My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 298: Horror Film Director and Comedy Actor (4000)

Chapter 298: Chapter 298: Horror Film Director and Comedy Actor (4000)

Previously when Feng Ziyu had visited Lihua Residential Community to check out the place, he had encountered the other party once. After a brief conversation, Feng Ziyu felt that the other party wasn’t insane; rather, he seemed to be pretending to be mad under some pressure.

He believed that the horror film director must know something, and the fact that he was continuously staying in Lihua Residential Community was highly suspicious.

After memorizing all the documents, Han Fei destroyed the files. He then made a call to Li Xue, reported his itinerary, and, picking up a walking stick, walked out of the room.

Lihua Residential Community was also located in Xinhu Old City District, albeit in a very secluded place, and its name had been changed several times. Han Fei had spent a long time finding the place based on navigation tools.

Looking at the somewhat dilapidated gate of the community and the banners hanging on the walls, Han Fei felt as if he had returned to several decades earlier; the place had retained its past appearance, and technological advancement hadn’t brought significant changes to the city’s lower layers.

"After becoming famous, that horror film director made quite a bit of money. Why does he still live in this place?" Han Fei opened his phone to search the director’s name. As he entered the name—Zhuang Ren—a multitude of search results appeared.

That horror film director was incredibly popular ten years ago. Each of his movies was a flop, with ratings so low they were laughable, but they made money at the box office.

Many people who watched his movies did so not for the horror aspect, but rather with the mindset of watching a comedy.

Even on the director’s social media platform, which hadn’t been updated in almost five or six years, his "followers" played jokes, nicknaming him as a master of the comedy world and venerating him as the godfather of a new concept of comedy through his horror movies.

Looking at Zhuang Ren’s comments section, Han Fei felt quite familiar, as his own social media messaging area had some similarities.

He was actually an actor, but many netizens misunderstood him as a bounty hunter.

From this perspective, he did empathize with Zhuang Ren quite a bit.

The gate of the residential entrance was locked, notices of water suspension were pasted on the walls, and the garbage bins at the entrance hadn’t been cleaned for a long time, looking dirty and messy.

This residential community used to be quite nice, but as time passed, it was forgotten by the city, just like the people who still lived there.

Walking past the potholed road under construction, Han Fei glanced at a sign hanging from the barrier and realized that the road had been under repair for half a year and was unlikely to be completed in the latter half of the year.

The interior of Lihua Residential Community wasn’t very large, comprising only four buildings, none of them very tall.

Of these, Building Four was completely sealed off, reportedly bought by Eternal Life Pharmaceutical a long time ago.

Shaking the welded iron door of Building Four, Han Fei couldn’t help but sigh at the power of wealth.

The chairman of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical had once lived here, but unfortunately, Han Fei couldn’t enter now to inspect it, at least not during the daytime as he still wasn’t daring enough to force his way into the residential building.

Circling around Building Four, Han Fei arrived at Building One where Zhuang Ren resided; he went directly up to the fourth floor. Throughout the process, he didn’t see a single person; the residential community felt hauntingly like a ghost creature, eerie even in daylight.

"Is anyone there?"

He knocked lightly on the door, but there was no response from inside; it seemed as though the room was uninhabited.

Leaning forward, Han Fei pressed his ear against the door, faintly hearing the sound of a news broadcast inside.

"Excuse me, is this Zhuang Ren’s home?"

Han Fei knocked at the door for a full three minutes before sudden footsteps were heard from inside.

The anti-theft door was slightly ajar, and an eye filled with blood vessels appeared in the crack. The owner didn’t say a word and just stared at Han Fei.

"My name is Han Fei, and I want to ask you a few questions."

Upon hearing that Han Fei was there to inquire about something, the owner was about to close the door immediately, but Han Fei was prepared; his fingers had already reached into the crack and caught the door.

"I’m not a bad person, and if you aren’t sure, I can call the police and have them come over too," Han Fei said gently, but his words left the listener not knowing how to respond.

It was merely a matter of closing or not closing the door, so why involve the police?

With a slight exertion, Han Fei forcefully opened the door. To not make the owner too opposed, he stood politely at the doorway without entering the house.

"I’ve seen your information online and I know about your past, just listen to me calmly," Han Fei eyed the face behind the door and lowered his voice, "I know you’re not mad because I’ve encountered the same issue. My family is locked somewhere, they are not dead, or rather, they exist in another form."

The blood-filled eyeball slightly moved, as if the listener had discerned the deeper implication in Han Fei’s words.

"I know where they are but I can’t rescue them, I need some information from you," Han Fei spoke for a while and finally, a hoarse and somber voice responded from behind the door.

"Where do you think they are?"

"Have you heard of the Death Building?" Han Fei didn’t answer his question, but instead posed another, and unexpectedly, upon his mention of the Death Building, the door slowly opened.

A disheveled man with half-gray hair, who looked around sixty but appeared to be critically ill and could die at any moment, appeared at the door.

"Come in, talking about this outside, you’ll be seen as mad," the man said and entered the house, leaving the door wide open.

Han Fei checked the position of his baton, then entered the house.

Avoiding the garbage on the floor, he saw that the house was filled with medicine bottles everywhere.

It was morning, but all the curtains on the windows were drawn, making the living room very dim.

Han Fei closed the door and when he looked up again, the man had emerged from an inner room holding a fruit knife.

He stared fixedly at Han Fei, his eyes bloodshot and bulging.

After a long time, seeing that Han Fei had no reaction, he finally spoke, "Want an apple? The community help brought them over yesterday."

"No thanks, I’m not here to eat fruit," Han Fei sat on the sofa, observing a TV playing a video, and a coffee table covered with notebooks, "You seem not very fond of using modern electronics?"

"Got used to old things, don’t feel like changing them," The man sat on the other side of the sofa, and both turned their attention to the TV.

The screen was playing a news clip from many years ago: a bus had crashed off a bridge into a river during a heavy rainstorm.

"Were your family members on that bus?" As Han Fei asked, the names of deceased scrolled on the news footer, clearly including Zhuang Ren’s family members, yet Zhuang consistently shook his head.

"They are not dead, just locked in the Death Building, I’m certain," Zhuang Ren casually tied up his messy long hair, "Everyone outside thinks I’m mad, but in reality, I am more lucid than anyone."

Han Fei didn’t respond immediately; he pondered for a while, "Have you been inside the Death Building?"

"I’ve also been trying to find a way in, but I can’t find the way." The man, with blood-red eyes, opened the game console under the TV cabinet mysteriously and then handed Han Fei a game controller.

"What is this?"

Zhuang Ren stopped talking. After getting the game controller, his condition became even more unstable, his pupils constantly twitching as he focused all his attention on the TV screen.

After connecting various cables, the game started, and a low-quality game appeared on the TV, named—Death Building.

Black background with red letters, simple yet disturbing to look at.

"My family is in there! They are waiting for me to rescue them! All we have to do is complete the game!" Zhuang Ren’s tone grew increasingly manic. He didn’t seem like a normal person at all now.

"The Death Building you mentioned refers to this game?" Han Fei felt a bit disappointed. He put down the game controller, but as he was about to get up, he suddenly saw the game screen.

The game called Death Building, its first game map, was actually named Happiness Residental Community!

More coincidentally, the game within the community also involved finding puzzles, except it wasn’t finding human-body puzzles, but helping a child find ordinary puzzle toys.

By asking different NPCs, one has to find eight pieces of the puzzle in the corners of the vast map to successfully complete it.

Zhuang Ren had played this game countless times, controlling the blurry character very skillfully, constantly triggering tasks. While searching for the puzzle toys, he came to know about the neighbors’ troubles in the community, and helped them solve each one.

This first map looked very crude, but it contained quite a lot of content.

By this time, Han Fei no longer thought that Zhuang Ren was mad; he quietly watched beside him.

In fifteen minutes, Zhuang Ren had found all the puzzle pieces, and the final image on the puzzle was a child reaching out to catch a butterfly.

After passing the first level, Zhuang Ren then entered another map, the second map was called Qiuyun Mansion, where he had to help a delivery person transport items within the complex buildings.

In the process of transporting takeout and goods, Zhuang Ren interacted with different people, experiencing the warmth and coldness of human relationships.

From the first two maps, it seemed the game designer had a bright and optimistic inner world and probably wanted to create a healing-type game.

It took ten minutes for Zhuang Ren to complete all the tasks, and then he entered the third map—Happiness Road Temporary Accommodation.

There was a problem with the quality of the accommodation, and the task required Zhuang Ren to convince everyone to come out of the accommodation within a given time.

The game designs were very interesting, but Zhuang Ren had already played them countless times, clicking options mechanically and taking the shortest paths to obtain the necessary items. He must have memorized all the game strategies by heart.

The third map, the fourth map...

By nearly midday, Zhuang Ren had reached the eighth map, named Lihua Residental Community.

He played this map very slowly, as if he was observing his own life from another perspective.

Half an hour later, he had also completed the eighth map. Although the game was somewhat difficult, it was definitely not impossible to complete.

Just when Han Fei thought the ninth map was about to appear, the game returned to the beginning, and only the words Death Building remained on the TV screen.

"Is that the end of the game?"

"No, the door to the Death Building has just opened." Zhuang Ren clicked start again; the eight maps he had played before were like the eight puzzle pieces from the kids in the Happiness Residental Community, now combined into one.

Seeing this scene, a flash of lightning crossed Han Fei’s mind, reminding him of some things, all of which might be interconnected.

After the eight maps were merged, the ninth map appeared.

It was a very strange building; every time Zhuang Ren controlled the game character to approach, it would suddenly die violently.

He tried every position, but none worked; there was simply no way to find the entrance to this building.

The blood vessels in his eyes slowly thickened, Zhuang Ren’s handling grew increasingly aggressive, and finally, he furiously slammed the game controller down onto the coffee table, then screamed and shouted like a madman, pushing everything to the floor.

Frenzy, roaring—it was a long time before Zhuang Ren calmed down again.

His hand was cut by shards of the glass, but he seemed not to feel the pain, picking up the controller again, exiting the game, and then starting anew to complete it.

"I must have missed something, maybe a certain prop is needed to enter the final Death Building." Zhuang Ren’s hand was bleeding, but his eyes were fixed firmly on the TV screen.

Watching Zhuang Ren engrossed in the game again, Han Fei touched the game controller and suddenly asked, "Where did you find this game? And who told you that your family is locked up in the Death Building?"

Even if one suffers the tragedy of losing family, a normal person wouldn’t easily believe such a thing, Han Fei felt something must have happened to Zhuang Ren.

"You might not believe it if I told you, and you might even think I’m a madman." As he played, Zhuang Ren said, "The Death Building Game was given to me many years ago by the Chairman of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical when he was young, about forty years ago, when he used to live in this residential community."

"The Chairman of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical?" Han Fei’s eyes showed disbelief.

"You must think, since he’s already dead, I can say whatever I like. In fact, I also couldn’t understand back then why that man, who was called the closest thing to a god, would give me this game, until my family died about ten years ago..." Zhuang Ren looked at Han Fei, and Han Fei seemed to suddenly realize something as well, his eyes widening.

"That’s right, you must have seen the Lihua Residental Community map earlier; this game predicted the death of my family." Zhuang Ren put down the controller. "Everyone thinks I’m crazy, and gradually, I started to wonder whether it is me who is mad, or the world."

There was no one speaking in the room, dead silent.

After a long time, Han Fei finally spoke, "Did the Chairman of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical tell you anything else?"

"It’s been too long; I only remember a blurry scene. Late one night, I saw him talking to himself in a corner of the community; he seemed possessed, continually saying he still had a brother." Zhuang Ren recalled the past, leaning back in the sofa. "I was young then and wanted to help him out of goodwill, but he asked me a question that I still can’t understand to this day."

"What question?"

"He asked me if there were ghosts in the world?"

"How did you respond?"

"I said no, and then he gave me this game." Zhuang Ren stared at the TV screen, the wrinkles on his face seeming to deepen, "He also told me if I ever lost the most important thing, to look for it here, that maybe they haven’t left but are just locked in a dark building, unable to come out."

All the pieces fit together, but Zhuang Ren hadn’t fully understood yet; the Death Building mentioned by the Chairman of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical was likely referring to another Death Building in the game.