Hospital 444
Chapter 669 - 6: Cat

Chapter 669: Chapter 6: Cat

Feng Xiao, the deputy director of the Department of Cursed Objects, had always been the right-hand man of Director Fang Shen.

No one knew that the meteorically risen Feng Xiao had long been soul-snatched by Han Ming through spiritual intent. However, his personality had already become completely independent from Han Ming’s; they didn’t share memories or consciousness, and even their characters and thoughts were vastly different.

"I want to talk to you about something..."

Feng Xiao took a laptop, opened it, looked at Fei Jingyan, and said, "Both you and I are well aware of what a Cursed Spirit entails."

Cursed Spirits, a name that struck fear into everyone at Hospital 444. And most importantly, nobody understood the Curse Theory behind Cursed Spirits. Hence, there is no targeted Cursed Objects, even Quasi-curse objects are ineffective against Cursed Spirits.

The few papers on Cursed Spirits within the hospital were actually discussing Quasi-cursed spirits; they hold no reference value for the treatment of Cursed Spirits’ curses.

"Yes," Fei Jingyan said in an extremely calm tone, "the so-called Cursed Spirits generally constitute the rules themselves."

"Yes."

The apartment is currently the most powerful curse rule force known, and even Cursed Spirits are but mere puppets in the presence of the apartment. There’s no question that the apartment’s shadow curses possess Curse Theory similar to that of Cursed Spirits.

Back in the day, the Department of Cursed Objects had captured residents in an attempt to analyze resident shadow curses. But in the end, everyone despaired. Even with Quasi-curse objects, they couldn’t affect them at all.

Research revealed that the Blood Letter Task of the apartment usually involves Resentful Spirits for the first to third time, Fierce Ghosts for the fourth to fifth times, occasionally Karmic Obstacle Ghosts, but almost never Malevolent Ghosts. However, past the sixth attempt, Ferocious Spirits would appear.

By the eighth to ninth Blood Letters, there’s a high probability of encountering Quasi-cursed spirits.

And once someone is capable of performing the tenth Blood Letter Task... they will face a Cursed Spirit with absolute certainty!

"The killings of a Cursed Spirit often follow certain rules, and once the rule conditions are met, nothing can change it, not even high-dimensional Cursed Objects," Feng Xiao continued, "So even the Dean cannot create a Cursed Spirit object through contamination."

Because of these rule restrictions, although Cursed Spirits are as powerful as gods and demons, they cannot unleash mass slaughter on a grand scale. Otherwise, without the restraints of rules, it would only take a small number of Cursed Spirits to exterminate the entire human population globally within a day or two.

But conversely...

If the rule conditions are met, then...

It’s not impossible.

"All this stems from the failure of Salgeni Medel’s tenth Blood Letter Task on Suyuan Mountain years ago, where he was also killed by a Cursed Spirit," Feng Xiao continued, "This failure also led to the fulfillment of the rules."

Hence, The Sargenic Blood Covenant was born.

Their low-dimensional time-space layer had thus been invaded and polluted by the "Dean."

That’s also why Hospital 444, which shouldn’t exist in this time-space layer, emerged.

All of it is a large-scale Blood Letter Task led by the apartment, with all Paranormal Doctors as by-products of this task.

And thereafter, the five Hell portals that were consecutively opened... they represent the construction of stable channels for the Abyss to invade this time-space layer.

The time-space layer where 666 Hospital resides will gradually overlap with this layer.

Hospital will also slowly transition completely into 666 Hospital.

Of course, only the executive vice-dean who swears loyalty to the Dean will be kept in the new hospital.

Eventually, the apartment will abandon this time-space layer and continue to control other parallel spatial layers, choosing humans to be residents.

There are already different apartments within parallel spatial layers.

This time-space layer...

To the apartment, it’s merely a chessboard. Whether the board is destroyed or not is of no concern to the apartment.

All humans and Ghosts will either be destroyed or reborn, and one day, even the hospital might vanish, but the apartment alone is eternal and undying.

That apartment transcends all time and space, all low-dimensional and high-dimensional, as the force of the curse rules.

"What we have to do, is prevent all of this from happening. So, starting today, I will tirelessly ask you one question: Fei Jingyan, what... is the name of our hospital?"

Fei Jingyan looked at Feng Xiao and began to speak, "Our hospital is called..."

...

Dai Lin began to ponder a question.

What does the rule "Do not open the curtains" imply?

He had once heard Fang Zhou mention something about Cursed Spirits.

The power of Cursed Spirits comes from being an embodiment of a rule.

Just like in three-dimensional space, the stability of matter is a rule, and when three dimensions become four or even five, it turns into an abyss beyond human comprehension... Such curse rules are insolvable and even to some extent more terrifying than the pollution of the Abyss.

And the basis of the Cursed Spirits lies in the fact that the Cursed Spirits have completely detached from the concept of ghosts and transformed into the curse itself. Therefore, the biggest difference between Cursed Spirits and Fierce Ghosts and Ferocious Spirits is that communication with them is almost no longer possible. Cursed Spirits hold no malice towards humans, only a set of completely impartial rules of slaughter. They are driven solely by Curse Rules, resembling antivirus software in existence.

Can you say that antivirus software harbors any malice towards computer viruses?

And the apartment... seems to be a balance between the powerful Curse Rules and frail humans. When humans are weak, the apartment restricts the abilities of ghosts during the Blood Letter Tasks, ensuring humans have a chance to complete the Blood Letter Tasks.

"That is to say..."

The Blood Letter Task must be an absolutely fair competition.

A competition between humans and ghosts.

The rules ensure that the apartment does not favor either side.

Only when the complete hints for survival are displayed do the ghosts begin to kill, and after killing, there must be an interval before they can kill again. During this period, the ghosts’ perception, speed, and abilities are all limited to some extent.

There will be no unsolvable Blood Letters.

But on the flip side, there will also never be any Blood Letters that can be easily passed.

Therefore, "not opening the curtains" cannot be the real way to survive; otherwise, the Blood Letter wouldn’t explicitly state it.

In that case...

What is the significance of not opening the curtains?

"Restrictions... slaughter... could it be..."

Dai Lin had once heard that there’s a high probability that a Quasi-curse spirit would appear during the eight or ninth Blood Letter.

And if the residents can’t figure out the way to survive in time, then it’s very likely the apartment will lift the restrictions, allowing the Quasi-curse spirit to become a Cursed Spirit.

"Could it be..."

Dai Lin looked at the curtains.

Once the apartment provides the complete survival hints, will it transform the Quasi-curse spirit into a Cursed Spirit?

Then... could it be that the curtains imply...

The person who dreams of cats...

Can’t distinguish black from red...

The black that eats people...

All of these rules are perplexing, but the most puzzling for Dai Lin is the one about "dreaming of cats."

After all, not being able to distinguish black from red is certainly abnormal, but dreaming of cats seems to be a very normal occurrence—wouldn’t normal people dream of cats, too? Especially in this day and age with an increasing number of cat owners.

"What does dreaming of cats really mean?"

It was at this moment that Hei Dongxie began to ask Nie Yuan, "I have a question for you. In this building, which households have cats?"

"I’m not too sure since people don’t tend to walk their cats on leashes like dogs, keeping them indoors instead of taking them out. So..."

Dai Lin also didn’t dare to use his clairvoyance to see if any households owned cats, because... it would be troublesome if he happened to see what was outside the curtains.

"Have you ever seen anyone with a cat? Or have you seen a cat in the hallway?"

"There are often stray cats around the complex because people feed them regularly. But inside the building, I haven’t seen any cats."

"Have you ever encountered a cat that seemed peculiar? Or even anything you found unnatural might be worth mentioning."

"If I must say something... in the canteen of the complex, there was a guy who complained about cat poop smelling terrible, and a girl smashed a rice bowl over his head. Does that count?"

"..."

"Later, the guy called the police, and the officers were as polite as grandsons to the girl, who ended up paying just two or five hundred."

"No one... died, right?"

"No one."

"Anything else?"

"There’s also..." Suddenly, Nie Yuan seemed to remember something, "Right... there was another incident..."