Chapter Thirteen: Truth and Unresolved Truths

“That night, the reason you began to feel drowsy was because I was using ether to influence your judgment. And once you truly fell asleep, I increased the dosage and removed every single bullet from your pistol.”

Jiang Wan frowned. “But I loaded it myself! There should have been at least one left—”

Before she could finish, Chen Qing shook his head and interrupted her. “You just push the holster forward. I learned that trick in Hawaii when I was a kid. Don’t ask about it. If you really must know, I picked it up from an elementary school kid.”

“When you were completely unconscious, I went to the second room and took the scopolamine used for control. I used that drug in two places.

First, on the ‘Chen Qing’ you saw. Second, on the victim sleeping above you.

After speaking with that victim, I slipped into the fourth room and used the scopolamine to subdue a researcher.

To be honest, he almost didn’t make it. Though I think… he probably wouldn’t have really died.”

“Why?” Jiang Wan was puzzled.

“Do you remember that saying? ‘The dead must die as the living do. Those who yearn to live shall turn to blood.’” He pointed to the tree behind him.

“In this place, as long as you fit the definition of ‘the dead,’ you can’t truly die.

Heartbeat, brainwaves, even movement—the definition is broad. As long as you meet the requirements, you won’t really die.”

Jiang Wan asked, “And the second line?”

He smiled but shook his head, not answering. “After I subdued that researcher, I brought my unique artifact to his face.

Over the course of a night, his thinking and logic became much more like mine. There were still plenty of differences, but for a makeshift partner like you, it was enough.”

“And then? What did you do next?”

“Don’t worry,” Chen Qing replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t kill anyone.

Because that captive was injected with scopolamine, I learned from him the specifics of this backroom.

With his information, I infiltrated their research facility without being discovered.

According to him, this hospital has been running for sixty or seventy years. In the beginning, there was no backroom, no such plans…

But over twenty years ago, someone seems to have taken over. That group guided the hospital executives to set up this base, and they profited by selling limbs and organs.

Honestly, the amount of dirty money here is far more terrifying than you imagine.

After sneaking in, I stole their research results and set the place on fire.

I also used supplies from the hospital to make a simple nitroglycerin bomb and blew open the tunnel.”

“What about those people? The victims?”

Chen Qing frowned, as if puzzled himself. “I don’t know… That night, when I went to the third room, everything was normal.

Maybe someone else was worried about leaks but didn’t want to show themselves to solve the problem.”

Jiang Wan sighed and asked, “What about the remaining bullets?”

“Gone. How could there be any left? I used the powder to blow up the iron door.”

She was stunned for a moment, then asked, “So how do we get out of here? You said the way out might be in the fourth room. Did you find it?”

Chen Qing smiled and shook his head, then pointed at himself. “Are you kidding? I gave the staff here truth serum—you think I didn’t ask that?”

He took Jiang Wan’s hand and led her to the stairs.

He looked upward, toward the shadowy, tree-shrouded scene.

“What are you doing?” Jiang Wan frowned in confusion but let Chen Qing lead her backward up the steps.

At the twenty-third step, when they reached a wall, they turned and found a resting platform that hadn’t been there before.

They turned again, and the way they’d come was right before them.

“It really is… simple…” she murmured, puzzled. “But how did the first person discover this? There’s no clue at all.”

Chen Qing hesitated but did not answer her.

After leaving, Chen Qing looked at the woman before him and said hesitantly, “I hope you won’t report today’s events to your superiors.”

“Alright.”

To Chen Qing’s surprise, Jiang Wan nodded without hesitation.

“You agreed?”

“Isn’t that why you told me your trump card?” She sighed, her expression complex.

“That ‘artifact’ of yours. Isn’t it just to tell me that my superiors might not be trustworthy?”

Chen Qing shook his head. “Not might be. Almost certainly not.”

He sighed. Jiang Wan understood why.

There was no shortage of powerful figures in that organization, and in a whole city, how could so many disappearances not cause constant trouble?

Yet nothing changed… everything remained as it was before those people vanished.

That was suspicious enough.

“I’m leaving… I’ll keep today’s events secret for you.” She paused. “And if something like this happens again… I’ll contact you. I don’t know your reasons, but I feel you might stand with me.”

Chen Qing nodded, watching her leave.

But could it really be so simple?

He looked at Chen Qing’s retreating figure and let out a deep breath.

The chief priest’s talk of over a hundred deaths—was that really unrelated to him?

No, clearly not.

What he hid from Jiang Wan was the real key to this operation.

Once the shrine in the backroom was found, a sacrifice was required to receive its response.

But at the time, he had no idea where the shrine was; even the records were all concealed.

So he had to get the organization moving, force them to resume sacrifices to the shrine.

Those hundred-plus people were the crucial pawns.

Those who yearn to live shall turn to blood.

That was the second of the three phrases, and it related directly to the sacrifices.

If you prayed for one thing, you would die and become blood; for two, you survived for a while; for three, you should logically survive.

No, clearly not. In the organization’s experiments, everyone who wished for three things died on the spot—without exception.

Because “they”—they yearned to live.

Because none of them were the dead.

To equal the dead, Chen Qing led over a hundred people into the main backroom. After each died, he extracted some organs, a bit of viscera.

Finally, using the regeneration mechanism in Room One, he shaped these remains into a new, indeterminate entity.

Once it was born, he killed it, and by burning and dissolving the body, obtained a vial of corpse oil, a leg bone, and a fragment of an eyeball.

These three items were the necessary preparations for the sacrifice.

Moreover, because of the unexplained disappearance of so many people, the organization’s members became restless. Most of the gravely ill couldn’t wait, and wouldn’t wait, so they pressured the chief priest.

The chief priest, constrained by the members, had no choice but to strip the insignia from some lower-level staff and use them as offerings.

That was why he dared not kill “Chen Qing.”

If he killed this person, and he really was a member of the organization, how could the others remain calm and stay put?

Only when the true shrine was found did he reveal himself.

“I did not kill the judge of horses, but he died because of me.”

He shook his head, looked at the backroom behind him, and walked toward home.

…

Returning to his rented apartment, Chen Qing began to examine the items he had obtained from the backroom.

He slumped onto the bed. On the table before him still lay the skewers from hot dogs he’d eaten a week ago.

Exhaustion overwhelmed him, a fatigue that seemed to emanate from the deepest corners of his mind.

As he watched, the world before his eyes blurred, and the smooth surface of the table became uneven.

He saw his limbs ripple like waves, his arm reaching out toward the window.

Then he saw colors newly born in the world—dazzling lights that ignored the rules of color theory. The moonlight shone like a rainbow, making the world swirl and blur.

He heard a multitude of whispers at his ears, countless voices muttering as if a thousand people were gossiping.

They complained, but not a word reached Chen Qing’s ears—none of it was intelligible.

He heard the faint commotion but could not make out anything from the outside world.

The air conditioner’s hum, the clatter of dishes—Chen Qing muttered something, but even the sound from his own throat was completely muted.

After about half a minute, Chen Qing closed his eyes, reined in the chaos in his mind, steadied his consciousness, and then reopened his eyes. The world had returned to normal.

“So… when I’m too exhausted, I start hallucinating,” he muttered, gazing at his hand.

“I just wonder… what the side effects of this rapid recovery are.”

He fetched a knife from the kitchen, and as the blade traced his skin, new tissue promptly sealed the wound.

He repeated it once, ten times, ninety-seven times.

With each attempt, his body grew weaker. Leaning against the wall, he pulled a bag of rock sugar from the fridge and swallowed it whole without chewing.

“It seems… wound healing is related to stamina.”

He shook his head, but the weakness remained. Yet the next scene astonished him.

He watched as new flesh began to sprout from his arm, stretching and contracting like snail’s eyes, crawling in all directions and gripping the surroundings.

They were like banyan roots, entwining everything in reach.

Chen Qing’s face changed; he raised the knife at once.

But with the blade poised in mid-air, his expression shifted again.

“Maybe… I don’t have to cut them off?”

He steadied himself, recalling that earlier dazzling world, the process of suppressing the chaotic voices in his mind, and tried to replicate it.

He watched as the flesh on the back of his hand shriveled and died, the vines withered, and within three to five minutes, his body returned to normal.

“Too many injuries… If my will isn’t steady, will my body collapse?”

He sighed, still ignorant of the side effects of the third wish.