As the video began, Zhou Jiayu initially thought it was a human experiment. But as the footage continued, he began to doubt his own hypothesis. Neither the doctors nor the patients in the video seemed to have professional equipment. Aside from that single injection and the record books in their hands, there was no indication of any experimental elements. The malicious smiles on the doctors’ faces, however, suggested they were simply enjoying the process of the patients being tormented.

Patient numbers 13, 14, 15… the numbers on the patients’ hospital gowns steadily increased. Finally, when the scene switched again, Zhou Jiayu saw a familiar face—Jiang Zhu. He, too, was wrapped in a straitjacket like the previous patients, sitting on that chair, facing several doctors with distorted smiles.

“Help, help…” Jiang Zhu cried out for help. “What are you doing? Help—”

Zhou Jiayu’s face showed his distress. At this time, Jiang Zhu still looked young; one could tell he wasn’t old, suggesting this was the footage from when he was first admitted to the mental hospital. But those terrifying monsters did not soften at Jiang Zhu’s pleas. They continued to inject strange liquids into Jiang Zhu’s body, watching him let out agonizing screams. These people in doctor’s uniforms could no longer be called doctors; they were more like demons who found pleasure in human suffering, their laughter and actions completely twisted.

Jiang Zhu seemed to have been tormented for a long time. Although each segment of the footage was brief, it showed how his age changed. He went from being a teenager to a young man, from initial screams and struggles to numb acceptance. These days continued until a certain opportunity arrived.

The last segment of the video seemed to be recorded by someone’s phone; the footage was very rough and constantly shaking, but the excited gasps of the recorder could be heard.

“It’s about to begin,” someone said. The camera lifted, and Zhou Jiayu saw a building emitting black smoke. Upon closer inspection, Zhou Jiayu realized the smoking building was the very hospital they were in. The hospital seemed to be on fire, specifically on the fourth floor, where the director’s office was located.

“It’s started.” The person began to pant heavily again. He said, “I’ve waited too long for this day, too impatient, too impatient…” The screen suddenly shook violently. The person holding the phone started running, heading towards the front yard of the hospital.

When he arrived, the yard was already filled with patients in hospital gowns. The patients’ expressions were all excited; they seemed completely unafraid of the fire. They looked up, excitedly watching the fourth floor. Some were screaming, some were laughing, and some were even excitedly banging their heads against the wall.

“Now is our time—” Jiang Zhu’s voice rang out. The video footage shifted, and Zhou Jiayu saw Jiang Zhu standing among the crowd. He was wearing a hospital gown, crouching on the ground, his body hunched, and a mask on his face. He said, “Now is our time—”

Another neurotic repetition of sentences. Zhou Jiayu saw the patients echoing him, as if caught in a meaningless frenzy. The flames grew fiercer, and black ashes drifted in the air. Jiang Zhu and the others stood downstairs, cheering as if at a carnival. Such a large fire, with no firefighting measures, could potentially burn down the entire hospital if it continued.

But strangely, the fire was confined to the director’s office and did not spread to other areas.

Zhou Jiayu suddenly recalled the peculiar structure of the director’s office and the walls painted black. It seemed that the unusual decor and this fire were inextricably linked… As flames billowed from the window, Zhou Jiayu saw a person in the video climb out of the director’s office window. He was wearing a doctor’s uniform, seemingly a doctor from here.

“Help, help—” he cried out for help from the window. The patients turned their gaze towards the window.

“Help—” The cry for help sounded so familiar. Once, it was the patients standing below who cried for help. But now, the one crying for help was the doctor, who was high above. No one wanted to save him. The patients looked up, their faces expressionless. Their eyes were fixed on the person at the window, cornered by the flames, their gaze even more terrifying than the blazing fire, as if they wanted to tear the person above apart and devour them.

“Help…” Seeing the reactions of the people downstairs, he finally seemed to understand his predicament. Finally, the man gave up calling for help and began to cautiously try to climb out of the window. But there was nothing to break his fall from the fourth floor, only hard concrete. It was indeed a difficult choice between falling to his death or burning to death. But the creature’s most primal fear of fire still led him to make the final decision. Seeing the room about to be entirely engulfed by flames, he gritted his teeth and took a leap, finally jumping from the building.

A fall from the fourth floor was enough to be fatal for an ordinary person, especially with only hard concrete below. The moment the person landed, Zhou Jiayu saw his legs twist into a grotesque shape, and the accompanying agonizing scream confirmed that his legs had suffered severe damage.

“Ahhhhh…” He screamed miserably, lying on the ground, unable to move. But at least he had saved his life. After the intense pain, he seemed to let out a faint sigh of relief, straining his hands, about to crawl forward, but then noticed the patients, who had been looking up at the fire, slowly gathering around him.

“What are you looking at me for? Do you want to die?! Get lost! Get lost! You still dare to look? When I’m better, I’ll kill you all—” Perhaps the pain had made him lose his mind; he didn’t even notice the patients’ abnormalities, but instead continued to threaten them.

Jiang Zhu slowly walked towards him, squatted down in front of him, and slowly prodded his exposed flesh and blood with the tip of his foot.

“What are you doing—” He finally realized something was wrong.

“Your bones are showing,” Jiang Zhu said. He pressed down hard with his foot, directly stepping on him, followed by the man’s screams. “Ahhh, what are you doing—are you crazy—” He tried to break free but found himself completely unable to move, only able to shift with difficulty using his hands, like a pitiful maggot.

“Don’t be afraid,” Jiang Zhu said. “I will cure you, just as you cured us.”

The man’s expression froze. At this moment, he finally realized something. He looked around and found that there wasn’t a single doctor’s figure in the entire first-floor courtyard. Hundreds of patients gathered in the courtyard, surrounding him tightly, watching him with indifferent eyes.

“What have you done? Where are the other doctors…” The man felt fear and instinctively wanted to retreat.

“Doctors? Where are the doctors here? They’re all patients.” Jiang Zhu laughed. He pressed down hard on a section of the man’s bone and slowly ground it into the ground. “Hmm… Perhaps tomorrow we can try to see if anyone else is willing to be a doctor for a few days to treat you.”

The fear in the man’s eyes reached its peak, but it seemed everything was already too late. The camera went black, and the footage ended.

Everyone looked at the black screen in silence. Lin Jue, smoking a cigarette, glanced outside the door: “I’m not mistaken, isn’t that the guy who just had his legs and arms broken?”

“Yes,” Zhou Jiayu said. “Is that person the director of the hospital?”

Lin Jue said, “Ninety percent chance.”

Actually, when they first saw that person, they were filled with sympathy and anger towards Jiang Zhu, after all, a living person had been turned into that state. But after watching the video, everyone’s feelings became complicated. After seeing so many innocent patients being tormented, they all became hesitant about whether his fate was appropriate.

“Let’s call the police first,” Lin Jue said. “Let the police handle it. So many patients need to be placed. The situation at this hospital is already far from normal.”

There was almost no normal person left here. Perhaps Jiang Zhu was normal when he first arrived, but after so much torment, he clearly deviated from the normal range.

“Let’s go to the back mountain.” Lin Zhushui had been mostly silent since arriving here, but now he suddenly spoke, proposing a strange suggestion. Zhou Jiayu remembered that the back mountain was where the mentally ill patients were buried. He didn’t know what Lin Zhushui wanted to do by going to the back mountain, but since he suggested it, there was no harm in going to see.

So, they split up. Xu Rumang and the others guarded the “human stick,” while Zhou Jiayu, Lin Jue, and the others followed Lin Zhushui to check the situation on the back mountain. The mountain here was also very desolate, and the small path leading up was overgrown with weeds. It was unclear how long it had been since anyone had passed through here. Zhou Jiayu walked at the front and soon reached the top of the mountain. He had expected these graves to at least have gravestones or something, but he clearly overestimated the humanitarianism of this mental hospital, as there were only some raised mounds of earth on the hilltop, with no gravestones whatsoever. Each mound was covered with dense weeds, so thick they were already half a meter high. Zhou Jiayu even suspected there might be bodies under his feet, just out of sight.

“Jiayu, let the little paper help,” Lin Zhushui said. “Dig down from here.”

Zhou Jiayu agreed and instructed the little paper to dig down where Lin Zhushui indicated. The little paper, as usual, rolled up its sleeves and started working with its backside sticking out. It was indeed strong and quickly dug a huge pit where Lin Zhushui directed. Just as the little paper was about to continue, Lin Zhushui suddenly called a halt, then casually picked up a long stick from beside them and cleared away the remaining loose soil.

Below the loose soil was a wooden box. The box was very crude, like a rough handicraft made by a child. Zhou Jiayu’s nostrils once again caught the stench of a corpse. Although the smell was faint, it was very pungent, making him involuntarily cover his nose with his hand.

Shen Yiqiong grumbled unhappily, “What is this? Did they cut people into pieces and bury them?”

There was no crematorium or anything similar here. For such a small box, the only way to fit a person inside would indeed be to cut them into pieces, as Shen Yiqiong suggested.

Lin Zhushui didn’t speak. He used the stick in his hand to directly lift the lid of the wooden box. As the lid opened, Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong were both stunned. Inside the box was the black liquid they had seen in the hotel before. The liquid was placed in the box but didn’t flow out through the cracks; instead, it seemed to be stuck tightly inside the box due to its high density. Zhou Jiayu was all too familiar with this liquid; it was the same black liquid he and Shen Yiqiong had seen in the refrigerator that night. He never expected to see the same thing on the back mountain.

The thing smelled so bad that everyone instinctively stepped back a few paces. Zhou Jiayu covered his mouth and nose with his hand, but noticed that the object placed in the box was slowly wriggling. Although the speed was slow, it was indeed moving.

“This thing is moving—” Zhou Jiayu exclaimed.

“Damn, I thought I was seeing things,” Lin Jue frowned, her expression truly unpleasant. “What exactly is this thing?”

Inside the black liquid were fingernails, hair, and some shattered bones. To say this was a human, yet one couldn’t imagine what method would turn a person into this.

“There seems to be something on the edge of the box.” Zhou Jiayu pinched his nose, enduring the stench, and looked at the layer of soil at the edge of the box. Within that thin layer of soil, something seemed to be covered. Lin Zhushui moved his hand and directly poked the object out from the side of the box.

Zhou Jiayu bent down and picked up the object, finding it to be a packet of documents wrapped in plastic. He said, “…What is this?” He carefully lifted a corner and saw that it contained many certificates, one of which was an ID card with an unfamiliar name. Clearly, this ID card and the puddle of liquid at the bottom of the pit were inextricably linked. And it wasn’t just an ID card; there were also some relatively important documents. Zhou Jiayu also found the hospital’s employment certificate and some qualification certificates inside—all these documents indicated that, if nothing else, the puddle of black liquid at the bottom was the mental hospital’s doctor.

“This black water was indeed made by Jiang Zhu…” Zhou Jiayu said. “Wait, what’s this…” He found a torn piece of paper among the documents. This fragment was very inconspicuous, but because of its special texture, Zhou Jiayu still noticed it. This paper fragment was yellow and felt like unique kraft paper. Zhou Jiayu held it in his hand and immediately thought of the kraft paper Xu Jinghuo had mailed him.

“Isn’t this that kraft paper?” Zhou Jiayu looked at Lin Zhushui. “Sir…”

Lin Zhushui reached out and took the object from Zhou Jiayu’s hand, gently sniffing it at his nose: “It’s the same thing.”

Zhou Jiayu pursed his lips. He regretted not examining the black liquid carefully when he saw it in the refrigerator earlier. He always felt like he had missed a crucial clue. But Lin Zhushui directly said, “Keep digging.”

So Zhou Jiayu instructed the paper, according to Lin Zhushui’s instructions, to continue digging downwards. Soon, more than a dozen large pits appeared in front of everyone, each containing a black wooden box, with documents wrapped in plastic placed beside the box. And within the documents, each one contained torn pieces of kraft paper.

The scattered fragments were collected. Zhou Jiayu saw the appearance of the fragments and thought of a puzzle, then tentatively tried to piece the fragments together. He had only thought of it on a whim, but to his surprise, he actually guessed correctly. After some effort, the fragments were indeed pieced into a single sheet of paper, though only half a sheet. On it, a strange pattern was drawn in black charcoal, which at first glance resembled a magic circle.

Lin Jue couldn’t understand the pattern either. Just as Zhou Jiayu was wondering how to tell Lin Zhushui, he saw him reach out his hand to him.

“Here,” Lin Zhushui said to Zhou Jiayu.

Zhou Jiayu understood, took Lin Zhushui’s hand, and then lightly traced the pattern of the spell array onto his palm with his fingertips, conveying it bit by bit to Lin Zhushui. The pattern was only half complete and quite complex. To ensure Lin Zhushui understood, Zhou Jiayu drew each stroke very carefully. After he finished, Lin Zhushui clasped Zhou Jiayu’s hand and gently squeezed it. “Well drawn.”

Zhou Jiayu said, “Hmm… But Sir, this spell array is only half complete. Can we know what it’s for?”

Lin Zhushui said, “This is the first time I’ve encountered this array, but the pattern in the middle looks familiar.”

“The pattern?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

Lin Zhushui paused slightly: “Yes, in the center of the pattern, there’s a three-legged golden crow, only half drawn.”

Zhou Jiayu immediately thought of the pattern in the upper right corner of his kraft paper, and the Jiguan he had in his mind.

“I suspect this array is the source of the black water,” Lin Zhushui said, his voice tinged with hesitation. “Do you all think this is indeed water?”

Zhou Jiayu said, “Yes, it’s a puddle of black water, somewhat viscous, placed in a box.”

“Very strange,” Lin Zhushui whispered. “I can’t see, but I feel that the water you’re talking about… has the aura of a living person.”

A living person? This puddle of black water obviously couldn’t be a living person, and if Lin Zhushui’s feeling wasn’t wrong, then the kraft paper was clearly the key clue. Whether it was the charred corpses at the Meng family ruins or the viscous black water in front of them, they were all inextricably linked to the kraft paper…

“Ji Ba,” Zhou Jiayu called out to the little black bird in his mind. “What exactly is going on?”

“This should be a kind of array,” Ji Ba said. “A failed array… used to revive people, but it’s only half, so the revival effect isn’t very good.” It whispered, “That Jiang Zhu did it on purpose.”

Zhou Jiayu fell silent. He understood what Ji Ba meant. If Meng Yangtian’s revival of the Meng family was sincere, then Jiang Zhu’s revival of the buried doctors was clearly driven by other intentions. When a person dies, that’s the end of it. He hated the deceased, so he used a flawed array to revive them, turning them into something neither human nor ghost.

“But what does it have to do with you? Why is there a Golden Crow in the center of the array?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

Ji Ba slowly said, “How would I know? I’m just a little bird…”

Zhou Jiayu thought, I’d believe your lies. What kind of little bird is named Ji Ba? However, since Ji Ba wouldn’t tell the truth, Zhou Jiayu had no immediate solution.

When Xu Jian called the police, he initially expected them to arrive the next day, but to their surprise, they were quite efficient, arriving urgently that evening after the afternoon call. Everyone was sitting in the first-floor hall, resting, a bit listless after not eating all day. Zhou Jiayu leaned against Lin Zhushui, listening to that little bastard Shen Yiqiong rattling off a menu nearby.

Lin Jue said, “I beg you, Shen Yiqiong, I’m already very hungry. Can you please stop reciting the menu?”

Shen Yiqiong said, “But I’m hungry.”

Lin Jue said, “Then why are you looking at Zhou Jiayu? He doesn’t have milk.”

Shen Yiqiong silently shifted his gaze away from Zhou Jiayu.

Zhou Jiayu: “…” A chill ran down his chest. Shen Yiqiong, what the hell were you just thinking?

When the police arrived, their eyes immediately landed on the person in the cage. Although they had explained it clearly over the phone, seeing the “human stick” in front of them still made everyone uncomfortable. One of the new police officers even ran outside to vomit.

Next was the handover work. To say it was a handover, it was essentially them giving the police the video Jiang Zhu had given them, which detailed the doctors’ actions in this hospital. The police would likely rectify the hospital and send the patients to a new mental hospital. Lin Jue was somewhat worried that these patients would still encounter bad situations, so she offered to donate a sum of money to be used as treatment funds for them, allowing them to receive good treatment in other regular mental hospitals, hoping they could recover their health and return to a normal life.

As for the director who was turned into a human stick in the cage, everyone’s feelings were more complicated. Jiang Zhu not killing him was his greatest torment. He couldn’t move or speak, and perhaps only starvation could kill him. Whether he had the courage to die by such a painful method, no one could say for sure. Having watched the video, no one felt much sympathy for this man. So many patients had been tormented by him for so many years; his current appearance was, to some extent, a form of repayment.

Finally, everyone left the mental hospital in a police car. On the way out, the paper crane Lin Zhushui had released earlier returned, covered in a thick layer of black ash. Lin Zhushui gently touched it, and its body burst into flames. Only later did Zhou Jiayu learn that Lin Zhushui had, at that moment, planted a spark on Jiang Zhu.

The case of the mental hospital could not be kept secret and caused a great deal of controversy in society. Zhou Jiayu learned from the news that this mental hospital had originally been closed several years ago due to illegal operations, but for some reason, it had been privately preserved. Finally, the patients in that hospital were dispersed and sent to new mental hospitals, presumably out of fear that they would gather together and cause another incident.

Upon returning home, everyone planned to make a sumptuous meal to reward themselves. Zhou Jiayu asked Lin Zhushui what dishes he wanted to eat. Lin Zhushui said in a very serious tone, “Pan-fried yellow croaker.”

Zhou Jiayu: “…” Huh?

Lin Zhushui said, “The kind that’s golden brown on both sides.”

This was a perfectly normal sentence, but Zhou Jiayu’s ears inexplicably started to turn red. He hummed, put on an apron, and went into the kitchen. Outside, Lin Jue whispered to Lin Zhushui, “Zhushui, are you being a rogue?”

Lin Zhushui raised his teacup, took a sip, and ignored her.

Lin Jue said, “When are you planning to start eating?”

Lin Zhushui was quiet for a moment, then put down his teacup. “At the right time.”

Lin Jue sighed deeply, “Brother, why didn’t I realize before how patient you are?”

Lin Zhushui, however, smiled slightly, his lips curving. “He naturally deserves the best timing.”