Chapter 1 This Time

This time, Tang Qisheng tossed the glass bead behind a potted plant, the very one with the silver bell hidden beneath its leaves. The slight sound of the bead hitting the ground successfully attracted the attention of the girl in the dress.

It was clear that the girl harbored immense fear of venturing deeper into the director's office; it was forbidden territory for a child like her.

But soon, the longing for "eyes" ultimately overwhelmed her fear. The girl tiptoed, quickly approaching the potted plant, her hands groping about. The moment she touched the large leaves, her fingers snagged on the silver wire, triggering the bell alarm.

As the crisp ringing echoed, the girl froze, rooted to the spot. Intense fear flooded her twisted face. Her lips trembled, but before she could make a sound, a mass of humanoid flesh plummeted from above, the immense force instantly knocking her down. The decaying director then erupted in an angry roar, grabbing her head and feet before tearing her in half at the waist right before Tang Qisheng's eyes.

Intense fear swept through Tang Qisheng. He never imagined that the decaying director was hiding in the ceiling. He hadn't noticed the director leaving the secret room. It seemed there were other passages within the secret room that led to the director's office, and the director had been waiting for him, lurking for who knew how long.

While the decaying director vented his rage on the girl, tearing her remains into pieces, Tang Qisheng seized the opportunity, scrambling backward with both hands and feet until he crawled out of the director's office iron door. After breathing in the first breath of less bloody and filthy air, Tang Qisheng finally felt as if he had come back to life.

He stood up, looking left and right. The activity room was quiet, and there was no one in the hallway. He wondered if the children had been locked up by the director.

But none of that mattered anymore. The immediate priority was to find a hiding place. Once the director left, he would find an opportunity to return and rescue Jiang Cheng and Wang Fugui. Tang Qisheng's mind flashed an image of a black-clad figure wielding a knife. To survive this situation, he had to rescue Jiang Cheng and Wang Fugui first, and then have them bring out that guy named Wu.

Someone who could go toe-to-toe with the legendary leader of the Night Watch should be more than capable of dealing with a decaying director.

The director's office was practically the end of this underground world. Looking to the left along the corridor, there was only about ten or twenty meters left before being blocked by a wall, with no more rooms.

Tang Qisheng didn't plan to go any further, nor did he plan to leave and return to the first floor of the hospital. He wanted to find a place to hide first. He had seen many empty rooms along the way, and he was considering which one would be the ideal hiding place.

But just as he was about to move, he suddenly stopped. Something wet and slimy dripped onto him. As Tang Qisheng abruptly looked up, the scene before him frightened him so badly that he almost collapsed to the ground. The ceiling of the corridor was densely packed with children whose eyes had been gouged out. At this moment, they hung from the ceiling like spiders, moving with both hands and feet. Their necks were twisted at bizarre angles, faces down, empty eye sockets staring fixedly below, twisted expressions filled with intense resentment and longing.

"This is… this is bad…"

Realizing he had been discovered, Tang Qisheng unhesitatingly threw out the few remaining glass beads he had. But it was too late. The children crawled down from the ceiling, some going for the glass beads, while others climbed directly onto Tang Qisheng. Their target was clear: his eyes.

Dozens of hands grabbed at Tang Qisheng's face, groping to gouge out his eyeballs. "Eyes! Give us back our eyes!"

Tang Qisheng helplessly lay on the ground, curled up, face down, both hands tightly covering his eyes. But even he himself understood that it was useless now. The end was inevitable.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The ground shook violently. The commotion outside naturally attracted the attention of the decaying director, who was now coming in response to the sound.

The next second, the children on him were flung away. A hand grabbed Tang Qisheng's clothes and dragged him up. Through the gaps between his fingers, Tang Qisheng saw a blurry figure in despair.

It was a giant rag doll as tall as a person, and embedded in the doll's face were two swollen eyeballs like rotten peaches.

At the sight of the eyeballs, Tang Qisheng couldn't help but feel dazed for a moment. These eyeballs seemed to possess a kind of magic, and he subconsciously determined that these eyes belonged to the director, but he didn't know how they ended up in the doll's hands.

After repelling the crazed children, Tang Qisheng was pulled by the rag doll, running wildly to the left of the corridor. "Don't go there, it's a dead end!" Tang Qisheng, his face covered in scratches, shouted to warn him.

But it was too late. The director and the children were chasing behind them, already blocking their way back. Tang Qisheng could only watch as the wall grew closer and closer, while the rag doll continued to accelerate, finally crashing into it head-on.

In a daze, Tang Qisheng lost consciousness.

"Drip."

"Drip."

...

He didn't know how much time had passed, but Tang Qisheng gradually woke up to the sound of dripping water. He found himself lying on the ground, which was damp. But this was definitely not the previous corridor, because there were no disgusting, vine-like blood vessels spreading around. Beneath him was a hard, damp cement floor.

Barely able to stand up, with his consciousness slightly recovered, he began to observe his surroundings. The space here wasn't very large, with experimental platforms and many unknown reagents stored in transparent glass tubes of various colors. As he observed further, he also discovered some stainless steel hooks, bone hammers, measuring rulers, and large saws that looked very intimidating, as well as a series of medical tools of different sizes and shapes.

This place seemed to have the functions of both a laboratory and an operating room. Pulling aside a piece of isolation cloth stained with blood in the corner, there was an operating table behind it, and a overturned stainless steel double-layered surgical instrument cart by the wall.

"Creak—"

Tang Qisheng suddenly turned around, only to see a door being pushed open, with light shining out from inside. A familiar figure flashed past the door.

As he woke up, Tang Qisheng was observing, and it seemed that there were no doors to leave from here. He couldn't even find the entrance he had used to get here.

There was no better choice now. Compared to the director, the rag doll didn't seem so terrifying.

Mustering his courage, Tang Qisheng walked over and reached out to push the door open completely. Inside was an even smaller room. To Tang Qisheng's surprise, there was an old-fashioned big-headed television set with a red casing placed in the corner.

At this moment, the television was full of static, and it kept making rustling sounds. The rag doll he had seen before was squatting on the ground in front of the television.

Next to the rag doll was a handcart crudely modified from a children's tricycle. Lying in the handcart was a child.

It was a boy who also had his eyes gouged out. The boy looked to be about six years old. His appearance was extremely terrifying. His chin was gone, exposing his hideous mouth. His left leg was twisted, with only half of it remaining, while his right leg had simply disappeared. If not for the special environment underground, a person with such injuries would have died long ago.

But what really attracted Tang Qisheng's attention was the boy's only remaining right hand. The boy's right index finger was broken off at the root, leaving only four fingers.