Edited—

“Sir, I can’t see any doctors.” Zhou Jiayu told Lin Zhushui what he had seen. “I can’t find a single person wearing a doctor’s coat on the screens. This building only has patients left…”

Lin Zhushui said, “Can’t find any?”

“Right.” Zhou Jiayu carefully looked over the screens once more. After confirming he hadn’t made a mistake, he said with difficulty, “The doctors in this hospital seem to have all disappeared…”

Lin Zhushui’s brows furrowed slightly. He was about to speak when Zhou Jiayu’s phone rang. Zhou Jiayu picked it up and saw it was Lin Jue’s number.

“Answer first.” Lin Zhushui said.

Zhou Jiayu pressed the call button and heard Lin Jue’s voice come through from the other end, carrying a hint of anxiety: “Jiayu, the situation doesn’t seem right.”

Zhou Jiayu asked her what was wrong.

Lin Jue said, “We found a patient’s file…”

Zhou Jiayu said, “A patient’s file?”

Lin Jue said, “The patient’s name… is Li Yihao.”

The moment she said this name, Zhou Jiayu was stunned. Wasn’t this the name of that Dr. Li who had led them to the dean’s office just now? To say it was someone with the same name would be far too much of a coincidence. “The same Li Yihao from just now?”

“Right.” Lin Jue’s tone was certain. “There’s even a photo of him in these files. He looks exactly the same as that doctor just now.”

Goosebumps rose one after another on Zhou Jiayu’s arms. If Dr. Li was a patient here, then was it possible that the so-called dean was also a patient rather than a doctor?

Lin Jue seemed to guess what Zhou Jiayu was thinking. She said, “We’re looking through other files now to see if we can discover anything else, but there’s a problem with the archives…”

“What problem?” Zhou Jiayu asked in response.

Lin Jue sighed: “So far, we haven’t found a single file on any doctor. So we completely can’t confirm who the doctors in this hospital actually are.”

Hearing this, Zhou Jiayu glanced at the large screens beside him still playing the hospital’s situation and said, “I’m in the surveillance room right now. In the surveillance footage, I don’t see any doctors either…”

Lin Jue fell silent for a moment, then said they would keep searching and told Zhou Jiayu to explain the situation to Lin Zhushui and see what he said. Zhou Jiayu nodded and said okay. The two agreed to meet on the fifth floor in half an hour, then hung up.

However, before Zhou Jiayu could even open his mouth after hanging up, Lin Zhushui directly said, “Can’t find any doctor files?”

“Yes.” Zhou Jiayu was slightly surprised that Lin Zhushui could guess. “Shibo said they can’t find any files on doctors.”

“They were destroyed.” Lin Zhushui’s fingers lightly tapped on the desktop. He slightly tilted his head, his thin lips parting. “This Jiang Zhu is rather interesting.”

Just as Zhou Jiayu was thinking about what Lin Zhushui meant by “interesting,” he noticed that the patients on the monitors behind him were stirring. They stood up and began running downstairs. Among them were a few in wheelchairs who had difficulty moving. Zhou Jiayu watched as they forcefully wheeled themselves downward regardless.

“What’s going on?” Zhou Jiayu was shocked. At this moment, this group of patients was practically like a swarm of locusts passing through. Every person’s face wore an excited smile, as if they were rushing to do something extremely important.

So what exactly was that thing? Zhou Jiayu wondered in confusion.

The patients quickly reached the first floor and gathered in the massive hall on the first floor. Dense crowds of heads surged about, accompanied by whispered discussions. Every person’s face carried a nearly neurotic smile. They seemed to be discussing something extremely important. Zhou Jiayu even saw several of them become so agitated that they bit their own hands until they bled.

“What are they going to do…” A chill ran down Zhou Jiayu’s back.

Lin Zhushui’s lips pressed into an unpleasant arc: “Look and see if the dean is in the crowd.”

After carefully searching, Zhou Jiayu actually found the dean who had just jumped from the fifth-floor window and fled. Only, the person who appeared on the first floor had exchanged the white long coat belonging to a doctor for the light blue patient gown belonging to a patient. If not for that long face and exaggerated behavior, Zhou Jiayu probably would have had difficulty distinguishing him from the other patients.

Zhou Jiayu said, “Found him. He’s in the crowd, and he’s even changed his clothes into a patient gown…” The video image wasn’t particularly clear. He saw more and more patients gathering on the first floor. Then with a loud clack, the iron gate between the first and second floors was lowered, sealing everyone inside the first-floor hall.

The dean wearing a patient gown climbed onto the high platform above the hall. He waved his arms as if saying something, but because the video only showed images without sound, it was difficult to tell.

After he finished saying whatever it was, he climbed down from the platform. Then Zhou Jiayu saw someone else climb onto that high platform. Seeing this, he had originally thought the person climbing up would say something like the dean had. But he hadn’t expected that this time, four or five people climbed up at once, each holding weapons.

Zhou Jiayu showed an incredulous expression. Then he watched with his own eyes as these few people began fighting on the platform. Fortunately, the screen’s colors weren’t vivid, so Zhou Jiayu couldn’t clearly make out the color of blood. But even so, he could sense the terrifying meaning contained within these people’s exaggerated movements from the blurry images.

Someone was pushed off the high platform. After falling to the ground, they never got up again. The onlookers cheered and dragged him by the feet, throwing him into the corner like garbage.

And the fighting continued until only one person remained.

As Zhou Jiayu watched these images, he was also giving Lin Zhushui a simple explanation. Lin Zhushui suddenly reached out and covered the back of Zhou Jiayu’s hand: “Scared?”

“I-I’m… I’m okay.” Zhou Jiayu said. “I just didn’t expect the hospital to be this kind of situation.”

Lin Zhushui said, “If you don’t want to watch, don’t watch.”

Although Zhou Jiayu was quite happy that Lin Zhushui said this, he didn’t feel he was that delicate. He said it was fine, turned his hand to interlock fingers with Lin Zhushui, and then turned his gaze back to the screens.

The images continued. The victorious patient let out an excited roar. His entire body was covered in blood as he excitedly raised both hands on the high platform.

Then Zhou Jiayu saw someone in the crowd hand up a piece of clothing toward the high platform — a doctor’s uniform.

“This hospital… could it be that there are no doctors at all.” Zhou Jiayu said with difficulty, voicing his guess. “All the doctors… are selected from among the patients.”

“There’s another possibility.” Lin Zhushui, probably worried Zhou Jiayu was afraid, gently embraced him from behind. His tone was flat, but what he said was a fact that made one’s blood run cold. He said, “What do you think — could there also be former doctors who were healers among those patients?”

Zhou Jiayu couldn’t speak. He was embraced by Lin Zhushui, his back leaning against his warm, solid chest. But this atmosphere that should have been intimate was completely ruined by the video before him. The image of the dean’s face covered in those hideous wounds surfaced in Zhou Jiayu’s mind. He found it hard to imagine just how many people among these patients had participated in such cruel fighting.

The victorious patient happily put on the doctor’s uniform that belonged to him. He jumped down from the high platform and waved his hands among the crowd.

The iron gate that had been lowered rose again. The excited crowd returned to their lifeless state, slowly dispersing from the corridors and gradually disappearing. The first-floor hall emptied out once more, leaving behind only one unconscious patient lying quietly in the corner, waiting for death to descend.

Zhou Jiayu couldn’t quite bear to watch anymore and said they should go to the hall to take a look.

Lin Zhushui nodded, agreeing to Zhou Jiayu’s suggestion.

The two left the surveillance room and went to the first-floor hall. The hall floor still had traces of fresh blood left behind; it was a complete mess.

Zhou Jiayu ran to that patient’s side and saw he still wasn’t moving. He reached out to check his breathing, then sighed: “Dead.”

Lin Zhushui’s brows furrowed slightly.

Zhou Jiayu had originally thought this person was only seriously injured, but hadn’t expected him to simply lose his life like this. He stood up and looked around. “Sir, are we just going to leave this person’s corpse here?”

“Someone should come to clean up.” Lin Zhushui guessed.

It turned out Lin Zhushui was right, because about a few minutes later, several people wearing hospital doctor uniforms appeared in the hall, holding mops and other cleaning supplies, looking like they were going to clean up the scene.

If he hadn’t just seen that scene in the surveillance footage, Zhou Jiayu probably would have wanted to find one of them to ask about the situation. But now, he only wanted to stay far away from these people.

Fortunately, the “doctors” also had no intention of talking to him. They buried their heads and carefully tidied the hall. There were even two people preparing to drag the patient’s corpse out.

Zhou Jiayu couldn’t help but ask, “Where are you dragging him to?”

That doctor turned back and looked at him coldly: “The back mountain. You want to come along?”

Zhou Jiayu shook his head.

The man turned his head back and dragged the corpse out with an indifferent expression. Zhou Jiayu sniffed the faint fishy odor around him, feeling as if he had fallen into an absurd dream. Fortunately, the person beside him gave him a sense of reality. Zhou Jiayu sighed, turning his gaze to Lin Zhushui’s face, thinking to wash his eyes and comfort himself.

“Sir, what should we do?” There were so many people here, and the place was so remote. Even if they called the police, the police probably wouldn’t arrive until the next day. Besides, mentally ill patients didn’t need to be held accountable even if they killed someone. Zhou Jiayu asked.

Lin Zhushui said, “Go to the archives and check on Lin Jue and the others.”

Zhou Jiayu said okay. Originally, they had agreed to meet Lin Jue in half an hour, but now it seemed there was no need for that. The two went from the first floor to the fifth floor. But this time on the way up, Zhou Jiayu saw that the patients who had been scattered everywhere were gone again, not knowing where they had gone.

It was around two in the afternoon now. Clearly, the sun was shining brightly outside, yet this building exuded a bone-chilling cold.

The fifth floor was also empty. Some random toys were scattered on the ground — things the patients had left behind when they left. Zhou Jiayu walked to the archives door and again smelled that moldy odor. He paused in his steps and called out, “Shibo, did you discover anything?”

“I think this psychiatric hospital should have closed down long ago.” Lin Jue coughed as she walked out of the room, holding two records in her hand, which she handed to Zhou Jiayu. “Take a look.”

Zhou Jiayu took them and saw it was an admission record. After briefly flipping through it, he quickly discovered the problem: “What’s going on… this hospital stopped admitting patients years ago?”

“Right.” Lin Jue said, “There haven’t been any new patient transfers in, and no patient transfers out either.”

Zhou Jiayu said in shock, “How is that possible? No transfers in is still understandable, but no transfers out — these patients all have families, right? Wouldn’t their families have opinions?”

Lin Jue sighed: “I guess not, because this psychiatric hospital is very special.”

Normal mental patients all had families, and their families would supervise their treatment. No matter how poor the environment, at least there wouldn’t be deaths. But this psychiatric hospital’s situation was somewhat unusual.

Most of the patients admitted here seemed to have been carefully selected. The majority were people with extremely weak social connections. For example, patients with a background like Jiang Zhu’s — both parents deceased — were not considered special here.

The cost of a psychiatric hospital was not low. If one wanted to receive good treatment, not only did they need to use some expensive medications, but they also needed a very comfortable environment. It was hard to imagine what kind of care they would receive in a psychiatric hospital with conditions like this.

“So what exactly do these people want to do?” The truth seemed to be right before their eyes, yet it made people unwilling to believe it. The abnormal situation in this hospital clearly had a reason. Zhou Jiayu said, “Or rather, what did they do to Jiang Zhu?”

“I don’t know.” Lin Jue sighed deeply. “But a rough guess — it definitely won’t be anything good.”

“These patients are gone again. Should we go look for them?” Zhou Jiayu said, “There must still be secrets among them.”

“We know where they went.” Lin Jue said, “Just now while we were searching through the files, someone came to ask us if we wanted to go pray together.”

“Pray?” Zhou Jiayu was startled. “They believe in a religion?”

“Not sure.” Lin Jue said, “They said the prayer location is in the back. Should we go take a look?”

Lin Zhushui said, “Let’s go.”

So everyone decided to go over and see what the situation was.

First there was the fighting in the hall, then the prayer gathering. These mental patients seemed to have long been familiar with doing these things and needed no urging. They followed the procedure step by step.

The building next to this one was something somewhat resembling a church, but the architectural style was somewhat different, and there were no标志性 objects like a cross. This building was blocked by the hospital building, and they hadn’t discovered it when they came in. If Lin Jue hadn’t mentioned it, they probably would have had to spend some effort to find it.

Drawing slightly closer, Zhou Jiayu heard countless whispered discussions, as if many people were speaking at the same time.

The building’s door was not closed but revealed a gap neither too big nor too small. They could just see the situation inside through the crack.

Nearly all the patients in the hospital seemed to be here. They knelt on the ground with their hands clasped, their mouths muttering something. At the very front of the patients was a black wooden table. On the table was something covered with a white cloth. From its shape, it seemed to be a person lying down.

“We have new guests.” Suddenly someone in the front of the kneeling crowd spoke. That person wore a hooded black robe, his face unclear. He had originally been sitting in the shadows, but now he suddenly stood up, facing the door and loudly saying, “Let us welcome them.”

Zhou Jiayu was startled. Clearly, this person was talking about them.

Then two or three patients got up from the ground and pulled open the heavy door before Zhou Jiayu and the others.

“Long time no see, my guests.” The man smiled. He was excessively tall, his figure appearing very thin. Probably because this build was so distinctive, Zhou Jiayu immediately recalled that he had seen this person during the school incident — this was probably the Jiang Zhu that Xu Jinghuo had spoken of.

“Jiang Zhu?” Zhou Jiayu softly called out his name.

Jiang Zhu’s voice was somewhat cold. He said, “You all arrived rather quickly.”

Zhou Jiayu said, “No, we arrived too late, Jiang Zhu.”

Jiang Zhu looked around and said, “You’re right. You arrived too late.”

The patients continued praying incessantly, their faces carrying fanatical smiles. The way they looked at Jiang Zhu was as if they were looking at an omniscient, omnipotent god.

Jiang Zhu stood opposite Zhou Jiayu and the others, quietly looking at them.

Zhou Jiayu was about to step forward when he saw the surrounding patients push out a massive iron cage. Inside the iron cage lay a completely naked man with disabled limbs. His hands and feet seemed to have been chopped off, leaving only a bare torso lying in the center of the cage. When he saw Zhou Jiayu and the others at the door, he opened his mouth and kept making “uh uh” sounds, revealing a dark, hollow mouth — his tongue seemed to have been cut off as well.

This person’s appearance was very likely to cause discomfort. Zhou Jiayu pressed his lips together: “You did this?”

“Right, I did it.” Jiang Zhu actually admitted it very straightforwardly. He walked to the side of the cage, reached his hand through the gaps, and grabbed that person’s neck. “I know what you want…” His voice was low and deep, like the whisper of a demon.

The person in the cage continued making “uh uh” sounds as he was grabbed by the neck. But Zhou Jiayu didn’t know if it was his imagination — the person didn’t seem afraid when Jiang Zhu grabbed his vital point. Instead, his eyes actually revealed a look of joy, as if he had been looking forward to this day for a long time.

“But I won’t give it to you.” However, the next moment, Jiang Zhu let go. He burst into loud laughter, his voice filled with malicious pleasure. “Wait. Just wait.”

“Uh uh…” That person’s face showed despair. He kept moving toward Jiang Zhu’s position, but Jiang Zhu never looked at him again.

“What exactly did you do to this hospital?” Zhou Jiayu’s eyes were full of disbelief. Although he had already guessed some of it, seeing Jiang Zhu’s actions, he still couldn’t suppress the waves rising in his heart. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable — Xu Ruwang and the others’ expressions weren’t relaxed either.

Jiang Zhu casually threw something on the ground, then turned to leave. Zhou Jiayu stepped forward, intending to chase after him, but the surrounding patients with fanatical expressions surrounded them.

If these were dirty things, they could have dealt with them without mercy. But what surrounded them were living people. So everyone could only watch helplessly as Jiang Zhu left.

Lin Zhushui’s expression was extremely cold. He also seemed to have no intention of stopping Jiang Zhu. He reached into his bosom, took out a paper crane, and the crane ignited with flames, flapping its wings as it flew away from here.

Zhou Jiayu had originally thought they would have to spend some effort struggling out of the crowd. He hadn’t expected that after Jiang Zhu left, the patients originally surrounding them also quickly dispersed. They moved their feet, orderly walking from this building toward the inpatient department. If not for the strange expressions on their faces, they would have looked quite like normal people.

Zhou Jiayu walked to the side of the cage, bent down, and picked up what Jiang Zhu had thrown down. He saw it was a videotape, with the number thirteen written on it.

“A videotape.” Zhou Jiayu asked, “Should we watch it?”

“We’ve come all this way, how could we not watch it?” Lin Jue’s mood wasn’t great either. She said, “Call the police first. There are so many patients here, we can’t handle all of them.”

This hospital had at least a hundred-odd people. If they were dirty things, that would be one matter. But they were several hundred living people. Even if they had mental problems, they were still human.

Xu Jian was also somewhat helpless. He picked up his phone and made a call. This place was very remote. Even if they called the police, the police probably wouldn’t arrive until the next day. They had felt this matter wasn’t simple before coming, but only after arriving did they discover it was even more complicated than they had imagined.

After getting the tape, they went to the surveillance room again. There was audiovisual equipment there that could play tapes. Of course, on the way there, they also brought the person from the iron cage along. After Jiang Zhu left, this person lay motionless like a corpse, making people very uncomfortable.

Arriving at the surveillance room, Lin Jue inserted the tape into the computer’s optical drive and watched as a sitting person appeared on the screen.

That person was a young man wearing a white straitjacket, sitting on a chair with his head lowered.

“This person isn’t Jiang Zhu, right?” Everyone had seen Jiang Zhu’s photo before. The person in the video didn’t look like Jiang Zhu.

“No.” Lin Jue said, “Isn’t there a nameplate on his chest? He should be a patient here…”

Just as Lin Jue finished speaking, they saw several more people appear in the video. These people wore the white uniforms unique to doctors. They held medicine and syringes in their hands, and one person held a thick record book, as if preparing to record something.

Zhou Jiayu suddenly had a bad premonition. He said, “What are these people going to do…”

Then they saw the doctor insert the syringe into the patient’s neck. A moment later, the patient wrapped in the straitjacket began struggling in pain. By this point, everyone had already vaguely guessed what this tape was — this psychiatric hospital was using patients for experiments. As for what kind of experiments, it was still unknown.

Xu Ruwang could no longer endure it and cursed, “Fuck.”

The others also had ashen faces, showing expressions of unbearable distress.

But this was only the beginning. The medicine injected into the patient’s body began to continuously take effect. He seemed to be in more and more pain, beginning to struggle like a madman. But his entire body was firmly restrained, so he couldn’t move at all.

If it were only this, everyone might not have been so angry. But the several people wearing doctor uniforms beside him provoked their fury — these people actually laughed and smiled as they watched the patient in such pain. One even reached out and directly pushed the patient to the ground, watching him twist his body in pain like a worm.

Amidst the painful groans were words spoken with a smile. One of the doctors said, “We don’t know how much longer he can live, but it’s very interesting.”

The image suddenly froze here. Zhou Jiayu turned his head and saw that Lin Jue had pressed pause. She said, “Sorry, I need a moment.”

Everyone understood her emotions. Xu Jian also cursed, “These people really fucking aren’t human.”

Lin Jue didn’t speak. She took a cigarette from her bosom, lit it, and only then said, “Continue.”

__

Author’s Note:

Outlast is a single-player horror game on Steam with extremely good effects. Those interested can first go to Bilibili to watch video walkthroughs. Strongly recommend Chunhe’s Outlast 1. Mm… speaking of Chunhe, it reminds me of Shen Yiqiong, what to do.

Shen Yiqiong: I’m purely black.