The glass only reflected a faint, blurry outline in the sunlight.
He got up and walked closer.
Below the window was a carefully manicured lawn, evergreen trees, and, in the distance, a tall wrought-iron fence with spear-like points.
But that wasn't what Hu Long cared about. It was the reflection in the glass.
As he approached, the reflection gradually grew clearer: dry, disheveled hair falling to the shoulders, and a blurry, gaunt face. This was what his body had originally looked like.
The body was only twenty-one years old, yet it looked closer to sixty. That was because its health was so poor: its skin was pallid, and it was so thin that its face looked skeletal.
But that wasn't what Hu Long cared about.
His gaze lowered, searching deeper.
Behind his reflected shoulder.
There should have been nothing there but an empty corner of the wall.
But now, an extremely out-of-place figure stood there, a vivid shade of green.
Because of the glass, it was blurry, as if veiled in mist. He could only make out the silhouette of a woman with her hair in a bun, adorned with a white-and-green hairpin.
She stood motionless, her back to him and her figure slender.
The moment Hu Long made out that flash of green, the light around him seemed to dim abruptly.
At the same time, a chill came out of nowhere and suddenly wrapped around him.
Cold and clammy, it carried a distinctly inhuman malice.
It felt as if a venomous snake were slowly tightening its coils around him.
Hu Long could clearly feel every inch of his skin breaking out in a dense layer of goosebumps.
The instant his gaze settled on it,
the figure in the corner blurred for a moment.
Its vivid green seemed to darken, turning deep green.
At the same time, it began to tremble without warning. Its bowed head jerked upward.
Then, at an angle no human could possibly manage, it twisted stiffly toward Hu Long.
In the next instant, a bloodied, mangled face burst into view.
Its features were twisted and intermingled like melted wax, with only two pitch-black hollows staring straight at him.
In a flash,
Hu Long's scalp seemed to explode. His vision filled with countless white specks like static, and a wave of dizziness and nausea rose within him.
His survival instinct drove him to look away at once. He didn't dare look for even half a second longer.
Almost the moment he turned away, the cold, clammy feeling enveloping him receded like a tide and vanished completely.
The hospital room fell silent again. Only his own heavy breathing echoed in his ears like the pounding of a drum.
After a moment, the flickering white specks in front of him, like static from an old television with a poor signal, slowly faded.
The sunlight coming through the window seemed to have lost its warmth.
Hu Long didn't look at the glass again. Instead, he turned to look at the corner where the green figure had stood in the reflection.
There was nothing there.
With the original owner's memories, he understood that the ghostly thing could only be seen through a reflection.
At the thought, Hu Long's expression didn't improve. If anything, it darkened.
So it's still here...
Is it a ghost? Or some kind of... curse?
Though the glass had blurred the reflection as if a layer of mist had veiled it, Hu Long knew from the original owner's lingering memories that the appearance of this thing
had caused the original owner's mind to gradually break down.
It was also the culprit that had made him into what others saw as "a patient with persecutory delusions."
If all it did was inspire that eerie sense of horror, that would have been one thing.
He could simply avoid looking at it and ignore it.
But things weren't that simple.
This thing wasn't a hallucination. Ignoring it would never be enough to escape it.
As time passed, it would grow more powerful, inching closer, step by step, until it eventually broke into reality, wrapped its black hair around him, bound him, and strangled him to death.
That was how the original owner had died.
Hu Long had thought that after the original owner died, the ghostly thing would disappear with him.
But now, it seemed that wasn't the case. It was still here.
This was undoubtedly the worst possible outcome.
In a way, it meant that, barring some unforeseen circumstance, once the time came, he would follow in the original owner's footsteps and be killed by it.
Fortunately, there was one piece of good news: after the original owner died, the thing seemed to have triggered some kind of mechanism. It had reset, returning to its original state, and was still some distance away from him.
Just as it had been when the original owner first saw it in his memories.
It had taken nearly four years from the original owner's first sighting of the thing to his death.
By that reasoning, Hu Long still had a fair amount of time. He wouldn't die right away.
However, that was only his assessment. He still needed to observe it to find out whether it was true.
In the end, this thing was a ticking time bomb. It would be best to defuse it as soon as possible.
Hu Long hated feeling powerless, but for now, he had no way to change things.
He took a deep breath.
He quelled the emotions churning in his eyes and pulled his thoughts back.
Then, he turned his gaze toward the door.
Two sets of footsteps sounded faintly in the corridor, approaching.
Then they stopped outside the iron door.
Click!
A key turned, and the door swung open.
Two figures entered the room, one after the other.
"Room 301, time for your medication."
The person in front was a nurse in a white uniform, pushing a cart.
Behind her followed a burly male orderly wearing a mask.
As soon as they entered, both of them spotted Hu Long sitting on the bed.
The orderly came over and grabbed Hu Long's arm.
Hu Long, who had just finished absorbing some of the original owner's memories, didn't resist.
With his body in its current condition, resisting would have been pointless.
The nurse glanced at the young man in surprise.
His eyes were vacant, as if he were lost in thought. He seemed much calmer than usual.
"Take your medicine."
Seeing that Hu Long wasn't resisting and thrashing around as he usually did, the nurse relaxed a little.
She took out two capsules and put them in his mouth, then gave him some water. After making sure he had swallowed them, she checked that he hadn't hidden any pills in his mouth before finally letting it go.
The whole process went so smoothly it was almost hard to believe.
Still, it saved her a lot of trouble.
Looking at Hu Long, who was acting so out of character and not struggling, the nurse paused, then spoke softly:
"How are you feeling today?"
As the nurse responsible for this section, she knew his condition well.
After treatment, he hadn't improved. If anything, he seemed to be getting worse.
For nearly half a year, he had barely said a word.
She had only asked offhandedly and hadn't expected an answer.
But to her surprise, Hu Long slowly looked up at her.
"I feel... much better now."
His voice was terribly hoarse, like rusty metal scraping against itself.
The nurse paused slightly, a trace of surprise passing through her eyes.
But she didn't ask anything else and simply nodded.
"That's good. Get some rest, take your medicine on time, and call someone if you need anything."
As she spoke, she pointed to the red call button on the iron bed beside them.
Only after Hu Long acknowledged her
did she push the cart toward the door.
The male orderly followed close behind. The iron door closed again, separating the room from the world outside.
Silence settled over the room once more.
Hu Long looked away.
He had said those words on purpose.
He needed to act normal. At the very least, he couldn't stay here forever.
Staying here forever would be no different from waiting to die.
After finally coming back to life, Hu Long naturally didn't want to die again.
He didn't want to die outright, or to die and return to the paralyzed body he had originally inhabited.
At the thought,
Hu Long's eyes shifted slightly, a strange glint passing through them.
Compared to before,
the gloom brought on by the eerie figure had dissipated somewhat without his noticing.
Of course, it wasn't because the medication he had just taken was working.
Though the medicine could stabilize his emotions, it couldn't possibly take effect so quickly.
There was another reason.
With that thought,
his gaze moved downward.
At that very moment, several lines of tiny silver text appeared on his retina, which should have been completely blank.