Chapter 150 - 138: Confessing Mistakes

The flashlight beam swept back and forth across the eight massive mirrors. Every time they looked away, the densely packed, twisted figures in the mirrors would blur. When their focus returned, the figures would be closer to them, as if trying to break free from the mirrors’ confinement and pounce.

Realizing that their gaze could temporarily freeze the ghostly figures, the two women tacitly stood back-to-back, each keeping her eyes locked on one side.

Ying spread its body to the maximum, like a pitch-black curtain, completely covering the mirrors beneath their feet. Whether it would work or not, they could only try.

Cold sweat beaded on Bai Qiang’s forehead. The oppressive weight of the countless hollow eyes in the mirrors was far too strong, making her flesh crawl.

And she couldn’t even avert her gaze to hide; she had to stare intently, maintaining eye contact with those ghostly things.

Bai Qiang could only use conversation to distract herself from the fear.

"Did you know? In psychology, there’s a treatment called ’exposure therapy.’ By repeatedly and extensively exposing the patient to the stimuli that trigger their fear in a controlled and safe environment... it helps the patient realize that these stimuli aren’t inherently dangerous, thereby gradually reducing the fear response and achieving a desensitizing Effect.

"But this space... it distorts and magnifies that exposure. The infinite reflections make the source of fear omnipresent and ceaseless. There is no control, no safety, only endless ’exposure’! This isn’t therapy at all; it’s the cruelest and most enduring torture!"

Bai Qiang used scientific concepts to process what the little girl had endured.

"That little girl has been locked in here for ten years. Every day, every moment, she has to face these ghosts who died in despair in the fire. Her terror is infinitely copied, stacked, and amplified by these mirrors... This is crueler than any physical torture! It destroys the very core of the mind... It’s meant to drive a person completely insane!"

Yin Zhen remained silent. Bai Qiang’s analysis deepened her anger toward the mastermind behind all this. Right now, she needed this anger to bolster the Strength of her Inheritance.

Bai Qiang continued, "Shadow Instant Teleportation can only reach up to fifty meters. The slope of the tunnel above us is too steep, and its length definitely exceeds fifty meters. We simply can’t climb back up. As for using the medical record book... I could make up some symptoms, but I don’t know any of their names."

"I haven’t made this many mistakes in my entire life," Yin Zhen muttered softly.

"Then... go to the toilet together?"

Yin Zhen knew Bai Qiang was referring to the Item, ’I want to go to the toilet’. After the reset, the Items Bai Qiang had previously consumed were restored.

After her Half a Book duplicated ’Structural Repair’, ’Shadow Instant Teleportation’, ’Universal Key’, and ’Blood Source Resonance’, it still had one page left. It could duplicate one more ’I want to go to the toilet’, but...

"If we don’t destroy the source, we won’t be able to escape the inpatient building. Her name is Zheng Jiahe, and she must be hiding among these ghosts. Let’s search carefully. If we can’t destroy her within ten minutes, then we’ll leave."

The two immediately cast their gazes back to the densely packed figures in the mirrors, searching even more meticulously. Time slipped away second by second in the silent standoff.

In the midst of this suffocating stalemate, a person suddenly fell through the opening above and crashed heavily beside Yin Zhen and Bai Qiang. It was Wei Yang!

Wei Yang’s abrupt intrusion instantly shattered the fragile balance. In the mirror’s reflection, she had landed exactly where the ghostly figures could reach her.

Countless pairs of hollow, staring eyes in the mirrors, which had previously been perfectly still, turned toward Wei Yang in unison.

"Argh—"

Before Wei Yang could even scramble up, she cried out in pain. Her body violently arched backward, as if she had been instantaneously swallowed by invisible flames.

Her skin visibly reddened, blistered, and radiated heat, emitting wisps of white smoke. She felt as though she were being burned alive.

Glancing at the mirror in front of her, Wei Yang realized she was being attacked by a Fierce Ghost. An incredibly dense aura of sorrow suddenly permeated the air. A gray-and-white, long-haired female ghost silently materialized behind her, spreading her slender arms to embrace Wei Yang from behind.

The scorching agony was immediately replaced by a bone-deep, icy chill. Wei Yang suddenly collapsed to her hands and knees, weeping uncontrollably.

"I’m sorry... I’m sorry..."

Wei Yang murmured, though it was unclear whom she was apologizing to. Under the female ghost’s protection, she stood back up, tears still streaming down her face.

Right at that moment, Yin Zhen’s body abruptly stiffened!

A bone-chilling weight pressed down on her left shoulder, making Yin Zhen’s hairs stand on end. She immediately looked through the mirror directly facing her.

The mirror reflected her own pale, astonished face. Zheng Jiahe, wearing a hospital gown, was draped over her shoulder. The ghost looked completely different from the innocent little girl Yin Zhen had seen in the memories.

Her once-clear eyes were now filled with venom and madness. Wearing a malicious smile, she whispered to Yin Zhen in a voice that held a child’s cadence yet was piercingly cold.

"They cry out every single day. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Will you stay in my place?"

Yin Zhen instantly understood. Zheng Jiahe pointing out the location of Luo Wensheng’s locker in the morgue hadn’t been a gesture of goodwill at all.

Trapped in the urn for ten years, forced day after day to absorb the despair and resentment of all the dead, the girl had long since been polluted and twisted into a malicious Fierce Ghost.

Zheng Jiahe wanted Yin Zhen to be her scapegoat—to be locked up here in her stead. That was why she had guided her here step by step.

"Adeline’s Spiritual Manipulation," Yin Zhen suddenly spoke out of nowhere, "had no Effect on me. When I said I didn’t want to disappoint Ms. Adeline, I was deceiving her to gain her sympathy."

Bai Qiang, who had just raised her medical record book to write, whipped her head around to glare at Yin Zhen. "What the—! You bastard! You..."

Even though Bai Qiang knew her Identity had been exposed at that time, she had always believed her Spiritual Manipulation had taken Effect. She thought Yin Zhen’s phrase, ’I didn’t want to disappoint Ms. Adeline,’ was her true inner thought, not a lie.

It was precisely because of that sentence that she had constantly felt a sense of guilt toward Yin Zhen. She felt she had exploited someone who was inherently kind and who had offered her genuine sincerity first. She had been trying her best to make up for it ever since. Even when Yin Zhen’s stance was unclear back then, Bai Qiang had secretly favored her.

And now this bastard was telling her that she had been the only clown playing the fool all along?!

Before Bai Qiang’s anger could erupt, Yin Zhen swung her surgical scalpel at the mirror in front of her.

CRACK!

A fissure appeared on the mirror, slashing diagonally past Yin Zhen’s shoulder. It cleanly severed Zheng Jiahe, who was perched on her shoulder, along with the swarm of ghosts behind her.

Blood seeped from the mirror’s crack. Zheng Jiahe let out an agonizing shriek, but she wasn’t destroyed outright. Her falling head vanished along with her body.

Pairs of charred hands reached out from the mirror beneath their feet, which had been concealed by Ying. They tore at Ying’s spread-out body, grabbing for the ankles of the three people present.

Just then, Bai Qiang’s pen flew across the medical record book, rapidly jotting down a few lines.

A Ghost Doctor wielding a power drill appeared amid the horde of ghostly figures in the mirror. He precisely pinpointed Zheng Jiahe, the patient in urgent need of his resuscitation.

But Zheng Jiahe immediately relocated. The Ghost Doctor relentlessly pursued her.

"Patient Zheng Jiahe... Open chest surgery... Resuscitation..."