439: Chapter 439 Nightmare Trial, Mental Hospital

Midnight Forest Bar.

The heavy bass of electronic dance music crashed against everyone's eardrums like a tidal wave.

The air was thick with a heavy mixture of alcohol, perfume, and hormones.

Xu Hao held a hot-bodied girl in his arms, his body swaying casually to the beat of the music.

The girl exhaled a sweet breath, her fingers drawing circles on his firm chest:

"Brother Hao, why don't you stay tonight?"

Xu Hao suddenly let go, gently pushing her away with a roguish smile on his face:

"No can do. I have to get up early tomorrow to visit my mom."

"Using your mom as an excuse again."

The girl grumbled flirtatiously, clinging to him relentlessly. "You're almost the busiest person in Dongdu now."

"Of course. I'm a filial son, after all."

Xu Hao laughed, ignoring her persistence as he turned and squeezed through the crowded room.

Passing through the noisy first-floor hall and returning to his own lounge upstairs, the world instantly fell quiet.

He took off his shirt, which was reeking of alcohol and perfume, revealing his well-defined, muscular upper body.

Stepping into the bathroom, with the water splashing, Xu Hao hummed an out-of-tune tune and squeezed a large dollop of facial cleanser onto his face, rubbing it around haphazardly.

With foam covering his face, he made faces at himself in the mirror and grinned, showing off a mouthful of white teeth.

"Tsk, looking even more handsome again."

After washing up and drying his face with a towel, a sense of sobriety that was completely out of place with the wild atmosphere downstairs surged in his chest.

Ever since escaping with his life from the Noah Building that night, his life had fallen into this strange, fractured state.

Station Chief Feng had issued strict orders for all cadres to keep a low profile and ride out the storm.

The scandal of Noah Pharmaceuticals conducting secret human experiments was now known nationwide, and the Special Investigation Team was biting everyone in sight like mad dogs.

His colleagues had either run away or been caught.

In the past, Xu Hao would have been too nervous to sleep.

Even though he was just a mole...

But now, he was as steady as an old dog.

Nervous? Worried? Nonexistent.

Whenever he closed his eyes, that rainy night would float into his mind.

The shocking scene of his boss standing suspended in mid-air, surrounded by raging flames, using his fists to shatter the Inner World and blow up Minister Luo.

That was no longer a human; that was practically a god!

Following a boss like that, why the hell would he fear the Special Investigation Team?

Xu Hao even felt it would be best if the Station Chief and his crew all died in the Inner World.

Without those eyesores from the Noah Organization, his boss could take him, Xu Hao, to smash through all the major factions in Dongdu, unify the Jianghu, and rise to the very top.

When that time came, he would at least get to be a gang leader or a chairman of the board.

As for luxury cars, beautiful women, cash...

Those were all small matters.

Just thinking about it made him too excited to sleep.

He pulled the curtains shut, completely blocking out the city's neon lights.

Xu Hao lay down on the bed, resting his head on his hands, happily dreaming about the future.

His eyelids grew heavier, and his consciousness gradually blurred.

The music from the bar seemed to drift in from another world, growing further and further away...

"Ah—!"

An extremely shrill scream pierced his mind without warning!

Xu Hao's heart leaped, as if struck by an electric current, and he instantly snapped his eyes open.

Before him, however, was not his familiar bedroom ceiling.

A vast expanse of off-white, bulging with mold from the dampness, occupied his entire field of vision.

The air was filled with a nauseating stench, like formalin mixed with rust and rotting flesh.

He sat up abruptly, finding himself lying on an iron bed covered with a thin white sheet.

The surroundings were dim, as if there was a power outage.

On the cabinet next to the bed, there was an old-fashioned metal flashlight.

"What kind of ghostly place is this?"

Xu Hao's mind was a bit dazed.

He was just sleeping in the bar lounge. How did he open his eyes to find himself in a completely different place?

Had someone kidnapped him while he was asleep?

He quickly checked his body; there were no signs of being tied up.

But the clothes he was wearing made his heart skip a beat.

It was a blue-and-white striped hospital gown, with a few blurry words printed on the chest: Dongdu Seventh Mental Hospital.

A mental hospital?!

Xu Hao was dumbfounded.

The first thought that popped into his head was that those bastards from the Special Investigation Team were playing tricks on him.

Did they have some new mission and did this on purpose to scare him and give him a warning?

"Hey, come out!"

He shouted at the empty room, "Stop playing tricks. If you want something, just say it."

However,

the only response was the echo of his own voice in the dead silence, sounding exceptionally eerie.

Unwilling to give up, Xu Hao reached out and pressed the light switch on the wall.

There was no response; the power was indeed cut here.

He turned to look to the side, where there was a dirt-covered window.

Looking through the blurry glass, he could faintly make out the scene outside.

In the pitch-black courtyard, a few oddly shaped statues stood in isolation.

A thick, impenetrable gray fog rolled outside the window, isolating the mental hospital like a cage, letting not even a shred of outside light through.

What was even more hair-raising was that deep within the fog, giant dark shadows seemed to be slowly writhing, carrying an unspeakable eeriness that made one dare not take a second look.

A more terrifying thought immediately slithered into the depths of Xu Hao's heart like a venomous snake.

Could it be... that his successful escape from the Noah Building was just a dream?

Had he actually never escaped at all, and was trapped once again in some damned Inner World, only truly waking up now?

This thought instantly made his hair stand on end.

Xu Hao immediately rolled out of bed and grabbed the metal flashlight on the nightstand. It was heavy, perfect to use as a weapon.

He then pressed the switch, and a dim yellow beam of light pierced the darkness, barely illuminating the surroundings.

Fortunately, the battery still had power.

Holding the flashlight, he carefully pushed open the room door and walked along the dark corridor.

After a few steps, the space ahead suddenly opened up, revealing an area resembling a hospital lobby.

This place had clearly been abandoned for a long time. The glass of the registration desk was shattered all over the floor, and several rows of benches were overturned.

The posters hanging on the wall had long since faded and yellowed, and the smiling faces of the doctors and nurses on them looked incredibly eerie in the dim light.

Just then, the beam of the flashlight swept across a load-bearing pillar in the center of the lobby and suddenly stopped.

In the shadow of the pillar, there seemed to be a blurry silhouette of a person.

Xu Hao's heart instantly leaped into his throat. His hand trembled, causing the flashlight's beam to waver.

His muscles tensed instantly as he took a fighting stance, holding the flashlight across his chest, ready to swing it at any moment.

"Who's there?!"

The figure did not move, nor did it make any sound.

It just stood quietly in the shadows, like a lifeless statue.

This unknown silence was even more terrifying than a monster lunging directly at him.

Cold sweat broke out on Xu Hao's forehead as he retreated step by step, his eyes locked onto the shadow.

Just as he was about to back into a corner, a soft "click" sounded from within the dark shadow.

A small orange flame suddenly lit up in the darkness.

The firelight illuminated a young face.

The face was shrouded in a thin layer of gray mist, making it hard to see the features clearly, but he could tell it was likely a living person.

The person lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and then slowly exhaled a smoke ring, the flame flickering with his breath.

"Friend, don't be nervous."

A fairly steady voice came from the opposite side:

"It looks like we're in similar situations. I also woke up to find myself in this ghostly place."

Upon confirming it was a living person, Xu Hao's tense nerves relaxed slightly, but his vigilance did not drop.

The man in front of him was also wearing a hospital gown. He was tall and thin, with a somewhat refined air in his movements.

Although his facial features were unclear, his vibe suggested he was the pretty-boy type.

This pretty boy was none other than Xiaosa.

Since the Noah Building incident, Xiaosa had devoted all his energy to the tasks entrusted to him by Chairman Fang Cheng.

He had to find a suitable secret base and also scout reliable financial and administrative personnel.

Aside from occasionally clocking in at the Yuanchen Group, he spent every day running around all over Dongdu, and when he returned home at night, he even self-studied management.

He worked so hard just to make himself look more like a qualified corporate executive and organization cadre.

Rather than the little punk who used to just loiter around the streets.

He firmly believed that this was the Chairman's test for him, and also his only chance to break away from his past and move toward a new life.

[part:gemini-3.5-flash-lite]

The scene from that night, where the president descended like a god of war, had long since become an unshakable belief in his heart.

For the sake of this belief, he was willing to give up everything.

Tonight, Xiaosa had just finished organizing the data for two alternative bases, preparing to investigate them deeply tomorrow.

He didn't expect that right after lying down and closing his eyes, opening them again would find him in this gloomy and terrifying psychiatric hospital.

"You are also… a fellow patient?"

Xu Hao held the flashlight and slowly walked over.

Xiaosa nodded, fished another cigarette out of his pocket, and handed it over:

"Want one? To calm your nerves."

Xu Hao did not refuse.

The two of them huddled together and lit their cigarettes.

The taste of nicotine provided a momentary relaxation for their tense nerves.

"This place is riddled with weirdness."

Xu Hao took a drag of his cigarette and said in a deep voice.

"Mn."

Xiaosa flicked the ash off his cigarette and analyzed with feigned profundity:

"Based on the information currently available, we have likely fallen into a supernatural… um… environment."

"The most urgent task is to figure out where our 'breakthrough point' is."

Xu Hao listened in a daze; although he didn't completely understand, he felt like this pretty boy seemed rather cultured.

Just then, a light blue glow suddenly lit up.

Several lines of cold explanatory text abruptly appeared in the air before their eyes:

[Nightmare Trial: Ward Survival]

[Mission Objective: Enter the director's office on the fourth floor of the hospital and obtain the "Patient No. 0 File".]

[Mission Time Limit: Before dawn.]

[Complete the mission to escape the nightmare.]

[Ward Rules:]

[1. Please keep quiet; the "patients" here do not like noise.]

[2. The hallway lights will flicker periodically. When they flicker, be sure to close your eyes or hide in a room.]

[3. Do not trust any reflections in the mirrors.]

[4. The "Nurse" will patrol the hallway, and her footsteps are very soft. If you hear the sound of high heels, hide immediately.]

[5. If you smell a strong rotting odor, it means the "Attending Physician" is nearby. Do not let him see you, or he will treat you as a new "experimental subject".]

[6. Make good use of the tools in your hands and the items in the environment; that may be the key to your survival.]

The two of them saw this text at the same time, and the expressions on their faces froze.

"Nightmare Trial?"

Xu Hao was stunned. What kind of nonsense was this?

Xiaosa quickly calmed down, a flash of sharp insight passing through his eyes:

"I understand. This isn't a random accident; it's a test with clear rules and objectives."

"The breakthrough point is completing this mission. There might even be some rewards, just like current popular online games."

"What a fucking test!"

The anger in Xu Hao's heart flared up instantly. He still leaned toward the idea that the Special Investigation Team was playing tricks.

"What nightmare, what rules, playing God and acting like ghosts! Damn it, I don't believe in this evil!"

He fiercely threw his cigarette butt onto the ground and strode toward the tightly closed iron door in the hall.

Then he raised his leg and kicked it with all his might!

"Open for me!"

Bang——

A loud noise echoed in the hall. The iron door shook violently, and rust flakes fell off in rustles from the edges, but it failed to be kicked open.

"Hey, stop right now!"

Xiaosa's expression changed drastically, and he hurriedly dissuaded him: "Didn't you see the first rule on the code saying to keep quiet?"

However, it was already too late.

"Click… click click… click click click…"

As if responding to the commotion Xu Hao created, a series of teeth-gritting sounds came from the darkness deep inside the hall connected to the hallway.

The sound was dense and chaotic, as if many Puppets with dislocated joints were moving at the same time.

Immediately after, one, two, three…

Several figures wearing identical hospital gowns staggered out of the darkness in a bizarre posture.

Their bodies were unnaturally twisted, and their limbs bent at anti-joint angles.

As they walked, the sound of bone friction was clearly audible.

On their faces hung identical stiff smiles, the angles of their split mouths exceeding the limits of human capability.

They seemed to be the "patients" described in the ward rules just now.

"You finally decided to come out?"

Instead of being afraid, Xu Hao excitedly clenched his fists, his knuckles making popping sounds.

"Just right for me to stretch my muscles!"

Before his voice fell, his entire body rushed forward like a cannonball coming out of a chamber, crashing head-on into the "patient" at the very front.

That "patient" looked fragile, but its strength was surprisingly great; it opened its arms and wanted to hug Xu Hao.

But Xu Hao's body had been strengthened, and his strength was far beyond what ordinary people could compare to.

Xu Hao didn't even use any fancy techniques; he just delivered a simple and brutal straight punch straight to the opponent's chest.

With a muffled thud, the "patient's" chest was actually beaten into a sunken indentation.

The whole person flew backward, crashing into the companion behind.

"Pathetic!"

Xu Hao spat, a look of complacency appearing on his face.

Although it couldn't compare to the boss's powerful fists, dealing with small fry like this was still a piece of cake.

However, these "patients" seemed to have no sense of pain at all.

The one that was knocked down struggled to crawl up, and the sunken spot on its chest seemed not to affect its actions.

Several nearby "patients" were also unaffected by their companion falling to the ground, lunging toward Xu Hao with bared fangs and brandished claws.

Their target was very clear—Xu Hao, who had made the noise.

On the other side, a "patient" had somehow circled behind Xiaosa.

Xiaosa was wholly focused on observing Xu Hao's battle, trying to analyze the weaknesses of these monsters, and completely failed to notice the danger behind him.

Until a fierce gust of wind struck, he suddenly realized and turned his head.

A face hanging with a bizarre smile was already close at hand.

"Holy shit!"

The composed facade Xiaosa had put on was instantly shattered by fright.

He let out a strange cry and lunged awkwardly to the side, barely dodging the opponent's scratch.

Missing its strike, the "patient" immediately chased and lunged forward again.

Xiaosa's physical fitness was far inferior to Xu Hao's, so he could only rely on his reasonably agile moves to dodge while tumbling around, looking exceptionally disheveled.

He casually picked up an overturned chair beside him and forcefully smashed it toward the "patient's" head.

The chair was smashed to pieces, but the "patient" only wobbled slightly without its offensive momentum slowing down in the least.

"Hey, friend, are you watching a show?!"

Dodging, Xiaosa shouted loudly toward Xu Hao.

Over on Xu Hao's side, he had already easily knocked down three "patients".

He glanced at Xiaosa's plight and curled his lips.

He originally wanted to let this pretty boy suffer a bit, but in the end, he didn't stand by and watch him die.

He immediately rushed forward with a stride, flew his foot from the side, and accurately kicked the temple of the "patient" attacking Xiaosa.

The immense force made the "patient's" head jerk sharply to one side, its neck emitting a crisp "crack" sound.

The whole body flew sideways, crashed onto the ground, twitched a few times, and stopped moving.

"Thanks…"

Xiaosa panted heavily, tidied up his disheveled clothes, and felt lingering fear.

"Growing this tall for nothing, acting like a woman."

Xu Hao snorted dismissively and then took care of the remaining two "patients".

The hall temporarily returned to peace.

Xiaosa walked over to a corpse, squatted down, and inspected it carefully.

He found that these "patients" had pale skin, completely devoid of color, more resembling some kind of doll or Puppet.

"It seems physical attacks are still effective, but we must target the vital points on the head."

He stood up, drew his conclusion, and then looked at Xu Hao, saying with a serious expression:

"Now, do you believe this isn't a prank? Hothead, if you want to stay alive, you have to play by the rules."

Xu Hao fell silent.

Although the battle just now was safe despite the scare, these monsters that were hard to kill still made him feel troubled.

If the number were a few times greater, he would also have to meet his end here.

"Fine, I'll listen to you."

He said somewhat reluctantly: "Then what should we do now? Pretty boy."

"Find a way out."

Xiaosa pointed to the hallway deep inside the hall and quickly formulated a plan:

"Our target is the fourth floor. We must first find a safe passage. You take the lead, and I'll cover the rear."

"Remember, don't go yelling blindly this time."