a while. Seeing the doctor still silent, he realized he would likely leave disappointed today and no longer wanted to waste time with this irresponsible doctor. Just as he was about to get up to leave, he suddenly heard a knock on the door from outside.
The knocking stopped after three knocks, maintaining a consistent force. The sound passed through the thick wooden door and into the consultation room, seeming to patiently wait for someone to respond.
Ke Su listened to the knocking and called out to the next likely patient outside, “Please wait a moment; I’ll be right out.”
Thud—
The cadaver-like, pitch-black humanoid creature outside the door stopped its knocking. For the first time, the “knocking-to-kill” rule encountered an unknown, powerful resistance, causing it to tremble in confusion and unease.
It stood frozen in place, facing humanity, where a surge of malice seemed to have plunged into a sticky swamp made of the world’s evil thoughts, trapping it within, unable to escape, slowly decaying in the murky chaos and darkness that intertwined.
Pat-pat—
Flesh and blood fell.
The cadaver creature was covered in a thick, oil-like liquid, melting away. It opened its mouth wide, revealing a dark cavity, producing a soundless scream of terror, leaving behind a pool of filthy liquid exuding a foul odor on the smooth marble floor.
At that moment, Ke Su happened to open the door, looking at the liquid on the floor, feeling confused for a moment, he stepped around it and walked out of the consultation room.
The patient outside was gone; perhaps they had left due to impatience.
Ke Su didn’t care much about this; he was pondering where to go for medical treatment next. Should he get a full body check-up? Speaking of which, the original host was accustomed to doing annual check-ups, but ever since the original host committed suicide, he had not gone to the hospital for an examination in order to save money. It seemed that one should not hold on to a mindset of luck.
Ke Su walked toward the elevator while behind him, the doctor in the psychological consultation room remained frozen, peering through the crack of the door, his body twitching as cotton fell from him, secretly observing Ke Su’s every move.
As soon as Ke Su stepped into the elevator, he finally relaxed, and the entire Puppet Hospital seemed to let out a sigh of relief, preparing to escape this dangerous building. The entities housed within the hospital remained oblivious, wandering without receiving any notice.
The Puppet Hospital had no obligation to do so; in order to buy time for its escape, it even deliberately drove the entities toward Ke Su, attempting to delay for a moment.
Then, the puppet doctor, having lost a considerable amount of cotton, dragged his much withered body away from the psychological consultation room, having developed a psychological shadow from this experience.
However, just as the Puppet Hospital was ready to escape, it discovered a layer of gray mist enveloping its exterior. Inside the mist was swirling chaos and darkness, the Nameless Mist enshrouding the displeasure of the divine, surrounding anything that dared to provoke the deity, gradually isolating it from reality, even the Puppet Hospital, which was adept at traversing through space, could find no exit.
The [Doll Hospital], preparing to flee with their families: "..."
Outside Renai Hospital, everyone saw a sudden mist gradually envelop the building. The visibility quickly decreased, and the 30-story tall hospital structure became faintly visible in the mist, resembling the netherworld from ancient legends, filled with unspeakable terror.
"This... why does it look so much like the Nameless Mist?"
A senior agent frowned, recalling a scene from not long ago when an entire city was engulfed in a thick fog. That memory was still vivid in their mind.
"Could it be that this Doll Hospital attracted the Nameless Mist? Both are classified as S-grade, so we don’t know whether they will clash like some other S-grade paranormal events, or if they might complement each other..."
Zhao Gang also pondered. It wasn't unheard of for paranormal events to conflict with each other. Sometimes, this could be beneficial to humanity, with two events counterbalancing each other, falling into a stalemate, making it easier for the Special Incident Department to contain and secure them.
However, more often than not, they would complement each other. Some paranormal events, which originally had fatal flaws, would merge with another event to form an extremely terrifying new entity. After such a fusion, the new paranormal entity would be beyond any previous understanding, becoming a particularly difficult existence to handle.
"...Senior! Please let me in! I beg you! I don’t need anyone else to accompany me. I will take full responsibility for my actions! Even if I die in there, it doesn’t matter. I just want to save Wan’er!!!"
Looking at the increasingly dense fog ahead, Zhang Yun had a bad feeling. She knew that the hospital was becoming more dangerous, and that her little niece was most likely in grave danger. However, her sense of responsibility and guilt toward her family led her to choose to go in and save her niece.
Her eyes were red, and she stared intensely into Zhao Gang’s eyes, pleading with him.
Zhao Gang frowned, clearly moved. He had always admired Zhang Yun's pure heart—the willingness to protect others at any cost was the kind of spirit that agents should have. It was also the most precious quality of a normal human being.
However, he couldn’t just stand by and watch such a promising recruit walk to her death, especially in a situation where two S-grade paranormal events were potentially merging. Any living person entering would inevitably meet a fatal end.
But Zhang Yun's reasons made it hard to refuse her. A child, so young, trapped in such a horrifying paranormal event... Zhao Gang’s rational mind told him to stop her, but what came out of his mouth was agreement.
"Thank you, Senior!!!" Zhang Yun was overwhelmed with joy, tears streaming down her face. Zhao Gang watched as she eagerly prepared to enter the mist. He sighed, unable to control his compassionate heart. After some thought, he handed Zhang Yun a few tools, one of which was a specially designed black USB drive, capable of projecting holographic images.
"Do not use this USB drive unless it's absolutely necessary. This is a new product from headquarters, still in development, and its side effects are unclear. So, I suggest you only use it in life-or-death situations. Once you’re inside, be careful of everything!" Zhao Gang said seriously, full of heartfelt advice.
Zhang Yun nodded vigorously. After fully preparing, she armed herself and stepped into the thick fog enveloping Renai Hospital, disappearing into the dense mist, never to be seen again.
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