# 1612
Chapter 1607: The Seventh Patient Who Disappeared
Mist.
The exploration vessel cut through the calm waters, heading straight into the depths of the mist.
Lin Qiye stood at the bow of the exploration vessel, the mist swirling around his form. The originally bright daylight gradually dimmed, leaving only the vessel's lights piercing through the fog, extending to the distant sea surface.
This exploration vessel was very familiar to Lin Qiye. The last time he went out to sea to search for the [Ark of the Covenant], he had traveled on this same ship. Later, after they returned from hell, Great Xia had sent people to salvage it.
Memories surged in Lin Qiye's heart. He sighed, about to turn around when a faint light flickered past above his head.
He looked up, but above there was nothing but hazy gray fog.
"Could I have really developed sequelae?" Lin Qiye muttered in confusion.
Starting from the day before yesterday, this was already the third time he had experienced these hallucinations. This couldn't help but make him wonder if his soul and body hadn't fully adapted, causing sensory disturbances?
Just as Lin Qiye was contemplating, Number 27 walked over from behind.
"How much longer?" Number 27 asked.
"We've been sailing for a day and a half. We should be close."
Number 27 nodded. "You mentioned earlier that there's something you want to ask Chloe yourself. What is it?"
Lin Qiye hesitated for a moment, then spoke: "I want to know why she appears in Han Dynasty records... and also, whether she has any connection to me, or if we've met before."
"I can answer the first question right now," Number 27 said slowly. "The reason she appears in your Han Dynasty records is not strange at all—because at that time, she was a missionary for the Western Holy Church, traveling the world on behalf of the Holy Sovereign to spread the faith... Not just in the Han Dynasty, she left footprints all over the globe."
"She was already the Holy Sovereign's agent during the Han Dynasty?" Lin Qiye asked in surprise.
"That's right."
"But how could she live this long?"
"She made a covenant with Time. The years would not leave their mark on her, so naturally she wouldn't age."
"Made a covenant with Time?" Lin Qiye gasped in shock. "What kind of ability is that?"
"Extraordinary, isn't it?" Number 27 smiled. "When I first met her, I was also stunned. What she can do is far more than this... Although she never explained her abilities to me, after traveling together for so long, I can more or less guess."
"She can make 'covenants' with anything in the world. And once such a 'covenant' is established, it must be fulfilled."
"She once made a 'covenant' with the wind, and the wind circled around her, becoming her eternal shelter. She made a 'covenant' with fire, and fire became a weapon to slay her enemies for her. She made a 'covenant' of reunion with a dying person—no matter how long the body decayed, on the day the 'covenant' took effect, the deceased would be resurrected..."
"She can even resurrect the dead?"
"That's right, so I said, as long as she uses her abilities reasonably, she is the embodiment of 'omniscience.'" Number 27 paused. "Of course, all of this comes with a price."
"What's the price?"
"I don't know."
Lin Qiye couldn't help but exclaim, "What a monstrous ability... Is this what makes her 001?"
"Although this ability is powerful, it's not the truly remarkable thing about her." Number 27 said seriously, "She has a very special constitution—she can gradually change the faith of those around her as time passes."
"Change faith? Faith in what?"
"Faith in her."
Hearing this answer, Lin Qiye stood frozen in place.
"Any place where she stays for a long time, whether plants, animals, or humans, would be attracted to her, becoming her devout Believers, worshipping her as their faith and deity."
Lin Qiye opened his mouth wide, not recovering until a long while later. "No wonder she could be a missionary for the Holy Church... With this ability, recruiting Believers for the Holy Church would be too easy."
This ability, combined with the 'ageless covenant' with Time—this red-haired girl was simply a faith-harvesting machine. Give her enough time, and she could even turn every living creature in the world into her Believers.
Neither the power to change faith nor the mysterious 'covenant' power could be compared to any Forbidden Ruins or God's Ruins that Lin Qiye knew... Perhaps this was why she became 001.
"Then what exactly is your relationship with her?" After much deliberation, Lin Qiye still carefully asked.
"It's not the kind of relationship you're thinking." Number 27 shook his head. "About seven or eight years ago, when I was walking through the mist as the God of Assassins, I accidentally encountered her. Her power astonished me. At that time, I thought her power might be the key to saving this world."
"Save the world?" Lin Qiye asked, puzzled. "In what way?"
Number 27 stretched out his hand, pointing to the lifeless sea below, then to the gray sky above.
Lin Qiye was stunned for a long while before guessing Number 27's meaning, and said in shock, "This... can really be done?"
"I asked her the same thing... but she just smiled and didn't answer." Number 27 sighed. "Later, she invited me to travel with her, saying that sooner or later, she would let me see what I wanted to see... So I agreed."
"Sounds so mysterious."
"She's mysterious in every way..." Number 27 continued, "Because of this covenant, I traveled with her for about three years, until she suddenly disappeared five years ago, and I started searching for her all over the world."
Lin Qiye nodded. The events that followed, he more or less already knew.
"The things you wanted to know, I've told you all of them." Number 27 turned to look at him. "I also have a question."
"What?"
"That hospital." Number 27's gaze gradually grew serious. "What exactly is that hospital that 【Chaos】 took from your body?"
Lin Qiye was slightly taken aback. After much hesitation, he still simply described the existence of the hospital, but omitted many details, including the process of treating the other patients and the process of extracting abilities.
After Number 27 finished listening, he furrowed his brow slightly. "You're saying that 【Chaos】 disguised itself as the patient in the seventh ward, hiding in your mind all along?"
"That's right."
"You just said that the further back the wards go, the weaker the patients' divinity becomes... right?"
"Mm."
Number 27 paced back and forth for a long while, as if having thought of something, and gave Lin Qiye a meaningful look.
"What's wrong?" Lin Qiye asked in confusion.
"Didn't you think of a problem?" Number 27 said slowly. "Since 【Chaos】 hid in the seventh ward after disguising itself... then what happened to the original patient in that ward?"
Lin Qiye stood frozen in place. "The original patient?"
"You said the door sign for that room originally had a '?', right?" Number 27 spread his hands. "Doesn't that mean this ward actually had a patient to begin with?"
This sentence fell into Lin Qiye's ears like a thunderclap.
The seventh ward... actually had a patient originally?
Lin Qiye hadn't considered this possibility at all. 【Chaos】's existence had directly misled his thinking, making him assume that the seventh ward had always been 【Chaos】... But in fact, after 【Chaos】's forged door sign fell off, a pattern was indeed revealed underneath.
Lin Qiye had originally thought that '?' meant no patient. But thinking about it carefully—if there were no seventh patient, the door sign should have been empty.
So where did the hospital's original seventh patient go?
Had they been killed by 【Chaos】, who took over their place?
Lin Qiye's mind went blank. When he snapped back to awareness in a daze, Number 27 had already returned to the cabin.
Lin Qiye rubbed his throbbing temples, sighed heavily, and walked toward the cabin...
Regardless of the truth, the hospital was now in 【Chaos】's hands. Even if he wanted to find out about the seventh patient's whereabouts, he didn't have the ability.
Lin Qiye walked into the washroom in the cabin, turned on the faucet, and splashed his face with cold water, trying to wash away those messy thoughts.
Just then, something passed over his head again.
Lin Qiye's eyes sharply narrowed. This time he immediately looked up, but he didn't look at the top of his own head—instead, he stared directly at the mirror in front of him.
That wasn't a hallucination. Something had indeed flickered above his head... And this time, Lin Qiye saw clearly what it was.
His pupils convulsed violently!
—"Lin Qiye Treatment Progress: 44%"