Space-time distortion? Overlapping spaces?

Fang Xiu couldn't help turning to look at the psychiatric hospital's entrance, only to discover that it had vanished.

A wall had taken its place.

He took two steps back and surveyed the area. There was no psychiatric hospital anywhere, only the luxurious, opulent Hundred Willows Academy.

Fang Xiu instinctively blinked. When he opened his eyes again, the psychiatric hospital had reappeared! Brother Zhao, the security guard, had vanished instead.

What on earth was going on?

He focused his gaze, staring intently at Green Mountain Psychiatric Hospital.

The next moment, something bizarre happened. Hundred Willows Academy slowly began to appear, like a cinematic fade-in. First came a faint outline, then it solidified, its colors gradually deepening.

Yet strangely, Green Mountain Psychiatric Hospital was still there!

The two buildings seemed to overlap.

Space-time distortion? Overlapping spaces?

Fang Xiu felt as though his vision had blurred. Everywhere he looked, he saw double images of the psychiatric hospital and Hundred Willows Academy overlapping.

He moved to a different spot and reached out to touch them. His palm passed through the psychiatric hospital's wall, stopping only when it touched the wall of Hundred Willows Academy.

He reached a conclusion then. The psychiatric hospital was probably like those entities: intangible, visible but untouchable unless certain conditions were met.

This place was still Hundred Willows Academy. The psychiatric hospital lay over it like a holographic projection.

Fang Xiu lost all interest in looking for Wu Dahai. He wanted to uncover the psychiatric hospital's secrets as soon as possible.

Why were all the others living supernatural entities, while this one was a supernatural building?

"Hey, hey, Fang! Why are you walking off without saying anything?"

Brother Zhao's voice came from behind him, but Fang Xiu ignored him. His attention was entirely on the psychiatric hospital.

He walked slowly. The two buildings overlapped so extensively that he sometimes couldn't tell illusion from reality, making it easy to walk into a wall.

Right now, for instance, Fang Xiu was clearly standing near a landscaped area in Hundred Willows Academy, yet a ward building with dilapidated walls stood before him.

Without the slightest hesitation, Fang Xiu plunged through the ward's wall as though it were air, entering the building directly.

The scene before him changed. He found himself looking at a corridor with benches, its walls stained with long-dried, blackish-red blood.

It looked very much like a scene from a horror movie.

The place felt like a hospital from decades ago. The walls were dull and gray, and instead of the usual marble tiles, the floor was grayish-white concrete.

Fang Xiu didn't take the normal routes. Instead, he passed straight through walls, searching everywhere.

Something horrific seemed to have happened in the psychiatric hospital. Bloodstains were everywhere, along with scraps of rotting flesh.

He passed through the lobby, dining hall, restrooms, recreation room... all of them were deserted.

Only when he reached one particular ward did he involuntarily stop.

This ward was unusual. Its entire door was dark red, the color of a bucket of bloody water that someone had thrown over it and left to dry.

From a distance, it looked like a demon's gaping, blood-drenched maw, sending chills down his spine.

The number 104 was written above the ward.

Ward 104?

Fang Xiu decided to investigate. He stepped forward, passing straight through the ward's door and entering the room.

The room was ordinary, furnished with only a shabby bed. A little girl in a hospital gown huddled in one corner of it, her head buried between her knees and her arms wrapped around them. A worn braided cord circled her pale wrist. Her face was hidden.

Fang Xiu kept his eyes straight ahead, as though he couldn't see the girl at all, while secretly studying her from the corner of his eye.

He wasn't naive enough to believe there were living people in this eerie psychiatric hospital.

Even if they looked human.

The little girl seemed to sense Fang Xiu's arrival and abruptly raised her head.

Fang Xiu immediately withdrew his sidelong glance, because the little girl's face had no features.

He walked straight ahead, while the little girl stared fixedly at him with that featureless face until he left Ward 104.

After passing through Ward 104, Fang Xiu came across many more wards along the way, each with its own number.

He entered them one by one, encountering supernatural entities of all different shapes.

Most were savage and bloodthirsty. Their first reaction upon seeing a living person enter was to attack in a frenzy.

Fang Xiu let them attack without so much as blinking.

By his rough count, there were dozens of such wards.

That meant the psychiatric hospital held at least dozens of supernatural entities!

"This psychiatric hospital must be hiding a huge secret."

As he walked on, he suddenly stopped.

He had discovered that the doors to Wards 162, 169, and 177 were open. Inside, they were completely empty.

Had the entities escaped?

He continued deeper into the hospital, but a villa in the real world blocked his path. Without a key, he could only go around it.

After taking the detour, he found himself in a doctor's consultation room within the psychiatric hospital.

A desk stood in the room. A stethoscope and several medical reports lay scattered across it, stained red with blood.

Fang Xiu approached to examine the medical reports, and his pupils abruptly contracted!

On one blood-covered report, a few lines remained exposed.

They read: Subject 128... (covered in blood) supernatural transformation progress: 21.64%. Transformation failed.

Transformation into a supernatural entity!?

Could all these entities have been transformed from humans?

Had all the entities in those wards once been human?

An indescribable shock shook Fang Xiu. He wanted to keep looking through the reports, but stopped the next instant.

Everything here was intangible, like a holographic image. He had no way to pick up the medical reports and examine them one by one.

Damn it!!

The secret was right within reach, yet he couldn't uncover it. His anger surged.

Suddenly!

Several thin strands of black hair appeared in Fang Xiu's field of vision.

They hung down from above, connected to something he couldn't see.

Naturally, Fang Xiu wasn't foolish enough to look up. He pretended to wander around, then put some distance between himself and the hair before looking out of the corner of his eye.

A "beautiful" female doctor in a white coat crouched on the ceiling, her limbs long and spidery, staring fixedly at him.

Her face was deathly pale. Her eye sockets were pitch-black and marked with grotesque patterns. Her eyes had only whites, with no pupils. Her hair was over a meter long and hung naturally from the ceiling. In one hand, she held a gleaming silver scalpel.

A doctor!?

Something stirred in Fang Xiu's mind.

Had she written these medical reports?

Did that mean she had once been human too?

All sorts of guesses flooded his mind, but he had no way to find answers. A supernatural entity certainly wouldn't answer his questions.

Fang Xiu could only keep moving. Since the doctor's office contained clues, there had to be others elsewhere in the psychiatric hospital.

And there was still the director's office!

That had to be the heart of the psychiatric hospital. Perhaps all its secrets were hidden there.

He continued moving through the psychiatric hospital, searching for the director's office.

Soon, he identified an administrative area. Based on the layout of a normal hospital, Fang Xiu reasoned that the director's office should be somewhere there.

But when he approached the administrative area, he discovered that its location in the real world was Hundred Willows Academy's sales office.

It was also where Fang Xiu worked.