Deep in the Living
Chapter 81 - 75 Punishment Room

Chapter 81: Chapter 75 Punishment Room

Clang, clang~

The shackles clashed,

Luo Di walked along a corridor almost identical to the hospital’s own, undeterred by the bizarre noises from other wards or the outstretched Blood Hands, clearly not his first visit here.

Nearly every cell here contained a "patient" adorned with a torture device, their movements constrained.

Most of them, even though they had a human form, did not possess human-like features, skin color, or certain other physical characteristics.

Yet Luo Di seemed to be an exception.

He wasn’t confined within a ward, nor completely bound by a torture device, the only thing that might be considered a "constraint" was the thorned shackles.

Because the shackles ran right through the bone, grinding against muscle and bone, he couldn’t run or else he risked easily tearing his ankle apart.

Traversing the hallway at a normal walking pace,

Where there should’ve been an elevator at the center of the floor, a spiraling staircase leading deep down was in its place.

Here, in reality, this was the Psychiatric Hospital’s fifth floor.

But looking down the stairs, Luo Di felt as if peering into an abyss, at least ten stories deep.

Without a moment’s hesitation, potentially worried about time, he quickly made his way down the stairs.

Creak, creak~

Descending the stairs, the difference in height between his left and right foot further accentuated the tearing of his ankle by the thorns.

Though using a jumping method to descend could avoid this issue, Luo Di didn’t opt for it, continuing in the normal fashion of going downstairs.

Maybe the physical Suffering helped him to forget some distressing things,

Or maybe he was already accustomed to this Pain,

Thirteen floors in total.

Just as Luo Di was about to step off the last stair, the space around him became unstable, and his vision even began tearing apart,

The mottled walls were fusing with the regular ones,

A sign that the drug’s effects were nearing their end,

Luo Di quickly pulled out the medication prepared at his waistband, slid open the cap with his fingers; despite the urgency, he still swallowed the pills in their proper order.

Following the medication, the almost-ripped scene before his eyes steadied.

"Good!"

In his excitement, Luo Di clenched his fist.

Even though he had come to this hellish space many times, this was his first successful extension of time.

Previously, his furthest penetration into the severe zone only lasted until the descent was over, unable to reach the deepest parts. Now he finally had a way, he would have to thank Mr. Luo Fei in the future.

The lowest level here bore no wards,

Just a straight corridor lined with red carpet,

On both sides of the walls hung grand paintings of people being tortured,

And from the ceiling dangled Hooks akin to those used in slaughterhouses for hanging livestock.

At the end of the corridor stood a [red door].

That seemed to be Luo Di’s destination, the reason he was willing to stay in the Psychiatric Hospital and obediently take his medication daily.

Stepping onto the carpet, moving deeper,

Blood constantly seeped from his thorn-torn ankles during this process, greedily absorbed by the carpet—perhaps it was this coincidence that verified his identity through the blood.

The red door at the end creaked open,

Not a ward or an office lay inside, but a dim [Preaching Room],

Hooks of all sorts also hung from the interior ceiling,

And at the dome’s center, where the Hooks were densest, a distinctly different entity was suspended,

Luo Di hadn’t even fully glimpsed it when he felt a tangible threat, as if his whole skin began to ache, his eyeballs probed as if penetrated by steel needles.

Nevertheless,

Luo Di continued to gaze, taking in the entity’s full appearance.

Bald, androgynous, and slightly aged in appearance,

The skin was pure white, like solidified white wax dripped upon its surface, a thin layer.

Wrapped in a surrealistic black leather outfit covering key body parts,

At least ten Hooks were embedded in his back, each hook fully lifting the skin, showing a full sense of tension.

No Pain showed on his face, but rather he seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

Unlike those patients tortured in the wards, he was enjoying this agony,

From any perspective,

This Hell Creature suspended from the ceiling of the Preaching Room must be the overseer of this Punishment Room, the target Luo Di had been seeking for so long.

With Luo Di’s arrival, the ceiling Hooks gradually lowered, delivering this entity to the ground.

The fine wires at the ends of the Hooks retracted into the ceiling, while several Hooks (10–15 cm in length) remained on the person’s back, as if part of his body.

Before even opening his eyes, his lips moved first,

A dry voice echoed through the Preaching Room, in a language not human:

"Spine from the distant world, a person from the Exotic Realm who receives echoes, unexpectedly appearing in my Punishment Room. To be precise, under certain conditions, your thoughts were projected here.

Intense mental activity,

An awakened Hell bloodline,

A completely analogous architectural environment,

Allowed you to complete this brief projection of Consciousness.

I have been observing you for a long time, your acceptance rather than rejection of Pain shows you are worthy to converse with me.

Speak—your purpose."

Luo Di replied in the same language, one he had never learned yet could speak fluently:

"I want to resurrect someone."

"A living person? Livestock?

Reconstructing the flesh is quite simple, but reshaping a relatively complete mind is quite troublesome, unless you still have the livestock’s intact brain or the organ that harbors its consciousness."

When Luo Di heard the other party didn’t dismiss the exaggerated request for resurrection, his right hand twitched slightly.

Then he pointed to his stomach near the gastric sac,

"The material for resurrection is here, it might require surgery to extract... It’s not convenient for me to operate outside, can we do it here? Or a knife would also do."

Whether it was sniffing out some strange scent,

Or being struck by the words of Luo Di the outsider,

"How interesting, a ’Spine’ like you, this is the first time I have seen one who enjoys tasting pain so much. If you want me to operate, with your current body you would find it difficult to endure, better you do it yourself.

However, I don’t have ’knives’ here, those are too blunt and cannot bring lasting pain, use this instead."

Whoosh!

The bald man drew a relatively sharp Hook from his back and handed it over, his smile crinkling as he watched the youth before him.

He thought the young man would hesitate slightly,

But, to his surprise, there was not the slightest pause or any change in expression,

Taking the Hook,

Directly plunged it into his abdomen,

Cutting open the gastric sac,

A copious amount of blood flowed out,

At the same time, Luo Di’s spine on his back immediately lit up and protruded to sustain the life that was draining away.

It seemed there was a growth between the torn gastric sac,

Luo Di threw away the Hook in his hand,

Spread his right hand, inserted it into the gap of the gastric sac, and firmly grasped what was inside.

He slowly and gently tore it off the surface of the gastric wall.

Swipe!

Perhaps because it had been there too long, when the growth was torn from the gastric sac, it ripped open a hole in the entire gastric wall.

But Luo Di’s attention was not on himself at all,

He intently stared at the object in his hand,

Carefully moving it forward,

Closer inspection of the growth revealed that although it was wrapped in a layer similar to the gastric mucosa, the substance inside clearly didn’t belong to the stomach.

A gloomy and cold sensation emanated from it, and one could vaguely observe cracks on the surface of the object.

The bald man had never seen such a thing before,

Curiosity drove him to reach out wanting to grab it for closer inspection,

But Luo Di’s palm suddenly closed, and leaning forward with his cut abdomen, he almost pressed his entire face up against the other man.

"It can... resurrect... right?"

The manager of the Punishment Room was slightly shocked by the aura Luo Di displayed but also conveyed his admiration.

Although the thing inside the other party’s stomach was interesting, it wasn’t nearly as intriguing as the youth himself.

"It’s probably possible, but what it ultimately resurrects into will depend on how much of the prior consciousness is embedded within that material. Moreover, this substance is unlike the regular Hell Creatures; there could also be deviations during the resurrection process.

Of course, this place isn’t some charity, to reconstruct a conscious being requires a lot of materials and my own energy.

What will you use to repay this?"

"What do you want?"

A pale hand, missing a fingernail, slowly pointed out, almost poking Luo Di’s eyeball,

"I want you... but alas, you already belong somewhere else; forcing you to join us would bring significant trouble.

Let’s do it this way, I will help resurrect this thing first.

Then you will need to bring me similar and superior ’brain pituitaries’ later on, otherwise, you’ll be in great danger."

"I can." Luo Di immediately agreed.

"Don’t treat it like a treasure and clutch onto it, hand it over quickly."

Luo Di’s tightly clenched hand gradually opened, and the pituitary wrapped in the gastric mucosa was taken by the other person.

"How long will it take?"

"For usual creatures, a few days are enough. However, this pituitary is quite novel to me, and it seems to possess some internal spiral structure, so the time spent might double.

Of course,

You can come over every day to have a chat, right? After all, it’s quite rare to meet someone special like you from the Exotic Realm, you can tell me stories about your homeland.

Remember to come early tomorrow, spend as much time as you can here."

At this moment, the scene before Luo Di’s eyes began to wobble, the whole space started to tear apart, and the face of the Punishment Room’s manager gradually blurred.

The effect of the drug wore off,

Buzz!

What Preaching Room,

In front of him was the Dean’s Office of the Fifth Hospital; a crystal lamp with a certain curve angle hung overhead,

The bald, white-skinned, elderly Dean stood before him,

Luo Di was holding a paper cutter from the office desk and had slashed open his entire abdomen, with blood already covering the floor.

And in front of Luo Di,

There stood the Dean, holding a clump of sticky, undigested gastric sac product in his hands with a look of panic on his face.