Chapter 157: Victims

There was a stench in the air, and the closer Chen Ge got to the third sick hall, the more obvious the stench became . The hallway between the second and third sick hall was locked . A steel door separated the two sick halls .

Through the small gap in the door, Chen Ge could sort of see into the third sick hall . The tables and chairs were overturned, and a mess of mattresses littered the hallway . They were bloated up like they were covering something underneath .

Chen Ge stood beside the rusted steel door with his eyes locked on the keyhole .

"A double-sided lock?" Most mental hospitals used double-sided locks . In an emergency, the door could be locked from either side to prevent entry to seal up an entire area .

This was something inconspicuous, but it had garnered Chen Ge's attention . He took out the key left behind by Wang Haiming from his pocket and tried it with the lock . Due to a lack of maintenance, the lock was rusted shut, and the key could barely fit .

"I knew it would be extremely lucky if it fitted . " After comparing the keyhole and the height of the key as well as the teeth, Chen Ge pocketed the key again . When he entered the hospital, he noticed that most rooms had single-sided lock, and their keyholes were small, too small for the key to fit in .

Wang Haiming brought the key out from the third sick hall, so the lock it fits should be inside the Third Sick Hall as well . If I dare make a speculation, there are nine patients living in the Third Sick Hall that has ten rooms, so could the missing patient from Room 3 be Wang Haiming?

Chen Ge could not confirm his speculation . Then again, Doctor Gao had searched through all the records, and there was nothing on Room 3 . Just a Wang Haiming shouldn't be enough for the hospital to delete all the records .

The mystery at this hospital was deep . Chen Ge was not interested in what happened here five years ago; he merely wanted to find the clue left behind by his parents and the way to close the 'door' .

Chen Ge held the flashlight in his hands as he entered the third-floor corridor . He walked past the rooms carefully . "Could the person I saw earlier be hiding in one of these rooms?"

At the end of the long corridor, Chen Ge stopped at the door to a room with an unknown purpose . A heavy scent of mildew drifted out from behind the door, and the door looked different from other normal sickbays . There was also a brand-new lock that hung on the door .

"There is no rust on the lock . Similar to the lock that appeared on the first sick hall's front door, this is new . " Chen Ge tried Wang Haiming's key, and it still did not fit . He turned back to look down the dark corridor . After making sure there was no one around, he raised the mallet and slammed it at the door .

"Thankfully, it's a wooden door . I wouldn't be able to get in if it was a steel door . " As the door fell away, a heavy smell of mildew hit Chen Ge . The room was stuffed with patients' clothing and mattresses that formed a small hill .

"This appears to be the laundry room for the second sick hall . " Chen Ge straightened up, and the camera on his chest recorded everything, including the words that left his lips . Due to the dangerous environment, he did not dare let his guard down to chat with the viewers . All he could do was vocalize everything he was thinking and seeing like a real life supernatural documentary .

The smell of mildew overwhelmed the stench that lingered at the sick hall itself . It made Chen Ge feel sticky and uncomfortable . Suppressing the discomfort, Chen Ge walked into the room .

The room was large . There were several laundry machines and special anti-bacterial machines lined up by the wall . Other than that, the room was occupied by dirty laundry and old mattresses .

"This room looks normal, so why is it locked?" Chen Ge focused his attention on the mountain of dirty laundry . Holding his breath as much as he could, he used the mallet to move the layers of cloth aside . "I have a feeling something is hiding underneath here . "

Chen Ge increased his pace, and as he peeled off the stained clothes, the mallet hit something hard, and it created a metallic clink .

"An iron cage?" He moved the layer of mattress aside, and the sight that appeared caused his heart to skip a beat . There was a young woman whose head was shaved trapped inside an iron cage!

Her mouth was gagged with a dirty pillow case, and her hands were tied to the cage . Her mental condition was unstable, and she kept shaking her head at Chen Ge, waving her tied hands as her legs kicked outwards at the cage .

Chen Ge was stunned . He definitely did not expect to find a living person under the mountain of dirty laundry . The livestream exploded, and the chatlog went berserk . In fact, there were so many comments that the livestream itself had lagged .

Chen Ge took a quiet step back . Even then, he was calm . He closed the door and moved a laundry machine to block the door . He was afraid of being assaulted from behind . It was only after he blocked the door that he dared move close to the iron cage .

"Can you understand me?" When Chen Ge neared the cage, the woman started to resist . There was no way to communicate with her . "There are no wounds on her body and no oil stains on her lips . This woman isn't the person who was moved from the first sick hall . Perhaps there are some other people here . "

Chen Ge rummaged through the other laundry, and the horrible stench hid 3 iron cages . The iron cages were arranged in the form of the character '品', similar to how the three buildings at the mental hospital were arranged .

The woman was placed in the middle, and to the left of her was an old man about seventy . He was incredibly thin, and there were oily stains on his lips and fingers . To the right of the woman was a pale middle-aged man who appeared like he had not seen the sun for a long time . This man was the only one who looked at Chen Ge . His gaze was complicated, and it was filled with a mixture of excitement, disgust, and fear .

"Three victims?"

Things were greatly out of Chen Ge's expectations . A thought appeared in his mind . He gripped the mallet and retreated to a safe distance from the three iron cages .

When one came across strangers in a dangerous situation, the safest method was to not believe what they said and try to not get too close to them because the real murderer might be hiding among them .

Chen Ge walked around them . The cages were small; they were definitely not designed for humans . With a living person, they could not even turn their body inside the cage .

"Three cages, but only the woman is gagged and tied up . " More questions surfaced . If they were all victims, why was only the woman, the weakest of them, apprehended in such a manner?

The old man had a blank expression, and the middle-aged man had a changing expression . Their limbs were not tied, but they also did not ask for help . They just sat quietly in the iron cages, looking at Chen Ge .

Comparing the explosive livestream, Chen Ge was calm . He stood before the three cages and asked, "How long have you been kept here?"