It's time to become an evil god.

Having no other choice, the professor reluctantly opened the door to Archive Room 12, explaining as he did so, "We don't have the authority to access the files inside, but your file happens to be part of the county's archives."

"Access files?"

Bai Ge shoved the other person into the so-called access file, searching through the archives for records about himself. He then pulled out his own file.

Patient Name: Bai Ge

Age: 24 years old

Symptoms: Delusional disorder. When the patient was first admitted to the hospital, he kept making statements about dream worlds and the end of the world. After several days of treatment with increased medication, his condition has improved. Further observation is needed.

Bai Ge finished reading all the files with an incredulous and complicated expression. He had always thought that this was just a fake mental hospital and that he must be hiding some kind of unspeakable secret. But after reading all the materials, he realized that it all seemed to be a delusion in his mind.

"No, no."

Bai Ge shook his head desperately, trying to dispel the unrealistic thoughts in his mind, but the irrefutable evidence in front of him told him that he was just an ordinary delusional patient and there was no conspiracy theory at all.

Bai Ge felt dizzy and had to lean against the wall to try to stay awake.

“I know reality is harsh, Mr. Bai.”

The professor adjusted his glasses and explained in a detached tone, "But you are mentally ill, that's an indisputable fact. Everything you experienced before was just your fantasy. You were simply deeply engrossed in the plot of the book 'It's Time to Become an Evil God,' which is why you mistook it all for a conspiracy."

Bai Ge, who had been clutching his head, suddenly calmed down. He raised his head and stared intently at the doctor in front of him, a cold smile suddenly appearing on his face.

"No, I don't believe it."

After saying that, he punched the professor unconscious. Looking at the two lying on the ground, a bold plan welled up in his mind.

Ring ring ring.

The deafening alarm blared down the corridor, instantly rousing the drowsy caregivers and security personnel in the duty room. They then heard a deep, hoarse voice coming from the call center.

"A dangerous patient has escaped from prison and attacked the doctor, but I have subdued him. Help!"

Upon hearing that a dangerous patient had escaped, all the security personnel immediately tensed up. When they arrived at the scene, the patient, dressed in a hospital gown, was lying on the floor, with a doctor covered in blood and a professor from the electroconvulsive therapy room lying next to him.

The caregivers quickly escorted the unconscious patient to the danger zone, while the remaining security personnel helped the unconscious professor and the doctor, whose head was covered in blood, toward the medical room.

Using this identity, Bai Ge successfully left the intensive care unit of the mental hospital and arrived at the medical room in the loosely guarded lobby of the mental hospital.

Moths and mosquitoes swirled and danced around the white-glowing light tube. The professor lay unconscious on the bed, and Bai Ge's forehead was bandaged to stop the bleeding, but he still looked a bit creepy.

At this point, only one accompanying caregiver remained. He asked cautiously with some curiosity, "Doctor, how did you manage to subdue that mental patient all by yourself?"

pat.

Bai Ge took out a stun gun and a scalpel and placed them in front of the other person, saying calmly, "As a psychiatrist, it's perfectly normal for me to carry a stun gun and a scalpel, isn't it?"

You're not normal at all! No wonder they say there's only a thin line between a psychiatrist and a mental patient.

Gurgle.

The caregiver swallowed hard, suddenly feeling that the doctor in front of her was quite dangerous, and could only quietly agree with him in a low voice, "Hmm...it should be pretty normal, right?"

Bai Ge then continued, "Do you know what a mental patient does if they want to escape from a mental hospital?"

The caregiver said softly, "No, I don't know..."

"Of course, you draw a door on the wall and run out."

"..."

The caregiver had lost interest in continuing the conversation; he couldn't even tell if he was telling jokes with feigned seriousness or if there was some real illness at play.

Drip drip drip drip.

The ambulance arrived at the door just then, interrupting their conversation. The paramedics quickly came in and lifted the professor, who was lying on the bed, into the ambulance. Bai Ge followed, patting the caregiver on the shoulder before leaving and reassuringly saying, "It's alright, go home now."

After the ambulance drove away, the alarm bells suddenly went off in Xushi Mental Hospital, and the entire hospital went on high alert.

The caregiver, who had just returned from the door, looked at the tense and busy doctor and colleagues with a blank expression. She quickly grabbed one of them by the shoulder and asked, "What exactly happened?"

The man explained impatiently, "What? You don't know? A dangerous mental patient has escaped from the ward by impersonating a doctor!"

Chapter 582 The Secret in the Envelope

When the hospital and police found the missing ambulance again, Bai Ge had already vanished. Aside from the driver and nurses, who were tightly bound, Bai Ge was nowhere to be seen. The police then issued an arrest warrant for Bai Ge, who had escaped from prison. Suddenly, the entire city of Xu was under a manhunt, forced to hide like rats in a sewer, making their way towards their destination. His mind was filled with clear memories of the Folklore Research Association, and it all began on Lin'an Street.

The intricate network of alleyways in Xuchang's old town provided Bai Ge with cover, allowing him to evade police checks and searches. At this moment, a light drizzle began to fall from Xuchang's previously gloomy sky, shrouding the entire city in a dark curtain of rain. Occasionally, the blue and red flashing lights of passing police cars illuminated the moss-covered, old brick walls, before everything plunged back into darkness.

"Something is definitely not right."

After escaping the mental hospital, Bai Ge's memories gradually returned, with fragmented and illogical images surfacing in his mind. He walked deep into a dark alley, where the streetlights were dilapidated, some even with their shades smashed. On both sides were abandoned courtyards, pitch black inside, and behind the dark, tightly closed windows, he always felt as if something was watching him.

With his memory in mind, Bai Ge found the old locust tree deep in Lin'an Street. The courtyard with two eye-catching lanterns, one red and one white, hanging on the lintel caught his attention, attracting his gaze like fireflies in the surrounding dark streets.

Bai Ge had a vague premonition deep down that the Folklore Research Association held the answers to all his inner questions.

He cautiously walked to the doorway, where a metal plaque hung on the wall, bearing the words "Folklore Research Association".

Bai Ge reached out to knock on the wooden door, which slowly opened a crack. A wrinkled old face peeked out, glanced at the young man, and waved his hand impatiently, saying, "Young man, this is not a place for you in the middle of the night. Go back now."

"Wait a moment."

Bai Ge stretched one leg over the threshold, blocking the door, and said softly, "Old man, why did you hang a red lantern for 'double happiness' and a white lantern for 'offering sacrifices' at the door?"

"Ugh."

The old man sighed silently and said softly, "It's not that I don't want to tell you, but knowing too much really won't do you any good. Go back quickly..."

Before the old man could finish speaking, Bai Ge pulled a scalpel from his pocket and waved it in front of him. A clap of thunder struck, illuminating Bai Ge's sinister face. Bai Ge coldly said, "I'm just asking for lodging. Don't go too far. Do you know what happens to riddle tellers?"

"I...I don't really want to know."

Upon seeing the knife in the other person's hand, the old man silently swallowed, his attitude completely changing. He whispered, "Since you're not afraid, then come in with me."

After he finished speaking, the tightly closed door opened, and Bai Ge followed the old man into the Folklore Research Association. The old man was carrying an old copper lantern with a cotton wick burning slowly inside, barely illuminating a distance of one or two meters around him.

"The heavy rain and thunder blew out the fuse today, and it's a bit dark, so I can't see the road clearly."

After speaking, he led Bai Ge to the main hall, where a black and white portrait of the deceased was displayed, flanked by piles of wreaths. Even more bizarrely, the person in the portrait was dressed in an antique-style bright red cheongsam wedding dress, but their face was deathly pale, like that of an empty, lifeless corpse.

Bai Ge asked curiously, "Why does the woman in the funeral portrait look so strange?"

You mean this woman?

The old man glanced at the portrait and sighed, "She was a woman with a tragic fate. I had no choice but to temporarily leave her portrait at the Folklore Research Association. You need to stay close to her. The Folklore Research Association can be a bit unsafe at night. I was thinking of hiring a night shift security guard, but he only stayed here for one night before quitting. He said this place was too eerie and he didn't dare to stay a second night."

Suddenly, as if remembering something, the old man quickly looked up at the portrait, patted his mouth, shook his head, and said, "These are things you shouldn't know. Your room is..."

"Wait a moment."

Bai Ge stopped the old man and pointed to a side room with a red brick wall next to him. The windows were all covered with old newspapers, so you couldn't see what was inside.

Bai Ge asked softly, "What's in there?"

"Cough cough cough."

The old man's expression became somewhat uneasy. He coughed lightly and said in a low voice, "There's nothing to see. It's just a warehouse for storing odds and ends."

"Really? I don't believe it."

Bai Ge didn't quite believe what the old man said and walked straight towards the warehouse. The old man tried to stop him, but it was too late. He pushed open the warehouse door, and a damp, musty smell hit him. With the help of the pale flashes of lightning illuminating the dark and gloomy warehouse, Bai Ge finally saw the scene inside.

There was a vermilion coffin on display!

Two paper figures dressed in red shirts and green pants stood on either side of the coffin, holding trays in their hands. Their pale faces had blood-red corners of their mouths, and their paper faces were adorned with two eerie blushes. Their strange eyes seemed to be watching them from any angle, and their expressions were neither crying nor laughing.

The warehouse was covered in dust, and it seemed that no one had been inside for a long time.

"Hey old man, what are you doing with a coffin in your warehouse when you have nothing else to do?"

As soon as Bai Ge turned around, the old man who had been standing behind him had vanished without a trace.

The entire gloomy and dark old house exuded an eerie atmosphere. An incense burner with three sticks of incense were placed on the coffin lid.

Bai Ge carefully approached the coffin, forcefully pushing the heavy coffin lid aside to reveal the cold corpse lying inside, dressed in its burial clothes.

Upon seeing the corpse, Bai Ge was struck dumb, frozen in place.

The cold corpse lying inside was none other than the old man who had opened the door earlier. His hands were crossed over his lower abdomen, and he was tightly clutching a brown paper letter with the name of the president of the Folklore Research Association written on it.

"Wait a minute, could this guy be the president of the Folklore Research Association?"

Bai Ge reached into the coffin, forcefully pulled out the kraft paper envelope, tore open the gap, and looked inside to see its contents.

The moment Bai Ge opened the envelope, she stared wide-eyed as if she had seen something shocking.

Chapter 583 Why is she lying on your back?

Bai Ge reached into the envelope and slowly pulled out several cards. His expression changed drastically after he did so.

[Lava Demon], [Turtle Kaiju], [Skill Draw], [Mass Universe], [Void Space]

Wait, these are all cards from the underworld... Could it be...?

Bai Ge's gaze fell upon the corpse inside the coffin. Suddenly, he reached out and tightly grasped the other's hand, saying earnestly, "I understand, sir. You mean you want me to become a person in the underworld, right? I'll go assemble a set of Crimson Lotus Thunder Slides to take revenge on society."

Bai Ge seemed to see the old man lying in the coffin twitch slightly at the corner of his mouth, but he probably didn't pay much attention to it, probably just a hallucination. However, Bai Ge pulled out a slip of paper from a pile of cards, on which was written a strange text.

Do you believe this world isn't real? Although everything seems normal—a normal work life—do you find strange memories inexplicably appearing deep within your mind? I think I'm going crazy. By day, I'm the curator of a folklore research association, but after entering a dream, I feel like I've embarked on a completely different life. I've encountered evil spirits and serial killers in a terrifying apartment, and horrific mythical creatures in a dark underground tomb. Even after waking up, those memories linger vividly in my mind, impossible to shake off. I no longer know whether the daytime is real or the world of my dreams at night is real. If you see this letter and have had similar experiences, stay in this folklore museum. I have a vague feeling that something is hidden here, but my time is running out…

After reading the envelope, Bai Ge silently folded the letter and stuffed it into his pocket. It seemed the old man wasn't mentally ill after all; there must be many people in this world like himself who had doubts about certain memories in their minds. However, the old man hadn't explained in detail why these memories appeared, and the true meaning of the five cards he had given remained unknown.

With this in mind, Bai Ge decided to explore the not-so-large guesthouse research association, hoping to find some clues there. He suddenly remembered that there was a locked door next door, and the old man from the folklore research association had been glancing at that spot when he passed by earlier, so he immediately became alert.

He immediately walked out of the gate and headed toward the locked door of the east wing. The pale lightning of the rainy night cast Bai Ge's figure onto the wall. Even more eerie was that behind Bai Ge's shadow were two ghostly figures floating without touching the ground.

Upon arriving at the private room, a candle could be vaguely seen burning inside through the frosted glass window, emitting a faint light. In the blurry scene inside the room, a red-clad figure could be vaguely seen combing their hair with their back to them.

The door wasn't locked. Bai Ge gently pushed it open, and a red light shone through the crack. She pushed the door open further, only to find the woman who had been sitting at the dressing table was gone. A red candle on the candlestick burned slowly, and a wooden comb sat on the dressing table.

Bai Ge walked curiously to the mirror, picked up the wooden comb, the carved characters on it already blurred. As he used a candlestick to illuminate the mirror in front of the dressing table, a pale, bloodless face suddenly appeared in the darkness behind him, a pair of scarlet pupils staring at Bai Ge through the mirror, and suddenly blew a breath into the mirror.

With a soft pop, the candle went out instantly, plunging the entire room into darkness.

Bai Ge felt a chill on his neck, his entire body stiff as if frozen, unable to move. He felt something wrap around his neck, slowly tightening, and the feeling of suffocation surged into his mind. Bai Ge stumbled and tried to escape towards the door, but fell flat on the cold floor with a thud.

He looked up and saw the two paper figures that had been next to the coffin in the warehouse standing at the door, smiling and watching him, while the door was slowly closing.

Damn.

Bai Ge's consciousness was fading; if he didn't find a way out, he might be stuck in this godforsaken place forever. He suddenly remembered the five cards he had just obtained. With his last bit of strength, he pulled four cards out of his pocket.