An hour after the corridor chaos had settled, the middle-aged man from Room 301 returned to Hai Ming Apartments, supporting the young tenant from 302 by the arm. The young man's head was swathed in fresh bandages, blood seeping faintly through the gauze, and his eyes remained glassy, pupils unfocused as if still lost in the nightmare's aftermath. The landlady's brother had driven him to the hospital for stitches and a quick check-up, but the real wound ran deeper, etched by the mirror entity's possession. Chen Ge emerged from Room 304, mallet still gripped loosely in his hand, its weight a reminder of the violence that had unfolded. "You're finally home," he said, his voice calm but firm, stepping into the corridor's dim light. "Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you. I just need answers—some questions about what's been happening." The young man's gaze darted evasively, avoiding Chen Ge's eyes, before he fumbled with his keys and pushed open the door to Room 302. "Come in then," he muttered, his voice hollow, the fight drained from him.
The moment the door swung open, a thick, nauseating stench rolled out, assaulting Chen Ge and the middle-aged man like a physical force. Even the neighbor, whose own apartment was a landfill of beer cans and takeout containers, pinched his nose and grimaced. "How long since you cleaned this place?" he grumbled, waving a hand as if to dispel the odor. "Smells like something died and rotted in here." Chen Ge's brow furrowed; the room appeared tidy at a glance—bed made, desk clear, no visible clutter. The young man, with his neat appearance and studious demeanor, didn't strike Chen Ge as someone who'd let their space decay. Yet the smell was undeniable, a cloying mix of decay and something metallic, like blood left too long in the open. It clung to the air, seeping from the room's corners, a testament to the horrors that had unfolded within.
The young man shuffled to his bed, clutching his bandaged head as if it might split open. "The past two months… it's all felt like a dream," he said, his voice trembling with exhaustion and lingering fear. He reached beneath the mattress and pulled out a black plastic bag, its contents shifting with a soft, sickening rustle. Dumping it onto the floor, he revealed a pile of small animal carcasses—sparrows, rats, a few squirrels—their bodies drained, eyes dull, no visible wounds. "A nightmare I couldn't wake from," he whispered, staring at the bag as if it were a confession. Chen Ge glanced at the grim collection, the sparrows matching those he'd found in Room 303, then fixed his gaze on the young man. "Your nightmare's over now," he said, his tone steady but insistent. "You can tell us everything you've been hiding."
The young man let the bag fall, his shoulders slumping as he began, his voice thick with guilt. "I'm sorry… for everything." He took a shaky breath. "Three months ago, when I moved into 302, the landlady warned me—if I felt uncomfortable or saw anything weird, I could leave, no questions asked. That first night, I had a nightmare. I dreamed of a leaking window in my room. I got up to close it and saw a man standing in Room 303, just… watching me through the glass. I thought it was nothing, just a weird dream. But it kept coming back, night after night, the same scene. Then one night, I woke up—or thought I did—and the man wasn't in 303 anymore. He was in my room, standing at the foot of my bed." The memory made him shudder, his hands clenching the edge of the mattress.
"I tried to fight it, to scream, but I was frozen," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He didn't hurt me, though. He just… asked for help. Said he needed me to do something for him. I was terrified, but when I woke up, I felt off all morning—foggy, like I hadn't slept. I thought staying somewhere else would fix it, so I crashed at a friend's place. But that night, the dream followed me. The man was right there, beside the bed, closer than before. He said I couldn't run, that he'd find me anywhere. He promised if I helped him, he'd leave me alone. I was desperate, so I agreed. He told me to catch small animals—sparrows, rats—and leave them in Room 303 through the window. I did it. They were alive when I dropped them in, but every morning… they were dead, just like these." He gestured to the bag, his face paling.
"There were no wounds, no blood—just dead," he said, his voice cracking with fear. "I didn't know what killed them, but I kept doing it, hoping he'd hold up his end. But he didn't. His demands grew. First sparrows, then rats, then a week later he wanted stray dogs. The last time, he told me to lure a living person into 303 after midnight. I refused—he got angry, started threatening to kill me in my dreams, strangling me until I woke up gasping. I was trapped, no way out." His eyes were red, tears welling as he recounted the escalating horror, the entity's hunger insatiable, its presence a constant weight even in waking hours.
"I told my friends about the dreams," he said, his voice breaking further. "They didn't believe me at first, thought I was stressed. A few of us broke into Room 303 one night, armed with flashlights, looking for proof. Nothing happened—no man, no ghosts, just an empty room. They laughed it off, said I was losing it. After that, no one listened. The man in my dreams got stronger, more real. Some mornings, I'd feel him standing beside me, watching, even when I was awake." His hands moved to the bandage, fingers trembling. "I just wanted him gone. I tried to lure someone to 303—a stranger, anyone—but it was too hard, too risky. Then I saw an ad at school, someone needing a cheap place to rent. Men Nan… he didn't want the dorms, had budget issues. I thought… if I got him here, the man would take him instead and leave me alone. I recommended Hai Ming Apartments." The confession hung heavy, the young man's guilt a mirror to the bloodied clothes in 303, the final piece of the black phone's puzzle.
Chen Ge's grip tightened on the mallet as the young man's confession sank in, the revelation that he had orchestrated Men Nan's move to Room 304 hitting like a cold wave. "So you're the reason Men Nan ended up in 304?" he asked, his voice low but sharp, disbelief threading through his words. The black phone's mission—A Room of Three—had hinged on Men Nan's presence, his nightmares the bait that drew the entity out. The young man nodded, his bandaged head bowing slightly. "I did warn him about the danger, told him the place felt off, but he ignored it, just like I did at first." His voice carried a mix of guilt and relief, the weight of two months' secrecy lifting as he spoke. Chen Ge exhaled, the pieces aligning: the ad, the recommendation, the calculated risk to sacrifice Men Nan to save himself. "It's over now," Chen Ge said, his tone softening but firm. "We won't press charges, but we'll wait for Men Nan to wake up and hear his side." The young man's actions had nearly cost a life, but the entity's defeat was victory enough for now.
Chen Ge reached into his pocket, the rusted key cold against his fingers as he pulled it out, its pitted surface catching the room's faint light. "I have questions," he said, fixing the young man with a steady gaze. "Answer honestly. If you don't know, say so—don't guess." The key was a link to the Third Sick Hall, and the young man's dreams were a window into the entity's world. The tenant nodded, his eyes flickering with unease but resignation. "Okay," he said, sitting straighter on the bed, the stench from the bag of carcasses thick around him. Chen Ge held up the key. "Have you ever seen the man's face in your dreams?" The young man hesitated, his fingers twitching against the bandage, the memory clearly painful. After a long pause, he admitted, "Once. He… he had two faces, like two people stitched together down the middle. They argued, bickered constantly, like they hated each other but were trapped in one body."
"Beyond their demands for animals, did they say anything else?" Chen Ge pressed, leaning forward, his voice urgent. This was a rare chance to peer into the mirror world, to glean secrets of the Third Sick Hall without stepping into its corridors. The young man's brow furrowed, his gaze distant as he sifted through the nightmares. "They argued more than anything," he said. "One time, one face was furious, screaming that if not for the fear of the Red Specter, he'd rather die than share a body with 'trash' like the other." The term jolted Chen Ge, his mind snapping to the black phone. He pulled it out, thumbing to the affection page: Xiaoxiao, labeled Baleful Specter; Zhang Ya, uniquely marked Red Specter, her own dedicated entry a testament to her power. The mirror monster from the Haunted House had been child's play for Zhang Ya. A Red Specter in the Third Sick Hall meant a force as formidable as her, a headache Chen Ge could feel brewing.
The entity's fear of a Red Specter confirmed its origins in the Third Sick Hall, a place where such beings roamed, perhaps born from its bloody experiments. Chen Ge's thoughts spiraled—Wang Haiming had carried this dual-faced creature out, and it knew of Red Specters, entities that could crush mirror monsters with ease. He sighed, the weight of future missions pressing down, and nodded for the young man to continue. "Anything else? Weaknesses, habits?" The young man shifted, undeterred by the rotting smell from the bag at his feet. "I noticed patterns," he said. "It only showed up around midnight, hated bright light, avoided noisy places. But the strangest was cats—it was terrified of them. It demanded every animal—sparrows, dogs—but never cats. I think it's a real weakness." Chen Ge's curiosity piqued, the idea intriguing but untested. Cats as a deterrent? He filed it away, envisioning a trial at the Haunted House, far from Hai Ming's dangers.
The young man fell silent, waiting for Chen Ge's reaction, his eyes searching for judgment or reassurance. Chen Ge said nothing, his mind turning over the implications: a dual-faced mirror entity, afraid of Red Specters and cats, bound to the Third Sick Hall. The middle-aged man from Room 301, lingering by the door, stared with eyes wide as saucers, the conversation plunging him into a world he'd only glimpsed through Wang Haiming's madness. His beer bottle hung forgotten in his hand, the supernatural unraveling before him too much for his liquor-soaked mind to process. Chen Ge pocketed the key, the mission complete but its echoes lingering—Men Nan's safety, the entity's escape, the Third Sick Hall's looming shadow. Dawn was near, and with Men Nan's awakening, the final pieces of A Room of Three would fall into place.