Clown Game
Chapter 166 - 166 157 Numbers 11_2

Chapter 166: Chapter 157 Numbers 11_2 Chapter 166: Chapter 157 Numbers 11_2 The man lifted his head, his eyes narrow, his face gaunt, his skin sickly pale. Two horrifying scars stretched from the corners of his mouth across his cheeks.

“Heh heh… have you… remembered?” the man said, staring at Dr. Zhang across from him with a sharp voice.

Dr. Zhang felt that nameless rage ignite within him once again.

“You bastard… this is all your doing! Where is this??? Who the hell are you???” Dr. Zhang shouted angrily, barely controlling the urge to rush forward and strangle this man!

But the emaciated man opposite him didn’t care at all. He casually put his hands in his pockets, hunched his back, and leisurely paced back and forth in front of Dr. Zhang.

“Oh oh oh, don’t be anxious, you have too many questions! I need to answer them one by one.” he said nonchalantly, “First, you asked where this is? Are you asking about this place filled with blood, dirt, narrowness, and foul stench…”

Gesturing elegantly with his arms wide, he indicated the entire bloodstained space, “Heh heh heh… I can tell you, this, is your inner world.”

Dr. Zhang was taken aback, then he roared, “What nonsense are you talking about, you maniac!!!”

He looked even more furious, and then, he actually bent down to look for the knife that had just fallen at his feet, but the ground was full of muddy bloodstains, and the knife was long lost somewhere!

“You say… I’m a maniac?… uh… I guess I indeed am~” the emaciated man pretended to be deep in thought, “But I’m not the kind of patient you think, because you’ve confused me with yourself… look down at your clothes… are you really a doctor—or a patient?”

On hearing this, Dr. Zhang looked down.

He was still standing in a pool of blood, the blood had already spread to his calves, and the “white coat” he had been wearing was now a “patient’s uniform.”

Dr. Zhang stretched out his hands, staring in shock at his cuffs, shirt, pants.

“What is going on??” he cried out in panic.

The emaciated man smiled, the corners of his disgusting mouth curling slightly.

“Indeed, you are a psychiatrist, but that was 13 years ago. That year you got a girlfriend, uh, should I say fiancée… I don’t want to talk too much about what happened between you two, but, in the end… ha ah… haha… you killed her!”

He struggled to hold back his laughter, as if telling a very funny joke.

“You bastard… what are you talking about? You’re lying to me! You’re lying to me!!!!” Dr. Zhang screamed hysterically, bending down and frantically searching for the knife in the pool of blood.

“After you killed her, you dialed the psychiatric hospital’s phone number yourself because you knew that if a mental patient committed murder, with just a little manipulation, many charges could be avoided… and since you were a psychiatrist, pretending to be a patient wasn’t hard!” The man in the purple suit continued indifferently, “But pretending to be a mental patient is exhausting, you have to constantly display behaviors that match your diagnosed condition, which can be maintained for a few days, but you have to keep it up, a month, a year, for over a dozen years, you’ve lived in such agony. Over this lengthy period, your inner world couldn’t bear the relentless torment and built layer upon layer of walls, hiding the memories of your murder deep within. You were deceiving others and yourself, creating an environment where even you couldn’t discern what was real and what was feigned, just like those true mental patients.”

“Bastard, bastard, bastard!!!” Dr. Zhang groped wildly in the blood with his hands, shouting continuously, not knowing whether he was shouting for the other to hear or for himself.

The emaciated man kept talking, “However, speaking of, your inner defenses are indeed very solid. Those puzzles that hide key memory points were all autonomously generated by your subconscious, huh? You truly are a professional psychiatrist… The moment you saw me, you foresaw my intentions, so your subconscious developed an immense hatred for me, making it impossible for me to appear even in your dreams. No wonder, if they weren’t strong, you would have been discovered for faking illness long ago. Fortunately, I dug out two figures from my own memories, and gradually lured you to the deepest level of your inner world…”

“Bastard! I’m going to kill you!!” Dr. Zhang suddenly stood up with a roar, now clutching the knife he had been searching for. He then charged like a madman towards the man opposite him.

And the man across from him still seemed indifferent, not showing any sign of dodging. He watched Dr. Zhang charge at him angrily, and inexplicably burst out laughing.

The next second, he was tackled to the ground…

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you”

Dr. Zhang shouted crazily, stabbing the man’s body with the sharp knife repeatedly, the force driving into the blood and splashing high.

But the laughter did not stop.

“Ha… haha… do you remember?” the emaciated man laughed breathlessly, “This feeling of the knife entering the flesh, it’s wonderful… You did the same to that girl back then!”

In an instant…

Dr. Zhang paused.

At the deepest part of his memory, a spark of light suddenly burst forth.

He seemed to recall that feeling!

The knife pierced the skin… sliced through the muscle… grinding against the bone with a sound that made one’s scalp tingle.

Many years ago, he had done the same, stabbing again and again.

He had left the girl he once loved riddled with holes.

“I… killed her?”

“I… killed her!”

He gazed at his hands, covered in fresh blood, murmuring in an extremely faint voice.

…

Suddenly!

The surroundings abruptly changed; the smell of blood vanished, the knife was gone, and the skinny man disappeared.

He found himself sitting in a chair, facing a desk, and across the desk sat a man in a white coat, clearly a doctor.

“Patient 202?”

…

“Patient 202?!!!” The doctor, seeing no response, repeated loudly.

Dr. Zhang… well, he shouldn’t really be called Dr. Zhang anymore, as he was now wearing a blue and white hospital uniform,

Anyway, he hadn’t come to his senses yet, just staring blankly at the doctor across from him.

The doctor, seeing his vacant gaze, shook his head. He lifted the medical record from the desk, and on the top left corner of the first page, there was a photo. The doctor compared the photo to the man’s face, confirmed it was the same person, then placed the record back on the desk and started flipping through it.

After about ten minutes… the doctor pushed the medical record aside with a sense of resignation.

This was a classic case of schizophrenia, from symptoms to tests, all quintessentially textbook. The condition had first manifested fifteen years ago when he tragically killed his fiancée in an accident.

A truly pitiful patient…

“So… do you recall the events of that day?” the doctor asked flatly.

In reality, he knew the man couldn’t remember; it had been fifteen years, and there had never been the slightest sign of memory recovery. And this inquiry was merely a routine examination.

As expected… the man stayed silent, didn’t respond, still staring blankly ahead with unfocused eyes.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, then reached for the pen beside the desk, ready to write “no change in condition.”

…

“I killed her…”

…

The doctor’s hand froze instantly.

“What did you say?” The doctor seemed unable to believe his own ears.

“I… killed her…” The patient across from him, also known as “Dr. Zhang,” said faintly, his gaze gradually focusing… He slowly lowered his head, grasping the left front side of his hospital uniform with one hand.

There, clearly stitched in black thread, was a set of numbers representing the patient’s code.

“Patient 202”

…