Hospital 444

The sky of Suyuan Mountain ruptured.

Dark cracks spread like webs, shredding the entire sky into fragmented puzzles. The moon was dyed a blood-red color, hanging in the center of the fissure, like a bloodshot eye, coldly watching the world about to collapse.

The mountain was undergoing a high-dimensional transformation—rocks twisted into non-Euclidean geometric shapes, the branches of trees writhed like tentacles, and the mist congealed into a translucent membrane, covering all surfaces, as if the entire world was being "digested" by some higher-dimensional entity.

Klein Faust stood at the mountain’s peak, watching the sky’s mutation, a cold smile creeping onto his lips.

"The director... is finally arriving."

A figure in a crimson protective suit stood next to him, their voice distorted with electronic static through the gas mask: "Once Pandora’s Eye is restored, this world will be entirely assimilated with the Abyss."

Klein didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Because his father—Mephisto Faust had already arrived.

Through the mist, a tall figure walked slowly forward—it was Deputy Director Mephisto Faust.

"Klein." His voice was deep and authoritative, "You have disappointed me."

Klein’s muscles tensed slightly, but his expression remained calm: "Father."

Mephisto’s gaze swept over the crimson protective suit and then returned to his son: "Where is Pandora’s Eye?"

"It was taken by Dai Lin."

"Useless." Mephisto’s voice was soft but as sharp as a blade, "You couldn’t even handle a half-crippled Devil’s Eye holder?"

Klein’s right eye twitched slightly, but he did not retort.

At that moment, a gentle female voice emerged from the fog: "Mephisto, don’t be too harsh on him."

It was Ophelia Faust—Klein’s mother, Mephisto’s wife. She wore a white lab coat with a silver short knife at her waist, her exclusive cursed object as a hunter.

Facing her son, her face was gentle, but her eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s.

She did not yet know that her daughter, Lelia, was already dead.

"Klein has done well," she gently placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder, "The director’s arrival was always fraught with uncertainties. We must remember that the mysterious apartment is manipulating everything behind the scenes."

Mephisto snorted coldly but said no more.

Klein looked at his mother, his eyes complex. He didn’t know how to tell her about Lelia’s death.

Ophelia smiled softly at him, whispering: "Go now, complete your mission."

Klein nodded and turned towards the altar at the mountain’s peak.

The crimson protective suit followed closely behind.

Mephisto and Ophelia stood in place, silently watching the world gradually fall apart.

Wen Xiaoshu walked through the fog.

Her consciousness was fuzzy, her body moved like a marionette controlled by an invisible force. She cradled Little Meng—her and Fang Zhou’s daughter—in her arms, with a "shadow" following behind her.

It wasn’t human, nor was it a ghost; it was a mass of chaotic, constantly twisting darkness, occasionally condensing into a vague female figure, only to dissolve back into fog the next moment.

Mei Yang.

Fang Zhou’s first wife, cursed by Suyuan Mountain and contaminated by the Devil, a patient of Hospital 444, had now become part of the Abyss. She had no consciousness, no language, only instinctively guiding Wen Xiaoshu toward the center of Suyuan Mountain.

In Wen Xiaoshu’s mind, fragmented memories flashed by like a revolving lantern—

It was a stormy night at the subway station.

Wen Xiaoshu held an umbrella, squeezed into the train by the crowd. The metal frame of the umbrella accidentally cut a man’s arm, blood gushed out instantly.

"I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!" she apologized hastily.

But the man’s face turned pale instantly: "You! You... I... I have hemophilia..."

Hemophilia meant that the man would have difficulty stopping the bleeding.

His family angrily grabbed Wen Xiaoshu by the collar: "Do you know this could kill him?!"

Wen Xiaoshu trembled all over, her mind blank.

At that moment, a deep voice sounded: "Let go."

She looked up to see a tall, handsome man standing beside her, his eyes stern.

"I’m a doctor." He said.

Then, he pressed his hand onto the patient’s wound—

Miraculously, the bleeding stopped.

He was Fang Zhou.

Later, she fell in love with him, married him, and raised Fang Xiaomeng—the daughter he had with his deceased wife.

But she always felt that Fang Zhou’s heart kept a place for Mei Yang.

The memory abruptly ended.

Wen Xiaoshu’s eyes welled up.

She didn’t want to die.

She didn’t want Little Meng to die either.

But she couldn’t control her body.

Mei Yang’s "shadow" gave her a gentle push, and she continued forward.

The fog suddenly cleared.

Wen Xiaoshu found herself standing in an open space, surrounded by dozens of doctors from 666 Hospital dressed in yellow protective suits, busy arranging some sort of ritual diagram.

In the center of the open space lay a transparent incubation pod.

Wen Xiaoshu’s pupils constricted suddenly.

"What is this place???"

Her throat finally produced sound, but the next second, Klein stood before her.

"Welcome, madam." Klein’s voice was cold and mechanical, "Your daughter, no... your stepdaughter, is very important to us."

Wen Xiaoshu trembled all over, holding Little Meng tightly: "Please... let her go..."

The crimson protective suit signaled with a raised hand.

Two protective suits stepped forward and forcibly took Fang Xiaomeng from her arms.

"Mommy—!" the little girl cried, reaching out her hands.

The child never knew she was not Wen Xiaoshu’s biological daughter.

Wen Xiaoshu collapsed to her knees: "No! She is just a child! What are you going to do to her?!"

"Research." The crimson protective suit replied indifferently, "Her bloodline is very special—father is a Surgeon of Malevolent Spirits from Hospital 444, and her mother was affected by the Abyss. Such a child is the perfect vessel for ’mimic cursed objects.’ The director’s arrival must not have any mishaps; we need stronger cursed objects to ensure everything is flawless."

Wen Xiaoshu’s world crumbled.

She couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but she knew... they were going to hurt Little Meng!

What she didn’t know...

Was that Mei Yang wasn’t going to kill them—but to sacrifice her daughter to the Abyss.

"Boom—!"

A loud noise, the fog at the edge of the clearing was torn apart by some force!

Fang Zhou’s figure rushed out like a specter, his entire body’s blood boiling, forming a crimson torrent that swept forward!

"Let go of my daughter—!"

His roar echoed through the valley, the blood flow instantly engulfing three protective suits, forcibly extracting the blood from their bodies!

"Fang Zhou?!" Wen Xiaoshu looked up in disbelief.

But the next second, a shadow flashed—

"Bang!"

Fang Zhou was sent flying, crashing into the rock wall, blood spurting from his mouth.

Li Bolin—his colleague, the Mediterranean doctor who always recited "Amen" with a Bible in hand—charged out right behind him, but before he could activate his cursed object, a crimson beam pierced through his shoulder!

"Ah—!" Li Bolin fell to his knees, the Bible slipping from his grasp.

The crimson protective suit slowly lowered their hand, the voice under the gas mask void of emotion: "Fools."

Fang Zhou struggled to get up, the blood gathering once more, but his strength was nearly exhausted.

Wen Xiaoshu cried out, trying to rush towards him, but was held down tightly by the protective suit.

"Daddy—!" Fang Xiaomeng’s cries tore through the night.

Fang Zhou’s eyes were bloodshot. He looked at the crimson protective suit, then at the restrained Wen Xiaoshu and his daughter, and finally—

He looked into that chaotic darkness.

Mei Yang’s shadow stood silently in the fog, watching him without a word.

"Begin at once."

Following the command of the crimson protective suit, Fang Xiaomeng was placed into the incubation pod, countless tubes pierced her skin, extracting her blood.

Wen Xiaoshu screamed and struggled, but it was futile.

Fang Zhou and Li Bolin were pinned to the ground, unable to move.

And the cracks in the sky grew larger.

Under the blood moon, the land of Suyuan Mountain began to dissolve, high-dimensional rules eroded reality, the boundaries between the inner world and the outer world completely blurred.

The director’s arrival was now unstoppable.

Humanity’s night of extinction—

Had officially begun.

Fang Zhou’s vision fixed on Wen Xiaoshu being pinned to the ground.

Her hair whipping around as she struggled suddenly overlapped with a rainy day from his memory—

It was when they first met, when she turned to apologize in the subway car, her wet ponytail brushing against the third button of his white coat.

At that time, she was being shaken by the hemophiliac’s family, the umbrella frame leaving red marks on her wrist.

"I really didn’t mean it..."

Her voice was as fragile as a paper page soaked by rain. As Fang Zhou reached out to separate the furious family, he noticed a beauty mark under her eye.

The process of stopping the bleeding took only thirty seconds, but the sensation of the raindrops on her eyelashes falling onto the back of his hand felt like it lasted for three days.

Later she insisted on treating him to a meal to thank him, and despite his repeated declines, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, they exchanged WeChat contacts.

Looking back now, did he really give her his WeChat because she had insisted?

On the day they dined, it rained again, harder than when they met at the subway station, and the wind blew away her umbrella.

At the restaurant entrance, she awkwardly twisted the water from her skirt, her hair still dripping.

When she looked up, she gave a smile that was harder to look at than a cry: "Doctor Fang, can I get a ride home with you afterward?"

Afterwards... In the car, the melody of Celine Dion’s "My Heart Will Go On" drowned out their breaths.

The clashing of metallic instruments pulled Fang Zhou back to reality. Five protective suits were fastening Li Bolin with special shackles, the sixth holding a "blood and flesh gallows" that glinted with the cold light peculiar to autopsy knives.

The moment the blade cut into his abdomen, Li Bolin suddenly laughed: "That light is true light—"

The sound of the dissecting knife severing soft ribs cut off his incantation.

Instead of the expected internal organs, a shriveled priest in a black robe was curled inside Li Bolin’s opened chest cavity, with a crucifix deeply embedded in his carotid artery. This was the evil spirit to which the mimicked cursed object implanted in him was attached, which had influenced his character, leading him to carry a Bible all the time.

The protective suits skillfully used a bone saw to separate Li Bolin’s spine, and the priest’s dismembered body automatically assumed a praying posture inside a petri dish.

The crimson protective suit used a pipette to draw the remaining black mist from Li Bolin’s hollow body: "A cursed object with a 92% contamination rate, yet its stability reaches an astonishing 99.9%."

At that moment, Ophelia’s hunter’s knife suddenly floated in the air, the tip pointing southeast, vibrating at a thirty-degree angle. She slashed her palm and let her blood drip onto the blade, the droplets immediately splitting into seven floating cubes.

"Dai Lin is here, in the seventh folded dimensional layer." She licked the blood off her palm, "We need to act faster. Whoever reaches him first... will be the winner. Klein, move now, by the way, where are Lelia and Virgil? Where are they?"

"Mother... please be prepared... Lelia, she..."