Chapter 135 The Asylum 5: A Clarifying Experience

It's time to reflect on the passing of time.

The ideas in my mind still need more samples before they can be fully formed.

Listening to the monsters' footsteps, you cautiously leave the room and begin searching the space hidden behind the nurses' station.

Soon, you found yourself at the bedside of the nurse in charge of you.

She works under the head nurse, but she doesn't mind using the power she wields over the head nurse to control you.

You've become quite adept at opening the skulls of the people here. It has to be said that everyone's constitution is truly different. The head nurse's head is harder and harder to pry open, while this nurse's head opened without any resistance, much like prying open the skull of a plastic doll.

Embedded in her mind is not a thermometer, but several neatly folded sheets of paper—you take them out and read them by the light of the phone in her pocket.

This is a fragment from the "Nursing Code of Conduct for Trainee Nurses" manual.

It's worth noting that it doesn't look like it comes from this era; it looks more like a photocopy from decades ago. The edges are yellowed, the paper is rough, and there are ballpoint pen marks highlighting key points.

You glanced at the first page: "Patients often have delusions and self-harm tendencies, and should be treated primarily with gentle control and appropriate neglect."

“Anti-committal female patient is often a family failure who is unwilling to submit. Instead of arguing, it is better to soothe and stabilize her emotions.”

To reiterate: you don't understand this professional knowledge. But you frown, realizing that this cliché is clearly nonsensical.

However, this seems to indicate the era in which these "nurses" lived and explain the reasons for many of their completely inhumane practices during the day.

You put the manual away and covered her skull.

Even in her sleep, the nurse, whose mind was blank, visibly became dazed.

Her condition is somewhat similar to... Xiaoyu.

You continue towards the next goal.

—Male caregiver.

You have a very "deep" impression of this person.

She's as strong as the female caregiver and seems quite professional when outsiders are around, but she always tries to test your boundaries.

Some very small things, sometimes even making you wonder, "Am I overthinking this?"

What you sense from him is not authority, but a subtle, hidden malice and contempt for the "weak" by the "strong" determined by the current environment, concealed beneath a professional facade.

You pried open his head with both hands. His skull was thicker than others, which may have made the saw marks on his head more irregular. It was clear that the doctor who performed the craniotomy must have used a lot of effort.

But you still opened it.

You almost want to look away immediately—his head contains a tiny plastic statue.

It is a blonde, blue-eyed, naked female doll—legs spread apart, a terrifying smile on her face, heavy makeup, and the words "For Real Men Only" written on her back in red marker.

The orientation of this object aligns with your feelings about it.

In this way, you can almost confirm what is driving their behavior.

The next step is to design a "role replacement" experiment.

Should we just replace Sandra?

You shook your head, dismissing the idea. Even if you were to make a move against her, you'd have to wait until there was further evidence.

So you carefully swapped the contents of your nurse's and male nurse's heads.

You have to wait and see what changes occur in their behavior after they wake up, and whether the people around them will notice these changes.

You can't find what you're looking for in this area anymore, and your fingers are still trembling as you walk out of this eerily quiet ward.

You belatedly realize that you are experiencing a surge of unease, whether it's a bone-chilling unease or an adrenaline rush.

The monster is still outside.

Apart from the sounds of doors opening and closing, and the rustling of their bodies against the building, they were as quiet as a medical team carefully maintaining order at night, patrolling mechanically and regularly.

You were looking for a chance to sneak back to your solitary confinement cell—after all, you still had to wait to be asked to leave during the day—but you found that these monsters were doing medical "work" without slacking off at all. They had practically traversed all the main corridors, repeating the process every so often, patrolling back and forth without leaving any blind spots.

It looks like things won't be quiet all night.

So what will you do?

You take a deep breath and make a decision: follow them.

As long as you don't make a sound and keep your distance, you can hide behind them like a shadow, and even use their paths to get a view of the entire hospital.

So when the next wave of monsters comes to this area, you follow them closely.

From a distance that's neither too close nor too far, you can hear some kind of liquid churning inside their bodies—it might be blood, or it might not be anything human at all.

It could also be a rush of blood due to excessive tension.

After leaving the nurses' station, the area where the "medical staff" lived, they returned to your ward area.

You crouch not far from the doorway, watching them slowly move around the person on the bed.

They stretched out their slender "hands," picked up medical instruments that appeared out of nowhere, and seemed to be conducting an examination.

The view from behind them was much clearer than what you could see from under the bed. Their actions were not only violent, but could even be described as gentle and...decent?

Unlike the profit-driven horror doctors in those horror movies, these monsters seem to genuinely believe that abusing craniotomies or other methods that cause patients to lose parts of themselves is an effective treatment, hence their earnest and devout appearance.

Your gaze slowly descends, and you stand on tiptoe, trying to see the person on the bed.

It's that woman who bites her nails—you've forgotten her name.

In short, the woman appeared to be sleeping peacefully, and the monsters merely waved their hands at her without actually harming her.

Huh?

So they don't actually have the ability to cause harm, and are just stubbornly repeating the actions they "should have done"?

You followed them around the entire building, from the first floor to the second and third. The doors you'd seen during the day now posed no obstacle to the monsters. You also memorized the faces of all the patients you'd encountered and those you hadn't, and their respective wards.

The monsters have no keys, and you can't see them, yet they easily open all the locked rooms.

There is only one door—the dean's office.

It is located at the end of the third floor, with a simple wooden door like the ordinary offices on the first floor.

But for those monsters who treated the offices like no man's land, they only paused briefly at the door before turning around and continuing their patrol.

—On the first trip, you were unlucky enough to not have time to hide and had to go through another chase.

Fortunately, you ran very fast and left the monsters behind; since the monsters couldn't catch you, they soon forgot about your existence and continued on their own routes.

You tiptoed back to the door of the dean's office, and as expected, without the key, you couldn't open the door.

There must be something here—something that doesn't belong to the "patient" or the "doctor".

Maybe this is exactly what you need.

You reluctantly marked this door with a heavy scribbling in your mind, yet you had no choice but to leave.

You cannot afford the risk of forcibly breaking down the door.

Then, you followed the monsters around again, and finally, when you were exhausted, you realized that these monsters wouldn't stop until dawn.

You can't keep going through this; you need to conserve your energy for tomorrow's events.

Holding my breath, I returned to the solitary confinement cell and closed the door gently behind me.

You know the monsters will come back, but you're brave enough to try and see if they really won't do anything to you.

You mentally rehearse your escape route, reviewing the terrain again and again, before finally curling up in the corner of the bed, clutching your hair, waiting for the monsters to reappear.

The sound of footsteps was like water droplets, seeping into the room one by one.

Close your eyes and slow your breathing.

Click—the door was pushed open.

You couldn't help but peek through a crack in your eye, watching them from the corner of your eye.

They didn't come over immediately, but stood by the door as if confirming something.

Then, they slowly walked to your bedside and formed a circle around you.

Even if you see with your own eyes that they haven't harmed any ordinary patients, you still can't help but feel your hair stand on end and your heart pound like a drum.

How to put it? The feeling of being surrounded by a bunch of inhuman things is so intuitively despairing.

They reach out their hands. You quickly close your eyes tightly, trying to keep your eyelashes and eyeballs from moving.

You can't see it, but you can still feel something gesturing on your forehead and then tracing down your nose, as if outlining your facial contours.

Next comes the neck, chest, and abdomen.

Every muscle in your body was tense until that cold metal blade grazed your collarbone, and you almost jumped up to run for your life.

But they did not continue to move.

Oh right, because they didn't actually touch you; it was just a series of cool breezes that gave you the illusion of being cut.

calm.

Soon, they stopped all their movements, as if they had finished a silent drama, and quietly left the room.

They even closed your door.

You remained lying there, motionless, until the murmurs in the corridor faded away again, before you finally dared to take a breath and sit up, almost trembling.

You were just put through a fake surgery, like an experimental animal.

You slowly get out of bed, your fingers still trembling. You don't want to sleep anymore. But exhaustion washes over you like a tide, and you can't resist it; your eyelids feel so heavy you can't keep them open.

In that state, you sat against the corner of the wall, slowly sinking into darkness.

Tomorrow morning, you'll see how they—those two nurses and caregivers you've already talked to—behave differently.

Only by thinking about these things can you stabilize your emotions and mind, and avoid falling into nightmares and actually becoming a madman.

Morning.

You heard footsteps and sat up.

Sure enough, the person who came was the nurse in charge of you.

She was completely different from before; even the way she pushed the door open to enter was much lighter, and she had a frivolous, even greasy, smile on her face.

"Our little patient, have you learned to behave properly since you've been confined?"

You recognized that she had come alone. Clearly, the same "mindset" still produces different results depending on the individual's identity.

Caregivers are not allowed to wander around alone, but nurses are different.

This sordid and despicable "thing" prompted the nurse, who had more power, to come alone without hesitation.

"Nurse, I promise I'll be good this time, please let me out," you said in a flat tone. "Or you can come in first."

The nurse had no doubt about what you were going to do—after all, all she could think about right now was pure stupidity—and so she opened the door to the solitary confinement cell and leaned in.

And you simply reach out and, before she can react in time, press your hand against her forehead and open her skull.

Okay, it seems that lifting the skull isn't just for nighttime.

You take out the doll and see the nurse standing there with an empty head, looking like she's lost in thought. You then fully understand what you can do.

"Alright, nurse, I've been punished. Now you can take me back to my room." You grabbed the nurse's arm.

Just as Xiao Ai cared for but also controlled Xiao Yu, you controlled the nurse.

You were released from confinement openly and legitimately, and returned to your ward.

You frown as you look at the nurse sitting blankly by your bedside. If you want to use the nurse again, you'll have to put the doll back in.

Oh well, I can just take it out again anytime.

The lewd nurse returned to the factory, unaware of what had just happened. Only after you reminded her did she remember that she needed to get your medicine, so she reluctantly left first.

When she reappeared, she was holding a medicine tray in one hand and leaning against the door frame with the other, looking like she was there for a secret rendezvous.

Looking at her, you suddenly feel a little regretful. It turns out that the blatant obscenity displayed under the guise of being a woman is another extreme form of disgust.

How could you forget? This is America. Putting trash into the brain of a straight woman who loves iced Americanos will turn her into a creepy lesbian, not just make her stupid.

Before she can speak, you can knock open her head and take that thing out.

You flush the medicine down the toilet, then look at the stunned nurse, and suddenly have a brilliant idea.

Maybe…

You did think of this yesterday, but you thought you could try it conservatively first; but now you realize that the conservative approach is still too outrageous.

So you put the black hair into her head.

Of course, you're always ready to bring out your most useful secret weapon again.

Suddenly, the nurse's eyes lit up, especially after she focused on you; she became much more lively.

She holds your hand affectionately, but doesn't say anything; she just holds your hand tightly.

"You know who I am, right?" You pointed to yourself.

The nurse said, "You are my patient, but also my best friend."

"Okay, then will you do as I say?"

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Author's Note: "You": Sneaking around following the monster

Monster: My family members always feel like something is following me when they're on night duty. Could it be a ghost?