Chapter 11

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He became a hostage\n

The office door was locked tightly from the inside. As it was specifically designed to be explosion-proof, Xie Qingcheng and He Yu were unable to knock it down in a single go. Sensing that something was wrong, the recipionistist from the lower floor also rushed up with the key in hand.\n

“There are noises coming from the inside,” He Yu said.\n

Xie Qingcheng violently slammed against the door. In all the years of knowing him, He Yu had never seen such a frightening expression on his face before. It was like his entire person had gone mad and lost his soul as he yelled, “Xie Xue! XIE XUE!! Are you there?! Respond to me if you’re inside!! XIE XUE!!”\n

No one responded to him.\n

There was just the gentle voice of a woman that crooned a strange song from within. “Toss, toss, toss the handkerchief away…….”\n

“K–Key…… Here’s the key!!” The receptionist rushed forward and passed him the key.\n

Xie Qingcheng grabbed it. His hands trembled violently as he struggled to align the key into the keyhole, only managing to succeed after two attempts. Click. The door unlocked after a few turns, and he shoved it open with force. The heavy smell of blood filled the air, and the sight of Xie Xue’s mutilated corpse greeted him immediately!!\n

Xie Qingcheng couldn’t take the blow. Darkness swarmed over his vision. It was as if someone had hit him across the head, or as if the sky had collapsed over his body, causing that tall stature of his to fall forward in an instant. If he hadn’t held onto the door frame in time, he might’ve just ended up kneeling on the floor just like this.\n

The fan was still spinning unsteadily in the room, carrying the thick metallic stench in the air.\n

Xie Qingcheng wasn’t the type of person who fainted at the sight of blood, but at this moment, he seemed like he was about to drown to death in the deep sea of red. He lost clear sight of everything after seeing Xie Xue’s corpse, and his soul left his body before he could even collapse. He started to lose his consciousness, his hearing, his vision, his sense of touch…… Everything became a blur.\n

There seemed to be someone screaming behind him—probably the receptionist who accompanied them up—but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t seem to hear clearly anymore.\n

Only his sense of smell was shockingly clear all of the sudden.\n

The smell of blood fought its way into his sensory organs, wanting to rip his lungs out and tear them apart.\n

He staggered into the room without a care for his life or danger. It didn’t even matter to him if the murderer were to rush up and kill him on the spot.\n

…… That was his sister!!\n

He didn’t know who was murmuring. “Xie Xue…… Xie Xue……”\n

That voice trembled violently.\n

But, it also seemed to be his own broken mumbles that came out of his hoarse throat.\n

“XIE XUE—!!”\n

“Don’t go over!!”\n

Suddenly, someone abruptly grabbed his hand and yanked him back forcefully, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Don’t go over!! Xie Qingcheng!!”\n

He didn’t blink, nor did he try to break free from that person. He just moved forward on his own with surprising strength, already numb to everything else. There were only a handful of people that he cared for in this world……\n

At this moment, it was as if it suddenly started storming in front of him, the rain carrying a metallic scent with it. He stood within it, and for the first time, he witnessed death—\n

In a pool of blood were his dead parents, their corpses mangled from a crash. Half of his mother’s body had been run over and mutilated into a paste-like state, her severed arm rolling to a distance away. He walked towards it, until the arm was right at the tip of his toes.\n

He stared at it with vacant eyes……\n

“Xie Qingcheng! That’s not Xie Xue! Wake up! Take a closer look!!”\n

Those words were like a spell that shattered the demonic illusion of terror, abruptly slamming into his chest and dragging his consciousness out of tremendous fear.\n

He slowly turned his head, focus returning to his peach blossom eyes as he fixed his gaze onto the person who had spoken those words to him.\n

It was……\n

He Yu.\n

He Yu had said those words to him.\n

It’s fake.\n

It’s not real.\n

She isn’t dead……\n

He suddenly returned to his senses and fiercely turned his gaze around—\n

What pierced his sight was still the uniform that belonged to Xie Xue. But on a closer look, he realized that the mutilated corpse did not share the same height or body type as her. The body was dressed with Xie Xie’s Huzhou University uniform, so ill-fitting that the chest area could not be buttoned up…… That was a male corpse!\n

Xie Qingcheng’s knees went weak. It was like the soul that had left his body was forcefully stuffed back in an instant, the brutal impact of it almost too much for him to bear.\n

He closed his eyes to collect himself for a bit, before allowing himself to come ashore from the sea of horror. But his body was already soaked with cold sweat.\n

Normal people wouldn’t have been able to identify a mutilated corpse like that in such a short time.\n

The smell of blood alone would disturb their senses, leaving them unable to keep a clear head.\n

But He Yu was an isolated case of mental illness. He was a patient with a disease known as ‘Mental Ebola’. Among those that suffered from this illness, he was the fourth case, the one with the highest tolerance for the smell of blood.\n

He wasn’t afraid of blood—when he’s in a state of madness, he’s even bloodthirsty.\n

Thus, he was able to determine the identity of the deceased in such a short period of time.\n

He asked ‘Liang Jicheng’ in a cold voice, “Where’s the girl?”\n

‘Liang Jicheng’ raised her head—\n

She really was exactly as Xie Xue’s last message had described—an extremely beautiful woman with an ethereal beauty that transcended time. The years of aging had not left an overly cruel imprint on her face. Her beauty far exceeded other women of the same age.\n

Behind Xie Qingcheng and He Yu, the receptionist who was already so paralyzed with fear that she nearly pissed herself, let out a twisted scream—or rather, a wail—when she saw ‘Liang Jicheng’s’ face.\n

“It’s her!! IT’S HER!!”\n

Just then, a row of security guards who had also rushed up one after another, were frightened out of their wits after witnessing the scene in front of them. Only a few of them shouted—\n

“Jiang Lanpei!!!”\n

“How did she get out?!?!”\n

Jiang Lanpei was a ‘senior’ of the Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital. In a hospital like this, as well as ordinary hospitals and funeral homes, there was an unwritten rule—if no one came to claim an ‘ownerless’ patient or a corpse, they would be referred to as an ‘senior’. \n

Jiang Lanpei had been here for almost twenty years.\n

No one ever came to visit her.\n

Even the file detailing the reason for her admittance was lost when the times started to change and information became digital.\n

Everyone in the Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital only knew that she was a lunatic they couldn’t afford to mess with—because it was the least obvious that she was crazy. Where the others were unkempt and had incoherent speech, she would doll herself up glamorously and could converse normally.\n

But everyone in the hospital knew that although she spoke in a logical sense, the contents of it were all fictional. To put it bluntly, it was lunatic speech spoken normally.\n

“Don’t interact with her more than what’s needed. Leave immediately after you’re done with her treatment. That crazy woman is an expert in compelling others.”\n

From when Liang Zhongkang, the founder of the hospital, established the hospital, all the way until he passed away and his younger brother, Liang Jicheng, and his other business partners took over—this rule had not been changed.\n

The man lying on the ground was the real Liang Jicheng.\n

Jiang Peilan had a sorrowful expression on her face as she stared at the increasing number of people gathering outside. She said, “Don’t call the police.”\n

“Hurry up and call the p—”\n

“Try calling the police and see what happens!”\n

Jiang Peilan swiftly raised the scalpel in her hand, pointing it at everyone in front of her with a maniacal look in her eyes.\n

“I’ve been here for almost twenty years and I’ve had enough! I want to leave right now, I want to go home! My children are still waiting for me!”\n

“S-Since when did you have children, Jiang Peilan?!” The head of security was a gutsy one. He approached her with his hand hovering over his waist and shouted at Jiang Peilan rather nervously, “You don’t have children! You’re all alone! We took care of you for twenty years—”\n

“Bullshit! You guys took care of me for twenty years? You call that taking care of me?! Release me! I want to leave right now! Get out of the way!! All of you, get out of my way!!! Or else….. Or else you’ll NEVER know where the girl is!!”\n

Hearing this, He Yu and Xie Qingcheng’s expressions turned ugly.\n

Xie Qingcheng: “Where is she?!”\n

“Are you taking me for a fool?! Why should I tell you?! They’ll take me away as soon as I tell you!”\n

Xie Qingcheng’s face was ashen. He suddenly thought of something and took a step forward.\n

Jiang Lanpei retreated backwards, pointing the tip of the blade against his chest, the sharp scalpel still dripping with blood. “What are you doing? I told you not to come any closer!”\n

“You caught her to take her as a hostage, didn’t you?”\n

“……”\n

Xie Qingcheng raised his hand, and while staring into her eyes, suddenly grabbed onto the bloodied and sharp blade. Jiang Lanpei screamed as she tried to pull the scalpel out of his hand, causing it to cut into Xie Qingcheng’s palm in an instant. Blood streamed down uncontrollably.\n

“What are you doing—You don’t care about her life anymore? You—”\n

The blade was directed by Xie Qingcheng towards his own chest.\n

Everyone else’s expressions changed.\n

Xie Qingcheng said unblinkingly, “I’ll do it.”\n

Jiang Lanpei froze.\n

Xie Qingcheng slowly let go of his hand that was clutching onto the blade. With a pause between each word, he slowly said, “I’ll replace her. Tell them where she is immediately and let them bring her to me! I’ll wait right here. If anything happens to her, whether you’re really crazy or just pretending to be crazy, I’ll take your fucking life!”\n

Jiang Lanpei considered it for a bit. But her head was in a state of confusion as well, and she couldn’t come up with a decision.\n

The look in Xie Qingcheng’s eyes was too terrifying. The sense of oppression from it managed to leave even a demonic murderer who mutilated corpses like her breathless. Abandoning the other thoughts, she yanked him over with a single pull and pressed the blade against the artery of Xie Qingcheng’s neck.\n

He Yu: “…… Xie Qingcheng!”\n

“That little girl is in B3009, my room.”\n

“We already searched there! Don’t fall for her tricks!” A security guard shouted, “Jiang Lanpei! There’s not a single person in your room!!”\n

Jiang Lanpei sneered, “Move the bed away and you’ll find a loose board underneath. Pry it open and it’ll lead to a tiny dark room. You’d best go over together as there are other surprises waiting for you besides that little girl.”\n

Several security guards made eye contact. Three of them were ready to go.\n

Jiang Lanpei suddenly said, “Wait a minute! …… All of you, take out your phones and toss them to the ground.”\n

“……”\n

All of them could only do as they were told, and one by one, cell phones were thrown onto the ground. After leaving their communication devices behind, the three bodyguards were allowed to go to room B3009 not too far away to look for Xie Xue, while the rest remained.\n

Not long later, the security guards returned.\n

Nobody knew what the three men had witnessed in the dark room, but their faces were all ashen like unevenly mixed half-dried cement. They made a temporary stretcher out of the bedsheet and carried an unconscious Xie Xue over.\n

Xie Qingcheng took a look at Xie Xue and couldn’t bear it.\n

His heart couldn’t bear it.\n

On one hand, he finally felt completely relieved that Xie Xue was indeed okay, and was probably just doused with some kind of medicine that made her pass out. On the other hand, he was crushed because Xie Xue’s clothes were taken off. It was between summer and autumn right now and the weather was very hot. After removing the school uniform, all that’s left were her thin and white-laced underwear.\n

Xie Qingcheng averted his gaze after a glance, and his entire body trembled with anger.\n

He raised his hand—\n

Jiang Lanpei shouted, “What are you doing?! Don’t move!”\n

“That is my fucking sister!” Xie Qingcheng took off his own shirt, and under Jiang Lanpei’s shaky yet stubborn blade, tossed it over to He Yu.\n\n

His eyes were red as he ordered He Yu, “Drape it over her!”\n

He Yu didn’t need to be told twice and had already taken the shirt, covering Xie Xue up with it. He picked her up, her entire body leaning softly in his arms. He Yu turned to Xie Qingcheng and asked, “What about you?”\n

“What do you mean, what about me?!” Xie Qingcheng said in a harsh tone, “What else can I do? Bad things happen whenever I meet you. Why didn’t you read Cinderella back then? Eat the poison inside it like its candy and let yourself get poisoned to death!”\n

He Yu’s eyes narrowed all of a sudden.\n

He knew what Xie Qingcheng’s seemingly grudgeful words against him meant.\n

But he knew that Jiang Lanpei wouldn’t know.\n

Jiang Lanpei said, “All of you, follow me up to the roof.”\n

“Once we get to the roof, I’ll let him go.”\n

Any other murderer who took a hostage and wanted to escape would say, “Get me a car. Don’t call the police. I’ll let the hostage go after driving away.” But this Jiang Lanpei was indeed a lunatic that appeared to be normal. Instead of going down, she actually wanted to go up.\n

Could there be a helicopter on the rooftop?\n

But since those were her orders, the rest could only do as they were told.\n

Jiang Lanpei said, “Go! You guys go ahead! Walk in front! Go all the way to the rooftop! Hurry up and go!”\n

She urged them to go up one by one, and only when everyone went up did she carefully make her way up with Xie Qingcheng in tow.\n

Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital was located in the middle of nowhere, far away from the city. There weren’t many lights on the rooftop, and the night breeze was strong, drying the cold sweat off everyone’s bodies and raising goosebumps in its wake instead.\n

Jiang Lanpei ordered everyone to be seated some distance away from her while she retreated next to the water tower with the scalpel still held threateningly against Xie Qingcheng’s neck.\n

Xie Qingcheng said, “What’s your purpose?”\n

“I’ve said that my purpose was to escape!”\n

“That’s not your purpose.”\n

Jiang Lanpei said, “What do you know? The people in the sky will come and get me……” The blade was pressed tightly against Xie Qingcheng’s skin, and blood was already trickling down.\n

She stood on her tiptoes and whispered to Xie Qingcheng, “You’ll all have to die by then.”\n

After confirming that Xie Xue was safe, Xie Qingcheng was entirely calm and clear-headed. His own life meant nothing to him indeed.\n

He said coldly to Jiang Lanpei, “If that’s the case, how about you just kill me now? Anyway, as you’ve said, we’ll all have to die in the end.”\n

“You—!”\n

“You don’t dare to kill?”\n

“……”\n

“What are you waiting for? The people in the sky? Where are the people in the sky? The fog is so thick that there aren’t even any stars.”\n

Jiang Lanpei said ambiguously, “All you have to do is wait.”\n

While she spoke, she probably felt that her physical strength couldn’t keep up anymore. After all, she was a woman around the age of fifty and not only did she have to tiptoe to threaten Xie Qingcheng, but she also had to focus some of her energy into keeping an eye on the others. She couldn’t stand much more. Thus, she scanned the surroundings of the area near the water tower and found a rope used for construction and maintenance purposes. She used her foot to pull the rope over without dropping the blade from Xie Qingcheng’s throat.\n

Then, she began to tie him up. She solidly restrained him against the water tower, tying several knots around him.\n

Xie Qingcheng gave a cold chuckle, “You’re rather skilled. Were you practicing this for twenty years in the asylum?”\n

It seemed as if he had touched a sore spot. Pah! She slapped him harshly across the face and spat, “Shut up.”\n

After tying him up, she backed up a few steps and finally breathed a sigh of relief.\n

Her eyes glimmered with hate. “Men like you are all beasts.”\n

Behind them, the security guards couldn’t help but whisper among themselves. The one who wasn’t involved in rescuing Xie Xue asked the three that were involved, “Was there really a secret room in Jiang Lanpei’s room?”\n

The look on those three security guards’ faces was much worse than the rest. Two of them seemed to be totally out of it, staring at Jiang Lanpei with immense fear in their eyes.\n

Only one of them could barely respond, “Yes.”\n

“What was inside it?”\n

—What was inside it?\n

Those three guards shivered in unison.\n

Before they even had a chance to speak, Jiang Lanpei heard them and slowly turned back with the sharp scalpel in hand.\n

She smiled. “What was it?”\n

The hatred in her smile gradually burned up like a blaze, the smoke and fire seeming to materialize at this very moment—\n

“What’s inside? Haha…… hahaHAHA…… IT’S LOVE! It’s a very, very special kind of intimate love……! RIGHT?” Jiang Lanpei’s expression twisted. She was indeed a lunatic.\n

The only one of the three security guards who could still speak held his head in his hands. He was quite old and had a daughter, so he spoke woefully. “Liang Jicheng raped and sullied her.”\n

“!!!”\n

“It’s been more than ten years…… He did it every night without caring about the state of her body…… Each night, Liang Jicheng would leave a picture of it in that dark room. When you enter, in all directions, there are……”\n

“Not only that.” Jiang Lanpei leisurely laughed, “You saw that skeleton in the corner, right?”\n

“……”\n

“That was a little snack Liang Jicheng brought,” she said to them with a whispering gesture. Her voice was very loud and hoarse, however, like a crow in mock mourning. “He was afraid of eating it outside and dropping snack crumbs, afraid that the scent would provoke the cat! So he brought the person to the mental hospital. My room had always had a secret room that only he and his brother knew of. Then, they ate the snack…… The little girl couldn’t stand the humiliation, so she ran into the wall and died!”\n

With every sentence she spoke, the look of horror deepened on those who were listening. \n

Only He Yu’s face remained steadily calm.\n

While Xie Qingcheng grew even more furious. \n

“The snack killed itself. They couldn’t throw it in the trash, so they left it in the secret room and used some sulfuric acid to deal with it. The flesh dissolved very quickly, and soon enough, not even much bone was left….. But they still saved some to show me, to scare me. They told me to not seek death, for I will suffer the same fate.” As Jiang Lanpei recalled these things, her mind was aggravated and her brain was a bit muddled, so her speech began to break—but the madness on her face did not lessen even a bit.\n

“I pretended to be afraid, catering to them every day…… and then, he died…… and there was only his brother…… yuck! That brother was even more disgusting than him, a complete and utter lecher……”\n

“Why didn’t you tell us?! Why didn’t you let us call the police?!?!”\n

The little nurse couldn’t listen to it anymore, her eyes full of tears. “We can help you if you have called the police!”\n

“Who would believe my words! I’m a lunatic! A LUNATIC!! They told you not to talk to me! To stay as far away from me as possible! You just give me pills every day! Told me to take my pills! Brushing me off! Has anyone ever listened to me? Has anyone ever believed my words?!?!” Jiang Lanpei shouted angrily, “I am mentally ill! That’s why I’m a beast in your eyes! There’s no need to listen carefully, no need to be sincerely concerned—what do I dare to tell you? If I have told you guys, Liang Jicheng would have turned around and killed me!”\n

B3006 is like a rusty furnace with nearly twenty years of desires and sins floating inside.\n

Because they were ill, there was always a biased judgment in the eyes of normal people. Between a crazy woman and the director of the mental hospital, anyone would choose to believe the latter. Slowly, the secret room under the woman’s bed became a spider’s nest where the sun does not shine, with women’s flesh rotting on the cobwebs.\n

“You disgust me.”\n

\n“I HATE ALL OF YOU!!”\n

After Jiang Lanpei said that, the light in her eyes became even more frightening. Clutching her head, her voice gradually softened.\n

“No one can help me…… I have long…… I have long since forgotten who I am and where I came from…… I can only…… I can only return to heaven.”\n

She jerked her head up to look at them.\n

“All of you will have to accompany me.”\n

As her words ended, she suddenly noticed one of the security guards looking at her oddly, seemingly revealing some kind of nervousness that should not be there. She froze for a second, then suddenly realized and turned back abruptly—\n

At the same time, she felt a strong gust of wind rushing towards her face! She was able to barely avoid it, but was immediately pressed down on the rough concrete floor of the rooftop by the other party’s long legs. She stared incredulously at the topless man, with strong thin shoulders and a stern look in the background of the cloudy night sky.\n

“That knot, you…… How can you possibly……”\n

“I forgot to mention,” Xie Qingcheng said icily. “My parents were both police officers. This knot of yours is fucking child’s play to me.”\n

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The author has something to say:\n

If there are baobeis that saw the trailer I edited… uh, Jiang Lanpei is the ‘Luo Fuling’ in the video. I later felt the name Luo Fuling sounded too ancient, so I changed it… ah but don’t pay too much attention to the supporting characters in the video, they might not get much screen time. I just wanted to fill up the screen to make it look more complete… lalalala~

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