Yue Shi noticed that the owner of those cloudy eyes was wearing a hospital gown. It was the same blue-and-white striped attire worn by the eerie reflection he had seen in the shattered mirror at the second-floor landing.
“Finally, a living thing. I hope we can communicate,” Yue Shi thought. He activated Raven's Secret Whispers once more. “I want to talk to you.”
However, the individual seemed to resist his hypnotic suggestion, remaining deathly silent.
Yue Shi tried again, “If you have any requests, feel free to ask.”
Still nothing.
Yue Shi continued, “Do you want to leave this place?”
Silence.
Yue Shi snapped, “You’re a total moron!”
“Hoo... hoo...” A heavy, ragged breathing sound finally came from behind the door.
Yue Shi clenched his fists. This little brat... he really had to throw a few insults before getting a reaction, didn't he?
Considering the entity might have a speech impediment, Yue Shi thought for a moment and pulled a bag of bread from his backpack. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to—”
Before he could finish, the patient room door swung open with a rush of wind. In a flash, the bread in Yue Shi’s hand vanished, followed by a thunderous bang as the door slammed shut again.
Seeing this, Yue Shi suppressed the rising impatience in his heart and said softly, “Open the door. You want to eat, right? I have more.”
Though he didn't know exactly what was hiding in the room, Yue Shi wasn't about to let a potential source of information go easily. Even if he couldn't get any useful intel, he could always try to kill it and devour its source.
Just as Yue Shi thought he would have to keep talking to get a response, the door slowly creaked open.
The room was pitch black. Yue Shi immediately put on a kind, friendly smile and spread his hands to show he was harmless. “I’m coming in~”
With that, he stepped into the room.
His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, but a quick scan revealed no one.
However, he could smell the sweet scent of bread.
He closed the door behind him, walked to the window, and pulled back the filthy curtains. Then, he pushed open the grimy window to let some outside light filter in.
Turning back to scan the room again, it still appeared empty.
The scent of bread still drifted near his nose. Yue Shi narrowed his eyes slightly and took off the plain glasses he always wore. Using the lenses as a mirror, he checked the blind spots behind him.
In the reflection of the lens, he saw a figure in a hospital gown. The entity was clinging to the wall behind him like a gecko, a piece of bread in its mouth, chewing slowly.
Yue Shi turned around slowly, but the entity moved soundlessly along the wall, maintaining its position in his blind spot.
Yue Shi tried bending over and lowering his head; the figure in the hospital gown crawled onto the ceiling in a way that defied gravity and common sense.
Now Yue Shi finally understood why he couldn't see the person despite them being in the same room.
He adjusted the angle of his glasses, trying to get a clear look at the entity's face.
It was an elderly man with many wrinkles around his eyes and prominent cheekbones. He was gaunt, looking like a refugee who had been starving for a long time. His eyes were hollow pits of blackness with no whites.
Worse yet, as the man opened his mouth to swallow the bread, Yue Shi keenly noticed that he appeared to have no tongue!
No wonder he hadn't responded to Raven's Secret Whispers earlier. He was truly a mute who couldn't speak.
As Yue Shi used the lens reflection to observe him, the entity seemed to realize he was being watched.
He suddenly stopped chewing and stared directly at Yue Shi, a supernatural aura silently spreading through the room.
“Ahem...” Yue Shi cleared his throat and took the initiative. “I can see you now. Can you come down and talk?”
The entity didn't react, continuing to stare intently at him.
Yue Shi turned to face him, but the mute immediately scurried away, refusing to be seen directly while still keeping his eyes fixed on Yue Shi, acting like a hidden surveillance camera.
Yue Shi scratched his chin and walked to a corner, standing with his back against the walls.
This compressed his blind spots. The mute was forced to hide directly above his head. As Yue Shi slowly looked up, the mute could no longer stay hidden.
When Yue Shi finally laid eyes on the mute’s form, the entity suddenly became agitated. He seemed extremely unwilling to be looked at directly. Moving so fast he left afterimages, he scratched at the air, desperately trying to find Yue Shi’s blind spot to hide in again.
Seeing the situation on the verge of spiraling out of control, Yue Shi immediately stepped away from the corner to the center of the room. Only then did the mute calm down, returning to the wall behind Yue Shi’s head where he couldn't be seen to continue eating his bread.
“Can you write? Can you tell me your name first? I have more bread here,” Yue Shi said softly, activating Raven's Secret Whispers.
Qingshan Sanatorium was essentially a psychiatric hospital. He guessed the supernatural entities here were likely related to mental states, which is why they could resist the hypnotic effects of Raven's Secret Whispers.
However, if magical manipulation didn't work, he could always try tempting them with food.
Yue Shi took another bag of bread from his bag and gave it a light shake.
Through the reflection in his glasses, he could clearly see a trace of greed and longing surface on the mute's face.
Yue Shi tossed the bread over, his eyes crinkling into a smile. “What should I call you?”
The mute caught the bread quickly and used his finger to scratch a few characters onto the wall: 【Camera】.
“Camera?”
It was a strange name. Yue Shi kept his expression neutral. Seeing that Camera seemed to have lowered his guard slightly, he continued, “Have there been any newcomers to the sanatorium recently? A friend of mine was supposedly sent here for treatment.”
Camera nodded and then wrote another line on the wall: “Is your friend the ‘Clown’?”
Yue Shi asked, “Who is the Clown? What does he look like?”
Camera wrote: “The Clown is the newcomer. His face is painted all sorts of colors. He likes to play pranks. He was just messing with you a moment ago.”
Yue Shi’s gaze sharpened. “The one who pretended to be me in the mirror, imitated my footprints on the stairs, and wrote in blood in the restroom... was that the Clown?”
Camera wrote: “Don't even doubt it. It was definitely the work of that naturally evil Clown!”
This sounded like a purely subjective judgment. It seemed the Clown had a very poor reputation. Yue Shi changed the subject: “Are there others on the floors above?”
Camera hurriedly wrote: “The people on the third floor are all bad. Especially the ‘Drunkard,’ the ‘Domestic Abuser,’ and the ‘Breeding Obsessive.’ They are incredibly brutal. But the Director's Office is also on the third floor. Everyone on the fourth floor is a pervert.”
Yue Shi was speechless. Just what kind of freaks and monsters were gathered here?
However, considering the original purpose and intent behind the establishment of Qingshan Sanatorium, he began to understand...
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