Chen Ge's face grew even darker after finishing the third letter. The revelations about the blood door were far more troublesome and far-reaching than he had ever imagined. The old director had tried every method he could think of—sealing the door with wood, bricking it up, removing it entirely, posting guards—but every single attempt had failed completely. Worse, each failure seemed to feed the anomaly, making it spread faster and grow more aggressive. The director had not only been unable to close the door or contain its influence, but his efforts had actively worsened the situation, allowing the corruption to seep further into the hospital's structure and atmosphere.
"But there has to be a solution somewhere," Chen Ge murmured, his voice low and tense in the silent office. "Otherwise the center would have been forced to shut down ten years ago, not just five. Something—someone—must have found a temporary way to hold it back, or the entire place would have collapsed much sooner." The fact that the hospital had continued operating for so long despite an active, escalating supernatural threat meant there was still hope. The door could be managed, perhaps even sealed, if the right method or person could be found.
Chen Ge reached for the final letter with a grave, almost reverent expression. This envelope stood out immediately from the others. Unlike the previous three, which had no addresses or stamps, this one bore a clear destination written in faded but legible ink: Linjiang New Schistosomiasis Control Station. The presence of a real address changed everything. He opened it carefully, and the first line struck him like a physical impact:
"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, game-changing facts. First, the door could be closed—at least temporarily. Second, Men Nan possessed some unique ability to seal it. The implications crashed over Chen Ge in waves. If he ever hoped 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 and unavoidable.
Chen Ge reread the brief fourth letter slowly, letting every word sink in. At the very end, the old director had expressed a growing fascination with the world behind the door. That dangerous curiosity—that irresistible pull toward the unknown—might very well have been the reason for his disappearance. The center had been officially 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 possibly be unrelated. They had to be connected.
Chen Ge carefully replaced all four letters inside the dresser drawer, then turned his full attention to the massive piece of furniture itself. Something about the arrangement felt deeply wrong. The first three letters had no addresses, no stamps, no signs they had ever been mailed or sent anywhere. They had clearly never left the hospital. So how had the director communicated with this mysterious "Doctor Chen"? And more disturbingly, why had the one letter that actually bore an address ended up back inside the director's own dresser drawer?
Chen Ge narrowed his eyes as several unsettling 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 place them here? But if so, why? What purpose would that serve? To leave a trail? To warn someone? To hide something?"
The questions multiplied faster than he could answer them. Chen Ge felt the familiar frustration of chasing shadows—each new piece of information only deepened the mystery rather than resolving it. He had more questions now than when he began.
"Who exactly is this Doctor Chen?" he asked aloud, the name hanging heavy in the dusty air of the office. The question felt vital, potentially the key to everything, but he had no immediate way to pursue it further.
After a long moment of silent thought, Chen Ge made a quiet 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 against 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.
Before he could even begin to celebrate the successful neutralization of the nurse-thing, a sudden commotion erupted from somewhere down the corridor. Multiple sets of footsteps—uneven, shuffling, and far too many—were heading in his direction. The sound grew louder by the second, a chaotic chorus of dragging feet and low, guttural noises that echoed off the bare walls. Whatever was coming, it wasn't just one pursuer; it sounded like a small group, perhaps more than he could handle alone in such a confined space.
"Can't stay here any longer," Chen Ge whispered urgently to himself. "If I get surrounded in this office, I'm dead." He snatched his backpack from the floor, slinging it over one shoulder in a single swift motion. With Doctor Skull-cracker's hammer gripped tightly in his right hand and the cleaver held ready in his left, he made a hasty retreat toward the office door. His heart pounded against his ribs as he moved, every sense sharpened to catch the slightest sound or movement behind him.
He ran until he reached the stairwell, lungs burning from the sudden sprint. He paused there for only a heartbeat, trying to catch his breath and listen for pursuit. Before he could fully steady himself, the phone in his pocket vibrated sharply against his thigh. The sensation startled him—his first irrational thought was that it might be the mission success alert from the black phone. But no, this was a regular call. The caller ID showed Liu Dao's name.
Chen Ge cursed under his breath. He really needed to remind them never to call during a livestream. One poorly timed ringtone could easily give away his position and cost him his life. Still, he answered with a harsh whisper. "I'm hanging up if this isn't important."
"Quick! Look at your livestream room right now!" Liu Dao's voice burst through the earpiece, crackling with barely contained excitement.
"Huh?" Chen Ge frowned and hurriedly opened his streaming app. The moment the page loaded, his eyes widened in disbelief. The viewer count had skyrocketed to 300,000—and it was still climbing rapidly, numbers ticking upward in real time. At this pace, it would cross 400,000 in just a few more minutes.
"What's going on? Is there something wrong with the platform?" Chen Ge asked, voice hushed but urgent. Even as he spoke, he quickly edited the livestream title to prominently feature the address of his Haunted House. He added a short explanation in the info box, hoping to redirect some of the sudden influx toward his real business.
"Nothing's wrong with the platform," Liu Dao replied, practically laughing with glee. "But something is definitely wrong with Qin Guang! After his team entered a classroom in Mu Yang High School, their video feed suddenly went completely black. No one knows what happened—there was no warning, no technical glitch explanation. I thought at first it might be some kind of intentional special effect, but the screen stayed pitch black for a full twenty-five minutes. For any professional livestream, even five minutes without visuals is a disaster. Twenty-five minutes? That can only mean one thing: some kind of serious accident must have happened to his entire team!"
Liu Dao's excitement only grew as he continued. "This is a gift from the heavens! The platform had been pushing hard to promote supernatural livestreams mainly because of Qin Guang. But instead of delivering scares, his viewers got nothing but a black screen for almost half an hour. Frustrated, they started searching for similar content. Right now, only the two of you are doing real-time supernatural exploration. And the key point is—your livestream content and production quality are leagues ahead of his. Most of his audience migrated over here and never left!"
After hearing the full cause-and-effect explanation from Liu Dao, Chen Ge glanced again at the viewer count. The trajectory was unmistakable. Based on the current growth rate, reaching 500,000 concurrent viewers was not just possible—it was probable. For a brand-new host who had started the night with fewer than 50,000 followers, that number represented a dreamlike breakthrough, the kind of viral moment most streamers could only fantasize about.