My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 613: The Painter’s Past

Chapter 613: Chapter 613: The Painter’s Past

Alin had seen a few children run out in the corridor on the second floor; she was very resistant to entering the second-floor corridor, but just now, out of sheer terror, she had unconsciously followed the others in.

By the time she realized it and wanted to stop everyone, it was already too late.

"This is bad! Why did we run to this place?" Alin screamed as she stepped back, accidentally bumping into Xiao Chen behind her.

"Don’t stop!" Xiao Chen was already terrified; the moving altar and the huge faceless portrait had become an unshakable shadow in his heart.

"There are ghosts on this floor! Really!" Alin tried to stop the people around her, but at that moment, something unimaginably horrifying happened.

The altar, originally placed at the corner between the third and second floors, had run by itself to the outside of the second floor’s emergency exit door; the faceless portrait was stuck on the glass window of the safety door, as if staring at them with its blank face.

"The portrait has followed us!" Xiao Chen shook off Alin’s hand and hurried forward.

Seconds later, the five actors arrived at the central corridor of the second floor, where a heavy metal operating table was set up.

No one knew who had brought out the operating table, nor did anyone know why a blood-red cake was placed on it.

"Maybe we can use this to block the safety door," Li Huang said, but before she could finish her sentence, Bai Cha had already run past her; the previously "bravest" Bai Cha was now running faster than anyone when real danger confronted them.

Climbing up onto the operating table, Bai Cha immediately rushed towards the right-side emergency exit that hadn’t been opened.

Following Bai Cha closely was Wu Li; seeing that the two male actors had no intention of stopping, Li Huang had no choice but to follow them, although she was considerate enough to wait a bit for Alin.

While Li Huang was waiting for Alin, Xiao Chen also climbed onto the operating table. He was so panicked that he stepped on the blood-red cake, and red paint and viscous material splattered everywhere, staining him all over.

"Damn!"

Xiao Chen cursed under his breath and rolled and crawled off the operating table.

"Come over here!" Wu Li pulled Xiao Chen up and turned to look back at Li Huang and Alin on the operating table; he reached out to help the two female actors: "Quick!"

Just as Wu Li’s gaze shifted towards the emergency exit behind Alin, his face changed color.

Without anyone touching it, the emergency exit door had already been fully opened!

Right outside the safety door stood the ominously black altar, atop which sat the faceless woman’s huge portrait. The relentless ghost seemed intent on chasing them forever!

"She, she, she’s come in!" Wu Li’s outstretched hand instinctively pulled back, but before he could fully retract it, he felt something grab his hand.

Looking down, a child with only black holes for a face was crouching underneath the operating table, his hand smeared with the blood-red cake, clutching Wu Li!

"There’s a ghost!"

Wu Li had never been so scared in his life, and he had never flailed his arm with such force in over twenty years.

In an effort to escape the little ghost’s fingers, he almost wished he could break his arm off.

"I got that red stuff on me! The red handprint on Alin’s back must have been smeared by them!"

After shaking off the child’s hand, Wu Li fell to the ground; his phone also dropped beside him.

"Run!"

Wu Li shouted loudly, alerting his teammates, but the sound he made awakened not just his teammates but something else as well.

The cellphone, which had fallen to the floor, emitted a faint light, and the rag covering the operation table fell off to reveal the faces of children, one after another, under the table!

Wu Li’s body trembled as he was almost frightened unconscious. Previously, he had been the one scaring others in horror films, but now his retribution had arrived.

Each child, stripped of their own faces, each a fragmented young soul, were curled up beneath the operation table, their hands smeared with a crimson "cake."

As Wu Li collapsed, Li Huang dragged Alin over the operation table, and both actresses rushed toward the other side of the safety corridor.

"The door is locked!" Bai Cha, who had first run to the right side corridor, saw the rusted lock chain on the safety door, panic sweating his forehead as he desperately shook the door lock.

"Kick the door! Like Han Fei! What are you hesitating about now!" After saying this, Xiao Chen kicked first, the safety door made a loud noise, but the lock remained intact, showing no signs of damage: "It shouldn’t be like this! I saw Han Fei kick the door, and one kick was enough."

Xiao Chen and Bai Cha took turns trying, but they just couldn’t open the door, and the weird noise of the wooden table moving was getting closer and closer to them.

In that immense oppression, all five actors felt a bit desperate; only now did they understand how difficult it was for ordinary people to survive, a locked safety door was enough to cut off their escape route.

The door panel shook, if only they had a minute or two more, they could have broken the lock, but the thing from behind was already approaching in the darkness.

Oppression, fear, unknown ghosts and monsters, and possibly a murderer seemed to be running toward them all at once.

"Hide first!"

Unable to open the safety door, they could only find a place to hide for now, and all five of them squeezed into an old room next to the safety door.

It was pitch black, and they didn’t know what the abandoned room was for.

"It stinks in here."

"Nevermind that! Block the door first!"

To save their own lives, Bai Cha and Xiao Chen, for the first time took the initiative, pushing a cabinet near the door behind it.

"No, this isn’t safe enough! We need more stuff to block it!"

For the first time since entering the plastic surgery hospital, the five actors united and with the fastest speed, piled everything movable behind the door!

"That should be enough."

"No more, I’m exhausted, I’ve never been this tired filming."

"My fingers are all scraped raw, I’ve really given too much for this reality show."

Xiao Chen sat on the floor, with his heart pounding hard; he still hadn’t recovered from that surge of adrenaline.

Gasping for breath, before he could say more, he suddenly felt something wet under his buttocks.

Moving his cellphone, Xiao Chen followed the light of the phone to look beneath him.

"Ah! The floor! Look at the floor!"

Like he was scorched by fire, Xiao Chen abruptly stood up, clumsily pointing at the ground.

The others looked down too, and the unlocked room appeared to be a children’s playroom. The walls were painted with windows leading to the outside world, and the floor was covered with dense, blood-red text full of grudge energy and hatred.

"Mom doesn’t want me anymore, but I don’t hate her. I know I am a monster, my friends have said so since I was little. I shouldn’t live in a small cabin with them, nor should I live together with them. Everyone hates me, it’s okay, who makes me a monster, I am an ugly monster, a scary monster, a little monster nobody wants."

"Many people ask me why I had to bite him to death, they ask me if I still have any humanity?"

"It’s really funny, you call me a monster, and you demand humanity from me. How can you be so despicable!"

"Hahaha, today I made my birthday wish, but I won’t tell you what it is. From now on, I will keep a close watch on you to see if wishes made on a birthday could ever come true?"

"These doctors collect problem children like they’re collecting dolls, opening our brains to study what makes us different from other kids."

"The doctors are merciful, feeding us ’love’ before they open our brains. Here, ’love’ is the most precious thing. A long time ago, my mother also said she regretted not loving me properly."

"I forgot how I bit the doctor to death that day; it might be because I had consumed too much ’love,’ so I lost control of myself."

"Today, I met an interesting person. He is an artist who came to paint windows for us. This madman drew several windows leading to the outside world on the completely sealed walls and said he had enclosed the world into the windows, so we should look at them whenever we crave ’love.’

"What’s so good about the outside world? Everyone calls me a monster. To me, they are nothing but a wriggling bunch of worms, not worth even that. Disgusting!"

"The great artist came again, carrying his bucket filled with various paints. I actually don’t like him at all. However, on my birthday, he secretly brought me a piece of ’sugar,’ a sweetness that, if it were a color, would be the same as the sun. Huh? How long has it been since I last saw the sun?"

"Day after day, growing up for me meant having my brain repeatedly opened. They were trying to transform me, but it was futile; a monster still a monster, life still life."

"After completing the thirty-first window, the artist said he was going to leave and might never return."

"He even confessed to us monsters, admitting he was powerless to rescue us."

"So, the duty of an artist is to amuse, huh? Did someone actually think about rescuing a bunch of monsters? I admit he made me laugh. As a return gift, I bit the hand he paints with, carving a number into his arm."

"I had long forgotten my own name; the doctor said Number Four was my everything. By leaving my number on his arm, does that mean he now possesses everything of mine?"

"A piece of sugar in exchange for a monster’s everything; he shouldn’t feel shortchanged, should he?"

"The artist left and never returned."

"I actually miss him quite a bit, after all, he was the only one who ever wished me a happy birthday."

The room, left unlocked, was filled with dense, red handwriting that was freshly written, just like those ’death’ signs in the elevator, each stroke gruesomely vivid, instilling immense fear.

"What is all this? It’s terrifying!" Five actors were so frightened they froze in place, not daring to move.

As misfortune loves company, at their most terrified moment, the door suddenly got struck by something, the dull sound made it feel as if it was not just hitting the door, but striking the actors’ chests.

The cabinet behind the door trembled slightly. While the actors were still dazed, the door got hit again.

The tightly shut door was forced open a crack; through the gap, several children’s faces could be seen, their hands covered in red cake, their faces hollowed out, devoid of any features.

"Quick! Block the door!"

Wu Li was the first to react; a bunch of kids couldn’t possibly have the strength to force open a cabinet. This was definitely haunted!

With their backs against the cabinet, five actors crowded behind the door.

But just as everyone was standing with their backs to the door, facing the room, Alin, Wu Li, and Xiao Chen suddenly realized there was another person in the room!

"Look over there!"

The phone’s light shone toward the corner where a thin man in a painter’s uniform, carrying a bucket filled with red paint, was writing something on the wall.

"There’s someone there? You three must have been scared crazy! Don’t fall ill at such a crucial moment, okay!" Bai Cha also looked toward the corner, but he only saw the continuously appearing blood-red characters and nothing else.

"Is anyone there?" Li Huang also hadn’t seen anything, she pondered for a moment, "Xiao Chen just stepped on a blood-colored cake, and the thing splashed onto Wu Li, Alin was first smeared with a red handprint on her back by the children, could it be that only people stained with blood-colored paint can see ghosts? Does that blood-colored cake also correspond to a certain phrase on the ground, was the cake meant for ghosts?"

"There really is someone! He’s standing right there!" Alin was so scared that she could barely speak, shakily pointing at the sixth person inside the room.

"Are you out of your mind?" Bai Cha couldn’t see anything and only screamed at the top of his lungs.

"No, there really is something!" Li Huang saw footprints one after another appear on the blood writing on the ground.

"He’s coming!" Wu Li gritted his teeth, not knowing what to do, and then something even more terrifying happened!

Alin felt a severe itch on her back, and when she reached to scratch it, it seemed like she touched something. Turning her head, those children’s bloody handprints had soaked into her back, and right then, a ghastly white arm was stretching out from inside her clothes.

Totally panicked, Alin screamed and ran forward, inadvertently causing Wu Li to fall as well.

Without the two of them, the gaps in the door grew larger.

Just as they were about to fail in keeping the door shut, Bai Cha was the first to give up, suddenly darting forward.

Seeing three people missing, Li Huang quickly dodged away, and the last to try, Xiao Chen, also wanted to run, but it was too late. Children’s handprints began to appear on his back, and the blood-stained cake was smeared all over him.

"Bang!"

The door was knocked open, the cabinet toppled over, trapping Xiao Chen underneath.

"Help me!"

In the pitch-dark chaos, Xiao Chen cried out in agony, but no one helped him.

Bai Cha, however, seized the opportunity, stepped on the cabinet, and fled outside. Wu Li followed closely behind, then Li Huang grabbed Alin and they all frantically escaped without choosing their path.

"Don’t leave me behind!"

A scramble of footsteps followed, Xiao Chen, like Han Fei, was abandoned by most.

"Come back! Come back!"

Xiao Chen, always portrayed as a warm-hearted man on the screen, now displayed his "excellent" acting skills as his face twisted in terror, tears and snot bursting out.

The four actors, scared out of their wits, faced a cascade of illogical events that broke through their psychological defenses.

The right-side safety door was sealed; they could only retreat to the left.

As soon as the door opened, the four saw the altar and a huge portrait outside, and even more eerily, a face—slightly familiar—began to emerge on the previously faceless portrait with shallow blood stains appearing on a dead person’s photo.

"Run downstairs!"

With a murderer on the first floor, the four didn’t dare to stop; led by Bai Cha, they charged straight into the basement of the Plastic Surgery Hospital.

Running past the first basement level, the second basement level, all the way to the third basement level, the head of the group, Bai Cha, stopped in shock. Just how many floors did the hospital basement have?

"Why does it seem like a children’s Paradise was built underneath the Plastic Surgery Hospital? Why have all the signs on these walls been wiped off?"

Looking around at the eerie assortment of items, the four actors hesitated to continue downward.

But as they halted, laughter from children echoed in the corridor they had come from, as if someone was repeatedly saying—happy birthday to you.