The brain storage area...
"Boom—!"
Outside the window, a pallid bolt of lightning tore through Donghai City's night sky, followed by deafening thunder.
"Qin Feng! Final warning!"
The text message from his landlord on the phone screen was like a death warrant.
"If the rent isn't in my account by midnight tomorrow, I'll toss all your junk straight into the sewers. Feel free to keep dodging rent down there!"
Qin Feng's knuckles turned white from the force of his grip. The zero balance on the screen stabbed at his eyes.
Before he could close his phone, another message came in.
"No, even Donghai City's sewers don't have room for you!!"
He set down his half-eaten, now-cold cup of instant noodles.
To him, his landlady's brief rent demand was more terrifying than the thunder and lightning outside.
"Being poor really is the root of all evil." He sighed and skillfully opened the food delivery rider app, preparing to grind out a few more orders and earn tomorrow's meal money.
Just then, a special order popped up.
[You have an urgent order requiring your attention] Order destination: Fourth Psychiatric Hospital, Donghai City. Delivery deadline: Within 44 minutes. Order notes: None.
What caught Qin Feng's eye most was the unusually generous tip—444 yuan.
"Fourth Psychiatric Hospital? If I remembered right, that place was completely abandoned ten years ago..."
There was something sinister about this order from beginning to end.
Qin Feng's finger hovered over the "Decline" button for half a second, but his gaze drifted involuntarily to the rent demand.
"Damn it. Fortune favors the bold, and evil rises with courage!"
Gritting his teeth, Qin Feng accepted the order. For money, forget an abandoned mental hospital—even hell itself was worth a trip!
He quickly threw on his slightly leaky raincoat, grabbed his helmet, and shot into the torrential rain like an arrow leaving the bow.
His electric bike sped down the deserted streets, its wheels cutting through puddles and sending gray water splashing. The closer he got to the outskirts, the fewer streetlights there were, until he was swallowed entirely by boundless darkness.
The navigation endpoint was the outline of a massive building lying dormant in the dark.
Fourth Psychiatric Hospital, Donghai City.
The rusty wrought-iron gate stood slightly ajar, like a huge maw waiting to devour someone.
The graffiti on the gate—"Mental patients think outside the box, idiots have endless fun"—looked bizarre and mocking in the phone flashlight's ghastly white beam.
A cold wind poured through the gap, carrying the long-sealed stench of rot, mildew, and harsh disinfectant. Like an invisible hand, it clutched his throat.
"The order says it's for Room 404 in the inpatient ward..." Qin Feng looked at the information on his phone, his scalp tingling.
He took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy iron gate. Its creaking echoed far through the deathly silent rainy night.
Inside the inpatient building, there was utter silence.
The corridor was littered with overturned hospital beds and rusted medical equipment.
Large patches of plaster had peeled off the walls, exposing dark red bricks like dried blood scabs.
The beam from his phone flashlight was his only comfort, wavering unsteadily in the darkness.
"Tap... tap... tap..."
Qin Feng's footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, every step seeming to land on a human heartbeat.
He carried the delivery in one hand and tightly gripped his phone in the other. The flashlight beam was his only comfort.
401, 402, 403... The room numbers flashed past his eyes one by one.
At last, he stopped before a door at the end of the corridor.
404.
Unlike the other tightly shut doors, this one was left slightly open, its pitch-black gap seeming to lead to another world.
"Hello, your delivery." Qin Feng called out tentatively. His voice sounded hollow and powerless in the corridor, but there was no response.
After hesitating for a moment, he pushed the door open.
The room was unlit. Only the occasional flash of lightning outside could illuminate the interior. A tall woman stood with her back to him by the window. She wore an old brown trench coat, with a slender figure and black hair cascading down her back.
"Your delivery?" Qin Feng asked again, extending the meal box in his hand.
The woman did not turn around. The air seemed to freeze. The faint scent of blood suddenly became crystal clear, and it was coming from her.
Qin Feng's scalp exploded with prickling terror as a fear rooted in biological instinct seized him.
He wanted to back away, but to his horror, his legs felt filled with lead. He could not move at all!
The air around him turned thick as mercury, crushing the breath from his lungs.
Trench coat, mask, abandoned building... this bizarre scene...
As a seasoned urban legend enthusiast, a freak who could eat three bowls of rice with a horror story, countless fragmented pieces of information collided wildly in his mind before finally forming a name that sent chills through his entire body.
—Slit-Mouthed Woman!
"Delivery boy..." the woman finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse, like sandpaper grinding against rusty metal, every word carrying bone-chilling cold.
She slowly turned around.
A huge white mask covered most of her face, revealing only her eyes. There was no emotion in them, only a dead, hollow emptiness.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" The Slit-Mouthed Woman slowly walked toward him, each step seeming to land on the tip of his heart. "Are you captivated by me, or... afraid of me?"
There was a teasing hint of amusement in her voice, and a trace of laughter seemed to surface in those hollow eyes.
"Working so hard this late at night, you must really need money, right?" Her words slithered into Qin Feng's ears like venomous snakes. "Answer my question. If you answer correctly, perhaps I'll let you die quickly."
She came to stand before Qin Feng. The stench of decay mixed with blood hit him in the face, nearly suffocating him.
"What do you think..."
"Am I... pretty?"
Here it comes! The classic death question!
Qin Feng's mind instantly crashed, terror drowning him like a tidal wave.
I hit the jackpot!
It really is the legendary Slit-Mouthed Woman!
What do I do? What do I do!
According to the legend, whether I say she's pretty or not, I'm dead either way!
If I say "pretty," she'll take off her mask and ask, "Am I still pretty like this?" Then she'll use her scissors to make my mouth look like hers!
If I say "not pretty," she'll fly into a rage and brutally kill me on the spot. Trying to run would be an even quicker death!
"What? Is it that hard to answer?" Seeing Qin Feng remain silent, the Slit-Mouthed Woman let out a low, hair-raising laugh.
Slowly, with malicious pride, she pulled down her mask.
Lightning tore across the sky again.
The ghastly white light instantly illuminated her face—and the horrifying giant mouth split all the way to her ears, filled with fangs!
That was not a human mouth, but a wound so deep that bone showed through. Flesh curled along its edges, and dense, haphazard stitches held it together as though it could split open again at any moment!
Clang— With a piercing screech of metal, a huge pair of rusty scissors nearly half a meter long abruptly appeared in her hand.
Dark red clots of long-dried blood still hung from the tips of the scissors.
The shadow of death descended upon Qin Feng in an unprecedented form.
"I'll give you one last chance." Her voice was filled with the fury of insult. "Am I... pretty?"
His terrified pupils were reflected in the cold scissors. The rusty scent of death mingled with blood, violently flooding his nostrils.
It's over... all for a measly 444 yuan. Is this really how my life ends?
I was poor in a way that shook heaven and earth, and my death is... certainly one of a kind.
Just as the cold scissors were about to touch his cheek—
A cold, emotionless mechanical voice suddenly exploded in his mind like the first light at the dawn of creation!
[Detected a lethal threat... Host meets binding requirements...] [Sin Clearing System...] [...Activating!]
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