Men Nan's appearance was nothing short of terrifying, his face drained of color and contorted in a way that suggested something unnatural had taken hold. His eyes, rolled back to reveal only the stark white, glowed faintly in the bedroom's dim light, giving him the look of a possessed figure from a horror tale. After nearly ten minutes of eerie stillness, his arms jerked forward again, fingers splaying as if grasping for an invisible support to push himself upright. The movements were mechanical, devoid of grace, and after several faltering attempts—his limbs trembling with the effort—Men Nan finally managed to sit up on the bed. His head remained slightly lowered, chin tucked, and his all-white eyes stared blankly ahead, unseeing yet disturbingly alert. The sight sent a shiver through Chen Ge, the black phone's mission pulsing with urgency as midnight deepened.
"Doctor Gao, has he woken up?" Chen Ge whispered, his voice barely audible as he and the psychologist stood about a meter from the bed, close enough to intervene but wary of provoking whatever force animated Men Nan. The young man showed no awareness of their presence, his gaze fixed on some point beyond the wall, his pupils completely hidden. Doctor Gao, his face tight with concern, motioned for Chen Ge to step back further, both men pressing against the bedroom wall to avoid crossing Men Nan's path. "Probably not," Doctor Gao murmured, his eyes never leaving his patient. The unnatural eye-roll, the rigid posture—it was beyond anything in his medical texts, a phenomenon that defied his training.
"Then, is this sleepwalking?" Chen Ge asked, his voice tinged with unease. He had faced ghosts, mirror monsters, and the black phone's trials, but this—Men Nan's body moving under an alien influence—was a new kind of uncanny. Doctor Gao shook his head, his expression grim. "Sleepwalking is a common parasomnia, but even in severe cases, the pupils don't roll back this far. This is something else—his consciousness is suppressed, but his body is acting on an external cue." The doctor's clinical tone couldn't mask his worry, the sight of Men Nan's white eyes a challenge to his rational framework. The two men exchanged hushed words, their voices a thread of normalcy in the room's oppressive atmosphere, as they watched Men Nan for any escalation.
Without warning, Men Nan's body shifted, his legs swinging off the bed as he stood slowly, his movements deliberate but unnervingly smooth, like a marionette guided by unseen strings. "Should we wake him?" Chen Ge asked, his hand tightening on the mallet, the original plan to rouse Men Nan at any sign of distress now feeling insufficient. This was far beyond "weird"—it was the entity from Room 303 manifesting through Men Nan's sleep. Doctor Gao hesitated, his professional instinct warring with the unknown. "No, waking him now could fracture his mind further," he said, pausing to study Men Nan's face. "I've been tracking his expressions. We wake him only if his emotions shift drastically—fear, pain, anything extreme. For now, we observe." The decision was a gamble, but Chen Ge trusted the doctor's judgment, for now.
The two men slipped out of the bedroom, positioning themselves just outside the door to monitor Men Nan from a safe distance. He stood beside the bed for several minutes, his head still lowered, white eyes staring blankly, then turned with eerie precision toward the living room. His steps were slow, methodical, each footfall deliberate despite his apparent blindness. Chen Ge nudged Doctor Gao, his voice a whisper. "What's he doing now?" The psychologist's face was etched with worry, his eyes fixed on Men Nan. "I once treated a child with mild OCD who sleepwalked," he said softly. "Every night, he'd adjust his mattress for half an hour to align the corners perfectly, then sleepwalk later to check them again before returning to bed. That kind was manageable. But Men Nan… we fear sleepwalkers who act unpredictably, driven by something beyond habit."
Men Nan moved through the living room without pause or hesitation, his path straight and unerring toward the bathroom. The wooden door creaked as he pushed it open, his body angling toward the sink and the half-body mirror without a glance backward. The faucet hissed to life, the rush of water filling the apartment with a steady, ominous roar. Chen Ge's pulse quickened, the scene mirroring Men Nan's nightmare descriptions. "Is he going to wash his hair?" he asked, his voice tight with anticipation. Doctor Gao's eyes widened, mirroring Chen Ge's shock. "Don't look at me—this is a first for me too," he whispered, both men frozen at the bathroom's threshold, the black phone's mission unfolding before them in real time.
The sound of water grew louder, a relentless cascade that drowned out the apartment's ambient hum. Chen Ge and Doctor Gao rushed to the bathroom door, their footsteps muffled but urgent. Men Nan stood before the sink, his body bending slowly, deliberately, until his head hovered over the faucet. The upside-down glimpse of his face was chilling—his expression blank, pupils still hidden, only whites visible in the mirror's reflection. As his hair touched the streaming water, a subtle twitch crossed his face, a flicker of fear or recognition, as if he'd seen something in the mirror's depths. The entity was here, in Men Nan's actions, in the rush of water, in the white-eyed stare. Chen Ge gripped the mallet, ready to act, the mission's climax unfolding as the Third Sick Hall's shadow tightened its hold.
Chen Ge's skin prickled as if Men Nan's blank, white-eyed stare had pierced straight through him. He whipped around, heart hammering, but the bedroom behind him was empty—just the sagging bed and the faint glow of the corridor light bleeding under the door. "Has he seen something in the dream? Is the dream bleeding into reality?" Chen Ge muttered, the black phone's mission thrumming in his pocket like a second heartbeat. Men Nan had described the strangling man entering from outside, always approaching from behind while he bent over the sink. If the boundary between worlds was thinning, the entity could be here now, unseen, its fingers already curling around Men Nan's throat in both realms.
Water drummed into the sink as Men Nan's wet hair dripped onto the tiles. With mechanical precision he snatched the shampoo bottle, squirted a thick white ribbon across his crown, and began scrubbing—fingers digging into his scalp as though trying to claw something out. His gaze, however, remained locked on a fixed point somewhere beyond the mirror, pupils still rolled upward, whites gleaming like polished bone. The shampoo slid in rivulets down his temples; when it reached his eyes he flinched, a reflexive blink that never came. Instead, every negative emotion—panic, dread, raw terror—flashed across his face in the span of a heartbeat. His mouth twisted into a silent scream.
"Quick! Wake him up!" Doctor Gao's command cracked through the bathroom like a gunshot. In the same instant Men Nan's hands snapped to his own throat, fingers locking with brutal force. Veins bulged along his forearms as he tried to wrench his neck sideways, a sickening pop echoing with each twist. His balance shattered; he toppled sideways, shampoo and water exploding across the floor in a slippery mess. The sink edge clipped his shoulder, but the pain didn't register—only the need to crush his own windpipe.
"Wake up! Men Nan!" Both men lunged, Chen Ge seizing the young man's shoulders while Doctor Gao fought to pry the strangling fingers away. No amount of shouting penetrated; Men Nan's body was a puppet on frayed strings. He thrashed, forehead slamming toward the porcelain sink with suicidal intent. Doctor Gao barked, "Detain him!" and in one fluid motion looped his belt around Men Nan's wrists, cinching it tight. Chen Ge pinned the upper body, muscles burning against the unnatural strength surging through the possessed frame.
"Men Nan, this is Doctor Gao," the psychologist soothed, palm pressed to the young man's forehead to halt another head-butt. "It's alright now; it's alright." His voice carried the calm authority of countless bedside crises, yet it slid off Men Nan like water off glass. The young man's jaw unhinged; teeth snapped at empty air, then clamped down on his own tongue. Blood welled instantly, crimson threading between his lips. Chen Ge was already moving—grabbing the hand towel from the rack and wedging it between Men Nan's teeth before the bite could sever anything vital. By rights the shock should have jolted him awake, but his pupils kept rolling higher, whites dominating, as if something perched atop his head demanded his gaze.
He's looking upward—the thing is on his head! The realization hit Chen Ge like a mallet blow. He'd seen Men Nan do this at the park—eyes fixed on an invisible weight crushing his skull. Chen Ge's hands shot above the soaked hair, grasping at air, finding nothing but the faint chill of something that refused to manifest. Doctor Gao, oblivious to the unseen, barked, "Get him to the bed—now!" Together they hauled the bound, thrashing body out of the bathroom, Men Nan's legs kicking, head whipping side to side with enough force to crack bone if it connected with the doorframe.
Chen Ge steadied Men Nan's skull with both hands to keep it from the mirror—and froze. Reflected in the glass, a skeletal figure clung to Men Nan's back like a parasitic twin. Emaciated, skin stretched parchment-thin over jagged bones, its face was a grotesque seam down the middle—two mismatched halves crudely stitched, one side snarling, the other weeping. Long, spidery fingers encircled Men Nan's throat, sinking inward as if trying to burrow inside, while an opposing force—pale, maternal, glowing faintly—pushed back from within Men Nan's chest. The tug-of-war was the source of every twitch, every choked gasp. Doctor Gao saw only Men Nan; Chen Ge saw the battlefield.
Mirror monster—same breed as before. The shadow that had fled Room 303's bathroom had found a new host. Breaking the glass had wounded it once; it could again. Without a word Chen Ge yanked the mallet from his belt and swung. The mirror exploded in a storm of silver shards, the crash reverberating through Hai Ming Apartments like a thunderclap. Lights flickered on in distant units; muffled voices rose in alarm. Men Nan's scream ripped free at last—raw, human, alive. His pupils rolled forward, color flooding back into his irises as the towel slipped from blood-slick lips.
A black silhouette peeled away from Men Nan's reflection, slithering across the tile like spilled ink desperate for cover. Chen Ge shoved the young man into Doctor Gao's arms and vaulted after it, mallet raised. The shadow streaked through the living room, a blur of malice aiming for the front door. Chen Ge snatched Xiaoxiao—crumpled from hours as a pocket companion—and hurled the doll with pinpoint force. Fabric met darkness; the shadow recoiled, hissing, as Xiaoxiao's stitched smile landed squarely on its center, pinning it momentarily to the floorboards.