I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

These DVDs contain films that were screened at the film festival. Lu Ban plans to watch them and make his evaluation when he has time.

As Lu Ban walked downstairs, he saw the mental hospital again.

The sky grew gloomy, a cold wind howled, rustling the treetops and making the mental hospital seem even more secluded.

"Why don't we go to a mental hospital and see? Maybe the patients there will have some amazing ideas after watching the movie."

Lu Ban suggested.

"Are you serious?"

Feng Yu glanced at Lu Ban.

"Yay, it's a mental hospital!"

Leopard seemed quite happy.

Perhaps she would experience a chaotic kind of joy when she was with a madman.

"I won't disturb your trip to the mental hospital. I'm going back to the hotel now."

Feng Yu had no intention of going to the mental hospital, leaving only Lu Ban and Leopard behind.

The two arrived at the door and saw a bald security guard with a beer belly, a common sight in North America, holding a hot dog covered in yellow mustard, scrolling through his phone, taking a bite of the bread with bacon and ham, and taking a big gulp of cola.

"Hello, we would like to visit this mental hospital."

Lu Ban said to the window.

"A visit? Are you patients' family members?"

The security guard looked at Lu Ban and Leopard with a puzzled expression.

"No, we're staff from the film festival. The theme of this year's festival is chaos and madness, so we wanted to show the films to the patients in the hospital."

Leopard spoke before Lu Ban could.

In this sentence, perhaps only the first part is true.

She lies without batting an eye, as if it were the truth.

Lu Ban was almost convinced.

"Show a movie? Did you make an appointment with the director beforehand?"

The security guard put down his hot dog, pressed a button on the computer in front of him—a computer whose service history might have been longer than his own—with his thick fingers, and asked a question.

It's still the one-finger Zen.

"Of course I made an appointment."

Leopard pulled out a piece of paper from somewhere and handed it to the security guard.

Upon closer inspection, the security guard confirmed that it was indeed the dean's notes and seal.

However, he had never heard of anything like it before. How could anyone come to Arkham Asylum to show a movie?

Since they had the necessary documents, the security guards didn't stop them, gave them visitor passes, and let them in.

Stepping through the gate and looking at the bulletin board at the entrance, Lu Ban finally understood why this place seemed so out of place with its surroundings.

Simply put, Jiangcheng's mental illness center is a hospital that treats patients with mental illnesses, while Arkham Asylum houses criminals.

The hospital's full name is "Randolph Arkham Asylum," and as the name suggests, it houses inmates suffering from mental illness.

Using the word "detention" might not be entirely accurate; the patients here are mostly those whose trials have been suspended, who cannot be arrested, or who have been imprisoned due to mental illness.

In North America, heinous crimes are rampant, and everyone owns a gun. Citizens are not worried at all, which means that what might be a simple brawl in other countries can turn into a gunfight here. In addition, some mentally disturbed people use handguns to attack the helpless and commit crimes.

These people should have been brought to justice.

However, many of them would lie and claim that they suffered from mental illness and that they were having a temporary episode, which is why they took a rifle and opened fire on the crowd in the street.

The legal system here follows precedents, and there have always been cases where criminals have escaped punishment by using such methods. As a result, we can only see honest black men unable to breathe, while white men who have murdered more than a dozen people are laughing and having fun in their villas.

This situation continued for some time, until even the judges couldn't stand it anymore, and so a clever suggestion was adopted.

Since these criminals claim to be mentally ill, then we should establish a hospital specifically for these mentally ill criminals.

Arkham Asylum was established in response to this need.

The vast majority of vicious criminals who claim to be mentally ill are sent here for "treatment".

In earlier years, lobectomy was the mainstream treatment here. Simply put, it involves making a hole in the head with an awl or needle, or inserting it into the brain from under the eye socket, and directly crushing and sucking away the frontal lobe, which occupies one-third of the brain.

After such treatment, a person loses most of their functions and becomes "quiet." As a result, it is often used to treat mental illness, and the doctor who invented the surgery even won the Nobel Prize.

Of course, such surgical methods are extremely inhumane and have long been abandoned in modern times.

But at that time, when the wealthy relied on sophistry to evade judicial justice, this treatment could be considered a form of violence against violence.

The choice is between the criminal and the prisoner: to spend over a decade in prison laying asphalt on a rooftop with a shovel, or to have their frontal lobe removed and become a walking corpse.

But now that lobotomy has been abolished, the mental hospital has gained many criminals who are not only inhuman but also capable of doing anything of basic human decency.

In the simple and honest Arkham, these prisoners were a real headache.

Lu Ban arrived at the square and saw many patients wearing hospital gowns, as well as guards standing to the side holding guns.

"We have finally arrived at Arkham, the highest city in Miskatonic. It is so beautiful, my family."

Leopard breathed in the hospital air, which was filled with the smell of disinfectant, and took pictures with his phone as he spoke.

"Hey, isn't this Lu Ban?"

She solemnly pointed the camera at Lu Ban, then feigned surprise and took a half step back before moving the camera away and turning it towards the patients.

"Let's look at the mentally ill person in the distance instead."

"You seem to be having a lot of fun."

Lu Ban thought about it and felt that it was reasonable for Leopard to surf the internet intensively, given his personality.

"Life should be more colorful, not so serious."

Leopard chuckled and put away his phone.

Lu Ban looked at the patients and found that they were all quite energetic and did not look like they had mental illnesses at all.

He and Leopard went to the nearest patient who was sitting on a bench with a laptop on his lap.

"Hello, what's wrong with you?"

Lu Ban got straight to the point and spoke frankly.

Chapter 796 Gently Knocking on the Sleeping Heart

Upon hearing Lu Ban's question, the patient looked up at him, but then lowered his head again without any interest, burying himself in the laptop on his lap. Instead of typing, he slid his fingers across the touchpad, as if browsing the web.

"What's so interesting? Let me see."

Lu Ban came up behind him and peered at what was on the other man's computer screen.

It's red and green, and looks like the interface of a financial investment software. I don't know if it's for stocks or something else.

"You're trading stocks even while in the hospital?"

Lu Ban couldn't help but ask.

The patient didn't react, focusing instead on browsing the stock information.

"Why isn't this person responding? Has he already had surgery to remove his frontal lobe?"

Lu Ban sought advice from Leopard.

"Let me take a look."

As Leopard spoke, it placed its hand on the person's head.

Before the patient could react, his head split open like blooming flower petals.

That pink, grooved brain, like a wriggling caterpillar, gradually unfolds, like a seductive mouth, making one want to bury their head deep inside it the next moment.

Anyone who has eaten pig brains will understand that the brain is soft, like a piece of tofu, as if it would crumble if you kneaded it gently, yet it retains its shape and just droops down.

Without any disgust, Leopard used her fair fingers to probe into the blossoming brain, rummaging through it for a while as if looking for a makeup mirror in her bag, before finally withdrawing her hand.

Lu Ban saw a translucent crystal in the girl's palm.

As the crystal was crushed, countless dust particles flew up, and some images and sounds appeared in mid-air, quickly transforming into knowledge that flowed into Lu Ban's brain.

"...Hey friend, that stock I told you about before, I think it's a good time to buy it soon. I'll probably be adding to my position, so don't blame me for not telling you beforehand..."

"...What's the use of you coming to me now? I'm stuck here too, and I've lost even more money than you. Don't worry, this is probably just a technical adjustment, and it will go up after this period..."

"...So that's why you can't make money. You're the kind of person who chases highs and sells lows. It's true that the stock has plummeted, but isn't that a good time to buy?"

"...Hehe, investing always involves risk. Since you've chosen a high-yield project, you have to bear the corresponding risks..."

This appears to be a stockbroker who is not only well-known in the industry but also produces videos to guide investors.

In the beginning, he did accurately predict the rise and fall of some stocks, which convinced investors that his judgment was correct, and even occasional mistakes were understandable.

After all, even a group of Nobel Prize-winning economists can lose everything investing in the stock market, so how can one expect a stockbroker to be all-knowing and control economic laws that may not even exist?

However, the stockbroker soon revealed his true colors. He fabricated a non-existent stock that was about to be listed, and through a series of fraudulent maneuvers, he made wealthy clients believe that the stock had great potential, even triggering a buying frenzy that kept his phone ringing off the hook.

What's even more ingenious is that this stockbroker cashed in the profits of the earliest buyers. Those investors who were still watching and hesitant couldn't resist after seeing those people double their profits, and eventually invested all their money in an attempt to seize even more gains.

Then, the clever stockbroker donated the money and ran away, leaving behind a mess and a crowd bewildered in the wind.

In fact, if his lover hadn't argued with him, which exposed his location, the police might not have been able to catch this fraudster.

As a result, because he had a lot of money, the lawyer he hired defended him in court, saying that the stockbroker was a paranoid person who often had hallucinations in his work. He would fantasize about which stocks would rise and which would fall, and then talk nonsense in front of the public. Some of his predictions were accurate, and some were not, but everyone believed him.

In reality, those investors were all following a lunatic when they were investing.

Finally, this stockbroker, suffering from "mental illness," fantasized about a stock and promoted it, encouraging everyone to buy it. As his symptoms lessened, he discovered this and used his own money to cash out some of the investors' profits. However, soon, the poor patient's symptoms worsened again, and in desperation, he donated the money and ran away. How tragic and lamentable!

Surprisingly, the judge accepted this absurd defense.

In North America, these kinds of cases are actually quite complicated. Since the stockbroker has enough money, he can hire lawyers to delay the proceedings and gather new evidence. A lawsuit can drag on for years without any problem. During this time, he can even continue to cheat and swindle, living a happy life.

What the patient didn't expect was that although the judge accepted the explanation of mental illness, he did not release him directly, but instead sent him to Arkham Asylum for treatment.

At this moment, the patient is using the computer to continue trading, monitoring trends, and preparing to make another big score.