But after hesitating for a long while, he still picked up the key.
Because he saw a very small notification appearing.
[Ding!]
[You have discovered a special area that has been abandoned.]
[Status: Inactive.]
[Current Danger: Low.]
Sunny looked at the two words "low danger," feeling slightly reassured.
Only slightly.
After all, the system didn’t say "no danger."
He walked to the hospital entrance. The key in his hand automatically turned slightly. The old lock let out a clicking sound and opened.
Inside was dark and cold.
The sll of old antiseptic, decaying paper, and dried blood mixed together, creating a very unpleasant odor. A long corridor stretched deep into the darkness. Ceiling lights flickered, alternately lighting and going dark. An old wheelchair lay on its side in a corner. Its wheel was still slowly turning, as if soone had just left it not long ago.
Sunny swallowed.
"Low danger... low danger..."
He kept reminding himself like reciting a charm.
The hospital seed to have been abandoned after so mission had ended. No screaming, no patients running chaotically, no obvious monsters. But precisely this silence made Sunny’s scalp go numb.
He walked very slowly.
Each ti he passed a half-opened door, he tried not to look inside.
But his luck wouldn’t allow it.
A small sound ca from the room on the left.
Sunny startled and turned his head.
There was no one in the room, only a broken mirror. In the mirror fragnts, he saw a black shadow crawling on the ceiling behind him.
Sunny imdiately stiffened.
Then he didn’t scream.
He only silently stepped to the side.
The mont he left his original position, that black shadow fell. It slamd hard onto the floor, then dissolved into a cloud of black dust, like sothing that had died a very long ti ago but still retained its final attack instinct.
Sunny nearly sat down flat on the ground.
"Low danger my head..."
He didn’t dare curse too loudly.
Afraid the hospital would hear.
Continuing deeper inside, Sunny picked up a few files scattered on the ground. Most had been blurred by moisture, but a few lines were still readable.
"Future cognitive observation project..."
"Subject unstable..."
"Professor..."
"Rover..."
Sunny stopped.
He looked at that na. His eyes imdiately widened.
"Rover?"
At this point, curiosity finally edged out fear by a little.
Because the na Rover was too prominent right now. Room 2705 had just won the third round, and the entire apartnt complex was talking about him. If Rover’s na appeared in this abandoned psychiatric hospital, that was certainly not ordinary.
Sunny gripped the file tightly and kept walking.
Through so ans that even Sunny himself didn’t understand, he always found the right path. A locked door, and the key would drop nearby. A corridor about to collapse, and he’d slip, accidentally falling into another route. A trap springing from the wall, and he’d just been bending down to pick up an old pen, twisting past it by pure coincidence.
After nearly half an hour, Sunny stood before a room at the end of the second floor.
On the door was a naplate.
[Office of Professor Harlan]
Sunny took a deep breath, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room wasn’t large, but it was very chaotic.
The walls were covered with sticky notes, old photographs, strange diagrams, and red strings connecting randomly between images. A desk sat in the middle of the room, piled with files, empty dicine bottles, an old tape recorder, and a few pieces of broken glass. Beside the desk was a small safe, already open, as if waiting for soone to co and take what was inside.
Sunny didn’t dare touch things randomly.
But his gaze very quickly fell on an envelope placed right in the center of the desk.
On the envelope was a line of text.
[For the fortunate ssenger.]
Sunny was silent.
Then pointed at his own face.
"Fortunate ssenger? ?"
He felt insulted.
But still opened the envelope.
Inside were a few sheets of paper and a small tape roll.
Sunny inserted the tape roll into the old recorder on the desk. At first, the machine only produced static, then an aged, hoarse voice rang out.
"If you’re hearing this recording, it proves the hospital has fallen asleep, the mission has ended, but fate has still refused to release this place."
Sunny imdiately got goosebumps.
The voice continued.
"You are not Rover."
Sunny nearly threw the recorder across the room.
"I know you’re not him. If it were Rover, he wouldn’t have entered this place by luck. He would have entered because of suspicion, because of benefit, or because he felt this place still had sothing worth digging up."
Sunny felt this professor understood Rover to a slightly frightening degree.
"Don’t be afraid. I don’t need you to understand everything. A ssenger doesn’t need to understand the letter. You only need to bring what’s in the safe to Rover."
Sunny turned his head to look at the small open safe.
Inside was a tal box.
The professor’s voice continued.
"Don’t open it in front of others."
"Don’t sell it."
"Don’t give it to anyone other than Rover."
"Because that thing doesn’t belong to ."
The recorder crackled slightly.
Then the professor’s voice beca lower.
"It’s sothing Rover’s father left behind."
Sunny stiffened.
Rover’s father?
He suddenly felt the tal box was ten tis heavier.
The professor’s voice rang out one final ti:
"Tell Rover that if he wants to know what his father saw in the fog, open the box when he’s alone."
"And tell him..."
The sound in the tape began to distort.
Sunny leaned in close.
The professor’s voice seed to stretch out, but was still audible.
"Don’t trust those who pick up the lantern too early."
Click.
The tape stopped.
The room fell silent.
Sunny stood there for a very long ti.
Then he slowly looked at the tal box in the safe.
"I really didn’t want to get involved in this..."
But despite what he said, his hands still took out the box.
The box wasn’t locked.
Inside was a badge.
The badge was silver-black, its surface worn, as if it had weathered many years. In the center of the badge was a strange symbol: a half-open door, behind the door a small lantern, and above the lantern an eye looking downward.
When Sunny touched it, the badge ward slightly.
A notification appeared.
....
[Special Item: Old Badge]
[Information: Sealed.]
[Unlock Condition: Rover.]
....
Sunny imdiately closed the box.
Good.
Very good.
Not sothing he could use.
Not sothing he should keep either.
The mont the box closed, the hospital suddenly shook.
The ceiling lights flickered violently.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor outside.
Not one person.
But many.
A hoarse voice rang out from an old speaker in the corner of the room.
"Not a patient..."
"Not a doctor..."
"ssenger..."
Sunny slowly turned his head to look at the door.
His face was white.
"I knew it."
That voice repeated:
"The ssenger has taken the letter..."
"The ssenger must leave..."
"Before the hospital wakes up..."
BOOM!
So door in the corridor was slamd hard.
Sunny didn’t wait any longer.
He clutched the tal box and turned to run.
The corridor that had been frightening when he arrived was now even more like the contracting stomach of a monster. Room doors on both sides kept opening and closing. From within ca sounds of laughter, crying, fingernails scraping walls. A few silhouettes in patient gowns stood in dark corners, turning their heads to look at him with hazy faces that had no features.
Sunny ran until his lungs nearly burst.
A black shadow lunged from ahead.
He slipped on a puddle of water and fell backward, barely avoiding the swipe. Sunny didn’t have ti to thank his luck, imdiately scrambling up and continuing to run.
"I hate hospitals!"
A door on the left suddenly burst open.
Inside was an old elevator.
The elevator light flickered as if beckoning him.
Sunny didn’t think too hard and charged straight in.
The elevator doors slamd shut just before a cluster of pale white hands reached in.
The elevator fell.
Not going down.
But falling.
Sunny scread.
He clutched the tal box so tightly it nearly left an indent in his chest.
A few seconds later, the elevator suddenly stopped.
The doors opened.
Sunny tumbled out and fell on cold ground.
He gasped for breath, raising his head to look around.
The hospital was gone.
Before him was the familiar fog near the apartnt complex.
Sunny lay on the ground for a very long ti.
Then he lifted the tal box before his face and laughed bitterly.
"Rover, you owe one life."
He really wanted to say a few more curses.
But in the end still opened the ssage interface.
His fingers trembled slightly as he typed.
[Sunny: Rover, I found sothing that might belong to you.]
[Sunny: Don’t ask where I found it. I really don’t want to rember.]
[Sunny: If you want to know about your father, we should probably et.]
The ssages were sent.
At the sa ti, in room 2705, Rover had just watched the Titan Soul-Sealing Tower finish stabilizing.
A notification sound rang out.
[Ding!]
[You have received a private ssage from Sunny.]
Rover opened the ssages.
The mont he saw the words "your father," his expression imdiately changed.
The freshly upgraded room was still filled with gentle life fragrance, but the atmosphere around Rover suddenly went quiet.
Nanoe was the first to notice the change in him.
"Rover?"
Rover didn’t imdiately answer.
He looked at the ssages for a very long ti.
Then slowly sent a reply to Sunny.
[Rover: Where should we et?]
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