27: I'm always ready to help and happy to lend a hand.

Deep in the corridors of the Abandoned Mental Hospital, the air was as thick as congealed grease.

Every breath carried the pungent scent of rust mixed with decaying dust.

Chen Nian walked steadily, without the slightest hesitation, following that increasingly intense cold aura.

His shoes stepped on the dust-covered floor tiles, making a dull echo that sounded particularly abrupt in this deathly silent environment.

The source of the aura pointed toward a tightly closed iron door.

The paint on the door had long since peeled away, revealing mottled rust underneath; dark streaks looked like dried tears of blood.

That hair-raising, eerie coldness was seeping out from the door cracks in wisps, forming a thick black mist in front of the door.

If an ordinary person stood here, they would likely be shivering from the cold, feeling completely uneasy.

However, Chen Nian just watched calmly.

It seems this is the place.

He didn't waste any time thinking about the potential dangers behind the door.

“Bang—!”

With a loud crash, he kicked the iron door open cleanly and decisively.

Behind the door, an even denser black Qi rushed toward him, carrying a bone-chilling cold and the resentment of dead souls.

It wasn't a corridor, but a flight of stairs leading underground.

The stairs were steep and narrow, stretching downward into a pure darkness where one couldn't see their hand in front of their face.

The thick black Qi was like a living thing, churning endlessly at the entrance of the passage, like the mouth of a giant beast waiting to devour someone.

The corners of Chen Nian's mouth curled up slightly into a playful arc.

This scene was exactly like those classic tropes in horror movies he had seen before.

However, there wasn't a single ripple in his heart, let alone any thought of retreating.

He directly stepped forward and set foot on the stairs leading underground.

One step.

Two steps.

His figure was soon completely swallowed by that darkness, which was so thick it wouldn't disperse.

The stairs were very long, as if they had no end.

The surrounding temperature dropped sharply, and the decaying smell in the air became even more intense.

Finally, his foot stepped onto solid ground.

This was the basement.

With the help of a glimmer of light filtering down from the passage entrance above, he could barely make out the surrounding outlines.

The basement space was large, piled with various discarded junk: dilapidated hospital beds, overturned cabinets, and medical equipment scattered across the floor, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

It looked like it was just an ordinary abandoned basement.

But Chen Nian's perception told him that things were far from that simple.

His gaze swept across the empty space directly in front of him.

There, an obscure but powerful force was fluctuating, distorting space and isolating the inside from the outside.

The power of the Prison Suppressing Divine Body within him suddenly began to circulate.

A faint golden luster flowed quietly beneath his skin.

Chen Nian walked to that empty wall and raised his hands, without gathering power or making any redundant movements.

His hands thrust directly into the air in front of him.

“Riiip—!”

An eerie sound, like cloth being torn, exploded in the silent basement.

Chen Nian's hands had actually forcibly torn open a pitch-black crack.

A heart-palpitatingly eerie aura radiated from the crack, with countless negative energies roiling and entangling within.

Through the crack, he saw a massive space.

Obviously, this was no longer an ordinary basement.

This was a pocket dimension forcibly opened up using some powerful technique.

Furthermore, the outside was covered by an extremely sophisticated shielding.

If it weren't for a powerful person with Spiritual Energy like him, even if someone turned the entire mental hospital upside down, they would never have discovered the secret here.

There was no surprise on Chen Nian's face.

He stepped directly into that spatial crack, and the scene before his eyes suddenly opened up.

This place seemed to be a restoration of the mental hospital's scene before it was destroyed by the fire.

Neat corridors, spotless wards, and even medical record books were still placed on the desk at the nurse's station.

But the entire space was shrouded in an eerie darkness without a single ray of light, as if it were a night without any lamps lit.

In the air, besides the smell of medicine, there was also a burnt odor.

Just then.

“Sha... sha sha...”

A faint and eerie sound came from the end of the corridor.

The sound was slimy and wet, like something was crawling and rubbing its body against the rough floor.

Chen Nian looked toward the sound.

In the shadows of the corridor, a charred humanoid object was slowly crawling toward him.

It was a corpse burned beyond recognition by the fire, its limbs squirming on the ground in a distorted posture; every inch it moved, it left a black scorch mark on the floor.

Its mouth opened and closed, emitting indistinct murmurs.

“I'm so miserable... save me...”

Its voice was hoarse, filled with endless pain and pleading.

Anyone who saw that appearance would surely have their Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering in fear.

However, Chen Nian looked at it and gave a kind smile.

“Sure.”

As the flat words fell, the power of the Prison Suppressing Divine Body surged, and pale golden energy instantly enveloped his right foot.

Before the Ghostly Creature could even get close, he had already stepped forward, raised his foot, and then stomped down heavily.

“Bang—!”

A dull explosion sounded.

That charred corpse, which was still squirming and crawling on the ground, didn't even have a chance to let out a scream.

It was directly stomped into pieces by him, exploding into a cloud of black ash and foul-smelling pus and blood.

Chen Nian nodded with satisfaction: “You really found the right person; after all, I am famously responsive to every plea and happy to help.”