Chapter 164 - 151: Escape

A moment later, Yin Zhen sat at Qiao Mu’s desk, holding the only somewhat valuable thing in the room—a diary. According to horror movie tropes, everyone loved writing diaries.

The diary was heavily stylized for horror. Many pages were smeared with red pen, some drawn with huge crosses, and others filled with the word ’death’. Yin Zhen peered through the top layer of blood-red scribbles to carefully decipher the words underneath. After reading the whole thing, she let out a long sigh. It subverted expectations this time; the diary contained no important information.

It recorded Qiao Mu’s experiences during the second half of her sophomore year of high school. The poor girl had been constantly bullied and didn’t dare to fight back. When she told her teacher, the teacher simply told her to find the problem within herself. She had no friends and was always entirely alone. Both her parents worked at the hospital and were extremely busy. Unwilling to bother them with her problems, she endured it all in silence and poured everything into her diary.

Yin Zhen had sent a private message to Bai Qiang on the forum, but there was still no reply. Bai Qiang was probably having a hard time on her end as well. The system countdown had only progressed by one minute. She could die waiting here and still not make it to six hours, let alone the time of return.

Yin Zhen browsed through the system store. The most effective escape Item seemed to be "See You Next Chapter", which she had used before. But it came with risks. What if the plot of the next Chapter was still her deadly escape? Using it would be a complete waste. This Item had a purchase limit of once per round, and its price was not cheap.

Yin Zhen had another secret Weapon: Ying. However, using Ying’s Strength now would bring about even greater trouble. She had shown the talisman on Ying’s back to Bai Shan Yin’s grandmother. Grandma Bai said it was indeed a talisman used for raising ghosts, capable of transferring a Fierce Ghost’s resentment onto the soul bearing the talisman. Once the curse was complete, the caster could use a corresponding object to control the cursed ghost. Tracking and manipulation—everything Yin Zhen worried about was a real threat.

The setup beneath Renxin Hospital had been in place for ten years. That bracelet man would absolutely not let things go; he would definitely try everything possible to track this curse. The only way to eliminate the curse was to kill its master, namely the bracelet man. Before this transmigration, Yin Zhen had asked Grandma Bai to make a small wooden figurine for her. Wrapped in red threads, it served as a temporary vessel for Ying.

As long as she didn’t actively release Ying, the talisman’s Strength would be shielded by the red threads, rendering it untrackable. Grandma Bai had also specifically warned her that the person capable of setting up such a scheme was a highly skilled Taoist and was best left unprovoked. Even an old bag of bones like herself might not win if she set up an altar to duel him in magic.

Yin Zhen thought to herself, "It is a dead end! No, there is one last resort. If it still doesn’t work, I’ll have no choice but to let Ying off the leash!"

Yin Zhen opened the bedroom door, walked straight into the living room, and blocked the view of the two people watching TV. If this was the Ghost Realm, the most likely Source of the Ghost Realm would only be the two of them.

The two raised their heads simultaneously, still wearing those stiff smiles on their faces.

"Mumu is back."

"You must be hungry. The food is..."

Before the sentence could be finished, the blade flashed. The woman’s head rolled off her neck. The severed stump was smooth and clean, clearly made of white wax.

The man looked up and smiled. "Mumu is back..."

Another slash chopped off the man’s head.

The two headless bodies remained sitting upright on the sofa. Their two heads lay on the floor, repeating simultaneously like malfunctioning machines:

"Mumu is back.

"You must be hungry. The food is on the dining table."

Yin Zhen frowned and observed her surroundings. She wondered, "Is this not going to work either?"

Just then, a loud static RUSTLE came from the television behind her. Yin Zhen turned around and saw a new image appear on the screen after a burst of static. It was black and white with heavy visual noise, giving the impression of an eighties monochrome television.

On the TV were a man and a woman. They wore matching uniforms with the Twin Fish Lock badge of the Abnormal Investigation Bureau pinned to their chests. Their gazes pierced through the screen, locking onto Yin Zhen.

"So, student Qiao Mu, you admit that you murdered your parents, correct?"

Yin Zhen looked down at her left and right sides. The corpses, which had been wax figures just moments ago, had transformed into real human bodies. They were covered in blood. The murder Weapon used to kill them was clutched right in her own hand, and her body and hands were also drenched in fresh blood.

"The Rabbit Doll, the Rainy Night Butcher—these were all fabricated by you. There are no traces of anyone else in your house, nor is there any supernatural power left behind. You killed your parents, didn’t you?"

Yin Zhen’s brain spun with dizziness. She had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore.

"Please allow me to reiterate: in our country, mental illness cannot be used as a means to escape criminal responsibility. Even if you are genuinely diagnosed with a mental disorder, you must still pay the price for your crimes.

"If you confess, we will send you to a specialized facility to serve your sentence. If you refuse to confess, this nightmare will continue forever.

"So I will ask you one more time. Student Qiao Mu, do you admit to all your crimes?"

"Like hell I’ll confess to that crap!" Yin Zhen thought rebelliously.

Immediately after, the image on the TV suddenly flickered and distorted. A bone-chilling wind assaulted her from all sides. The peeling paint on the living room walls began to bulge and flake off, oozing blood.

"Ugh... ahhh..."

Waves of agonizing groans echoed from all directions, layering over one another. A livid, gray hand suddenly reached out from under Yin Zhen’s feet and clamped down tightly on her ankle. That cold, rigid touch made Yin Zhen’s hair stand on end. She instantly lost control of her body, freezing in place, completely unable to move. Even rolling her eyes became incredibly difficult.

One mutilated corpse after another forcefully squeezed out of the walls, the ceiling, and even from beneath the sofa. They were all the stacked, rotting corpses of young women that Yin Zhen had seen in the initial slaughterhouse. Their bodies twisted, blackish-red foul blood streaming from their hollow eye sockets. Unmelodic GASPS hissed from their gaping mouths. Rotting flesh hung loosely from their skeletons, dripping thick, viscous cadaveric fluid.

A withered claw clamped fiercely onto her right wrist, while another arm extending from the floorboards coiled around her left ankle. Decaying fingers crawled up onto her shoulders. Heavy corpses dropped from the ceiling and pressed down on her back. Slimy fingers climbed onto her face and clamped over her mouth and nose, forcing a nauseating, putrid stench into her lungs.

If anyone could see this, they would realize that At this moment, Yin Zhen was entirely draped in... ghosts! Yin Zhen sighed; struggling was already futile.

Before the Ghost Hand on her face could completely smother her mouth, she clearly enunciated three words.

"I plead guilty!"

A blindingly intense light struck her face once again, piercing pitilessly into Yin Zhen’s eyes and swallowing her whole.

As a gulp of fresh air rushed into her lungs, Yin Zhen jolted awake.

Her body was still bound. She could clearly see the two interrogators from the Abnormal Investigation Bureau who had been on the TV—they were now standing right outside the glass window in front of her. Yin Zhen struggled a bit, discovering that she was tightly strapped to a chair, with a specialized collar secured around her neck.

Through the reflection in the glass, Yin Zhen saw her current appearance. She was still Qiao Mu. She wondered, "Is this the third round, or is it reality?"

Before Yin Zhen could check the system countdown, a needle shot out from the collar, rapidly injecting an anesthetic Medicine into her body. The anesthetic was incredibly potent. In less than three seconds, Yin Zhen lost consciousness.

The last thing she saw was a line of text printed on her clothes:

Beiling Mental Hospital.