The Woman with a Fetish for Objects

"That's right, my hearing is pretty good, I think... I didn't mishear." Yu Xing looked in the direction the little girl ran out, a half-smile on her face.

The little girl on the radio had mentioned that the guests might meet her, but the entire night mode passed and no one mentioned encountering the little girl, so many people forgot about it.

No matter how heartbroken the little girl in the ward was, or how distorted the voice of the little girl on the radio was, her timbre was still recognizable.

"There are very few ghostly children in the Fear Hospital. I haven't seen the little girl from earlier in the previous episodes." Clearly, Shafuri had done her homework well. She recalled for a moment and felt that Yu Xing was right; the voice sounded more and more like her.

She guessed, "Since there's no need for a broadcast this time, the little girl has turned back into an ordinary ghost, wandering around the hospital like other ghosts?"

"Or maybe she deliberately let us meet, wanting to give us some information?" The siren actually thought quite well of the little girl.

"It's all possible... You said she came to deliver a message, so what did you figure out?" Seizing the opportunity, Shafuri began to pose questions to her apprentice.

"..." The siren sighed softly, "If this premise is correct, then she should be the kind of ghost that can be communicated with, and more inclined to be neutral?"

Yu Xing largely agreed with this.

Based on the concept of ghosts and monsters, the little girl on the radio is undoubtedly the most unique one.

Not only is she in a "ghostly awakening state" that is only present in Dusk Mode during night mode, but she can also speak, has her own thoughts, and can even take over the dean's broadcasting duties.

It's important to understand that the Fear Hospital is a reflection of the director's psyche. It's perfectly normal for the director to exist in a non-existent broadcasting station and be able to see the location of every guest. When the director's presence is not needed, he is like an abstract concept, invisible and intangible, because he is the controller of the Fear Hospital.

Even those monsters that were harmful to him were merely illusions caused by his inner fear, making him unable to resist their attacks. In short, it was all an illusion, and all the guests' efforts were just to break through this illusion.

So, what was the little girl's role in entering the "broadcasting station" and issuing tasks on behalf of the dean?

She was definitely not an unexpected presence. Considering the fire that killed the dean's wife, the dean must have had a daughter.

Yu Xing felt that the little girl who broadcast on behalf of the dean was very likely the dean's daughter. However, when the dean began to be dominated by his delusions, neither the scenes that he and Zhao Yijiu saw directly in front of the dean nor the clues collected by Ren Yi mentioned the existence of the dean's daughter again.

Then the logic makes sense.

The little girl is the director's daughter. She was protected by her mother once and became a symbol of the director's perseverance after her mother's death.

But one day, the little girl still died, probably from malice; the knife marks on her face were proof enough.

As a result, the dean began to doubt his past practice of treating others without distinguishing between good and evil, and began to exhibit delusional symptoms, which led to the various tragedies that followed.

In the dean's heart, after his daughter died, no one would ever braid her hair again, and his daughter must be having a very hard time in the other world.

Yu Xing mentally pieced together a logical chain: guilt and remorse, coupled with the blessing of the source power, gave the little girl's ghostly image an extraordinary status.

Perhaps, once he can find support and evidence for his idea, the final clues will be complete.

He shared his guess with the Shafuri Saffron, leaving the two women deep in thought.

However, they didn't think about it for too long. The little girl's matter could be left to Ren Yi, Zhao Mou, and other intellectually gifted deducers to think about. They still needed to find the "cripple"!

I pushed the door open a crack and looked outside again; the ghost of the patient's family member was gone.

The corridor was empty, which was perfect for them to go to other wards to find their mission targets.

Yu Xing urgently needed to communicate with Zhao Mou and the others after completing the mission, because the information that Shafuri and the Siren knew must be an abridged version.

He said, "Let's split up; it'll be more efficient. Whoever finds the target, if they can handle it, then handle it; if they can't, then leave the ward and find someone else to work with."

When you're weak, splitting up is practically suicide. But if you're not too afraid of ghosts, then splitting up to improve efficiency isn't a big deal.

Shafuri nodded, then said to the siren, "Stay with me and don't wander off."

The ghosts in the Fear Hospital vary in strength. The headless nurse and the one-eyed Doctor are relatively weak, but the ghosts of the patients in their individual rooms on the second floor are a different story.

Shafuri was confident she could suppress all the ghosts on this level, but the Siren wasn't. She was still Struggle Level at the same level as Yu Xing and didn't have that much confidence.

As for Yu Xing... Yu Xing is an exception.

At this moment, Siren and Shafuri acted together, Yu Xing went in another direction alone, and the three officially separated.

They were all quite cautious, because no one could guarantee that the ghost of the dean wouldn't come down from the fourth floor.

Yu Xing efficiently surveyed the wards. Most of the wards were occupied by ghosts, while some were empty, presumably because they had gone out for some exercise.

He can sense ghostly energy and retreat before each ghost becomes angry and attacks him, ensuring that he doesn't cause a commotion or attract unnecessary trouble.

After checking five wards without encountering any ghosts like the little girl who wouldn't let anyone leave, Yu Xing quickly pushed open the door to the sixth ward and found that the ward's decoration style was very unique.

There is no normal place in the twilight; it's either stained with blood or a chaotic mess, stained with knife marks and handprints. In short, whether in the macro or micro sense, it must exude a strong sense of distortion and unease.

But this ward was different. Apart from the white hospital bed in the middle, there was no trace of a "patient" in it. Instead, it looked like an exquisite little exhibition hall.

The patient wasn't in the room. I don't know where the patient got a completely transparent glass cabinet. The cabinet was divided into many small compartments, and most of the compartments contained the same item, which shimmered in the setting sun.

Yu Xing stopped in her tracks, gazing at this peculiar scene, and roughly understood. "This is it."

He carefully closed the ward door before coming to the cabinet to examine it closely.

Not everything in the cabinet was pretty or valuable; in the compartment directly opposite Yu Xing's face, there was only a round coin.

It was an ordinary coin, nothing special, but it looked a bit odd next to the pen on the left and the doll on the right.

"They stole quite a few," Yu Xing murmured. These things might just be meaningless objects to others, but in the eyes of the owner of this hospital room, they could probably be considered "lovers."

Fetishism is a medical condition, so it's understandable.

But it's really rare to like so many things at once.

They carefully preserved all the stolen items, and the things that the patient in the ward where Zhao Mou was originally staying lost should also be in this glass cabinet.

He glanced at it briefly, then his attention was suddenly drawn to the goldfish bowl next to him. The small goldfish bowl looked like it had been brought in hastily and carelessly, with several colorful little fish floating inside.

They lay motionless, flipped over on their sides in the water, only their tails swaying gently with the current.

They were all dead fish.

Yu Xing recalled a ward she had just passed by, where there was a meticulously maintained aquarium with lush aquatic plants, good lighting and oxygen levels, but no fish.

Judging from this fetishist's habits, she only steals other people's cherished things. It's likely that she found this incongruous fish tank after stealing the fish, and the fish were probably already dead before she found it.

What she liked wasn't the actual object; what she was infatuated with was the perverse pleasure she felt after stealing someone else's cherished possession.

With a pursed lip, Yu Xing had a very bad impression of this patient. He refocused his attention and searched through the glass cabinet.

He told Shafuri and the Siren that what was stolen from the patient was probably identification or something similar, and that he wasn't just making things up.

Because he had some suspicions about the patient's identity, he believed that the patient, who seemed perfectly healthy, was most likely a "reporter" who had infiltrated the hospital after hearing rumors about it.

The item he referred to was the only thing on his reporter's ID that could prove he wasn't sick, yet had the motive to sneak in.

Why do I think this way? Because such things have indeed happened in society, especially in mental hospitals in the past.

A mental hospital was found to be abusing patients. Someone secretly infiltrated the hospital to investigate, but the investigation was exposed. The infiltrator was then treated as a real patient by the hospital, which cut off all communication between the infiltrator and the outside world. Whenever the infiltrator tried to ask for help, the hospital would accuse him of "talking nonsense to escape from the hospital."

There are even more frustrating situations where children or adults who have been framed are sent to mental hospitals by their own relatives. Because the families have bribed them with ill intentions, the hospitals are even less likely to let these people leave.

It can be said that in a certain era in the past, mental hospitals, as institutions that could treat human mental illnesses, took advantage of the information gap that the general public knew very little about them and did many heinous things.

Although the era of Fear Hospital is probably not that long ago, and it's not primarily about mental illness, given the way so many tragedies are crammed into these places, it's not impossible for another example like this to emerge.

Even if it's not reporter's ID, it should be something like a power of attorney, which isn't hard to find among such a large collection of "collectibles".

Twenty seconds later, Yu Xing successfully found a small red booklet in the lower right corner. The booklet was facing up and had five Chinese characters written on it, "Reporter's ID".

The grid on it is a tasseled mask. I don't know where this fetishist stole it from, but the notebook is very inconspicuous under the cover of the tassels. If Yu Xing hadn't had good eyesight, she really wouldn't have been able to find it so quickly.

Reporter's ID cannot be obtained through examination; it can only be applied for and is uniformly issued by the General Administration of Press and Publication. Once this card is presented, the outside world will certainly recognize that person's journalist status and question the hospital's explanation.

This reporter was just incredibly unlucky; when he couldn't take it anymore and decided to end the undercover investigation, his reporter's ID was stolen.

Yu Xing looked at it; the glass cabinet door only had one lock, and if it was opened, all the items could be taken away.

He went around to the side, grabbed the lock, and discovered it was a combination lock.

Four-digit combination locks, commonly found on rotary knob locks.

"Hmm..." Yu Xing hadn't seen any clues related to numbers since he entered the room. He tried to match the items displayed in the glass cabinet with numbers using his visual thinking, but after two or three attempts, he still couldn't find the correct password.

"It seems the password is with the fetishist." Yu Xing glanced at the door, then summoned the Sheqing Dreamscape and brutally slammed it against the U-shaped lock. This lock was much sturdier than cheap locks in reality; the dagger, which could cut through iron like mud, couldn't cut it in one piece, leaving only a large notch.

It seems that the lock is subject to some kind of rule.

As soon as he did that, Yu Xing felt a faint sense of being watched, as if something had suddenly noticed him and his actions.

"Oh wow, there's actually a connection between the fetishist and her glass cabinet?" Yu Xing raised an eyebrow. No wonder the fetishist doesn't need to stay indoors; it turns out she's not afraid of being robbed.

He made a gesture of protecting the dagger to his side, pretending to look around warily, and then persistently went to chop at the lock again, seemingly trying to take advantage of the owner of the cabinet to forcibly break the lock and steal the items.

A chill rose from Yu Xing's feet, and then Yu Xing felt an icy hand cling to his calf, the sharp nails almost digging into his flesh.

He was startled and looked down to see a woman kneeling on the ground. The woman had long, smooth hair, but it covered half of her face, revealing her youthful appearance.

She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't exactly beautiful either. However, when the woman looked at Yu Xing with an almost pleading gaze, Yu Xing noticed his muscles spasm. An unseen force enveloped him, rendering him unable to move.

If he doesn't resist using the power of the curse.

"Could you... not take them away?" The woman knelt down, her red lips uttering clear human words. Her eyes were fixed on Yu Xing, and one hand was still gripping Yu Xing's leg through her pants.

Yu Xing, unaware that her speech was being restricted, replied, "These things don't belong to you; they should be returned to their owners."

"But... I love them. If you take them away from me, I'll die..." the woman pleaded. "And those people will only be sad for a while without them, but I will die. Please, have pity on this sick person..."

Yu Xing watched as she feigned pitifulness while secretly stealing the Sheqing Dreamscape, and a smile crept onto his lips.