Terror is resurging, but only I am.

Chapter 7 Beggar Ghost

I may have experienced the same thing for the third time.

This cycle is not due to time reversal, but rather to memory loss.

The cycle can only be created by putting him, who has amnesia, and the old woman, who also has amnesia, together; this situation only arises because of "unread" text messages.

The entire cycle didn't take long, less than three hours at most.

A short process means it's not complicated, making it easier for the mastermind to control each step. But at the same time...

This makes it easier for Yan Ming to crack, because he can quickly find the key nodes in the loop.

Without much recollection, Yan Ming could easily confirm the suspicious points simply by thinking about the "people" he had encountered since entering the hospital.

Dr. Zhang.

Although it's unclear who tampered with his phone, the old lady's phone was used by Dr. Zhang, who is definitely connected to the memory loop.

"Grandma, do you know Dr. Zhang?" Yan Ming asked. The cat-faced old woman had spent some time at the hospital and might remember this doctor.

“Dr. Zhang? I know him. He’s a neurologist. I made an appointment with that department when I first came to the hospital.” The old woman quickly remembered and handed the note with the address to Yan Ming.

Yan Ming put the note into the hidden compartment of the ornament. They were outside the surveillance range, so their opponents probably didn't know that he had discovered that he had fallen into the loop.

The next step will be crucial.

"Where can we find him?" Yan Ming asked. He saw Dr. Zhang at 8:30 p.m., which meant that Dr. Zhang was most likely on the night shift today.

The old lady gave a fairly accurate answer, which is consistent with the normal hospital schedule: "At night... I'm either on duty in the emergency room on the first floor, or I'm monitoring patients in the intensive care unit of the inpatient department."

“Let’s go take a look,” Yan Ming said immediately.

The old man and the young man had slowed their pace to talk, but they hadn't let their guard down. Now that they had a new target, they refocused their attention on their surroundings.

Before long, they reached the end of the corridor, having found nothing unusual in the ward along the way.

After 10 p.m., all the patients were lying in their beds. No one was playing on their phones or chatting. It was quiet, and you couldn't even see any doctors or nurses on the entire floor.

Yan Ming tentatively touched the talisman on the ward door, but there was no reaction.

“These things are useless; they’re just for their own psychological comfort.” The old woman glanced at Yan Ming, then added, “They do these things to make others believe they have phobia.”

Upon reaching the staircase at the end of the corridor, one can go down on the left and up on the right, with simple map markings on the wall.

The inpatient building is divided into a west wing and an east wing. The former is for mild cases, where patients are kept in the hospital for observation; the latter is for severe cases, where doctors and nurses need to be on standby to provide care.

"Let's go to the first floor first." Yan Ming looked at the map. They were in the mild case area. To get to the severe case area, they would have to escape to the east building. They might as well search the lobby on the first floor first.

He put the keys away and was about to take out his phone to check the time when he suddenly felt a cold, withered little hand.

It vanished without a trace with just a slight touch, but Yan Ming was certain that he had indeed touched something.

He quickly rummaged through his pockets, which were empty except for his phone, keys, and a small notebook.

Where's the pencil?
Yan Ming realized something was missing from his pocket, then turned to look at the old woman. She suddenly changed her expression, switching to a fighting stance, revealing cat-like vertical pupils and a rattlesnake-like mouth with sharp teeth, emitting a prolonged hiss.

There was nothing in Yan Ming's eyes at first, but as a threatening, aged-looking breath came out, the air in the corridor rippled, and several short, pale, ghostly figures revealed their true forms.

He was extremely thin, with long, thin limbs, deformed joints, small but nimble hands, and large feet. He walked silently.

Yan Ming also took the opportunity to see their faces clearly. They had no nose or lips, only a strange smile-like crack that symbolized a mouth, and a pair of large, cloudy eyes.

At that moment, the group of kids were running around screaming, clutching his pencil and the Captain America statue from the old lady's pocket.

Yan Ming closed his eyes and then opened them again. A ghostly eye immediately cracked open the wall, staring intently at the group of little ghosts.

However, these little devils seemed to be terrified, and not one of them dared to turn around, so they had no way to "explore" and did not violate any taboos.

"Stop!" the cat-faced old woman shouted angrily, rushing forward like lightning. Just as she was about to reach out and grab one of the little devils, they all crashed into the wall and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The old woman's movements were unstoppable; the cat's paws slapped the tiled wall, leaving deep marks and kicking up a lot of white dust.

"Damn it." She cursed angrily, patting her pockets. "Luckily, I only stole the statue. I took the statue with me to check if my Alzheimer's had relapsed."

She had something else to say: if the illness relapsed, Yan Ming might need to help reset her memory; otherwise, an old woman who thought she had phobia would cause a lot of trouble.

"There's nothing we can do." Yan Ming didn't seem too surprised. He already knew that the old man couldn't catch them when he saw the little devils' faces clearly.

A beggar ghost.

These ghostly creatures had appeared in a real office building, causing chaos among the survivors. He later learned their names and specific behavioral logic from the wheelchair-bound king.

Beggar ghosts are a type of behavioral ghost that enjoys stealing and often travels in groups.

They can steal from a distance while remaining invisible, and in most cases, they don't reveal their true form. They can also pass through walls and escape, making them very difficult to catch.

Yan Ming sniffed himself and could vaguely smell a peculiar musty smell with a hint of rancidity, which was easy to identify.

Once a person is robbed by a beggar ghost, a mark will be left on them, and they will become their target again. The ghosts will steal the valuables in order of their value, from low to high.

If that were all, the beggar ghosts wouldn't be too terrifying, since money is just an external thing. But the key is that human organs are also very valuable to them.

Fingernails, hair, skin, corneas, and even internal organs and the brain are all within their scope of theft.

Stealing internal organs remotely, ordinary people naturally have no chance of survival. These monsters killed dozens of people in the office building. Later, someone was willing to sacrifice themselves to lure them out of the building, and they eventually disappeared without a trace.

Its difficulty and danger are terrifying, making it one of the ghosts that Yan Ming absolutely does not want to encounter.

"These things... must be sick children in this hospital. I don't know what they did to create so many ghostly things." The old woman frowned; she truly hadn't expected there to be so many ghosts in this hospital.
Yan Ming nodded silently; this matter was indeed of great concern to him.

The ghosts in the City of Illusions are all "dressed up" by people who don't have phobias, but the stick insect and the cat-faced old woman from before should be products of original fantasy, at least Yan Ming hadn't heard of them from Dr. Wang.
These beggar ghosts are different; they are exactly the same as the ghosts that have appeared in reality.

The guy who raises a beggar in a hospital must have seen this kind of thing somewhere else.

How did you find out?
Is it someone who experienced a real-life resurgence of supernatural phenomena accidentally entering the Ghost Realm City, or are there special players from the eerie game again?
Or simply...

Are players getting lost in the city of illusion?
　New author, new book, seeking everything!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)