268: Shh, don't wake the child.

Chapter 268: Shh, Don't Wake the Children. Chen Mo stopped in front of a massive vent.

Through the grate, there was a spacious room below.

It wasn't a ward.

It looked more like a nursery.

Dozens of incubators were arranged neatly within the room.

The containers didn't hold babies, but various organs soaking in nutrient solution.

Brains, hearts, and even eyeballs.

Those organs were all alive.

The hearts were beating, the eyeballs were rolling, and the cerebral cortices were twitching slightly.

And in the very center of the room sat a "person" wearing a white lab coat.

Its back was to the vent, and it held a massive syringe, injecting something into a brain inside one of the incubators.

"That's the 'Caretaker'."

Mouse poked his head out for a look and nearly fell off the pipe in terror. "Don't mess with it! Whatever you do, don't mess with it! That thing has incredibly sensitive hearing; it can even hear a heartbeat!"

Sizzle.

The broadcast crackled to life again.

"Welcome to the second stage: 'Nap Time'."

The voice was kept very low, carrying a trace of malicious laughter. "The rules are simple: cross this room and get the Elevator Card. But remember—"

"Shh, don't wake the children."

"Once they start crying, they're very hard to soothe."

Chen Mo glanced at the "Caretaker."

It had no facial features on its head, only a massive, radar-like sonar receiver.

Its fingers were extremely long, and the tip of each finger was a sharp scalpel.

"Where is the Elevator Card?" Chen Mo asked.

"It's hanging around that monster's neck," Mouse pointed. "See that shiny little tag?"

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.

There was indeed a magnetic card.

But trying to take the card from that thing's neck was no different from pulling a tooth from a tiger's mouth.

"Wait here."

Chen Mo released his grappling hook and slid down silently like a cat.

He landed without a sound.

This was the advantage of a top-tier prosthetic body.

All joints had hydraulic buffers, and the soles of the feet were made of sound-absorbing material.

He held his breath.

The rotation speed of the core in his chest was forcibly suppressed, and his heart rate dropped to ten beats per minute.

One step, two steps.

Chen Mo moved like a ghost, weaving between the incubators.

The air was filled with the sound of gurgling bubbles.

The eyeballs soaking in the jars seemed to sense something, turning one after another toward Chen Mo's direction, staring at him fixedly.

Worse still, the soaking brains began to tremble violently, emitting waves of screams that could only be heard on a spiritual level.

Chen Mo felt a stinging pain in his head, as if it were being pricked by needles.

But his expression remained cold.

Five meters.

Three meters.

The "Caretaker" was still focused on injecting the brain, seemingly completely unaware of the killing intent behind it.

Chen Mo tightened his left hand.

The Laser Blade in his palm was ready to strike.

Just as he was about to make his move.

Thud!

A loud bang suddenly echoed from the ventilation duct overhead.

Chen Mo jerked his head up.

That idiot Mouse, out of sheer nervousness, had lost his grip on his shotgun, and it had slammed directly against the metal wall of the duct.

"Oh crap..."

Mouse's face twisted in horror behind the grate.

The entire nursery fell into a dead silence for an instant.

The next second.

Waaaaah—!!!

Inside all the incubators, those organs simultaneously let out infant-like wails.

The sound didn't travel through the air; it exploded directly inside the skull via bone conduction.

Sharp and shrill, it sounded like thousands of fingernails scraping against a blackboard.

"Ah!"

Up above, Mouse clutched his head and screamed in agony.

The "Caretaker" spun around violently.

It had no face; that massive sonar head was pointed straight at Chen Mo, letting out an angry roar.

"Woken... up..."

Swoosh!

Its movements were as fast as a bolt of lightning.

Several scalpel fingers instantly lunged toward Chen Mo's throat.

Chen Mo tilted his head.

A few strands of hair were sliced off.

The blade brushed past his carotid artery, bringing with it a gust of cold wind.

"Since you're awake, then all of you can just die."

Chen Mo stopped pretending.

His core erupted with power, and a blue light instantly illuminated the dim room.

He thrust his left hand out and grabbed the "Caretaker's" attacking wrist.

Crack!

His grip, as strong as a hydraulic clamp, directly crushed the creature's ulna.

"Roar!"

The monster screamed, its other hand clawing frantically toward Chen Mo's heart.

"Too slow."

Chen Mo's eyes were icy.

He flicked his wrist, and the half-meter-long red Laser Blade snapped out.

Hum!

One strike.

Just one strike.

The monster's head flew off as if it were being sliced through tofu.

No blood sprayed from the severed neck; instead, a massive amount of electrical sparks and white coolant gushed out.

Thud.

The headless corpse slumped to its knees.

The magnetic card slid from its neck, falling into the pool of fluid.

"That's it?"

Chen Mo retracted the blade and bent down to pick up the card.

However, it wasn't over.

The surrounding incubators suddenly burst open.

The organs that had been soaking inside jumped out as if they had grown legs.

Hearts turned into red spiders, brains grew tentacles, and eyeballs rolled across the floor, spraying corrosive liquid.

They surged toward Chen Mo like a tide.

"This is a nightmare for anyone with trypophobia!"

Ruan Qiushui floated in mid-air, disdainfully throwing out waves of yin energy to freeze the "heart spiders" trying to leap onto Chen Mo's back. "Is there something seriously wrong with Wang Daoming's aesthetic sense?"

"Mouse, get down here!"

Chen Mo roared.

Above, the terrified Mouse scrambled and tumbled down.

"Where's the door?"

"Over there! That red iron door!"

Mouse pointed toward the end of the room.

Chen Mo grabbed Mouse by the back of his collar, and his left palm instantly lit up.

"Close your eyes!"

Boom!

The Micro Electromagnetic Cannon fired at close range.

A beam of blue light blasted a scorched path right through the dense swarm of monsters.

"Run!"

The two of them sprinted toward the iron door, stepping over a floor covered in fleshy pulp and mechanical parts.

The monsters behind them were in hot pursuit, their ear-piercing infant cries growing louder, shaking dust from the ceiling.

Swipe.

The magnetic card passed through the sensor.

The iron door slowly opened.

Chen Mo threw Mouse inside and fired another shot behind him, blasting the nearest "brain octopus" into ash.

Clang!

The iron door slammed shut.

The scratching and wailing were sealed outside.

"Whew... whew..."

Mouse collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath as if he had just been pulled out of the water. "Brother, my dear brother, can we not make it so intense next time?"

Chen Mo ignored him.

He looked at the magnetic card in his hand.

On it was a line of small text: [Jiangcheng Mental Hospital B2 - Special Care Area].

And on the back of the card, there was a line of handwritten words.

The handwriting was messy, as if written in a great hurry:

[Don't go down. Below is only hell. — Li Chunfeng]

Chen Mo frowned.

Was this card left behind by Li Chunfeng?

"Congratulations on passing the second stage."

That persistent broadcast voice returned, this time with a hint of surprise.

"I didn't expect that big idiot who only knows how to use a scalpel to be killed by you. It seems that old lunatic Li Chunfeng installed quite a few good things in you."

"Cut the crap."

Chen Mo gave the security camera the middle finger. "What's the final stage?"

"Don't be in such a hurry."

The voice was giggling. "This final stage is tailor-made for you."

"The elevator is here."

Ding.

The elevator doors in front of them slowly opened.

There were no monsters inside.

Only a massive mirror.

The mirror reflected Chen Mo's appearance.

Tattered clothes, covered in blood and filth, and that cold mechanical arm.

But in the corner of the mirror stood a little girl.

She was wearing a white hospital gown, holding a dirty rabbit plushie, quietly watching Chen Mo.

In that instant.

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat.

This was impossible.

That was his sister, who had died long ago.

Five years ago, during the Jiangcheng Explosion, he had watched her draw her last breath in the ruins with his own eyes.

"This is the third stage."

The voice on the broadcast suddenly became tender, so tender it was sickening. "Officer Chen, do you want to resurrect her?"

"Just dig out that heart and give it to me, and I'll give her back to you."

Chen Mo stared fixedly at the mirror.

The little girl in the mirror reached out her hands, as if asking for a hug.

"Brother Mo... she... is that a ghost?"

Mouse asked, trembling as he hid behind Chen Mo.

"No."

Ruan Qiushui floated to the front of the mirror, her expression grim to the extreme. "It's a holographic projection. But... there's a sliver of a real soul mixed in."

"These animals trapped her remnant soul in this building."

Chen Mo's hand was shaking.

It wasn't fear.

It was rage.

The kind of rage that could burn reason to ashes.

He raised his head; his eyes no longer had pupils, only two spheres of burning blue fire.

"You want my heart?"

Chen Mo stepped into the elevator.

"Fine."

"I'm just afraid this piece-of-shit place won't be able to contain my fury."

He slammed his fist onto the elevator button.

Basement level two.

The elevator began to plummet at high speed.

The sensation of weightlessness came, but Chen Mo couldn't feel it.

He only felt the blood in his entire body flowing in reverse.

Wang Daoming.

No matter who is behind that broadcast.

Today, everyone here must die.

"Get ready to work."

Chen Mo said to Ruan Qiushui.

"What's the job?" Ruan Qiushui asked.

Chen Mo pulled out his Butterfly Knife, the blade spinning into a deadly flower on his mechanical fingertips.

"Demolition."

"We're going to level this entire second basement to the ground."

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