Chapter 103: The Coffin in the Ward

Danger lurked everywhere in the dark. I was too focused on finding the room where the black magician stored his organs to notice anything wrong with Jiang Fei.

This was the most terrifying aspect of the hex sorcery art. It manipulated the victim's mind invisibly, subtly twisting their consciousness until a familiar companion turned into a cold-blooded puppet in the blink of an eye.

Heading north, we reached the first room. A heavy stench of blood hung in the air outside, and the door was unlocked.

Gripping my knife, I shoved the door open. The room was empty, save for two hospital beds.

"Wait by the door." Afraid of putting Jiang Fei and Song Xiaofeng in danger, I made them stay outside and approached the beds alone.

The heavy stench of blood in the room came from the beds. A young man lay on each of them. I judged their age by their teeth and pelvises, not their appearance; outwardly, they looked more like men in their fifties or sixties. Their bodies had severely aged, their essence and blood completely drained.

I found multiple needle puncture wounds on both men. Their exact cause of death was hard to determine.

"It's as if their bodies were drained of all their blood."

Neither of the corpses had their hands or feet bound, which was the strangest detail of all. I circled the beds a few times but couldn't find any signs of a struggle. They seemed to have been drained of their blood willingly.

"These two patients must be the black magician's 'believers.' According to Song Wenxuan, Henshan Psychiatric Hospital has been receiving fewer and fewer patients, so the black magician started preying on his own people."

"That lunatic really stopped at nothing and abandoned all humanity to practice his flying skull sorcery!"

Under the beds, inside the nightstands—I found nothing else in the room. I stepped out and entered the second room.

This room also held the stench of blood, and the scene inside was even more unbearable.

Several children in hospital gowns were strewn about the room in twisted postures, like broken toys. There weren't many of them, but the sight was too gruesome to bear.

I checked three more wards in a row after that but found nothing until I reached the southernmost room.

This ward was larger than the rest. It seemed to have been designed like this before Henshan Psychiatric Hospital was even built.

Two chains were wrapped around the wooden door, but it wasn't locked.

I didn't have time to consider whether this was a trap and walked into the ward alone.

The room was three times the size of the other wards. Lacking windows, the entire space felt like a sealed box, making it hard to breathe.

"Be careful out there," I called to the others. "There's something unusual about this room."

The ward had no decorations or furniture—only a single coffin sitting in the middle.

Its exterior was a vibrant red, painted in either crimson lacquer or fresh blood. The lid was half-open, as if deliberately luring people closer.

Without much hesitation, I strode over to the Blood Coffin.

The lid was half-open, obscuring the contents within. I put away the Scalpel and, ignoring the wound on my palm, pushed the lid with both hands.

"Bang!"

I shoved the massive lid off, and it hit the floor with a muffled thud.

"What's inside?" I leaned over to look. The interior of the massive coffin was coated in a layer of viscous, bloody sludge. In the center of that sludge sat a slightly smaller coffin.

"A coffin within a coffin?"

The Inner Coffin was neither too large nor too small; it looked like it could perfectly fit a single person.

"Could the black magician's organs be hidden in here?"

Since finding them would drastically weaken the black magician, I naturally had to get to the bottom of this and open the coffin.

Jumping into the large, blood-red coffin, I pushed hard against the Inner Coffin with both hands. Its lid seemed sealed by some kind of spell, however, and simply wouldn't budge. Anxious, I shouted toward the door, "Jiang Fei, Song Xiaofeng, get in here and help!"

The two of them hurried inside. Jiang Fei and I stood at opposite ends of the coffin and grabbed its four corners. But it was made of a strange material that felt incredibly slippery to the touch, making it difficult to find any leverage.

A leaking house happens to encounter all-night rain. Jiang Fei and I were still trying to open the coffin when a flurry of footsteps suddenly echoed from outside. Judging by the sound, there were at least four or five people approaching!

"Push harder, hurry!"

Anxious, I pushed with broader, more frantic movements. I wasn't paying attention and stepped on something hidden in the bloody sludge. Losing my balance, I fell backward.

Seeing me fall, Jiang Fei immediately lunged toward me.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me..." Before I could finish, I realized something was wrong. Jiang Fei had no intention of pulling me up. Instead, she pinned me down tightly beneath her, wrapping her arms around mine. Trapped inside the narrow coffin, I couldn't move!

"Jiang Fei, are you crazy?! Let me go!" It was my first time looking at a woman's face from such a close distance. She was beautiful—breathtakingly beautiful, yet terrifyingly so!

I stared into her eyes. Her bright eyes were completely bloodshot, and a deep black vertical line split right down the center of each pupil!

"Hex sorcery!"

Jiang Fei had been turned into the black magician's puppet. She knew exactly what she was doing, but she couldn't resist. She could only go against her own will and commit the very acts she despised.

Pinned down in the bloody sludge, my vision blurred. A voice faintly echoed in my head, steadily growing louder. It wanted me to sleep, whispering that everything would be alright if I just closed my eyes, that this was all just a nightmare.

Exhaustion radiated through my limbs and bones, slowly crushing me under its weight. Pressing against me, Jiang Fei felt like a piece of warm, soft jade, stripping away my final layer of defense.

My consciousness grew increasingly sluggish. Within my spirit platform, the unfamiliar old man's voice became clear. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but it felt as though simply closing my eyes would make everything better.

"Close your eyes, and get some good sleep..."

My heavy eyelids slowly drooped, leaving only a tiny slit. My consciousness was on the verge of plummeting from my spirit platform.

"Do not close your eyes when the sky turns dark!"

That sentence flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning. It was as if a woman had just leaned into my ear and whispered it!

"It was Jiang Shihan!" I abruptly snapped my eyes wide open, my gaze sharp and clear, and forcefully shoved Jiang Fei off me.

"Black magician! Stop hiding! I'm going to get justice for the dozen or so lives you've taken!" Planting one foot on the Inner Coffin, I shouted out the door, "This is a demand from the Underworld!"

"You?" A few seconds later, an old man wearing a black robe walked in from outside. "I have far more than a dozen lives on my hands. Are you sure you want to seek justice for all of them?"

Four patients followed behind the old man, including the sinister middle-aged man I had seen earlier.

They came in aggressively, but I felt no fear. Being afraid wouldn't solve anything. I tightened my grip on the Scalpel. They were all flesh and blood; I still had a fighting chance!

"Good fighting spirit, but do you really think you can turn this around?" The old man wore a stony expression. "I don't believe you would personally kill your own woman."

He pulled a doll woven from human hair out of his black robe and drove a silver needle into its forehead. At that exact moment, Jiang Fei, still sitting in the bloody sludge, clutched her head and curled up on the ground, seemingly suffering from immense agony.

"See that? I can toy with your woman however I please. She follows my orders now. If you don't kill her, I'll have her kill you!"

Clutching the sharp blade, I stood inside the coffin. "You really are a devil. But your hex sorcery probably isn't omnipotent, is it? Otherwise, knowing your temper, you wouldn't be standing here talking to me."

"Smart, just as I thought." The old man gave a sinister chuckle. "The firmer a person's will, the harder it is to put a hex on them. Song Wenxuan was just like you. It took me an entire year of relentless grinding to finally hex him successfully. As for you, I originally planned to lure you to the Silk Net Bottle and use the blood fiend energy I've accumulated over the past few years to influence you. But it seems I miscalculated. Your will is even stronger than Song Wenxuan's. I'm quite curious—what exactly have you been through at such a young age?"

"I've been through a lot of things. You, for instance, are one of them." When I fell earlier, my Underworld Live Show Phone had dropped into the bloody sludge. I stalled for time while secretly searching for it inside the coffin.

"It's rare to meet someone so composed. The younger generation is to be feared. It would be a pity to kill you." The old man's stony expression finally shifted. "I can spare your life tonight. I can even let you go. You just have to agree to one condition."

Things were never that easy in this world. I didn't believe him, but I asked anyway, "What condition?"

The old man pulled the mummified corpse of an infant from his black robe. "Pigs root out Shen, Zi, and Chen; snakes entwine Yin, Wu, and Xu; monkeys climb Si, You, and Chou; tigers rest in Hai, Mao, and Wei. I have the eight characters of the death god, destined for calamity. On the first encounter, one must be hanged; on the second, one is bound to be beheaded. Tonight is the exact day of that second encounter, so I want to find a scapegoat to take my place!"