Chen Ge stared at Doctor Gao's message, the words blurring slightly as his mind struggled to connect the dots. "How could washing one's hair be related to a self-defense mechanism?" he typed, his fingers moving quickly despite the unease curling in his chest. The idea that Men Nan's compulsive ritual—three bottles of shampoo in mere weeks—was a shield against some buried trauma felt both plausible and maddeningly vague. Doctor Gao's response came promptly, his clinical tone cutting through the apartment's oppressive atmosphere: "PTSD presupposes an earlier trauma. Men Nan's repeated hair-washing is likely an attempt to escape or soothe a psychological wound from his past. The act itself is a coping mechanism, a way to regain control when his mind replays the event." The explanation was textbook, but it left Chen Ge wanting more, the specificity of hair-washing still an enigma.
"His past?" Chen Ge replied, his eyes flicking to Men Nan, who stood frozen in the living room, his head bowed under that invisible weight. The young man's silence was a fortress, guarding secrets that might unlock the black phone's mission. Doctor Gao's next message elaborated: "Yes, something he experienced long ago left a profound trauma. When triggered, his body reacts instinctively, seeking relief. Based on my observations, washing his hair is that relief—a ritual to ease the pain or distance himself from the memory." The doctor's words painted a picture of a mind trapped in a loop, Men Nan's nightmares and compulsions a desperate attempt to rewrite a past that refused to stay buried. The strangling figure, the slow approach in the dreams—it all pointed to a specific moment, a horror Men Nan couldn't escape.
After a pause, another message from Doctor Gao arrived, adding a new layer to the mystery: "At the start of the semester, I asked Men Nan why he chose psychology. He said he wanted to cure someone's illness. I thought he meant a patient, but now I realize he was likely talking about himself." The revelation hit Chen Ge like a cold wave. Men Nan, the studious facade of a happy student, was studying to heal his own fractured mind, his nightmares a symptom of a wound he'd carried for years. "Looks like the problem lies in what happened to Men Nan when he was young," Chen Ge typed, his resolve hardening. "We need to ask him for details. Only by knowing his history can we help him." The black phone's mission—A Room of Three—demanded answers, and Men Nan's past was the key to understanding the third presence haunting this apartment.
Doctor Gao's reply was swift but cautious: "If my PTSD diagnosis is correct, asking him directly is the worst thing we could do. He's been trying to forget this past, to bury it. Forcing him to confront it could push him over the edge, shatter what little stability he has left." The warning was sobering, Men Nan's fragile state evident in his trembling frame and darting eyes. Chen Ge's gaze lingered on the young man, the weight of his suffering palpable. "Then we contact his family," he typed, frustration creeping into his words. "He's in this much pain, and his parents don't care at all? That's not right." The idea of sending them a photo of Men Nan's current state—head crushed downward, a living caricature of torment—flashed through his mind, a desperate attempt to force their attention.
"I asked about that when I called them," Doctor Gao responded. "Men Nan's obsessive hair-washing started in childhood. His parents are used to it, see it as a quirk, not a crisis. They don't think it's serious." The casual dismissal infuriated Chen Ge, his fingers tightening around the phone. "Did they say why it started?" he asked, hoping for a thread to pull. Doctor Gao's next message was a bombshell: "When Men Nan was young, they took him to a psychiatrist who diagnosed OCD—rare for a child. No medication was safe at his age, so the doctor advised constant companionship. His parents didn't follow through." Chen Ge's jaw clenched. "Obviously, they didn't care," he typed without hesitation. If Men Nan's parents had been present, engaged, they wouldn't be so indifferent now, leaving their son to drown in his nightmares.
Doctor Gao's final message unraveled the past further: "There's more. Men Nan's biological mother died when he was five or six. His father remarried, and Men Nan has a younger half-brother from the second marriage. His biological parents' relationship was strained; his father was rarely home, leaving his mother to raise him alone. One day, a burglar broke in. The current parents don't know the details, only that the neighbor called the police the next day." Chen Ge's heart thudded. "The next day?" he typed, dread pooling in his stomach. "Where was Men Nan during the crime?" Doctor Gao's reply was chilling: "He was in the house. When the police arrived, Men Nan was already at the scene—he was the first to find his mother." The image of a child alone with his mother's body overnight sent a shiver through Chen Ge, the black phone's mission suddenly feeling deeply personal.
Reading the message, Chen Ge felt a chill crawl up his spine, the pieces of Men Nan's trauma snapping into focus. "He spent the night with his dead mother, only found the next morning?" he typed, his fingers trembling slightly. Doctor Gao confirmed: "Yes, one could see it that way. The burglar may have spared Men Nan or acted while he slept. He survived, but seeing his mother's body left a scar that never healed. His OCD and PTSD likely stem from this murder. But I don't understand why hair-washing? How does that connect to the crime?" The question mirrored Chen Ge's own, the specificity of the ritual nagging at him. Standing before the bathroom mirror, he stared at his reflection, replaying Men Nan's dream pose—head bent over the sink, the world upside down. The water drop on his neck flashed in his memory, a clue he hadn't fully grasped.
Chen Ge's fingers flew across the screen: "Where was Men Nan's mother's body found?" Doctor Gao's reply was immediate: "After killing her, the burglar removed the damp-proof boards from the bathroom ceiling and hid her body there. If not for the neighbor's child being Men Nan's classmate, prompting a visit, the crime might have gone undiscovered longer." The bathroom ceiling? Chen Ge's eyes shot upward, the low ceiling of Men Nan's bathroom suddenly oppressive, its panels seeming to pulse with the weight of the past. "I think I know why Men Nan washes his hair obsessively," he typed, his mind racing. The image was vivid: a child, alone, bending over the sink, looking up to see his mother's body stuffed above, blood or fluids dripping onto his head as he washed. The ritual wasn't just cleansing—it was a desperate attempt to wash away the memory of that night, the sensation of death falling onto him. The black phone's third presence wasn't in the mirror or Room 303—it was in Men Nan's trauma, a ghost that followed him, pressing down on his head, strangling him in his dreams.
Chen Ge's thumbs flew across the phone screen, the glow casting a pale light on his face as he typed his theory to Doctor Gao. "Is it possible this is what actually happened? The burglar breaks in, mother and son spot him. She tells Men Nan to hide, tries to call the police, but the burglar catches her." His fingers paused, the weight of the next words heavy. "Men Nan hides, hears everything, waits until the burglar leaves. Then he searches for his mother. He goes to the bathroom—and that's when her blood drips from the ceiling onto his head." The message sent with a soft chime, and Chen Ge felt a wave of nausea. The image was vivid: a five-year-old boy, alone in the dark, warm blood pattering onto his hair like rain. "Even now, any liquid on his head triggers the memory. He washes and washes, trying to erase the night his mother died above him. Doctor Gao, you were right—this isn't simple OCD. It's a scar that never closed." The black phone's mission pulsed in his pocket, the pieces of A Room of Three clicking into place.
Doctor Gao's face, visible through the bathroom door, drained of color as he read the message. His eyes widened, shock etching deep lines around them, and he looked up to meet Chen Ge's gaze across the dim apartment. For a moment, the psychologist seemed to age ten years, the clinical mask slipping to reveal raw horror at the childhood trauma he'd only glimpsed. Their eyes locked, a silent agreement passing between them: they had found the root of Men Nan's illness. Doctor Gao pocketed his phone with trembling fingers and strode toward Chen Ge, his voice low but urgent. "The cause is confirmed," he said, glancing back at Men Nan, who remained frozen in the living room, head bowed under that invisible weight. "I'll take him out of here now, start immediate post-traumatic therapy. We can't let him stay in this environment."
Chen Ge's response was immediate, his hand raised to stop Doctor Gao. "I'm afraid it's not that simple," he said, his voice steady but laced with conviction. He nodded toward Men Nan, whose unnatural posture and darting eyes screamed of a threat still present. "The hair-washing explains the compulsion, but not the nightmares. In his dreams, he repeats the act, but the terror isn't the water or the sink—it's the man who keeps approaching, night after night, closer each time. To truly help Men Nan, we need to identify this figure and drive him out of the dream entirely." The black phone's mission loomed large, its title—A Room of Three—hinting at a presence beyond Men Nan and his trauma. Chen Ge's instincts, honed by countless supernatural encounters, told him the strangling figure was no mere memory but something tangible, tied to Room 303 or the apartment itself.
Doctor Gao's brow furrowed, his professional skepticism warring with the unease of standing in a room that reeked of sour decay. "Chase something out of his dream?" he repeated, his tone sharp with disbelief. He glanced at Men Nan, the young man's deformed posture almost comical if not for the palpable dread it radiated, and for a fleeting moment, Doctor Gao's eyes flickered with the haunted look of someone recalling the sterile halls of a mental hospital. "Chen Ge, are you joking with me?" The question carried a challenge, but also a plea—for rationality, for an explanation that didn't veer into the impossible. The psychologist's world was one of diagnoses and therapies, not ghosts and missions, yet the evidence before him—Men Nan's condition, the vacant Room 303, the dripping ceiling of a long-ago crime—cracked the foundation of his certainty.
Chen Ge met Doctor Gao's gaze, unflinching. "I'm not kidding. I have a theory, and it'll be confirmed tonight," he said, his voice low but resolute. He mentally aligned the clues: Men Nan's childhood trauma, the blood dripping from the bathroom ceiling, the obsessive hair-washing, the nightmares of a figure inching closer, and the black phone's cryptic hint about the Third Sick Hall. "There are three 'people' in this room, as the mission suggests. Men Nan is one, obviously. The strangling figure in his dreams is the second—a manifestation of his trauma or something more. The third… we'll find tonight, likely in Room 303." Chen Ge's confidence was sixty percent, bolstered by the black phone's reliability, but the stakes were high. The mission's midnight deadline loomed, and the truth about the third presence—be it a ghost, a memory, or a denizen of the Third Sick Hall—would decide whether Men Nan found peace or succumbed to his eternal slumber.