Infinite Paradise
Chapter 40 - 30? Are you playing this trick on me?

Chapter 40: 30? Are you playing this trick on me?

Perhaps it was because Americans couldn’t understand Chinese that there was no reaction to "The Most Dazzling Folk Style" from the big brothers and sisters in the mortuary; they were still sleeping soundly despite Le Cheng himself getting hyped and even unconsciously starting to dance.

Left with no choice, Le Cheng had to change locations and switched to a song more suited to American babies—Black Sunday.

As the melancholic and somber music began to play, even the air in the hospital seemed to cool quite a bit.

Click... click...

He was walking when suddenly the overhead chandelier started flashing on and off.

Le Cheng looked up to find a blurred face appearing on the ceiling, but it quickly disappeared as he watched, and the chandelier ahead flickered even more violently, as if out of fear or maybe guiding him in the direction to proceed.

"Sure enough, even when communicating with ghosts, choosing the right language is essential," Le Cheng realized something was up and immediately followed the flickering lights.

He passed through the corridor, turned a corner, went downstairs, then turned another corner... after about fifteen minutes, the light stopped flickering, and Le Cheng found himself at a dead end in what looked like an abandoned facility. The only passage ahead was sealed off with concrete, and the floor was covered with a thick layer of dust, as if nobody had been here for a long time.

Le Cheng walked up to the concrete wall and gave it a light tap, feeling very solid, seemingly hard to break through without tools.

"Damn it, where’s my sledgehammer?"

Le Cheng remembered there were indeed a few sledgehammers left at the entrance of the hospital, so he immediately turned back, picked a sturdy one, and returned to the wall, smashing it hard.

"Eighty! Eighty! Eighty..."

After spending about three thousand dollars’ worth of effort, a hole finally burst through the concrete wall, and the rush of dust and a pungent smell made him scrunch his brows involuntarily. After some more effort, he finally made an opening wide enough for a person to pass through normally.

However, beyond the concrete wall was pitch darkness and the same unpleasant smell—if this were a horror movie, if not a thousand or eight hundred zombies came out of it, it would be a lack of talent on the director’s part.

Fortunately, Le Cheng was well-prepared; with a couple of clicks, he walked in with a flashlight.

Just as Le Cheng stepped into the darkened hallway, a weird, shrill laughter suddenly echoed in his ears, followed by an inexplicable force sweeping across him. He instinctively closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the scene before him had changed drastically.

He now found himself in a bright and messy corridor, with a closed door behind him and medical rooms on both sides. The insides were clearly visible through the glass, but both the sanitary conditions and the props inside seemed somewhat nostalgic.

As Le Cheng observed and walked forward, he quickly saw a patient lying in one of the medical rooms.

It was a female patient wearing a hospital gown, lying lifelessly on the bed with her eyes void of spirit. Despite her sickly pale skin, she was quite attractive. Soon, a doctor entered, mechanically checked the patient’s body, then closed the room door, took off his coat, and climbed on top of the female patient, beginning to thrust forcefully.

After he was done, the doctor left and soon someone else came in.

Le Cheng even made a point of entering the medical room to observe for a while, but whether it was the patient, the doctor, or anyone else, there was no reaction to his presence, even when he openly criticized their lack of technique.

Illusion? Or space travel?

Le Cheng felt it was neither; it was more likely that some power was showing him past events that had happened here.

Sexual assault on female patients by doctors is not uncommon, especially for those with mental illness who can’t distinguish between reality and illusion, and may even have cognitive errors in common sense. Victims can easily be taken advantage of by unethical doctors, and of course, in a highly developed information society, such incidents would be scandalous for both the doctor and his hospital if exposed.

However, at Saint Elizabeth Mental Hospital, such things were the very least noteworthy.

Perhaps this was just a way for the doctors here to relax their minds after work. It could even be said that these female patients were relatively lucky because at least they didn’t have to suffer other forms of abuse, and more brutal acts would even shock BBC.

After Le Cheng walked the entire corridor, watching everything expressionlessly, the Historical Light before his eyes disappeared, and his sight plunged back into darkness.

He turned his flashlight back on and found himself at the end of the dark hallway, with a medical room to his left, its doors and windows already shattered. Shining the flashlight inside, the rusty beds had turned black and stank, and even the ground was covered with a thick layer of dark stains.

Then—

"Hehehehe..."

"Creak, creak..."

"Pat, pat..."

Sounds seemed to come from all around, with eerie laughter, the twisting of limbs, and the noises of bones rubbing and knocking against each other.

"The atmosphere is rather well done," what could easily scare an average person half to death, Le Cheng just slightly curled his lip.

What makes ghosts frightening is mainly the unknown—people fear what they can’t understand. But in Le Cheng’s view, ghosts’ attacks had only two forms: psychical attacks—using illusions or other methods to amplify one’s inner fears leading to scare oneself to death—and physical attacks which were easier to deal with because... truth is always within cannon range!

Of course, there are some ghosts with exceptionally strong power, such as instantaneous movement, mental control, infinite clones, Undying, and even gravity control, space travel, Time-Space Distortion, and other BUG-like superpowers. Sadako and Kayako from Japanese horror films belong to this category, but even among ghosts, they are at the ceiling level.

For example, the "Historical Light" he had just seen could be considered a Spatial Ability, but it might not be from the ghosts here, and could be a phenomenon triggered by the space itself, and it also lacked lethality.

Pat, pat—

A charred body crawled out from the ward on the left, moving like a spider, limbs touching the ground, filthy hair covering its face, and then its whole head began to spin in circles...

Le Cheng delivered a kick straight at it.

"Spinning your horse! You think you’re a dark tower?"

Wham!

The creature’s head and body were sent flying by Le Cheng’s kick, its dark head rolling on the ground while the headless body twisted and struggled, crawling eerily on the floor.

Le Cheng looked around at the ghosts, either standing or lying, sticking to the walls or hiding under the hospital beds, and clapped his hands vigorously.

"Attention, all of you! Look at me!"

The ghosts hurriedly turned their gaze to Le Cheng.

"I’m announcing something now, from this moment on, I’m the boss here. Who agrees and who opposes?"

"..."

The ghosts looked at each other, saying nothing.

"Good, since there are no objections, I’ll take it as your default agreement."

"..."

"First off, I want you to answer me one question, who sent you to scare me? Don’t look around, you... yes, you, the one squatting in the corner, step forward!"

Under Le Cheng’s authoritative scolding, the ghost squatting in the corner, shaking with fear, crawled out. His body was covered with extensive injuries, especially his face, which looked as though it had been sawed open. Opening his mouth, he made some "aba aba" sounds.

"Next, you."

Le Cheng pointed at another ghost, but this one, when it opened its mouth, didn’t even have a tongue.

"You!"

"Blah blah blah..."

"Darn, isn’t there a single one that can speak human?"

Le Cheng was speechless. He knew these ghosts were just lackeys, maybe good for creating an atmosphere, but utterly lacking in lethality. What he didn’t expect was that even communication would be so difficult.

But there were so many of them, there had to be one who could speak.

Ding-dong——

However, just as Le Cheng was about to continue roll-calling, the hospital clock rang.

Then, all the ghosts in front of him turned into black smoke and vanished from his sight.

"Is it six o’clock already? I haven’t even done anything yet."

Le Cheng was a bit frustrated. Perhaps he had spent too much time in "Historical Light" and hadn’t paid attention to the passage of real time, but it didn’t matter, he wasn’t in a hurry, he could play with them again tomorrow.

So Le Cheng quickly left the place, walking the Shadow Step and dodging the hospital’s surveillance, and in less than five minutes, he was back in his dormitory.

He wasn’t actually afraid of being discovered, he just didn’t want to alert them prematurely.

When daylight came, Saint Elizabeth Mental Hospital resumed operation, all the usual and unremarkable daily routines, except for the occasional death of someone, nothing big.

But Le Cheng found that his own daily life was starting to get weird.

At noon, he made himself a cup of tea, but when he turned around, the tea had turned into thick blood plasma. He tried a sip, and the taste was surprisingly not bad. For lunch, he had just sat down when he saw a few fingers added to the meal—chocolate flavored.

When using the toilet, a head would occasionally emerge from the toilet bowl, mouth wide open, probably some free-rider from the United States.

All these were actually not a big deal, but what truly shocked Le Cheng was Ms. Catherine, the Heavy Tank Warrior, suddenly became light as a feather, her waist much finer than those of internet celebrities.

"Ms. Catherine, did you lose weight today?"

"Do I look like I need to lose weight?"

"You make a compelling point."

Le Cheng was so scared that he immediately poured himself two large cups of blood plasma tea.

Alright, alright, you want to play this game with me, huh? You’ll see what happens tonight!