I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 796 - 796 795. Arkham Asylum_1

Chapter 796: 795. Arkham Asylum_1 Chapter 796: 795. Arkham Asylum_1 From the perspective of others, Lu Ban might seem like someone who freeloads under the guise of his own reputation.

In fact, Lu Ban was indeed freeloading.

Although with his assets, buying a hotel here would not be a problem at all, but how could spending his own money compare to living off others for free?

Moreover, if Lu Ban were to participate in the film festival as a judge, it would naturally be a huge promotion for the Miskatonic Film Festival, bringing incalculable benefits. Lu Ban taking a bit from them wasn’t embarrassing.

After communicating with the organizers of the film festival for a while, Lu Ban left the place with several boxes of DVDs.

These DVDs were films participating in the festival, and Lu Ban planned to find time to watch and evaluate them.

Walking down the stairs, Lu Ban saw that psychiatric hospital again.

The sky had become a bit gloomier, the cold wind was biting, stirring the treetops, creating a rustling sound that made the psychiatric hospital seem even more deep and mysterious.

“We might as well take a look inside the psychiatric hospital. Maybe those patients will have some amazing ideas after watching the movies,”

Lu Ban suggested.

“Are you serious?”

Feng Yu glanced at Lu Ban.

“Yay, it’s the Arkham Asylum!”

Baobao seemed quite happy.

Probably being with madmen, she too would feel the joy of chaos.

“I won’t disturb your little excursion to the asylum; I’m heading back to the hotel,”

Feng Yu didn’t plan on entering the psychiatric hospital and left Lu Ban and Baobao on their own.

The two approached the entrance and saw the North American typical beer-bellied bald security guard playing with his phone while clutching a hot dog crammed with yellow mustard. He took a bite of the bread stuffed with bacon and ham, washing it down with a big gulp of cola.

“Hello, we would like to take a tour of this psychiatric hospital,”

Lu Ban said to the person behind the counter.

“A tour? Are you relatives of a patient?”

The security guard looked at Lu Ban and Baobao with confusion.

“No, we’re staff from the film festival. Since the theme of this year’s film festival is chaos and madness, we thought we could screen some movies for the patients here,”

Baobao spoke up before Lu Ban could say anything.

In that sentence, perhaps only the first part was true.

She lied without a hint of blush or skip of heartbeat, with all seriousness, as if it were all true.

Lu Ban almost believed her.

“Screening a movie? Did you have a prior appointment with the director?”

The security guard put down his hot dog and pressed a key on his computer, which might have a longer service history than his tenure, and asked.

Still the one-finger typing technique.

“Of course, we’ve made an appointment.”

Baobao somehow produced a piece of paper and handed it to the security guard.

The security guard looked closely and indeed, it was the director’s handwriting and seal.

However, he had never heard of such an event. Who would come to the Arkham Asylum to show movies?

Since there was documentation, the security guard did not stop them and gave them visitor badges, letting them in.

Walking through the gate and looking at the bulletin board at the entrance, Lu Ban finally understood why this place seemed so out of place compared to its surroundings.

Simply put, Jiangcheng’s mental health center was a hospital for treating people with mental illnesses, whereas Arkham Asylum housed criminals.

The full name of this institution was “Randolph Arkham Mental Crime Asylum,” and as its name suggested, it detained some prisoners who suffered from mental illnesses.

Using the word “detain” may not be entirely accurate, as the patients here were mostly those whose trials had been put on hold due to mental illness, or who could not be arrested, or those who could not be sent to prison.

In North America, violent crimes were rampant, and everyone had guns; the citizens were not alarmed at all, causing events that might only be common brawls in other countries to turn into armed confrontations here, and there were some individuals with twisted minds who would use handguns to attack helpless people and commit crimes.

Originally, these people should have been brought to justice.

But many of them claimed to be mentally ill, momentarily ‘sick’ when they went onto the streets shooting at crowds with rifles.

And the legal system here followed precedents, with some previous cases where criminals had used this method to dodge their responsibilities, resulting in the sight of honest black uncles unable to breathe, while white people who killed more than a dozen smiled and enjoyed themselves in their large mansions.

This continued for a while, and eventually, even the judges could no longer tolerate it, so a clever proposal was adopted.

If these criminals claimed to be mentally ill, then a hospital specially for these criminally insane was to be established.

Arkham Asylum was thus born.

The vast majority of violent criminals who claimed to be mentally ill were sent here to receive “treatment.”

In earlier years, lobotomy was the mainstream treatment method here; in simple terms, it involved making an incision in the head with an awl and a syringe, or inserting a tool through the bottom of the eye socket into the brain, to smash and suck away the frontal lobe that occupied a third of the brain.

After such treatment, a person would lose most of their functions and become “quiet,” leading to its frequent use in treating mental illnesses; even the doctor who invented the surgery won the Nobel Prize.

Of course, such a surgical method was extremely inhumane and had long been abandoned in modern times.

But at that time, under circumstances where wealthy people used sophistry to escape judicial justice, such treatment was considered fighting fire with fire.

It was either honestly serving a decade or more in prison, laying asphalt with a shovel on the roof, or being lobotomized to become a walking corpse—the choice was in the criminals’ hands.

Now that lobotomy had been abolished, this psychiatric hospital had many more criminals who, at least a little, were not completely inactive.

In the innocent township of Arkham, these prisoners were truly a headache.

Lu Ban arrived at the square and saw many patients in hospital gowns, as well as guards armed with guns standing by.

“Finally, we’ve reached Miskatonic Supreme Castle, Arkham, so beautiful, family.”

Baobao breathed in the air filled with the scent of disinfectant in the hospital and said while taking videos with her smartphone.

“Hey, isn’t that Lu Ban?”

She earnestly turned the camera towards Lu Ban, feigned surprise while stepping back, then moved the phone camera away, towards those patients.

“Let’s look at the mental patients over there.”

“You seem to be having quite a bit of fun.”

Lu Ban thought for a moment, feeling that it made sense for someone with Baobao’s personality to be intensely occupied with surfing the web.

“Life needs a bit more color, it shouldn’t be so serious.”

Baobao giggled and put away her phone.

Lu Ban looked at the patients and noticed they all seemed quite spirited, hardly appearing as if they had mental illnesses.

He and Baobao approached the closest patient, who was sitting on a bench with a laptop on his lap.

“Hello, can you tell me what your issue is?”

Lu Ban got straight to the point, making no attempt to sugarcoat his words.

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