Jiang Yan stared at the photograph for a long time.
Her expression was hard to read as she recalled what Le Yi had just said to her in the hospital room.
—“It’s not that we can’t be controlled, but that thing doesn’t want to control us.”
“You need to be conscious enough to experience true torment.”
—“I know far too much.”
“But I’m too lazy to tell you.”
It was obvious that Le Yi knew what kind of supernatural entity was behind Baishan Sanatorium.
At the very least, she knew why the test subjects were them.
Shen Xiaoxiao, however, was nothing close to calm; her confusion practically leapt off the chat screen at Jiang Yan:
“Help me—I’m not even going to talk about whether Jiang He is dead or not, or who the current director really is. Just looking at this photo…”
“This doesn’t make sense—I tested Le Yi myself! She’s definitely alive! Ahhh, did I screw up my channeling? All those kids were already burned to death??”
“Mama—what on earth are they?!”
Shen Xiaoxiao had already started thinking of these people as ghosts, instinctively referring to them as “things.”
But Jiang Yan didn’t think these kids were dead.
Setting aside whether or not the channeling results were correct, simply based on them being Jiang He’s most prized creations, her most precious collection, Jiang He would have brought them with her if she had even the smallest chance during her escape from the fire.
So the children were likely rescued from the fire, smuggled out by Jiang He and hidden away at Baishan Sanatorium.
Jiang Yan even suspected that the fire itself was orchestrated by Jiang He.
Her most devoted fans would never have agreed for her to abandon her underground circus. If Jiang He wanted to truly go legitimate and live in the sunlight, there was only one way.
She had to destroy the circus.
So she started the mountain fire, making these children “vanish” from the world, turning them into her exclusive collection.
Of course, all of this was conjecture—the truth was unknown. But one thing was certain.
There were five children in the photograph.
The girl in the vase had not appeared in the sanatorium.
Jiang Yan opened the photo again, looking closely at the vase girl.
Because the girl had grown up inside a vase, her limbs were invisible, her actual height impossible to judge; Jiang Yan could only estimate her age to be between six and nine.
But now, years later, there was no way this girl was still alive.
Her body simply could not have survived this long.
So it was reasonable to assume that she died before the forest fire, or perished in the blaze, or perhaps even died just after arriving at the sanatorium.
If so, that meant there were two people connected to the human circus who were now dead.
Jiang He and the vase girl.
Both could have ended up, after forming an energy field, using Le Yi and the others as their test subjects.
Both had reason to torment the four children.
The former was obvious—the circus members had always been Jiang He’s lab rats, to be manipulated and experimented upon at will. Everything about Jiang He’s life showed her delight in controlling fate; if she developed an energy field after death, what the children would face was not hard to imagine.
The latter’s motives were just as easy to guess.
Raised in a vase, crushed by agony every day as her bones were squeezed, her heart pounding against her narrow chest, the girl must have been terribly weak—and must have desperately longed for life.
Even if the other children suffered alongside her, compared to what she endured, their pain would have seemed much lighter. Perhaps she envied them, perhaps she was jealous, with feelings that only grew and grew.
And after her death, with her spirit polluted, those emotions would only intensify.
Once she had her own energy field, as her rationality faded, emotion would completely take over.
Those years of shared hardship would become a stagnant pool of dead feelings for her; every little resentment from life would endlessly magnify until it filled her mind.
In that state, it would be entirely understandable if she chose to torment her companions.
Jiang Yan’s fingers tapped unconsciously on the bed.
She was currently leaning against it, while Le Yi, with her back to her, was hunched over the windowsill, drawing on the back of a medical record with colored pencils.
Because the windowsill was too small for much, all the colored pencils were lined up on the floor. Every so often, she squatted to swap colors, then stood up and continued drawing.
The pitifully few colored pencils were worn down to stubs, but each was kept very clean.
It was clear Le Yi cherished them dearly.
Jiang Yan rested her chin on her hand, watching the small silhouette. Her mind drifted through last night’s events, the children’s clear division of labor, their routine conversations, their debate in the hospital room about whether to escape…
Suddenly, Jiang Yan’s thoughts caught.
She asked Le Yi, “Are you really mentally ill?”
Le Yi kept drawing seriously, not turning her head. “What’s it to you if I am or not?”
So Jiang Yan asked again, “Are the other kids really mentally ill?”
Le Yi: “What’s it to you if they are or not?”
Jiang Yan stared at Le Yi’s desire for a while and became sure of her guess.
No.
These kids weren’t mentally ill at all.
With that realization, Jiang Yan clicked her tongue.
The Supernatural Administration Bureau had also concluded that pretending to be mentally ill was the easiest way to get admitted to a sanatorium. In the same way, to give these children a plausible reason to be there, Jiang He had labelled them as mentally ill.
Thus, the idea that the “infected test subjects” were mental patients didn’t hold up.
Jiang Yan recalled last night’s announcement—there had never been a clearly stated link between “infected test subjects” and “mental patients.”
—Le Yi had claimed that the test subjects were the mental patients.
That was her interpretation, or rather, the most convenient explanation to offer others.
—Fang Miao had instructed everyone to find the test subjects, to locate “mental patients.”
But at no point had she linked those two concepts together.
Meaning, the infected test subjects actually had no necessary connection to the mental patients.
The entire cause and effect had been reversed.
It wasn’t that the infected test subjects were mental patients, so looking for them meant searching among the hospital’s mentally ill.
It was that the files for the four children listed them as “mental patients,” so the test subjects thus became “mental patients.”
Put simply—
The infected test subjects weren’t mental patients.
They were simply Le Yi and the other three children.
This energy field was far too targeted; its malice aimed squarely at four children. Trapped in the field, with her spirit-seeing ability, Le Yi could sense the intense malice everyone felt toward her the moment the “game” began.
So she had some idea about the origin of the game, which was why she’d said, “I know far too much.”
But there was still a puzzle.
From last night’s conversation in the elevator, it seemed Xiao Tian genuinely believed he and Le Yi were mentally ill.
And Le Yi had not refuted him—she had just gone along with it.
But just now, judging by Le Yi’s true desires, she really didn’t think there was anything wrong with her.
So what was really going on?
Jiang Yan frowned deeply.
Her prolonged silence had Shen Xiaoxiao panicking on the other end of the line.
She began a rapid barrage of calls: “Jiang Yan-jie?”
“Jiang Yan-jie, are you still alive??”
“Jiang Yan-jie, don’t scare me—just give me a sign if you’re alive!”
Jiang Yan picked up her phone: “.”
Shen Xiaoxiao instantly relaxed a little: “Hehe~”
Before Shen Xiaoxiao could ask anything else, Jiang Yan added, “They were probably rescued from the fire, but Jiang He covered up the truth.”
Shen Xiaoxiao was instantly reassured.
She bounced with enthusiasm: “My sister’s cast is almost done! I’ll go to 405 in half an hour, then we can head to the archive room together!!”
Jiang Yan: “You can check the nurses’ internet logs in the next half hour. We need to confirm whether Jiang He is dead.”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “Will do~”
Jiang Yan put her phone down.
At precisely three, Jiang Yan showed up at the hospital room door.
Two minutes later, the door to room 403 was quietly opened, and Shen Xiaoxiao slipped out.
“How did it go?” Jiang Yan asked.
Shen Xiaoxiao replied immediately, “It’s definitely Jiang An who’s in charge now!”
“I checked all the accounts that had ever connected to the network here, and several nurses have complained about the director: personality shifts, memory lapses, like she forgot rules she made herself only months later, and the most obvious—about a year ago, she started calling nurses by the wrong names, multiple times.”
Jiang Yan nodded.
The two of them headed toward the archives.
There were hardly any staff left at Baishan Sanatorium, and each one more negligent than the last, so the corridors were full of patients wandering about, and not a single staff member in sight.
Their way was completely clear, and they reached the archive room without issue.
The archive room was easy to find; go up to the fifth floor and turn left. The director’s office was next door.
But even with the lax management, someone was always supposed to be on duty in the archive room.
At the moment, Zhang Lei was sitting in front of the archive room door playing a game. The sound effects pinged nonstop, proof of a heated battle.
From a distance, Shen Xiaoxiao grumbled in a low voice, “He’s got nerves of steel.”
“There’ve been so many staff deaths these last few months—I’d have quit long ago. He was even joking around with that nurse Xu Jing this morning…”
“And Wei Xian hasn’t shown up all day—he’s not even worried, won’t report it, and he’s still just playing games!”
Jiang Yan guessed, “Probably the magnetic field is dampening their awareness.”
“And…”
She pondered, “Given that this place is often the scene of murders at night, even if they lose their memories after, their attitudes toward life and death are subconsciously affected.”
Shen Xiaoxiao nodded without hesitation: “That must be it!”
She asked Jiang Yan, “So what do we do now? Should we trick him away?”
Jiang Yan gestured, and Shen Xiaoxiao leaned in to listen.
After half a minute, she straightened with a sly grin.
…
Zhang Lei had been in low spirits lately, especially on Sundays.
He felt like someone had placed a curse on him: groggy and out of sorts, every Sunday he woke as if he’d stayed up all night. No amount of sleep could make up for that fatigue, and when people get too tired, they get irritable. Over the last two months, he had become obsessed with gaming.
Obsessed with the thrill of killing in-game.
Just as he was slashing away, he sensed light suddenly blocked from above. Annoyed, he looked up, and before he could say a word, a slap landed squarely on his forehead.
He was stunned by the blow.
His brain buzzed for a long moment before he realized it was that new manic patient from the hospital.
The patient, seeing that she had Zhang Lei’s attention, grinned idiotically, snatched the phone from his hand, and smashed it onto the floor. Zhang Lei shoved Shen Xiaoxiao aside and rushed to pick it up.
The screen was shattered.
Zhang Lei’s face went dark. He cursed, picked up the nearby broom, and was about to strike Shen Xiaoxiao, but before he could lay a finger on her, she collapsed to the ground.
“Help! Help! Beating up a minor in public—isn’t that against the law? Ahhh—!”
She clutched her head in agony, rolling around and wailing as tears streamed down her face.
From her vantage point, Jiang Yan thought: …
She really shouldn’t have let Shen Xiaoxiao improvise.
Half the patients on the fifth floor rushed out at the commotion.
Originally, they’d just wanted to see which patient was having a meltdown, but the elderly women and men recognized the scene at a glance and immediately swarmed around Zhang Lei.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
“It’s bad enough you hit us, but now you’re bullying this poor little girl?!”
Despite having been abandoned by their families, not even fearing death anymore, these patients still instinctively protected the younger ones, standing up for them.
From what she observed, these patients weren’t under external control at the moment.
Jiang Yan considered this.
So the incident that morning must have been the spirit’s attempt to expand its control.
From what the children had said in the hospital room, the spirit behind this energy field had tried three times to extend its reach this month, but so far, its spiritual power wasn’t enough.
She quickly set those thoughts aside, ducked behind a desk near the door, and slipped quietly into the archive room amid the commotion.
Time was short—at most, she had ten minutes.
The archive room wasn’t large, with only four shelves, each marked by year and month.
Jiang Yan quickly glanced around, heading straight for the oldest files—those from two years ago.
These records had been gathering dust for some time; almost every file cover was thick with dust. Holding her nose, Jiang Yan checked each one on the top tier, and after about eight minutes, finally found what she needed.
Five files labelled with names, arrayed side by side.
[Le Jia] [Le Tian] [Le Yao] [Le Yi] [Pingping]
Because the first four records were still periodically updated with new diagnoses, their files were dust-free.
Except for Pingping.
The file for this “Pingping” had a thick layer of dust. She was listed just after the four whose names began with “Le.”
It was conspicuous.
She didn’t even have a surname.
Outside, the patients were getting quieter. Jiang Yan knew her time was up. She stuffed the files under her clothes and slipped out, keeping low and out of sight.
Once outside, she straightened up and calmly walked toward the stairs, giving a soft cough.
Shen Xiaoxiao heard the cue, wiped her tears, and stopped wailing. She patted herself down and got up.
“Oh, where am I now?”
Zhang Lei glared at her.
Shen Xiaoxiao grinned, bouncing off toward the stairwell.
Jiang Yan and Shen Xiaoxiao returned to the fourth floor by different routes. As Le Yi was still in 405, Jiang Yan followed Shen Xiaoxiao to room 403.
Shen Huanhuan lay on her bed, looking exhausted.
Though she’d gotten her emotions under control since the morning, she still felt guilty about dragging everyone down with her limited mobility.
“I’m sorry—I’m such a burden in a place like this.”
She apologized earnestly to Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan pulled the files from her clothes. “It’s fine, your money’s working hard for us too.”
She remarked casually, “How much did all those records cost, anyway?”
Someone who could dig up information on an underground circus, which had supposedly been wiped from existence, couldn’t have come cheap. Jiang Yan mentally estimated the fee at about two hundred thousand.
Clearly, she knew nothing about real-world prices.
Shen Xiaoxiao waved a hand. “It’s not too bad—just seven figures.”
Jiang Yan froze with the file half-torn open.
She slowly raised her head and asked softly, “How much?”
“Seven figures.”
Shen Xiaoxiao was peeking at the files, then noticed Jiang Yan had stopped and whispered, “Hm? Why aren’t you opening it?”
Jiang Yan licked her lips.
“Seven figures?”
Shen Xiaoxiao nodded, completely at ease. “Yup.”
Jiang Yan: “How much will we get for completing this phase?”
Shen Xiaoxiao rested her chin in her hands, calculating. “This one’s a half-energy field, hehe. We’ll each get hundreds of thousands, for sure!”
[So it’s a net loss.]
[LMAO, the twins combined don’t even earn what they spend.]
[Wait, wait, why is everyone already talking about finishing the mission… This is a half-energy field! Praying to survive should be the focus!!]
Jiang Yan stared at Shen Xiaoxiao in silence.
Shen Xiaoxiao looked completely untroubled.
After a moment, she finally understood what Jiang Yan meant, and said with a sudden realization, “It’s fine—think of it as interest money. No need to feel bad—out with the old, in with the new!”
Interest money.
Jiang Yan, recalling that she still hadn’t hired a housekeeper, took a deep breath and turned her attention back to the files.
She was most curious about Pingping, so she opened that girl’s file first.
On top was a drawing.
She had no idea why there was a drawing stuck in a medical record, but she examined it closely.
It was a small vase.
The vase was covered in drawings of colorful rivers, and not just the vase—the entire sheet was filled with rivers.
It was as though rivers had fallen from the sky, flooding the whole scene.
In childish handwriting, line by line, it read:
“We’ll take Pingping drifting down the river; then you’ll be a message in a bottle!”
Signed by Le Yi.
“Pingping, you have to smile more. Don’t let me catch you crying again.”
Signed by Le Yao.
“Pingping, look at me—watch me do a magic trick for you!”
Signed by Le Tian.
“Pingping isn’t ugly at all—she’s a little beauty.”
Signed by Le Jia.
In the height of summer, 2019, after a triumphant human circus show, Jiang He made an exception and bought a set of six-colored pencils for each child.
The very next day was Pingping’s birthday.
This drawing was the children’s collective seventh birthday gift to Pingping.