Chapter 616: Number 4
Staring at Han Fei’s profile, Li Feng was reminded of the many rumors she heard about Han Fei. Now, she realized the rumors were not true because they were not exaggerated enough,
The third and fourth-floor basements didn’t have cameras because they were not part of the set. The audience had to rely on the camera on Han Fei to know what was going on. However, Han Fei removed the camera when the oil paintings started to ripple.
How scary Han Fei was without the audience watching in… only a few lucky people would know.
The red paint dripped down the ceiling. The oil paintings came alive. The kids with mutated heads poked out of the paintings to examine the hospital covered in darkness. Li Feng screamed in fear. She almost suffocated. She believed no one could survive this hellish situation. However, just as she was about to collapse, her eyes moved to Han Fei. Even then, Han Fei was unfazed.
“Does he have no sense of fear?”
Holding the dead body prop, Han Fei stood in the middle of the corridor. His consciousness was reconstructed after each altar mission. His constitution was sharp as a knife. Pure Hatreds were heavily limited in real life. Even Butterfly could only attack and control people by affecting them psychologically. Butterfly feared someone like Han Fei the most because he would never be mentally affected.
Even though Han Fei was soaked in red paint, his mind was clear. The young man who was once chased around by a murderer was now someone who could seriously damage a Pure Hatred. Mad Laughter’s cut not only extinguished Ten Finger’s black flame but also Han Fei’s fear of Pure Hatreds.
“Butterfly never kills with his own hands. What about you?” Han Fei stared down the corridor. In the thick darkness, a lanky man walked out. He was silent and wore a painter’s uniform. His right hand carried a small bucket filled with red paint. This was not the first time Han Fei encountered the painter. In reality, the Pure Hatreds at the plastic surgery hospital had been looking for people related to the Butterfly because they wanted to know what had happened at the Ziggurat. As the most mysterious Pure Hatred at the hospital, the painter knew many things. He knew the Ziggurat was special because someone special grew up there.
“You’ve missed your only chance.” Han Fei said directly. Before Xu Qin became a Pure Hatred, the three Pure Hatreds from the hospital could have easily taken down Ziggurat. But now, the faceless woman was almost dead, and the white shoes’ kindness was with Han Fei. The Ziggurat had two Pure Hatreds, not counting the Mirror God.
The painter and Han Fei each stood on one end of the corridor covered in oil paintings. Neither was eager to make their first move. Han Fei watched the painter carefully, and the painter did the same. After a long time, the painter lifted his left hand to tear off his right sleeve. Someone dug out a wound on his pale arm. The wound looked like the number, 4. The wound never healed, and the blood that trickled out of it dripped into the paint bucket.
“His paint is made from his blood?” Han Fei remembered the messages he saw earlier. He asked the painter, “What is your connection with Orphan No. 4? If you are friends, then perhaps we shouldn’t fight because the person he desperately wanted to become is me.”
Han Fei had this plan when he was in the cryptic world. He wanted to find a chance to talk to the Pure Hatreds from the hospital and try to avoid conflict if possible. The painter’s expression didn’t change. He appeared to have long abandoned human emotions. His everything existed only in oil paintings.
The black blood trickled into the paint bucket. The ‘paint’ gave off a unique stench. If emotion could decay, that would be the smell. The children in the paintings didn’t dare get close to the painter. The faceless children scurried off to hide. The painter reached his left hand into the bucket. After some stirring, he used his left hand to paint a window on the ground. The window showed a dark city. Every building hid a scary secret. Han Fei had seen this city once when he saved Ugly Scar. The oil painting was connected to another world. It was hard to return once one had fallen through it. The painter finished the work in silence. Then he pressed against the window and pushed.
The painted window opened!
Chilling winds blew out of the painting. The temperature dropped. The screams and roars of various monsters echoed in their ears. There was a nightmare outside the window. After he did that, the painter raised his emotionless eyes to look at Han Fei. He raised his left hand.
Every painted window on the floor opened. The faceless children playing outside climbed in through the windows. They had lost their personalities. They chased after false happiness like zombies trapped at a theme park. There were so many paintings underground. Perhaps even the painter had no idea how many windows there were. He once painted 31 windows to help these children, but after he realized he couldn’t change anything, he returned to this place. He painted the same window with different sceneries. However, no matter how pretty the sceneries were, the children wouldn’t return.
“Han Fei!” Li Feng screamed. Her throat was about to break. Endless children crowded Han Fei. They dragged Han Fei towards the painted window. When the children touched Han Fei, maddening laughter came from deep inside his mind. The laughter was ill and crazy. However, it was also laced with a barely discernible sadness. A child with a healing personality was turned into a madman who only knew how to laugh. After he grew up, he couldn’t even laugh anymore.
“Am I the most successful persona or the greatest failure?” Han Fei slowly approached the black window, compelled by the faceless children and Mad Laughter. The children wanted Han Fei to be like them. The laughter grew louder as Han Fei approached the window.
Three meters, two meters… Han Fei stopped a few centimeters from the window. He and the painter stood on opposite ends of the window, like people from opposite worlds.
“If you had met me the night before, I might have collapsed, and they would have pushed me into the window.” The altar mission was the strongest sharpening stone. When Han Fei’s mind and body were torn apart inside Fu Sheng’s memory world and joined back together using the love and hatred of ten Pure Hatreds, his constitution was unimaginably strong.
“No matter what happened in the past, at least I’m still alive. Since I’m alive, I’ll change as I look down on death. Similar to how I’ve changed things in the memory world, I’ll change my future.”
Han Fei’s eyes were bloodshot. He was doing a final fight with the painter. The painter couldn’t kill people in real life. However, his strange power could affect people with illusion. Han Fei was under great pressure. However, for someone with the black box, Han Fei was not easily beaten. No one could turn him crazy because the craziest entity was residing in his mind. The fight through the window continued for a long time until the hospital shook, and the siren grew louder. Suddenly, a child’s voice came from the open window on the floor. Hearing that voice, the painter’s numb eyes changed. He knelt to close the painted window. As the black oil painting dried, it disappeared. The painter walked over the window, past Han Fei, and deep into the corridor. It appeared like he couldn’t see Han Fei and Li Feng as he pushed open the door of the innermost room.
The room was surprisingly huge. The whole room was deep red in color. Every brick was carved with the smiling face of a child. Their pure smiles formed a strong contrast with the blood-red room. The innocent faces now looked scary.
“So this is the real red room? Xia Yilan traded away the orphans here?” All the medical equipment had been removed, and only a red chair was left in the empty room. The chair was placed in the middle of the room, right before a black oil painting. The oil painting was that of a window. It suggested that someone had been sitting on the chair staring at the painted window.
After Han Fei entered the room, the painter closed the door. He carried the paint bucket and came to the edge of the wall. He looked at the window numbly. Different from the other paintings, this painting was done years ago. Some of the paint was already peeling.
Suddenly, the painter lifted up the paint bucket and splashed the whole bucket on the black window!
The black window was dyed red. As the blood dripped down the window, it seemed to rain and mist inside the room. Just as Han Fei was confused, he suddenly heard knocking on the window. Han Fei turned to the black window. Inside the window, a child appeared. He wore the patient’s garb with the number 4.
“I don’t know how to meet him, so I painted myself in his window…” Han Fei was reminded of No. 4’s curses. “This child is No. 4?”
Han Fei walked towards the window. He heard No. 4 speak behind the window.
“They’ve been looking for children who were born in tragedy and grew up in despair. I am such a child. The rest is the same.
“The doctor here never wanted to heal us. The perfect persona was a lie. The hospital is not where we’ll be cured. The theme park is never going to provide the children with happiness.
“Actually I envy that person. It’s strange. Why would me, who has the destructive persona, envy him, who has the healing persona?
“But there’s something stranger. The child who wanted to destroy everything only managed to destroy himself; but the child who should heal everything killed everyone but himself.
“I hear that after that bloody night, he was the only one left in the theme park. Since that night, the theme park became the place for the hospital to abandon the failed products.”