My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 492: Clearing the Stage! (6000 votes for monthly ticket)

Chapter 492: Chapter 492: Clearing the Stage! (6000 votes for monthly ticket)

The ferocious cat-faced phantom emerged behind Han Fei, endlessly transforming the Dark Energy within Black Snake into Han Fei’s power.

In the Memory World, without the presence of Black Snake, the Ghost Pattern completely failed to unleash its true power, and Han Fei had never tried to give it his all to see how much damage he could actually inflict on the ghosts of the Deep World.

"Rebirth!"

The saber in his hand was driven to its limit, as numerous arms along with Han Fei grasped the hilt, and the dazzling light instantly sliced through the black curtain atop the hotel, leaving behind a nearly three-meter-long massive gap.

Screams instantly rose from all directions, the piercing female voice almost penetrating everyone’s eardrums.

Along with the black curtain being torn apart were countless Life Ropes connected to the curtain, ropes emerging from the man’s wounds were severed, and a black rain began to fall from the sky, while the remains of humanity within the Life Ropes were absorbed by the Rebirth Saber.

"This voice is the same as the one from the room service phone earlier, it’s her again!"

All the Life Ropes were severed, and the man, who was like a marionette, collapsed to the ground covered in wounds. Now, looking at Xu Qin’s shoes, he kept pleading with her: "Kill me, please kill me! Just kill me!"

Xu Qin lifted her shoe, about to crush the man’s heart with one foot, when suddenly, a somewhat mad cackle came from the black curtain above.

Gradually, the black curtain at the top of the art exhibit totally slid off, and the crowd was surprised to see that the back of the curtain was covered with photo after photo.

There were photos of women and men, some taken during their lifetime, but mostly of how they looked after their deaths.

Aunt Li and Liuli Cat sat on the ground, no longer daring to look up, as such a scene was simply a form of torture for ordinary people, unbearable for their hearts.

Retching, Tie Nan collapsed onto the freezer.

Yantang also turned pale, but what he was more curious about was why Han Fei had no reaction at all?

If it was a mask covering his face, then why were his eyes still so calm, like a deep pond in the mountains, without even a ripple?

"Brother Youfu, aren’t you afraid?"

"I have a similar wall at home," Han Fei referred to the wall he usually used for analyzing cases, which was plastered with victims’ photos, but upon hearing his response, the hearts of the few players thumped.

In the Deep World, Han Fei had seen too many victims’ post-mortem photos, so he was not only unafraid at the moment but was also keenly observing each photo.

Whether the abilities brought from the Memory World had not yet faded or were influenced by the Personality Fragment, Han Fei felt that his left eye often picked up on some special things.

For example, right now, as the woman’s laughter sounded, Han Fei keenly observed that in a few photos, the figures revealed smiles.

The women in those few photos looked very similar, but only similar. Looking from left to right, the woman’s appearance changed from ordinary to increasingly beautiful, and in the end, she was stunningly one in a million.

She possessed a beauty that many envied, but her smile at that moment looked as if she were crying, her eyes filled with resentment, her lips smeared with fresh blood.

"Why do I feel like she looks familiar, as if she’s an old singer? But why is she the only one smiling?" Han Fei pulled Yantang to his side, "Did you receive any room service calls after you arrived at this hotel last night?"

"The room phone rang seven times, and Shen Luo answered them all," Yantang didn’t understand what Han Fei was getting at.

"Can you see those largest photos at the top? All the dead in the photos have fierce faces, only this woman is smiling." Han Fei hadn’t been in the hotel long enough, and there were still many rooms he hadn’t inspected; looking now would certainly be too late, so he thought of Yantang.

Although this player had low Luck, he possessed an extremely rare B-grade Talent and an impressive nine points of Initial Brainpower, maybe he could unearth some clues.

"The smiling woman..." After looking for a while, Yantang suddenly widened his eyes: "I’ve seen her!"

"Where did you see her?"

"In the hotel staff rest area! Whether it’s the employees’ rooms or the boss’s private rooms, they were all decorated with her portraits!" Yantang recalled some things: "Last night when I first entered the hotel, I went straight to the monitoring room, and I didn’t expect that the rest area where the security guard sleeps would have this woman’s photos too, and I felt something was off from the start. Another thing! Last night we saw many Slaughterers in the hotel, some were hotel cleaning staff, some security guards, some receptionists, and each looked different, but they all had the voice of the same woman!"

Pointing to the photos above, and then dragging Liuli Cat over, Yantang said, "Brother Youfu, Liuli Cat knows something about that woman."

Timid Liuli Cat covered her arms, her face devoid of any color, and she was so frightened she barely had any strength left: "The woman in the photos was a singer, she herself wasn’t very famous, but her voice was incredibly beautiful, and she was very talented. When she was very young, she was scouted by a company that appreciated her voice and talent, but thought her appearance was just average, so they had her write songs for another female singer."

"Of course, the woman was not content with this, she wanted to release her own songs, but her own music never caught on. In fact, it was the company playing tricks, barely promoting her, just wanting to exploit her at the lowest price."

"The singer was still very young at that time, and later she went online to post videos of herself singing, but there would always be a bunch of trolls attacking her looks and bringing up her family, fabricating all sorts of rumors."

"After that, she vanished without a trace, and no one knew where she had gone. Her songs became hugely popular many years later, but by then no one could find the singer anymore." The Liuli Cat shared everything she knew, which took Han Fei by surprise.

"What was the name of that female singer? How do you know all this?" Han Fei stared at the Liuli Cat, as though he wanted to see right through to her heart.

"She wasn’t a professional singer, and no one knew her real name. Everyone just knew her online name was Liuli. Her voice was incredibly beautiful, as if kissed by angels, but her songs were more despairing than the next, like a lost bird staring out into the wilderness, then plucking out its feathers one by one." The Liuli Cat clasped her hands in front of her chest, "I’m a music student myself, and some of my experiences are similar to hers. Although she wasn’t very famous, in my heart, she’s the best singer there is."

"Why would a singer appear here? Why does she hate the hotel owner so much?" Yantang racked his brains for connections. As a Shallow World player, he was probably not yet used to the way of thinking in the Underworld.

While he was deep in thought frowning, Han Fei had already figured out the answer, "Aunt Li said the hotel only hosts clients from the Plastic Surgery Hospital. The female singer must have come here for plastic surgery. The more beautiful she looks in these photos, the sadder and more pained her smile becomes. It seems as she became more beautiful, she also lost something. Judging by her relentless torture of the hotel owner, it must have been the hotel’s first boss who killed her, and in the most brutal manner."

Han Fei grabbed Yantang, "Did you just say that there are pictures of a woman in the hotel owner’s private room?"

"Right," Yantang’s eyes also shone; he felt that he needed to learn to think like Han Fei.

"Lead me there, now!" Han Fei pulled Yantang and Tie Nan, and they started running towards the lobby.

Xu Qin, who had been hesitating about whether or not to kill the hotel owner, saw Han Fei leaving and immediately grabbed the Spiritual Altar and threw it over.

Catching the Spiritual Altar, Han Fei and Yantang reached the ninth floor together.

Although the ninth floor also contained guest rooms, tourists were forbidden to enter, and the electronic locks on the room doors were different from those on the floors below.

"This is the place!"

Kicking open the door of the innermost room on the ninth floor, Han Fei felt a chill from his ring and drew his saber, slowly walking into the room.

The hotel owner had transformed the ninth floor into a special guest room that looked no different from ordinary rooms on the outside, but inside, it also hid a hidden door.

All the rooms on the ninth floor were interconnected, with a large number of hidden compartments that stored various torture instruments.

"According to my speculation, the hotel owner must lure his prey to the ninth floor and then take the opportunity to kill the victims," said Han Fei.

Yantang led Han Fei into the master bedroom, where a huge single bed was draped with photos of Liuli, her expression sorrowful even with a smile.

Stepping on the nightstand, Han Fei was about to take down the picture when Yantang suddenly stopped him.

"Last time, we also wanted to take the picture, but touching it would attract all kinds of things," Yantang cautioned.

"It’s alright." Han Fei used strength to take down the picture, which looked light but was actually as heavy as an adult.

The back of the picture was sticky with thick blood silk and black hair, and there was another photo stuck behind the normal picture frame.

The behind-the-scene photo, stained with blood, showed an ordinary-looking woman. She was blindfolded, tied to a chair, and appeared to be singing.

In front of her was an operating table, and a man with his back turned was creating what he called an "art piece."

Blood had splattered onto the woman’s face. She was terrified to death but still dared not stop singing.

"This must be the truth," Han Fei muttered.

"Bang!"

The woman’s picture frame fell to the floor, and as Han Fei went to prop up the frame, he noticed blood seeping out from under the bed.

He lifted the entire bed board and found lines of shocking text written underneath in blood.

"November 9th, the hospital told me I didn’t qualify, but the male hotel owner thought my talent shouldn’t be buried. Thinking I had found a patron, I was very happy and decided to wait another night in the hotel as he promised to persuade the doctors at the hospital."

"November 10th, past one o’clock in the morning, the phone in my room suddenly rang, asking if I needed room service. I politely hung up, but soon the call came again. A bit angry, I scolded them, thinking they would give up after that, but to my surprise, they called again."

"Annoyed, I unplugged the phone line. I played with my phone for a while and quickly fell asleep again."

"I don’t know how much time had passed, but I kept feeling something was around me. Suddenly, I opened my eyes to find that all the lights in my room had been turned off!"

"I clearly remembered leaving them on when I went to sleep. I was terrified and tried to grab my cell phone, but at that moment, a man’s voice suddenly echoed in my ear."

"Do you need room service?"

Before Han Fei had finished reading, the ringing of the room’s telephone suddenly startled both him and Yantang.

"Brother Youfu, should we answer it?" Yantang, still young, transformed into someone so docile in front of Han Fei that he barely resembled the aloof and cold student he was otherwise.

"Why not?" Han Fei picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

A creaking noise sounded on the phone, and soon after, a woman as if whispering in Han Fei’s ear, said, "Do you need room service?"

Swiftly drawing his saber and slashing to his left, Han Fei seemed to preempt the attack as if he had anticipated it.

A black Life Rope was severed, but this seemed to have stirred up a hornet’s nest, as the entire room began to undergo strange transformations.

Mad laughter from a woman came through the handset, while everywhere he looked—TV, mirror, photographs, windows—there was a woman slowly revealing half a face stained with bloody tears.

She repeated the question about needing room service over and over, her twisted body inching closer and closer.

The scene was so horrifying that it drove Yantang to the brink of collapse; even the most composed individuals would lose their sanity upon witnessing such a spectacle.

"Don’t be afraid, we’ve got her surrounded," Han Fei reassured, placing his hand on Yantang’s shoulder and pulling him behind himself.

"Brother, have you gone mad?" Yantang clutched tightly to Han Fei’s sleeve, his body shaking uncontrollably, unable to keep his cool any longer.

"You have an extraordinary talent, and your Initial Brainpower is also high, but you look at things too self-centeredly. From now on, follow me, and I will change your life," Han Fei opened the Spiritual Altar in his hand, and the shadows in the room seemed to come to life as ghostly figures emerged from them.

Blocking Yantang’s line of sight, Han Fei turned his head back to the bloodstained text on the back of the bedboard.

"November 11th, last night the mall owner took me to the art exhibition on the tenth floor in the middle of the night, bragging about his passion for art. He called his work ’The Feast of Flesh.’ That madman used to be a doctor at the Plastic Surgery Hospital; he saw human bodies as his sculpting material and slowly became addicted. He needed more unbridled freedom in his creations."

"Conventional beauty was no longer his pursuit, but he couldn’t freely wield his scalpel on customers’ faces, so he set his sights on others."

"Both the tenth and eleventh floors host art exhibitions, displaying his paintings by day and his sculptures by night."

"That devil didn’t lie about one thing, he did value my talent and didn’t want it buried, so he wanted to make me his Music Box, to become a part of his art."

"December 30th, I possess the most enchanting singing voice in the world, as well as the world’s most beautiful cheeks, but besides them, I’ve lost everything."

"Every night, the devil would create art to the sound of my despairing songs. I was forced to witness his mad actions, knowing I had also become a monster."

"I have no more human emotions in my heart, and I suddenly couldn’t sing the songs I once loved so dearly."

"My voice, once kissed by angels, is now throat-locked by the devil."

"Despair turned to numbness; I bit off my own tongue like a bird crashing to its death inside a cage."

Han Fei had finished reading the blood writing on the bedboard, and all the apparitions in the hotel room were killed by the neighbors. By the time Yantang came to his senses, the room was left in complete disarray.

As the last apparition dissipated, the woman’s photographs and frames shattered into several pieces, from which flowed fresh, red blood, and a faint singing voice.

"Let’s go destroy all her frames!" Han Fei was always reasonable, but he feared the other party might not be, so he aimed to weaken their power as much as possible.

"This Large-scaled Grudge is quite tough to deal with."

Carrying the Spiritual Altar, Han Fei, led by Yantang, pierced every frame located in the staff lounge and workroom with the Rebirth Saber.

Every frame bled and the expression of the woman within returned to normal, no longer revealing that sorrowful, painful smile.

The Large-scaled Grudge had initially not taken them seriously, giving them the chance to run around, which was fortunate since Yantang was attentive, allowing Han Fei to destroy all the frames in the shortest time.

When the last of the woman’s frames was destroyed, a piercing laugh could be heard from the top floor.

If you listened carefully, you could discern there seemed to be singing hidden within the laughter.

"Back to the tenth floor!"

Racing toward the tenth floor, Han Fei ran with the Rebirth Saber in hand, easily cutting through the ordinary regrets that couldn’t stop him.

He kicked open the door to find the art exhibit on the tenth floor swarming with Life Ropes hanging from the photos, attacking Xu Qin as they hooked onto the corpses in the freezers.

"The photos! Destroy the top ones!" Han Fei shouted, and the neighbors from the Spiritual Altar all sprang into action. The already weakened woman had great difficulty resisting.

One by one, the photos were pierced. As Han Fei prepared to smash the last photo, all the remaining Life Ropes in the ceiling wrapped around that photo and headed straight for the Liuli Cat.

Liuli Cat, who could only sing and dance, hardly had any combat power. She never imagined that her first meeting with her idol would be like this.

The black Life Ropes, like soul-chasing Hook Locks, would burrow into a person’s soul and memories upon contact. The woman had gone completely mad; her delicate face in the photographs torn apart, and her once beautifully singing mouth now only revealed a multitude of Blood Silks when opened.

"I’ve always wanted to meet you..."

It was too late to dodge, and it seemed Liuli Cat never even considered evading. She put her hands together and hummed a special tune.

There were no lyrics, but the melody seemed to leap right into one’s heart, incredibly touching yet unbearably sad.

"The despair you once experienced is now replaying on me, I can’t hold on any longer," Liuli Cat said as tiny cracks appeared on her skin’s surface. She seemed indifferent to life or death, desiring only to finish humming the song, as if it were her last wish.

Upon hearing the familiar melody, a look of pain appeared in the eyes of the woman in the photo. She struggled briefly but ultimately didn’t stop.

The Life Ropes wrapped around the photo collided with Liuli Cat, but suddenly, eyes opened all over her outer garment.

The hollow gazes seemed to come from the Abyss below, as a little girl holding a fishbowl silently observed the woman in the photo.

The cries gradually drowned out all other sounds. A bright knife from behind shredded both the photo and the Life Ropes to pieces.

On a small stage sat a woman without a tongue, her limbs chained to a chair in front of her, with a golden Music Box placed nearby.

Within the Music Box, resembling a birdcage made of gold threads, lay a half-tongue seething with endless Grudges and Curses.

"Player number 0000, please note! You have successfully completed an F-level mission—Special Room Service! Skill Point plus three! Obtain F-level ability—Art Appreciation."

As the photos scattered, the bone-chilling cold dissipated.

It was as if an invisible veil in the air was torn apart, that oppressive feeling slowly faded, Han Fei and his team had broken through the ghost walls.

The tenth floor art exhibit also underwent changes, with the freezers that filled the exhibit room now transformed into paintings. The only constant was the stage in the center of the exhibit area.

"Art Appreciation (F-level): You have special requirements for art and possess a unique aesthetic sense. You can easily spot the flaws in artwork. This ability can be used five times each night."

Upon hearing the system upgrade, Han Fei initially paid it no mind; he wasn’t interested in life skills like Art Appreciation, yet when he looked over at Yantang, the system prompted him whether to use the Art Appreciation ability.

After confirming the use of the ability, Han Fei actually spotted the weakest protective point on Yantang’s body; he had seen a "flaw" on a living person!

"Does Art Appreciation consider people and ghosts as artworks?" Han Fei tested it again towards Cry and, sure enough, this Art Appreciation ability could help him discover his opponents’ weak points, allowing him to focus his full strength on attacking them.

"Indeed, body art is also art."

Han Fei used the ability again on the woman on the stage and this time he saw a blood-colored Life Rope hidden behind her, as well as the half-tongue lying in the Music Box.

After exchanging glances with Xu Qin, Han Fei and the neighbors gathered around.

Having dispelled the ghost walls already had depleted a significant amount of the opponent’s Dark Energy, and now was the best opportunity to act.

Drawing out the Rebirth Saber, Han Fei was about to move forward when suddenly a familiar melody rang out in the stillness of the tenth floor art exhibit.

It was the song Liuli Cat had just hummed, only this time it came from the Music Box.

Han Fei and the neighbors thought the woman might resist, but instead, she slowly opened her eyes and looked towards Liuli Cat.

She shook the chains on her body, trying to stand, but her decaying body was trapped in the chair, her soul penetrated by the Life Rope behind her.

The woman was the core of the entire building; her Grudge enveloped the edifice and could control everything within it, yet she was also trapped forever in this place she so desperately wanted to escape.