The woman in the photo wasn't wearing makeup, seemingly recovering from a serious illness. She wore a collar with a sex toy logo around her neck, a miniskirt, and a tight-fitting shirt. Her firm, large breasts pushed the shirt high, almost bursting out, the buttons nearly ruptured. A closer look revealed a vibrator inserted into her genitals, drops of vaginal fluid dripping onto the ground, creating a peculiar kind of beauty. Earlier, when Chen Ge had visited Hai Ming Apartments, he had once criticized Men Nan's father for having an affair despite having such a beautiful wife. Now, seeing this picture, he finally understood why the man had strayed. The woman's gentle features carried a depth and warmth that could easily draw someone in, even in her weakened state. Chen Ge let his gaze shift slowly to the small, shy boy sitting beside her.
Is this child really Men Nan? The thought hit him with sudden force. The letters described an incredibly talented toddler, one who learned and spoke at an almost unnatural pace. Yet the Men Nan Chen Ge knew had grown into a young man who struggled greatly when confronted by even a relatively weak mirror monster. Had his extraordinary talent simply faded as he aged? Or had something far more serious happened to suppress it? The story in the letters felt undeniably real. Chen Ge had heard similar claims before—that very young children, especially toddlers, sometimes perceive things adults cannot: faint shapes, whispers, presences just beyond normal sight. As they grew older, those perceptions usually faded, and the memories blurred into nothing. But Chen Ge sensed this case was different. It wasn't so simple.
He recalled what Doctor Gao had once told him after conducting a deep psychological evaluation of Men Nan. The diagnosis had revealed three distinct personalities coexisting within him. The first was a protective persona that took the shape of his mother. Doctor Gao believed this was the lingering spirit—or at least the psychic imprint—of Men Nan's real mother, who had attached herself to her son to shield him whenever danger grew too close. The second was Men Nan's primary, everyday personality—the quiet, shy, and somewhat broken young man that his friends and classmates knew. The third personality, however, was buried in the deepest recesses of his mind. According to Doctor Gao, this persona appeared to have frozen at Men Nan's early childhood. It almost never surfaced, refused all communication, and only emerged for extremely brief moments. Whenever it did appear, Men Nan displayed superhuman talent and insight.
Is it possible that the third persona is the real, original Men Nan—the child from the letters? Chen Ge wondered. Then what exactly happened to him? What caused this childhood self to retreat so deeply and become locked away? Before entering the Third Sick Hall, Chen Ge had studied split personality disorder extensively. He knew that each additional persona usually emerged for a specific reason—often as a defense mechanism against unbearable trauma, loneliness, abuse, or overwhelming fear. Whatever had happened to Men Nan in his earliest years must have been severe enough to fracture him so completely that part of his mind had simply refused to grow up with the rest.
Chen Ge carefully returned the photograph to its envelope and reached for the third letter. The paper was brittle with age, and the handwriting had grown even more hurried and uneven than in the previous entries. The director's words carried a palpable sense of mounting dread.
"The door appears punctually at midnight," the letter began. "It stays visible for exactly one minute before disappearing again.
"I've sealed off the entire Third Sick Hall and forbidden anyone from approaching Room 3 at night. I've assigned night-shift nurses to keep constant watch on that bleeding door.
"Three days have passed, and the nurses reported hearing strange noises coming from behind the sealed door. When the door returned to normal, one of them cautiously pushed it open. The room was completely empty. There was no rat, no animal, no explanation for the sounds.
"On the fourth day, I decided to stay vigil outside Room 3 myself. Sure enough, there were movements behind the door—faint but unmistakable—and I clearly heard the sound of chewing, like something gnawing on bone or flesh.
"On the fifth night, the thing behind the door seemed to sense my presence. There was knocking from inside the room. Knocking from a room that had been confirmed empty. If I hadn't just passed a full mental evaluation myself, I would have believed I was losing my mind.
"I ordered the workers to seal the door completely with wooden boards. On the tenth night, there was urgent, frantic banging from the other side.
"Fresh blood began to seep through the wood, dyeing it red in spreading stains. It looked like a scene straight out of a nightmare. I immediately contacted the maintenance team to remove the door entirely and posted several doctors to stand guard outside Room 3.
"On the midnight of the eleventh day, everyone present heard the unmistakable sound of a door being opened—even though the physical door had already been taken away.
"When the sound occurred, I watched the empty door frame turn red. I managed to get close enough to examine it. It wasn't blood. It looked like a network of blood vessels spreading across the surface. One minute later, everything returned to normal. One of the doctors claimed he saw a shadow crawl out of the empty doorway.
"That doctor submitted his resignation the very next afternoon. The hospital was already critically short-staffed, so I denied his request. This only made his panic worse; he became hysterical, insisting there was no room for negotiation. He left that night and never returned.
"Removing the door had no effect. I then ordered the workers to brick up the entire entrance. For the first few days, it seemed to work. But one week later, a new problem appeared. Every night at midnight, Room 3—and the walls immediately surrounding it—began to turn red, like skin covered in deep bruises. The discoloration was spreading slowly outward. I fear that one day it will cover the entire hospital.
"I've tried every method I can think of, but nothing stops it. This room was perfectly normal before. Everything changed after the accident that befell the child's mother. Do you think I should try to find the boy? Should I seek him out to find the reason—or perhaps the solution—from him?"
Chen Ge's face darkened noticeably as he finished reading the third letter. The revelations about the blood door were far more troubling than he had anticipated. The old director had tried every conceivable method—sealing the door with wood, bricking it up, posting guards, even removing the physical door entirely—yet every attempt had failed. Not only had he been unable to close or contain the door, but each failed effort seemed to make the situation worse, allowing the anomaly to spread further and grow more aggressive. The director's growing desperation bled through every line, painting a picture of a man slowly losing control of the nightmare he had helped create.
"But there has to be a solution," Chen Ge muttered to himself, his voice low in the silent office. "Otherwise the center would have been forced to close ten years ago, not just five. Something kept it running despite the spreading corruption." The fact that the hospital had continued operating for so long in the face of such an active, escalating threat meant someone—or something—had found a way to at least temporarily manage the door. The question was no longer whether the door could be closed, but how.
Chen Ge reached for the final letter with a grave expression. This envelope was different from the others. Unlike the previous three, it bore a proper address written in faded ink on the front: Linjiang New Schistosomiasis Control Station. The presence of a real destination immediately set this letter apart. He opened it carefully, and the first line struck him like a physical blow:
"Chen Ge, I've followed your instructions, and thankfully, the door is temporarily closed. But I don't understand—why can Men Nan close the door?"
The short letter revealed two critical pieces of information. First, the door could be closed, at least for a time. Second, Men Nan possessed some unique ability to seal it. The implications were immediate and staggering. If Chen Ge wanted to deal with the blood door still hidden inside the mirror at his own Haunted House, he would almost certainly need Men Nan's help. The connection between the two doors—and between the past tragedy of this hospital and the present danger in his own life—was now undeniable.
Chen Ge reread the brief fourth letter slowly, absorbing every word. At the very end, the old director had expressed growing fascination with the world behind the door. That curiosity, that dangerous pull toward the unknown, might very well have been the reason for his disappearance. The center had been shut down five years earlier, and the director had vanished sometime before the final sealing of the facility. Those two events—the door's unchecked spread and the director's sudden absence—could not be coincidence. They had to be linked.
Chen Ge carefully replaced all four letters in the dresser drawer, then turned his attention to the massive piece of furniture itself. Something about the arrangement felt off. The first three letters had no addresses, no stamps, no signs they had ever been mailed. They had clearly never left the hospital. So how had the director communicated with this mysterious "Doctor Chen"? And more importantly, why had the one letter that actually bore an address ended up back inside the director's own dresser?
Chen Ge narrowed his eyes as several possibilities unfolded in his mind. "Could the director himself have suffered from split personality disorder, and one of his personas was this 'Doctor Chen'?" he wondered. "Or did the real Doctor Chen—whoever received those letters—return to the hospital after the director disappeared and deliberately placed them here? But if so, why? What purpose would that serve?"
The questions multiplied faster than he could answer them. Chen Ge felt the familiar frustration of chasing shadows, each new piece of information only deepening the mystery rather than resolving it.
"Who exactly is this Doctor Chen?" he asked aloud, the name hanging in the dusty air of the office. The question felt important—potentially vital—but he had no immediate way to pursue it further.
After a long moment of thought, Chen Ge made a decision. He picked up the single letter that bore the address—the one addressed to Linjiang New Schistosomiasis Control Station—and slipped it carefully into the inner pocket of his shirt, close to his chest. Whatever answers awaited, this letter was now his only concrete lead to finding the mysterious Doctor Chen. He would not leave it behind.