Player Reload
Chapter 260 - 238: Flying Over the Madhouse (Part 7)

Chapter 260: Chapter 238: Flying Over the Madhouse (Part 7)

The faint creaking of the steel cables, pulling the elevator car, echoed from above.

Li Cheng was pressed into a corner of the elevator by an invisible force, slightly suspended in the air, with his legs and arms together, his body rigid and leaning backward, forming a seventy-five-degree angle with the ground.

What does this mean, the mental asylum kids standing at attention?

Li Cheng’s mind raced. This posture strongly resembled someone still strapped into a restraint jacket, in a state of custody.

He struggled to twist his head, using his right eye fitted with a green contact lens, to look toward the elevator wall, and indeed, he saw some vague reflections in the metallic surface.

In the reflection on the wall, he was wearing that white restraint jacket, with a hood on his head, and his body was securely tied to a tiltable stretcher with pulleys by a series of straps.

Flanking the stretcher were two towering orderlies with blurry faces.

The elevator slowly ascended, passing the second floor and continuing its rise toward the third.

’If I’m not mistaken, these two orderlies are here to escort William. This scene corresponds to the real world, it might have happened in the past, or it might be occurring presently.’

Li Cheng had a strong premonition that he must prevent the elevator from reaching the fourth floor at all costs, or else something extremely terrible would happen.

And if he wanted to escape, he just so happened to have a blade on him.

With a flick of his palm, he pinched the blade between his fingers, and, twisting his wrist, cut through the invisible restraint jacket and the stretcher’s straps, freeing his right arm.

Then, taking advantage of the right-side orderly’s delayed reaction, he jabbed two fingers straight into the carotid sinus on his neck.

The carotid sinus, located at the start of the internal carotid artery, has many nerve endings in the tunica adventitia. External stimulation can reflexively cause intense excitement of the vagus nerve, slowing the heart rate, reducing blood pressure, and causing fainting if continuously pressed for more than ten seconds.

It is one of the vulnerabilities of the human body.

The William that Li Cheng was impersonating was not exactly the athletic type, but at least, he was a healthy developing adolescent with decent physical strength.

With a heavy jab, the gigantic orderly on the right immediately fell down without a grunt.

Sleeping very soundly.

’Next is your turn...’

Just as Li Cheng prepared to replicate the action and swiftly deal with the second orderly on the left,

that man leaned slightly forward, tensed his muscular arms, clenched his fists, and struck the classic bodybuilding pose—the crab.

Rip!

The white uniform on the orderly’s upper body was burst apart by his exaggerated muscles, scattering to the floor and revealing strands of dark, tanned muscle.

Standing at 1.9 meters tall, weighing 200 kilograms, with an inverted triangle body shape, and muscles bulging, he resembled Hercules, the demigod from Ancient Greek statues.

"Holy shit!"

Li Cheng’s eyes widened, almost spitting out a mouthful of water, "What the hell, is this Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman?!

With that physique, you should be competing for the Olympia bodybuilding championship, not working as an orderly in a mental asylum?"

The word ’tiny’ might need to be put in quotation marks, as the explosive-muscled orderly had enough brawn to equal two Williams, and a neck thicker than William’s thigh. The carotid sinus pressure trick was utterly useless on him.

Fortunately, the explosive-muscled orderly didn’t immediately attempt to kill him; instead, he stood in place and posed with other classic bodybuilding postures.

Like the double biceps front pose, the lat spread, the pectoral flex, the rear double biceps.

He even admired his reflection against the wall, self-absorbed.

The orderly gave off the impression of someone who had abused a cocktail of steroids—Boldenone, Methenolone, Stenbolone, Sislon —not the sharpest tool in the shed.

This gave Li Cheng ample time to cut off his invisible restraint jacket and jump down from the invisible stretcher.

Er... Okay, now I can understand why this muscle-bound orderly is stationed in the mental asylum — his intelligence wouldn’t allow him to be anywhere else.

Li Cheng wore a bizarre expression, hammering his fist against the elevator’s emergency button. While causing the elevator to perform an emergency stop, he also reached to remove the green contact lens from his right eye socket.

As the contact lens was removed, the reflections of the restraint jacket, stretcher, and orderlies vanished simultaneously, confirming one of Li Cheng’s underlying suspicions.

"The exploratory process itself is a trap; after obtaining the contact lenses from the children’s clinic, one must inevitably return to the archives room on the first floor and retrieve the blade from the rat person."

The Ratman triggered a new dialogue, "If you put on the color contact lenses now and look at the medical records, the orderly will come and you’ll get locked in the elevator..."

Li Cheng inserted the blade into the crack of the door, pry open a small gap and pulled the door open with both hands forcefully.

The elevator car was stuck right between the second and third floors.

In certain horror movies and real-world incidents, those trapped trying to climb out of an elevator could face the danger of the elevator moving again and cutting them in half.

To avoid such a situation, Li Cheng stepped back two paces, kicked against the wall, charged forward with a roll, and squeezed through the gap to the third floor.

The third floor of the hospital was unlit, with only the light from the first and second floors, as well as the green emergency light at the exit, dimly illuminating the corridor.

Li Cheng didn’t hurry to leave. Instead, he stood still, put the color contact lenses back on, and turned to look at the elevator to double-check that the reflection of the orderly didn’t appear.

Logically, after confirming that one could see the Evil Spirit with the contact lenses, a player would quickly remove them to avoid danger.

However, danger coexists with opportunity. Keeping one lens on should, maybe, most probably reveal new clues.

Li Cheng went back down the stairs to the first-floor file room to try to talk to Scaven, who would only repeat "Don’t bother me, I’m looking for files." The three NPCs on the second floor also had no more information.

Since that was the case, exploration of the third floor was the only option.

The layout of the third floor was not much different from the two floors below; almost all the doors were locked, leaving little room for exploration.

"The moonlight pours out, the cold wind blows through Willow Alley. There searches the ghost woman for her lover; who will dare to love, the mournful ghost bride~"

Out of boredom, Li Cheng hummed a haunting song in his half-baked plastic Cantonese, occasionally moonwalking backward down the corridor.

Crossing the hallway, Li Cheng found that the stairs to the fourth floor were blocked by a large amount of cardboard boxes.

As he approached, the boxes seemed to expand, completely blocking the way.

And as he stepped back, they shrank to their normal size.

"Large when near, small when far?"

Li Cheng squinted and rubbed his chin, and seemed to hear a voice speaking. From under one of the cardboard boxes, a genteel middle-aged man with glasses, wearing a hospital gown, and holding a bottle of Risperidone, crawled out.

He greeted William as if he knew him well, "Good evening, William."

"Good evening, Dalton."

Li Cheng, addressing the man by the name on his hospital gown, preemptively asked, "What are you doing here so late?"

Dalton naturally replied, "Got tired of sleeping in the hospital bed, thought I’d spend the night in my own castle."

Considering the abnormal behavior of treating a pile of cardboard boxes as a castle, along with their peculiar trait and the Risperidone bottle, Li Cheng raised his eyebrow and asked, "Do you have a spatial perception disorder?"

Spatial perception disorder refers to a comprehensive disorder where the perception of the size-ratio of objects is imbalanced, such as seeing large things as very small, small things as very large, perceiving close objects as distant, and vice versa. It is common in epilepsy and Schizophrenia.

Risperidone is a medication used for the treatment of Schizophrenia.

"Yes, didn’t you already know that?"

Dalton seemed puzzled, "We both take the same medication."

Ha, you’re really sick, but William may not have any problem.

Li Cheng waved his hand in a friendly manner, "Well then, could you move these boxes for me? I might need to go up to the fourth floor later."

Hearing this, Dalton hesitated, "Uh... what are you doing on the fourth floor? The hospital doesn’t allow patients up there.

Plus, it took me a long time to build my castle, it would be a hassle to rebuild it... How about this; if you find me a pack of crispy noodles from anywhere, I’ll let you through."

The Dalton in front of him was clearly an NPC like Scaven and the others.

Li Cheng had not seen any crispy noodles on the second-floor cafeteria or the doctor’s lounge before, so they must be hidden somewhere else. He immediately agreed to find them.

"I’ll wait for you here."

Dalton smiled and crawled back into the boxes. If he weren’t a middle-aged uncle, his movements would actually be quite adorable.