"That's fine, we're one step closer to the truth," Fang Xiu muttered to himself. He had never intended to leave, but rather hoped to explore Qing Shan Mental Hospital.
The two continued walking forward and soon discovered two large pools of blood not far down the corridor.
The amount of blood was staggering, with splatters covering the surrounding walls. Among the bloodstains were remnants of flesh and bone fragments, as well as torn pieces of real estate office uniforms and security guard uniforms.
The flesh and bone fragments resembled leftover food scraps, bearing tooth marks and bite traces.
Looking at the familiar clothing before him, Fang Xiu knew immediately that these were the colleagues and security guards who had gone to check the power supply earlier.
It was clear that they had all been eaten by the creature.
Upon seeing this scene, Fang Xiu instantly understood why the creature reappeared three minutes after the man disappeared.
For the woman, it was only two minutes.
It turned out that the interval between the creature's appearances was calculated based on the amount of flesh.
The female colleagues at the sales office were mostly not ugly; at least they had regular features and slender figures, which was an industry requirement. Therefore, their flesh was significantly less compared to their male colleagues.
It took the creature approximately three minutes to devour a male colleague and approximately two minutes to devour a female colleague.
"Brother Xiu! He... They've all been eaten by the creature!?" Zhao Hao, standing nearby, said pale-faced and trembling.
Fang Xiu ignored him and instead carefully examined the shredded clothes. The cuts were extremely clean, clearly made by some sharp blade. Linking this to the strange phenomenon he had seen earlier at Qing Shan Mental Hospital, the image of that female doctor immediately came to mind.
Such precise cuts were likely made by a surgical knife.
At that moment, dense footsteps echoed behind Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao.
They turned to see Wang Ziting and his group emerging from the dark corridor.
"Goodness! What is this place? Isn't this supposed to be the sales office?"
"This looks like a hospital!"
Wang Ziting and the others let out a series of exclamations, their eyes filled with panic and disbelief.
Indeed, no one could have imagined that while they were walking through the corridor of the sales office, upon exiting, they would find that the once familiar place had transformed into a hospital setting.
"Fang Xiu Zhao Hao, what did you two find when you came out first? Did you see Xiao Zhao and Xiao Li?" Manager Wu Dahai asked tremblingly.
"Xiao Zhao and Xiao Li..." Zhao Hao pointed shakily at the two pools of blood on the ground.
Wang Ziting and the others followed the direction of his finger and their pupils contracted instantly.
"Blood! So much blood!" Li Feifei screamed uncontrollably.
"These are... Xiao Zhao and Xiao Li's clothes!" Wang Ziting's face grew even paler, cold sweat streaming down his forehead, as if he had envisioned some terrifying scene.
"They were eaten..."
At those words, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
"Wang Shao! Hurry, let's get out of here. I want to go home, wuwuwu..." Li Feifei was so scared she started crying, clinging to Wang Ziting's arm and pleading.
Wang Ziting suddenly snapped out of it: "Right, right, let's go!"
He was about to lead the others forward, but looking at the unfamiliar and empty hospital corridor ahead, he dared not take a single step.
Who knew where this corridor led? What if it led to a mysterious lair?
Wang Ziting was under immense pressure, like the first person in a group visiting a haunted house.
But everyone was relying on him as their pillar of strength, all huddling behind him.
Fortunately, Fang Xiu came to his rescue.
After observing the situation, Fang Xiu began to act.
He calmly walked toward the depths of the corridor, with Zhao Hao closely following behind.
Seeing someone leading the way ahead, Wang Ziting no longer hesitated and walked forward directly.
However, he didn't follow as closely as Zhao Hao did. Whether it was out of consideration for appearances or some other factor, they maintained a distance of about three meters between them.
Tap, tap, tap...
The sound of everyone's footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, as if they were afraid of being overheard.
Suddenly.
The footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
Because Fang Xiu, who was leading the way, had stopped. He acted like a leader, and once he stopped, Zhao Hao behind him also stopped.
Then came Wang Ziting and the others.
Wang Ziting wanted to ask Fang Xiu why he had stopped, but out of consideration for their relationship, he dared not speak up.
If he spoke up, it would seem as though Fang Xiu wasn't clearing the way, and he dared not proceed.
"Fang Xiu, why aren't you moving?" Li Feifei asked tremblingly.
This woman had already been scared out of her wits, losing her former sharpness as a white-collar professional. Seeing Fang Xiu stop, she instinctively asked him, desperate to leave this place.
Fang Xiu didn't answer but glanced at his phone. After a moment of silence, he said, "The time has come."
"What time has come?" Li Feifei asked instinctively.
Everyone else was equally confused.
Only Wang Ziting reacted, his face turning pale as he hurriedly raised his left hand to look at the expensive watch on his wrist.
"Three minutes!"
Everyone else suddenly realized what was happening and gasped in horror.
At that moment, a series of crisp, cracking sounds came from behind them.
The sounds were sharp and clear, like joints moving.
When everyone turned around, they were instantly terrified.
There, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the corridor, was a female doctor wearing a white lab coat, with disheveled hair, limbs as long as a spider's, and eyes that were nothing but whites.
The cracking sounds were the sound of her turning her neck.
Since she was hanging upside down like a spider, her face was facing the opposite direction from the others, with her head at the bottom and her chin at the top. However, as her head turned, after rotating 180 degrees, her face successfully aligned with the others.
A silent fear began to spread like a tidal wave.
The presence of the "Gui" before it appeared and after it appeared were two entirely different concepts. When it stood directly before you, even the toughest of men would tremble in fear.
The female doctor stared intently at the crowd. The next moment, her limbs began to wildly flail, and she crawled toward the crowd like a human spider.
"Ah!!!"
Li Feifei's shriek sounded like a starting gun, and the crowd went mad, sprinting for their lives.
This time, no one needed to lead the way, and they even resented those in front blocking their path.
The corridors of the mental hospital were already narrow, and in their panic to escape, people unconsciously pulled on those in front of them, desperate to save themselves.
Some weaker individuals were pushed to the ground.
Like Li Feifei.
As a delicate beauty, she had been clinging to Wang Ziting's arm for protection, but when the crisis struck, Wang Ziting was the first to push her to the ground and run for his life.
Wang Ziting's reaction was swift; he was the first to flee and the first to charge forward.
At that moment, Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao were blocking his escape route.
However, Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao did not flee.
Zhao Hao was simply too frightened to move, while Fang Xiu was observing the situation.
As he had suspected, the killer was indeed the female doctor they had seen earlier in the psychiatric hospital.
After all, most of the strange occurrences at Qing Shan Mental Hospital were confined to their own wards. Although some ward doors had been opened, they hadn't encountered any during their previous rounds. The only one they had encountered was this female doctor, who wasn't a patient but a doctor, so she hadn't been locked up.