Chapter 300: Mental Contamination
Before long, Sima Xiao'er also came knocking. Xu Huo told him to let himself in, and he entered smoothly, carrying a bag of fruit. Seeing the person in the corner, he exclaimed in surprise, "Wasn't he locked up on the fourth floor? Why is he here with you?"
"He went crazy and ran down on his own." Xu Huo asked him, "Did you find the instance trigger point?"
"No, I didn't." Sima Xiao'er said dejectedly, "I've checked the first, second, and third floors. Looks like the key is upstairs... How about we go look together?"
Seeing his hopeful expression, Xu Huo gave a slight smile. "Are you scared?"
"Of course not!" Sima Xiao'er immediately denied it. "Do I look like someone who would be scared? But going up might be dangerous. If we go together, one of us can stall for time while the other gets the message out. That way, it won't be a wasted trip."
"Didn't expect you to have such high ideological awareness." Xu Huo thought for a moment and agreed to go with him.
"Come on, come on, have some fruit." Sima Xiao'er shoved an orange into his hand. "I swiped it from the duty room. That nurse was sleeping like she hadn't slept in eight lifetimes—didn't even wake up. If the duty room upstairs is the same, that would be great."
Xu Huo gave him a deep look, thinking that having a simple mind wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
The two went up to the fourth floor. The two doors didn't stop them. Sima Xiao'er easily picked the locks and said, "I peeked at the nurse entering the password today. The password for the hallway doors is the same."
The hallway doors had turned into password locks again, no longer requiring keys. Unbeknownst to them, the hospital building had changed its structure once more.
The layout of the fourth floor hadn't changed much, but the walls and floor looked a bit older. The room doors had become iron doors, and the entire floor echoed with the sounds of patients screaming and banging around.
Sima Xiao'er showed his fear, stopping in his tracks and not daring to move forward. Xu Huo walked in, and two doors that were about to open slammed shut with a "bang."
"Let's make the most of our time," he said.
Sima Xiao'er quickly followed. "Since there are people in the rooms, the instance trigger point definitely isn't inside them. Could it be in the doctor's office or the treatment room?"
The treatment room was at the far end of the corridor. When they walked in, the walls changed again. The floor and walls became more dilapidated, with dried stains appearing on them. Although it was hard to tell what they were, the sight was highly impactful in this environment.
"Brother Xu, take it easy. We're just ordinary people now," Sima Xiao'er reminded him in a low voice. Just then, a patient in the nearby room slammed into the door, startling him. After recovering, he blustered and flipped off the patient whose face was pressed into a mess against the wire mesh on the glass window.
Then the person inside flipped him off back.
"This guy's awake." Sima Xiao'er nudged Xu Huo's elbow.
"Go talk to him," Xu Huo said casually.
Sima Xiao'er walked over, but before he could speak, the person inside punched through the glass, forced his hand through the wire mesh, grabbed him by the shoulder, and slammed him against the door. Face to face, the man said, "Let me tell you, there's a ghost here."
Sima Xiao'er shuddered. "Let go, you lunatic!"
"Look, the ghost is coming!" The man inside suddenly looked in terror toward one end of the corridor, yanked his hand back as fast as lightning, and covered the broken glass with a piece of cardboard.
Sima Xiao'er turned to look in the direction he had pointed. He didn't see a ghost, but the lights in the corridor suddenly flickered. The shadows at the edges of the walls and corners deepened, as if something was about to emerge from them.
"Hey." A hand landed on his shoulder.
Sima Xiao'er flailed his arms in fright, then let out a huge sigh of relief when he saw Xu Huo's expressionless face. "I must have been seeing things... I thought there was something in the corridor too."
"With your limited brain capacity, don't overthink. Keeping your mind simple will do you good," Xu Huo said somewhat coldly.
"What kind of talk is that? Are you calling me stupid?" Sima Xiao'er's indignation lasted only two seconds before he said, "I'm not as smart as you, but I'm not dumb either. Except for the exceptionally smart and the exceptionally dumb, most people have about the same IQ!"
"I'm not saying you're dumb, I'm reminding you not to let your imagination run wild." Xu Huo turned and continued walking. "In this hospital, anything anyone imagines can become reality in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. In other words, the mental world is interfering with the real world. What you think up can become real."
"You mean that guy just now saw a ghost entirely because of his own imagination?" Sima Xiao'er was both surprised and felt it made sense, because he hadn't seen anything.
"Then how do we tell if what we're seeing is real or fake?" he asked in confusion. "If I find the instance trigger point, is it what I think it is, or is it actually there?"
Xu Huo glanced at him. "Think less, observe more."
"I don't have your calm composure. There are so many patients in this hospital—who knows what kind of creepy things they'll imagine!" Sima Xiao'er paused, then his eyes suddenly lit up. "Can I imagine something like the Jade Emperor or superpowers to help me fight?"
Xu Huo didn't even turn his head this time. "Do you think your mental strength is strong enough to influence everyone in this hospital? The things you fantasize about only count if other people see them."
In fact, this hospital might not even be real. Before the Special Defense Department personnel entered, they all saw an incomplete building. Whether it appeared and moved with the fog or was imagined by the first people to enter was anyone's guess.
But as time passed, the mental state of those who entered began to change. The stronger their mental power, the more likely they were to influence the environment and others. That's why the hospital kept changing.
Under normal mental conditions, the world you see tends to be normal. But this hospital had a force affecting them. The longer they stayed, the worse their mental state became, especially for those with weak willpower. Once they started doubting whether they really had a problem, they weren't far from a mental breakdown. After a few more days, this hospital would turn into a mental contamination zone filled with demons and monsters.
The strength of a madman lies in his unconditional belief in himself, which is hard for a normal person to achieve.
This wasn't an instance, but getting out wouldn't be easy either. The real exit still had to be found within the hospital.
Xu Huo pushed open the door to the treatment room. As soon as he stepped inside, Sima Xiao'er behind him fell to his knees and started dry heaving.
Frowning as he surveyed the room, Xu Huo said, "If you can't take it, wait outside."
But Sima Xiao'er looked at the room in terror. "There's..."
Xu Huo closed the door. The room he saw looked normal, just a bit dirtier than the outside. Unsterilized medical instruments were piled on the floor and the operating table, some rusted, looking like they hadn't been used in a long time.
Compared to the treatment room on the third floor, this was a completely different world. The mental contamination was intensifying, and it would soon spread to the third floor as well.