Terror is resurging, but only I am.

Chapter 24 It's not him, it's not a ghost, it's not a nurse, so could it be me?
It was pitch black.

A chilling aura emanated from the coffin lid, clinging to Yan Ming's body like a bone-deep infection, slowly and persistently eroding his flesh.

He's in a coffin now.

There was a rustling sound outside the coffin. He could hear something moving directly above him, like that thin, ghostly figure.

It brushed against the coffin lid as it landed, and the slight impact made Yan Ming inside the coffin shudder. His heart jumped into his throat, and cold sweat immediately poured down his back.

"whee."

Then Yan Ming heard an extremely faint mocking sound, and a thin, ghostly figure walked out of the ward with a "pat-pat" sound, the sound mingling with the ferocious creature outside the ward.

Did it know I was inside, so it deliberately scared me?
Yan Ming recalled the shushing gesture made by the thin, ghostly figure when it turned around earlier; this ghost's intelligence was far superior to that of the other ghosts in the hospital.

Meanwhile, the ferocious creature that attacked the old woman outside the ward seemed to be searching for something, panting heavily and lingering around the ghost-eyed corpse for a long time.

The ghost eye on the male corpse's forehead remained closed, because Yan Ming could sense that the ferocious creature could smell the faint aura of other ghosts and was therefore searching for his traces.

If the ghost eye were to open now, this male corpse would likely be torn to pieces.

The seven nurse ghosts at the man's feet remained motionless, cowering on the soles of his feet, not daring to move an inch.

There was a gauntlet in the ward, also in the form of a shadow ghost, but it was far more terrifying than the image ghosts. Driven by some kind of biological instinct, they remained silent.

However, Yan Ming, as the owner, was not much better off. He silently entered the paralysis mode of the wheelchair king and temporarily relinquished control of the male corpse.

In this way, the male corpse is essentially switched off, as the malevolent creature has no interest in a motionless dead body.

"call--"

The ghostly creature outside the corridor emitted a long, drawn-out breath, and the strange sound, resembling footsteps, gradually faded away, seemingly heading towards the outside of the laboratory.

Yan Ming, inside the coffin, finally breathed a sigh of relief; he was safe for the time being.

At least the ghost blocking the ward door has left, and now he can try to leave the coffin.

The ability to enter the coffin on its own must be that of the Slender Man.
Two ghosts appeared in Yan Ming's mind. One was the ferocious god that attacked the old woman. It was very fast. Yan Ming only knew that the guy was huge and extremely violent.

It's somewhat like a physical ghost, but it can slip through the gaps in the coffin lid and the small door of the hospital room, possibly indicating the ability to become ethereal.

Secondly, it is extremely fierce; even an old woman's breath has no effect on it, and it tears the old woman in half in a single encounter.

Although there was an element of surprise attack, the ghosts didn't care about chivalry at all, and it's a fact that they could kill an old man in one move.

The other, slender ghostly figure on the ceiling, is even more peculiar, existing between reality and illusion, and may possess a spatial "displacement" ability.

His appearance in the coffin must be a special ability of the ghost, but it's uncertain what triggers this ghost's ability.

It's definitely not arbitrary; otherwise, the ghost wouldn't need to pull the coffin lid to release the ghost inside; a simple spatial shift would have been enough to release it.

Yes……

Three sounds?

Yan Ming recalled what happened at the moment his position changed; he did indeed enter the coffin when the third "bang" sounded.

Slender Man's abilities seem to be related to the medium "sound" and the quantity "three"?
But does it mean me no harm?
Based on the situation just now, he could only barely dodge the first attack from the evil spirit, and in this critical situation, he would most likely die at the hands of this ghost.

In hindsight, Slender Man's crucial move definitely saved his life; it seems the guy knew he was in the coffin, but didn't kill him...

What exactly is this thing trying to do?
Yan Ming pondered, found a comfortable posture to exert force, and tried to use his upper body strength to push open the coffin lid.

However, the coffin lid was far heavier than he had imagined, and with several unbroken restraints, it was completely beyond his ability to push open.

He then tried to switch back to the Spying Ghost and use his ghost eyes to help lift the coffin lid, but he still failed.

Yan Ming fixed his ghostly eyes on the outside of the coffin and stretched out his ghostly hand to tear at the restraints. The ghostly hand was not sharp, but it was strong enough. However, it was still no match for the large number of restraints used to bind brute mental patients.

The ward was like a prison cell, and there was nothing sharp inside, so Ghost Hand couldn't find any tools to cut the restraints.

Helpless, Yan Ming could only open the ghostly eyes of the male corpse outside the ward, hoping to find a solution from the outside.

The first thing that catches the eye is a pool of blood in front of the small door below the ward. The old woman, who was originally a catgirl, was cut in half at the waist. The huge impact sent her body from the waist down flying three or four meters away. Her face was deathly pale, and her eyes were already dull.

However, Yan Ming noticed that the old woman still had a cat face and had not completely lost consciousness and returned to a normal state, so he felt a little relieved.

It's alright, I'm still alive.

So he turned slightly to the side, making himself lean, and his shadow stretched out under the light, thus touching the shadow of the old woman's lower body. The nurse ghosts immediately understood and carried the lower body back to the old woman's side.

So that she won't be unable to find her legs when she wakes up.

The dragon-seeking ruler wrapped around the ghost-eyed corpse's arm was gone, probably taken away by the two ghosts, which Yan Ming found somewhat regrettable.

Originally, if the dowsing rod had been used to squeeze through, she might have been able to squeeze into the ward through the small door; her sharp teeth were just enough to bite open the restraints.

However, what made Yan Ming even more relieved was something else—

Thankfully, the dowsing rod wasn't playing nursery rhymes in the corridor. If it had been saying something like, "Father, forty good boy, please let the little lamb out," then all the hospital room doors in the corridor would have opened...

That would be a really big problem.

The ghost-eyed corpse pushed the iron door of the ward, but could not open it. There was an iron cover in the middle of the door. Opening the iron cover revealed a large keyhole.

He examined the keyhole and could roughly guess the shape of the key before turning to look deeper into the laboratory.

If there's no other way, the only option now is to head into the lab and see if we can find the key to the ward door.

The ghost-eyed corpse walked heavily into the corridor, which had about seven or eight wards on each side, housing special patients who required close supervision.

As the corpses passed by, Yan Ming could sense that something was being held in these wards, and strange sounds like "hoarse" and "coughing" could be faintly heard coming from inside.

In the middle of the corridor, Yan Ming saw two hospital rooms with their iron doors wide open. He peeked inside and saw that there were no coffins in either room.

He hadn't dared to look into the previous ward, but now he felt that the coffin seemed to be just a container for imprisoning evil spirits, and that other ghosts seemed to be imprisoned in other ways.

These two wards must belong to the Fork in the Road Ghost and the Slender Man, right?

Yan Ming glanced ahead and confirmed that only these two rooms in the corridor were open, which corresponded to the number of ghosts that had escaped from the laboratory.

The dowsing rod escaped during the surgery, which may have triggered some of Slender Man's abilities, allowing him to successfully break out of prison.

Then, when Yan Ming and the old woman went to the evacuation point, the Slender Ghost released the Fork in the Road Ghost. After escaping, the Fork in the Road Ghost ran to the intersection and changed the terrain. The Slender Ghost then chose to release the second ghost – the Fierce Ghost.

Yan Ming deduced what happened before they entered the laboratory; there might be some errors, but the general outline was correct.

He entered the first ward with its door open. There was only a display case inside, the glass of which had been smashed and the items inside had been violently destroyed.

No, it's not damaged yet, it's just been taken apart.

Yan Ming controlled the corpse to reach down and take the toy, lost in thought. It was a very common little toy, Huarong Road, which most people had seen even if they hadn't played it.

At this moment, all the modules of Huarong Road were taken out and carefully placed on the display case, as if waiting for someone to assemble them.

Huarong Road?
What does it mean that other wards use coffins to imprison evil spirits, while this ward only has a Huarong Road puzzle?
Could it be...

If he had to make a connection, the first thing Yan Ming thought of was the Fork in the Road Ghost, which could be considered to be somewhat related to Huarong Road.

But is it really Huarong Road that's used to imprison the Crossroads Ghost?

The research in this lab is quite novel.

Was the containment device a special design created by Dr. Zhang's miraculous hand?
Yan Ming had never heard of any other ghosts having something similar, not even the ghosts released from the West Building ward.

The stitched-together ghost doesn't look quite like a normal ghost.

He carefully collected all the Huarong Road puzzle pieces and put them into the pocket of the survivor's corpse. The body's fingers were too stiff to easily piece them together.

Entering another ward, there was nothing in the room except pure emptiness, reflecting the white of the four walls.

Does the ghost in this hospital room have no containment item?
No, it's not that there's no containment object; it's that the containment object has been destroyed by Slender Man.

This thing is very intelligent. After escaping, it didn't want others to know what its nemesis, the containment object, really was, so it simply destroyed it.

It deliberately left behind containment tools for the Crossroads Ghost, and even carefully disassembled them when releasing the ghost, without damaging them in the slightest. It is estimated that this was a backup plan left behind, so that later generations would put the Crossroads Ghost back in.

Just then, Ghost Eye suddenly moved, and Yan Ming sensed something moving deep within the experimental area.

It wasn't a ghost, but a human.

Survivors of the turmoil in the experimental zone?
Yan Ming immediately moved in that direction. Along the way, he passed many special large medical instruments. He couldn't tell what they were used for, but judging from the faint bloodstains on them, they didn't seem to be used for treating illnesses. Instead, they looked like some kind of torture device.

He quickly approached the location where he had sensed life earlier and stood at the office door, peering inside.

The office was in complete chaos, with scattered documents on the floor, covered in blood and vomit.

There weren't many places to hide people here. The ghost-eyed corpse slowly walked in, past the large desk against the wall, and came to an observation window.

Behind the window was a pure white room, probably an observation room, but it was unclear what was being observed.

Yan Ming looked around the observation room for a while but didn't find anything special. So he suddenly turned around, half-squatted down, and looked under the large desk.

Hidden under the desk was a young man in a white coat, biting his hand to keep himself from making a sound. Unfortunately, even without making a sound, Yan Ming still managed to spot him.

Yan Ming tried to pull the corners of the corpse's mouth upwards, wanting to show a kind smile, but the survivor had been dead for a long time, and the facial muscles were completely stiff, so in the end, he could only make an unusually terrifying and ferocious smile.

"what!!!"

The young man finally broke down completely, screaming and trying to move backward, but there was a table behind him, and he couldn't escape it.

Yan Ming realized that whatever she did would provoke the young man, so she stopped what she was doing and just waited quietly for him to calm down.

After howling for several minutes, the man finally managed a few hoarse, croaking cries, then stared in terror at the ghost-eyed corpse: "You... what are you going to do?!"

Yan Ming found a piece of white paper, dipped his finger into the pool of blood, and then wrote: "Tell me what happened here."

Unfortunately, the ghost-eyed corpse has almost lost its normal human functions and cannot speak, so it can only communicate in this way.

"You're not going to kill me?" The man looked at the blood-written words, then at the ghost-eyed corpse. The other party seemed to be a sentient ghost, unlike the monster that had killed people indiscriminately before.

Say.

Yan Ming only wrote one character.

The man knew that the corpse with the ghost eye on its forehead had limited patience, so he quickly and thoroughly explained everything he knew.

“It escaped during the surgery on the 17th. It ran out of the experimental area, and the other doctors told me to press the alarm to report the situation.”

"As soon as I stepped out, I heard three knocks on the door of a ward in the laboratory corridor, and then a voice came from inside."

“Ama, you dead corpse…please send out Xiao Yang? It seems to be talking about this. I’ve heard others say that when Number 17’s ability is activated, he sings a nursery rhyme, but Number 17 clearly escaped in another direction. That’s the way out of the experimental area. I’m pretty sure of it.”

"I was wondering who sang the nursery rhyme, and when I pressed the button, I found that it seemed to be broken."

"Then a ward door in the laboratory corridor opened, and I saw a shadow float out of it. It killed everyone, killed them all. I hid in a corner, and it seemed not to see me."

"I came back here while it was away. It killed everyone here, so I thought it wouldn't come back for a while, so I hid here until now."

The man's eyes were filled with fear. He knelt down and begged Yan Ming for mercy: "Don't kill me, I really told you everything."

Meanwhile, Yan Ming on the other side fell into deep thought.

Number 17 is the stick insect girl; she must have escaped the experimental area.

But why was there a nursery rhyme coming from the opposite direction she was running away from?

Moreover, there were three knocks on the door before the nursery rhyme was played, which did sound quite like the three sounds of the Slender Man pulling a coffin.

Wait a minute.

Could it be that Slender Man copied the abilities of the stick insect?

It was only through the nursery rhyme of "letting the lamb out" that it was able to escape its ward and begin indiscriminately killing people.

That is to say...

Did Slender Man temporarily replicate a ghost's abilities in the coffin room?
It wasn't a malevolent ghost; malevolent ghosts themselves only managed to escape from the coffin by using the help of the slender ghost figure.

She's not an old woman; the cat-faced old lady's abilities are based on urban legend, and she herself is certainly aware of her own abilities.

They are not nurse ghosts; they absolutely do not possess this ability.

As for the ghosts in the other wards...

Yan Ming estimated that it was impossible, because if it were possible to borrow it, Slender Man would have already escaped, and there would be no need to wait until the stick insect surgery.

All other options have been eliminated, leaving only one possibility.

Is this the power of the Demon Eye?
He thought about how the survivors' bodies were displayed and vaguely felt that this was indeed a possibility.

"whee."

The laughter of the gauntlet echoed in Yan Ming's mind, and he now somewhat understood the meaning of the laughter.

It was teaching him how to use the ghost eye.

　Write your book well and improve every day.

　　Please continue reading, dear readers! QWQ
　　
　
(End of this chapter)