The moment the curtain was pulled aside, an indescribable stench surged out from behind it. A damp, cold reek of decay instantly spread through the room.
It was as though... the curtain had been a barrier, keeping that foul odor tightly sealed behind it until someone unveiled its true face-
There was another small room behind the curtain.
But the room behind the curtain looked nothing like the consulting room:
All three walls were hung with instruments that looked as though they had no business being there. The yellowed walls beneath them were covered in splattered red-black stains, congealed together in overlapping layers. Yet across those black stains ran long, thin scratches of varying depths, some even exposing the original color of the wall underneath. And those scratches mostly appeared in groups of three, four, or even five, looking very much like... Bo Yi glanced impassively at the doctor's hand, which still held the curtain-
They looked very much like fingernail marks.
Below those patches of fingernail marks stood an old-fashioned iron bed. There was nothing on it but a thin bed board made from several wooden planks fitted together, though the planks had almost entirely lost their original color.
All four legs of the iron bed were firmly nailed to the floor, and thick iron chains hung from the bedposts at its four corners. The chains dangled beside the bed, the iron shackles at their ends swaying gently in the air.
Bo Yi's gaze settled on those iron shackles. Remnants of skin tissue were visibly stuck to their inner surfaces.
Screeech... A harsh metallic scraping rang out as a hand picked up one of the dangling shackles, interrupting Bo Yi's examination. At some point, the doctor had moved over to the iron bed. He gripped the shackle, his eyes