Chapter 94: Madeline Quinn Has Gone Missing

Chapter 94: Chapter 94: Madeline Quinn Has Gone Missing

Assistant Foster hesitated for a moment before nodding.

On the way to the psychiatric hospital, my body wouldn’t stop shaking.

I didn’t know why I was so sad, but the image of that soot-blackened room kept flashing through my mind.

The massive fire, the thick smoke, the desperate screams.

Sharing a room with Asher, I knew his entire back was covered in hideous scars. His hands and lower legs were also covered in burns.

’They must be from that fire.’

’He must have been in so much pain back then.’

"This psychiatric hospital was later shut down. The director was arrested after it was exposed that he abused the patients."

On the way there, I searched for information on the hospital and found countless shocking scandals.

Doctors amused themselves by torturing and abusing the psychiatric patients.

Electric shocks, waterboarding, suffocation, torture.

In short, the evil of human nature was magnified to its extreme within this hospital.

"Aside from the director who was arrested and died of a sudden heart attack in prison, the other doctors who weren’t sentenced all seem to have died one after another over the years." I noticed something and shot upright.

’Is this a coincidence?’

Several of those doctors died in accidents.

Car crashes, falls from buildings, drownings...

"Someone posted online, saying it was karma for the freaks at Saint Anne’s Psychiatric Hospital." I stared at the post, an inexplicable panic rising in my chest.

’Are these really all just coincidences?’

’If the deaths of those doctors weren’t coincidences, could they be connected to the serial killings at the orphanage?’

A sharp pain suddenly shot through my head. I pulled at my hair, trying to force myself to stay calm.

’It has to be an accident. It’s probably just a coincidence.’

"I’ve always believed that you reap what you sow." Assistant Foster didn’t say much more. After getting out of the car, he opened the door for me.

I knew he was hiding something, and I also knew there were things I’d never get out of him.

The psychiatric hospital had been sealed off, so we had to slip in through the main gate.

Just like the orphanage, this place was gloomy and unsettling. The moment you stepped inside, you felt uneasy.

A while back, there was a popular livestream of some urban explorers who came here. They said the place was haunted.

"This is the room the Young Master stayed in. The Lancaster Family specifically requested it, so it was a private room." Assistant Foster’s voice was hoarse. "We thought... he would have been better off here."

Little did we know, this place was Hell.

I pushed open the door and instantly froze on the spot.

The walls were densely covered with formulas and numbers. I could tell he was calculating something...

The room was unnaturally clean. In a daze, I could almost see a young man in a white hospital gown, sitting in this empty room, endlessly scrawling calculations on the walls with a pencil.

My fingers lightly brushed against the numbers as I slowly walked forward.

Finally, at the far end of the wall, I saw the formula. He was using calculus to compute pi... He was calculating relentlessly, figuring out every single digit after the decimal point.

"What was he trying to do?" I asked in a hoarse voice, as if speaking to myself.

Asher is a genius. A genius in mathematics and finance, there’s no doubt about it...

But why was he so obsessed with calculating pi?

"The doctor who exposed the hospital’s scandal said the Young Master was desperate to prove that everything followed a pattern. That just like pi... it could be calculated to the end. That time could repeat, everything could start over, and souls could exist as multidimensional life forms in different dimensions... as long as everything could be calculated, as long as the pattern could be found..."

Assistant Foster clearly didn’t understand it either.

’In the world of a madman, anything is possible.’

I stared at the numbers covering the walls, shocked, as if I’d been plunged into ice water.

’When everything follows a pattern, when time can be reversed, when souls can be reborn...’

I raised a hand to cover my mouth in shock. ’Asher, was he trying to prove that this world is an illusion, that none of it exists? Or was he trying to prove... that after a certain number of years, everything would start over?’

"He’s a genius..." A genius standing at God’s right hand.

In other words, a madman.

Asher’s thoughts and obsessions were beyond the comprehension of a normal person.

"That kind doctor who exposed everything, is he still in Meridia?" I asked, my mind still full of doubts.

I didn’t trust Asher because his murderous intent was sometimes too strong. I once asked him if he had ever killed anyone. He hesitated and didn’t answer, which was basically an evasion.

’So has he killed someone? And what is his relationship to the serial killer from the orphanage?’

"That doctor is still in Meridia." Assistant Foster nodded.

I let out a sigh of relief.

’There’s still someone who knows what happened back then. That will make the investigation much easier.’

"Let’s go back." I was afraid Asher would wake up and have another episode.

Assistant Foster nodded. "Ma’am, the reason I brought you here was to help you understand him better... The Young Master is a pitiful person. He needs someone to give him meticulous care and love."

I understood what Owen Foster meant. He thought I would be Asher’s salvation.

After all, we were husband and wife now.

’But... I can’t be Asher’s salvation...’

’Asher wants love, and I can’t give him love.’

’I can only do my best to give him my kindness.’

’I can only pray, pray that Asher isn’t one of the killers from the orphanage murders...’

But after coming to the psychiatric hospital today, I started to feel scared...

I was afraid that Asher had really killed someone.

Afraid that the serial killings were really connected to him.

’If I find out he really did kill someone, what should I do? Turn him over to the police?’

...

On the way back, I kept scrolling through old files and posts about Saint Anne’s Psychiatric Hospital.

The whistleblower was a kind-hearted doctor. To save those patients, he reported the hospital under his real name, angering the director and his colleagues. He lost a leg in a car accident and still walks with a limp.

Someone on X asked the doctor if he regretted his decision, which had put himself and his family in danger.

The doctor replied, "Someone had to stand up."

"Someone had to bear the consequences."

"Someone had to shine a light into the darkness."

"Ma’am... we’ve arrived."

The car had already come to a complete stop, but I was still immersed in those posts.

Many people shared the nightmares they had experienced at Saint Anne’s Psychiatric Hospital. They said the director enjoyed torturing the good-looking patients. They said the doctors were the real madmen and perverts.

I couldn’t bear to imagine what someone as handsome as Asher would have gone through in there.

He’s the type of person who would rather be beaten to death than admit defeat or back down. He would have fought back, fought back relentlessly...

That would only provoke the beastly nature of those bastards, making them inflict even more insane torture on Asher.

Just reading the posts made my adrenaline spike so high that my whole body was trembling.

I didn’t dare to imagine how hopeless Asher must have felt back then...

Enduring one bout of despair after another.

’If it were me, I probably would have killed someone too, right?’

"Cece!" A commotion erupted from the yard. Several maids were unable to stop Asher.

He was walking barefoot in the yard, frantically searching for something.

The moment he saw me, he calmed down, strode over, and pulled me into his arms. "Cece... I’m scared."

His voice was raspy. He said he was scared.

In that instant, I felt... it seemed like he wasn’t afraid of nightmares, or of anything else, but of losing me.

"Silvia Lynch!" Just as I was about to coax Asher back into the house, Zeke Shaw’s car screeched to a halt outside the gate. He got out in a panic. "Silvia Lynch, have you seen Madeline Quinn?"

My heart leaped into my throat. I answered nervously, "She hasn’t contacted me today..."

"She’s missing!"