"He is taking revenge," Chen Ge thought to himself, the realization settling over him like a cold weight. "And he's doing it with a clear, specific plan and carefully chosen targets in mind." In that single moment, a flood of connections rushed through his head. The middle-aged man's long, grim story had revealed far more than just a tragic family history—it aligned almost perfectly with several key clues Chen Ge had been mentally cataloging since entering the hospital. The pieces were starting to fit together in a way that made his skin prickle with unease.
The narrative matched one particular patient who had once been confined deep inside the Third Sick Hall. A former psychiatrist who, after witnessing and treating too many horrifying cases, had gradually lost his own grip on reality and become one of the very patients he used to treat. Just like the son in the middle-aged man's tale, this individual had proven to be highly destructive during his episodes of madness—capable of sudden, extreme violence that left lasting damage. Standing there in the dim laundry room surrounded by iron cages, a name rose sharply to the surface of Chen Ge's mind: Xiong Qing.
This was Patient Number 8, officially diagnosed with Hemineglect and quarantined in the Third Sick Hall for intensive treatment. His file had marked him as extremely dangerous due to the severity of his condition combined with his former profession. Because Xiong Qing had once been a highly trained psychiatrist, his intelligence far exceeded that of most other patients. That made his actions during periods of insanity far more calculated, creative, and terrifying than the chaotic outbursts of ordinary disturbed individuals.
"Could Xiong Qing be the killer who's been hiding inside this mental hospital all along?" Chen Ge wondered, the question forming with chilling clarity. The man would possess complete familiarity with every corridor, room, hidden passage, and security feature of the entire complex—knowledge gained from both sides of the doctor-patient divide. He would be more than capable of orchestrating everything Chen Ge had encountered so far: the new locks, the cages, the forced entries, the ritualistic shavings, the poisoned bowls.
"The opponent holds complete geographical advantage," Chen Ge acknowledged grimly. "This is going to be much harder than I anticipated." Xiong Qing was already classified as highly dangerous even before factoring in his mental illness. Hemineglect on its own might seem relatively benign—a condition where one side of the world simply ceases to exist in the patient's perception—but when combined with Xiong Qing's particular psychology, it became lethal. In his distorted worldview, everything appeared flawed and asymmetrical; to make things "right," he felt compelled to impose his own version of balance on others, often through mutilation. A perfectly healthy person standing before him might need an arm or leg broken, severed, or otherwise damaged before Xiong Qing would perceive them as symmetrical and acceptable.
Most patients suffering from Hemineglect are at least partially aware of their perceptual deficit and make conscious efforts to compensate for it—turning their heads, using mirrors, asking for help. Xiong Qing, however, was fundamentally different. He refused to accept that his perception was faulty; instead, he believed the rest of the world was wrong and needed to be forcibly corrected to match his broken understanding of perfection.
If someone had already lost one or more limbs while trapped inside this decaying mental hospital, their chances of survival would drop to nearly zero. Chen Ge had discovered hair samples belonging to four separate individuals nailed beneath the nurse's station counter, yet he had only located three living people in cages so far. The missing fourth person was almost certainly no longer alive—likely killed and discarded somewhere deeper in the complex.
"Before midnight has even arrived, and I haven't fully entered the Third Sick Hall yet, there are already this many deadly problems stacking up," Chen Ge thought, a bitter edge creeping into his internal voice. "Surviving until dawn tonight is going to be far more difficult than I prepared for." The difficulty of this three-star Trial Mission clearly surpassed both Murder by Midnight and the Mu Yang High School scenario by a significant margin. One single misstep, one moment of carelessness, and he could lose his life here in the darkness.
One of the killers had now been tentatively identified—at least on paper—but Chen Ge still hadn't seen Xiong Qing in person. He had no way of knowing whether the fleeting, twisted face he had glimpsed staring down from the third-floor window belonged to Xiong Qing, or whether the suspiciously calm middle-aged man currently locked in the cage in front of him was actually Xiong Qing in disguise. The old man's entire backstory had just been laid out in detail, making it highly probable that he was the father from the story—but that still left too many unknowns.
Squatting down once more in front of the elderly man's cage, Chen Ge closely examined the heavy padlock securing the bars. All three cages used identical lock models—simple but sturdy. Even if the middle-aged man had somehow hidden a key on his person, Chen Ge was watching him too closely now for any sudden ambush or trick to succeed. The risk of being caught off-guard was minimal as long as he stayed alert.
Toying absently with the handle of his mallet, Chen Ge lifted his gaze and locked eyes directly with the middle-aged prisoner. After several seconds of silent consideration, he decided there was no point in dancing around the question any longer. He asked it plainly and without preamble: "How are you so intimately familiar with the old man's entire life story—every detail, every tragedy? Could it be that you are actually his son?"
"Me?" The middle-aged man tilted his head slightly, clearly registering the open suspicion in Chen Ge's tone. But instead of denial or indignation, his response came out strangely fractured and defensive. "I knew you'd never believe me. None of you ever trust me—just like how I don't trust any of you! Please just leave me alone. I've hidden myself away here so carefully—how did all of you manage to find me again? Why do you keep monitoring my life like this? Stop it!"
"Don't trust all of us? Monitoring your life?" Chen Ge repeated slowly, genuinely struggling to follow the sudden shift in logic. "What exactly are you talking about right now?"
"Whenever I finally expose the truth about one of you, you all put on that same innocent face!" the man continued, his voice rising slightly but remaining eerily controlled. "This is exactly why I feel so disgusted by every single one of you. You've already been exposed—your masks have slipped—so why do you insist on lying to my face? It's pathetic." He spoke with calm conviction, as though making a series of perfectly reasonable observations rather than bizarre accusations. "I wonder… should I address you as Wang Xin? Or maybe Xu Fei? Lee Yichang? Ma Yong? Or have you switched to yet another new identity this time?"
"What on earth are you talking about?" Chen Ge asked again, keeping his tone steady in an attempt to de-escalate.
Chen Ge tried to soothe the man, to bring him back to some semblance of rational conversation, but his gentle words only seemed to inflame the prisoner further. "Next you're going to tell me you don't recognize any of those names, right? That you don't know me, don't know any of us, have never seen us before in your life?"
"But I really don't know any of you," Chen Ge answered truthfully, though he already suspected where this was heading.
"Stop lying!" the middle-aged man snapped, though his volume remained oddly restrained. "All of you are the same single person wearing different disguises! Your fake smiles, your innocent denials—they disgust me. Just stop this pointless game already!"
"One single person in disguise?" The phrase struck Chen Ge like a jolt of electricity. Almost immediately, another name and diagnosis floated up from the files Doctor Gao had once shared with him. Patient Number 5—Xu Tong—suffered from Fregoli Delusion Syndrome, a rare condition in which the patient becomes convinced that every person they encounter is actually the same individual wearing different masks, disguises, or identities. The sufferer believes they are trapped in a fabricated world where everyone around them is part of an elaborate deception targeting them personally.
The middle-aged man's sudden outburst and paranoid reasoning matched the classic symptoms of Fregoli Delusion almost perfectly. He had been communicating relatively normally until Chen Ge expressed open suspicion—then the latent illness had flared up violently. This was the first time Chen Ge had directly confronted and tried to interact with someone suffering from severe, active mental illness in such an isolated, high-stakes environment. One moment the man seemed lucid and coherent; the next he was spiraling into delusional accusations without warning.
Looking at the middle-aged prisoner still locked inside the iron cage, yet another troubling question rose in Chen Ge's heart and refused to be ignored: Why had all the former patients of the Third Sick Hall—people who had once been confined here against their will—returned to this abandoned, decaying place after it shut down? Was something powerful drawing them back like a magnet? Or were they somehow being controlled, manipulated by ghosts or lingering malevolent forces, compelled to return against their own will?
The easiest and most direct way to confirm whether the middle-aged man was truly Xiong Qing—or at least someone connected to him—would have been to ask him outright, but his current mental state made meaningful communication nearly impossible. The moment suspicion had entered the conversation, the man had spiraled into full-blown paranoia, accusing Chen Ge of being multiple people in disguise and claiming constant surveillance. Any further probing right now would only provoke more incoherent outbursts and yield no reliable answers. With no other immediate option available, Chen Ge reluctantly turned his attention back to the young woman trapped in the central cage, hoping she might provide some clarity once the gag was removed.
Noticing Chen Ge's slow approach toward her cage, the young woman reacted with immediate, animal-like panic. She kicked wildly at the iron bars with both bound feet, trying desperately to push herself as far away from him as the cramped confines allowed. Her body pressed hard against the rear bars, trembling uncontrollably. Chen Ge raised his flashlight and directed the beam directly onto her face to get a clearer look. She appeared to be around twenty years old, with ordinary, unremarkable features—nothing striking or memorable. Her appearance definitely did not match the descriptions or any surviving photographs of the two known female patients once quarantined in the Third Sick Hall, meaning she was either someone brought here after the hospital closed or an entirely new victim caught up in whatever nightmare was unfolding inside these walls.
"This girl and the old man both had their heads forcibly shaved recently," Chen Ge noted quietly to himself and the camera. "They're almost certainly genuine victims in this twisted setup—unlike the middle-aged man, whose hair remains long and untouched." The repeated act of shaving still baffled him. If this was part of the killer's revenge, then something very similar—perhaps humiliation through forced shaving—must have happened to the perpetrator at some point in the past. The ritualistic nature of it suggested deep personal trauma being inflicted on others as a form of twisted payback.
"Relax—I'm not here to hurt you," Chen Ge said softly, trying to project calm authority as he reached his hand carefully through the bars once more. The young woman evaded him with frantic determination, twisting her head and shoulders in every direction she could manage within the tiny space. It took a full three minutes of persistent but gentle effort before her strength finally gave out. Exhausted from the struggle and gasping for breath, she slumped forward in surrender, no longer able to resist.
"I don't intend to harm you—please believe me," Chen Ge repeated, his voice low and steady. He grasped the edge of the dirty pillowcase that had been used as a makeshift gag and carefully pulled it free from her mouth in one smooth motion.
The instant the gag was removed, the young woman unleashed a piercing, hysterical scream directly at Chen Ge's face: "HAND! HAND! HAND!"
"What?" Chen Ge asked, startled by the sudden volume and the single repeated word. Her voice was shrill and raw, filled with pure terror. He had no idea what kind of trauma she had endured to trigger such an extreme, reflexive reaction to his presence, but the word "hand" carried unmistakable dread.
The girl's piercing cries echoed through the laundry room. Hearing her voice, the previously dazed and unresponsive old man suddenly collapsed sideways inside his cage with surprising speed. He curled into a tight fetal position on the filthy floor and played dead, eyes squeezed shut, breathing shallow and motionless as though hoping to become invisible.
Even the middle-aged man, who had been ranting paranoid accusations only moments earlier, abruptly stopped his delusional tirade. His entire demeanor shifted in an instant. He pressed himself against the bars of his cage and stared fixedly toward the doorway with wide, terror-filled eyes, every trace of aggression or confusion replaced by raw, unmistakable fear.
"HAND! HAND…" The young woman continued screaming the same frantic word over and over, her voice growing hoarse but no less desperate. Realizing the noise could attract unwanted attention from elsewhere in the hospital—and that she was in no state to provide coherent information—Chen Ge had no choice but to gently but firmly reinsert the pillowcase gag into her mouth, muffling her cries once more.
"She's also completely crazy," Chen Ge murmured, stepping back from the cage with a grim expression. A cold realization settled over him: in this abandoned mental hospital, there wasn't a single normal, rational person left alive. Every living soul he had encountered here—whether caged victim or potential killer—was profoundly disturbed, fractured by illness, trauma, or something far darker. The thought unsettled him deeply, because it meant he could trust no one's reactions, words, or motives in the hours still ahead.