My Healing Games

Chapter 491 Healing Art Exhibition (Seeking 6000 Monthly Tickets)
Aunt Li's words instantly attracted everyone's attention, and Han Fei was also somewhat surprised: "Sister, are you saying that you have been here in real life?"

“Yes, it felt very familiar when I first escaped here, and it wasn’t until I saw this painting that I realized I wasn’t mistaken.” Aunt Li looked at the art paintings hanging in the corridor on the seventh floor. All the paintings on this floor were related to the human body, and most of them were incomplete or dismembered human models. “My husband is a very famous doctor in Xinhu. He once brought me to stay at this hotel for a while. I was startled by this painting, but my husband thought it was beautiful and even wanted to find someone at the hotel to buy it for a high price.”

"And then what? Did you sell the hotel to them?"

“No, this painting was painted by the hotel owner himself and is not for sale.” Ms. Li told a story from her youth: “I don’t remember very clearly, but it seems to have happened about 30 years ago. At that time, my husband was still alive. He always loved me very much, but after he came to this hotel, he started to travel more often for business and became a little strange.”

"Could he... be cheating on me?" Tie Nan's emotional intelligence was inversely proportional to his muscles, and he was immediately glared at by the middle-aged woman as soon as he opened his mouth.

“My husband loves me very much. Meeting him was the happiest thing in my life. I still can’t forget him. It’s a pity I will never see him again.” Aunt Li was a little sad. It was clear that she was in a state of mild depression because she had been feeling down for a long time. Her son spent a lot of money to buy her a gaming pod in order to make him happy.

This family is actually very good; the couple is loving and the children are filial. But we don't know where things went wrong, which is why the old lady is now trapped in this place full of ghosts.

"Big sister, please continue." Han Fei gestured for everyone not to interrupt. He originally just wanted to rescue a few people on the side and send the players back to get good karma and rewards, but now he felt that he had gained something unexpected.

“My husband worked at Yong Sheng Pharmaceuticals. Thirty years ago, Yong Sheng Pharmaceuticals seemed to be planning to build a high-end sanatorium in the suburbs, specifically for wealthy people. My husband was among the first doctors to go there. Strangely enough, the sanatorium wasn't far from Xin Hu, but employees were forbidden from leaving without permission. I couldn't even see him; I could only come to the hotel next to the sanatorium.” The woman pointed to a painting on the wall: “I saw this painting in that hotel, and my husband's aesthetic sense started to become strange around that time.”

The woman composed herself: "After we left the hotel, my husband was transferred from his original job for meeting with family members without permission. He started going on frequent business trips, often not coming home for one or two weeks at a time. Occasionally when he returned to Xinhu, he would attend some strange gatherings. What happened next was even more outrageous. My husband sent our young son to a relative's house and cut off all contact with him. When I asked him why he did this, he replied that someone wanted to kill him."

“I felt he was under a lot of pressure at that time, so I took good care of him. But after a while, he actually said he wanted to divorce me. His reason was ridiculous: he was worried that I would be killed.”

“Under my strong opposition, my husband finally gave up, but he started doing things that hurt himself. When I asked him why, he said that only in this way could he atone for his sins.”

“I don’t know how I got through those days. I lived in extreme pain every day. Everything around me was gray and white. My husband would often cry like a child, holding his head and constantly repenting and begging for forgiveness in the empty room.”

"I saw it all, and it pained me deeply. I didn't know how to help him."

"About a month later, my husband suddenly returned to normal. He cooked a very sumptuous meal for me and reminisced with me about the past."

“When I went to bed at night, my husband put on a suit and looked very serious. It felt like he was saying goodbye to me.”

"Before going to bed, he told me something: never buy white shoes for the children again, and if he saw a child wearing white shoes in the house, he should move out as soon as possible."

“I still don’t understand what he meant by that, but I did do as he said.” Aunt Li pointed to her black shoes: “When I woke up the next day, my husband was gone, and our bedroom was full of children’s shoe prints.”

"A child's shoe print?"

“Yes, there were shoe prints about the size of my hand, densely packed, on the walls, the floor, the blankets, everywhere. It felt like a group of kids had entered my house last night and taken my husband away.” Aunt Li looked at the players: “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but this isn’t a story, it’s true. I don’t know if my husband made those shoe prints himself or what, but it really happened.”

“Sister Li, I believe what you say.” Han Fei stood in front of Aunt Li, having memorized her appearance. “You still love him, don’t you? Do you still miss him?”

Han Fei roughly understood why the woman appeared in the Deep World. Her talent for mourning had been triggered, and this woman might actually be able to see her husband in the Deep World, except that her husband might have become someone else entirely.

“I can never forget him! I always felt that he wasn’t sick at the time, but was doing everything he could to protect me and my child, so I want to find him no matter what.” Aunt Li smiled helplessly: “I’ve been looking for him for many years, but I haven’t heard a word from him. Now my child is working in another city. Sometimes I feel so lonely at home that I talk to his picture.”

When the older woman felt a little sad, Han Fei comforted her for a few words, then got up and took down the artwork hanging on the wall.

The painting that the old lady's husband liked was very strange. It used an extremely abstract method to distort a person into seven pieces, and then re-beautified each piece.

"Sister, did your husband say anything when he saw this painting?"

"I don't remember. He just kept praising these fragmented human figures, saying how beautiful they were, and that the human body itself was a work of art." Aunt Li recalled for a while; "Right, when my husband wanted to buy this painting, he was taken to the eleventh floor by the waiter, and it seems he even toured the place with the hotel owner."

“The tenth and eleventh floors are art exhibitions, and I’m afraid these hotel art exhibitions aren’t for the average person.” Han Fei then asked, “Sister, after your husband disappeared, did you come to this hotel to look for him?”

"I've been here a few times, but unfortunately this hotel is a bit special. It only serves guests of the Yong Sheng Pharmaceutical Plastic Surgery Hospital. Even if outsiders make reservations in advance, they can only stay on the seventh floor or below." Aunt Li was a little confused: "How can real-life buildings appear in a game?"

"This game was jointly developed by Immortal Pharmaceuticals and Deep Space Technology, so it's normal for buildings related to them to exist." In reality, the art hotel only serves that private plastic surgery hospital, and in the Deep World, this art hotel happens to be located within the plastic surgery hospital's area, so it seems that the connection between the two is very close.

Han Fei already has a new plan; he wants to become the new manager of this hotel.

"The plastic surgery hospital has three grudges, and the white shoes appear the most often, so let's start with them."

The plastic surgery hospital built by Yong Sheng Pharmaceuticals has special significance for Han Fei. As the investigation deepens, he feels that his childhood experiences are related to this hospital, and he may even have received treatment there.

The chairman's brother of the Immortal Pharmaceuticals company specifically sought him out; the orphanage playroom from his childhood memories had been rebuilt inside the hospital; and there were various speculations about the healing personality...

These seemingly unrelated clues have all become intertwined, and Han Fei feels that he is gradually figuring out what happened in the past.

“Happiness Community is the original home, and the plastic surgery hospital area is where personality changes begin. When a child leaves their original home and undergoes personality transformation, they are sent to ‘Paradise Lost’ to play and spend their childhood until they grow up.” Han Fei recalled the map left by Fu Sheng. The dead building area, the plastic surgery hospital, and Paradise Lost formed a line. Fu Sheng seemed to have explored it in this way a long time ago: “How much else is that old guy hiding? There seem to be fragments of his memories left in the plastic surgery hospital as well. This time, I must be fully prepared and try to catch him and lock him up.”

Although Fu Sheng was Han Fei's guide, Han Fei felt that Fu Sheng's teaching for beginners was problematic, so he planned to seize Fu Sheng's memory fragments and write his own strategy guide.

"Cough cough!" Tie Nan coughed twice, clutching his stomach. "Gentlemen, what do we do now?"

His abdomen was touched by a vengeful ghost, and yin energy entered his body. Now his life points are constantly dropping. In Tie Nan, Han Fei saw the fragility of the living, and he also understood why Fu Sheng had become the Unspeakable.

Han Fei pulled a snake head out of the shadows beneath Xu Qin's feet and placed it directly on Tie Nan's stomach. After a short while, the yin energy in his abdomen was absorbed.

"How did you do that? Was that a special skill from the hidden map?" Iron Man looked at his stomach and touched it.

"That's my family's pet." Han Fei was thinking about other things when he took the artwork back into the seventh-floor corridor.

"A pet your family keeps? How did you manage to train your pet? Do you have any secrets?" Tie Nan's eyes lit up as he followed closely behind Han Fei.

"There's no secret to it, it's mainly about being lucky."

"Hey bro, what kind of pet do you have?"

"A kitten."

Han Fei ignored Tie Nan and collected all the artwork on the seventh floor, then placed them in front of Yan Tang: "What can you see in these paintings?"

“Death, desire, and a distorted beauty.” Yan Tang observed for a while, then pieced the artwork together from another angle: “There are seven paintings on the seventh floor. They seem to be independent, but they can actually be pieced together to form a whole. I feel that these paintings are telling the same story.”

"The people in the paintings on the fourth floor all have expressions of pain, except for the last murderer who has a twisted smile. But look at the paintings on the seventh floor."

“All the dismembered people had expressions of repentance on their faces, as if they had willingly been killed.” Yan Tang placed the painting that Aunt Li had seen next to another painting: “You especially need to pay attention to these two. The first painting was Aunt Li’s husband’s favorite work, which he had tried to buy. The person in the second painting is lying on a bed, and instead of a sheet, he is wearing a white coat, suggesting that he might be a doctor. If you look closely at his clothes, they are a suit. This perfectly matches what Aunt Li said before; her husband was a doctor, and he was wearing a suit when he said goodbye to Aunt Li before he disappeared. So I deduce that the deformed man in the second painting is Aunt Li’s husband.”

Upon hearing Yantang's analysis, Aunt Li shook her head repeatedly, finding it hard to accept.

"Looking at these paintings together, you can see they all have something in common: all the dismembered human bodies are doctors, and the compositions all contain things related to hospitals—scalpels, white coats, bandages. I still can't figure out why. All the doctors are repenting, and they've all become works of art in the paintings. Could the murderer be one of their former patients?" Just as Yan Tang finished speaking, a strange noise suddenly came from behind the seemingly ordinary security door, like a blood vessel bursting.

The group quickly went over to check, and the wall plaster was normal, except that the pattern looked like a face.

Han Fei took out the Rebirth Blade and stabbed it at that face, but there was no reaction.

"Xiaoyan, are you saying my husband also killed someone? He looked repentant because he felt guilty towards the patient?" Sister Li had never played virtual reality games before, and she never expected that the game would be so powerful, able to evoke memories deep in people's hearts.

“Based on your description, I suspect that your husband’s patient was a child who liked to wear white shoes before he died. Your husband’s death is related to that child, but that child’s death may also be because of your husband.” Yan Tang looked at the seven paintings on the ground: “What I’m about to say may make you feel uncomfortable, but it is probably the truth.”

"Go ahead and tell me your opinion."

“I’m used to thinking about things from the worst perspective, and as it turns out, those worst things have happened.” Yan Tang tried to continue her analysis, and this time Han Fei didn’t stop her: “Your husband may have loved you very much before, but I don’t know when he started to change. It’s not that he doesn’t love you anymore, it’s just that something inside him has been replaced. He may have been a normal person before, but we can roughly guess his psychology from his frenzied reaction after seeing these paintings in the hotel.”

“A normal person seeing a mangled human body wouldn’t be immediately struck by awe. Because they are human too, and animal instincts would make them wary and cautious after witnessing the gruesome death of their own kind. Your husband’s reaction was the opposite; he was frenzied and excited. Animals often exhibit this instinctive reaction upon successfully hunting, meaning your husband sees himself as the predator, and others are likely just prey in his eyes.” Yan Tang looked at Aunt Li with great sympathy: “I don’t deny that he loves you, but loving you doesn’t mean he won’t hurt others. These two feelings aren’t contradictory.”

Aunt Li was surprised to hear this answer. She looked at the other players with pleading eyes, hoping someone would stand up and refute Yan Tang.

"You said he met with the hotel owner in private and went to the rooftop with him. Now you've seen how many people have died in this hotel. What do you think they were visiting?" Yan Tang continued expressionlessly, "You also said that he started attending some special parties and frequently went on business trips. What kind of parties do you think he would attend?"

Seemingly sensing that Aunt Li was having trouble handling it, Yan Tang didn't continue: "Of course, this is just my personal guess, it may not be true, don't take it to heart."

His words should have been better; after he said them, the woman almost burst into tears. She had only wanted to play games to relieve her depression, but now she felt like she was about to break down.

"Stop talking, let's go upstairs and take a look." Han Fei walked to the old woman's side. He could use his Soul Return ability once tonight: "If I told you that you might meet your husband in this world, you..."

"Really?" Aunt Li interrupted Han Fei directly. Her eyes were a little red and swollen, and her body was trembling slightly. It was hard to tell whether it was from fear or some other reason.

"As long as you live, there's a chance you'll see him again. I'll do everything I can to help you reunite with him. But if that day ever comes, you have to do something for me too." Han Fei's voice seemed to possess a special magic. At this moment, he was like the devil in the painting tossing an apple, offering a condition that was impossible to refuse.

"Okay!" Her husband's situation was a knot in Aunt Li's heart; her suffering over the years stemmed from his sudden departure without saying goodbye.

Han Fei had already anticipated that Aunt Li would agree. In fact, when he shook hands with the group, he directly used the secret of touching the depths of the soul. He discovered that all living people who unconsciously entered the deep world had a shadow in their hearts.

Aunt Li's trauma is her husband's disappearance; Huang Ying's trauma is his mother's drowning while trying to save him; the girl named Liuli Cat has eye problems, and her soul is like a cat full of cracks, easily broken, perhaps because she suffered violence in her childhood.

As Han Fei met more and more players, he gradually figured out the pattern: apart from those players who actively risked their lives to explore the deeper world, other players who could enter the deeper world needed to meet several conditions at the same time.

He has a lower luck rating than normal, his talents are related to the supernatural and ghostly, he has inner trauma, and he has thought about death at some point.

"The deeper world may also have its own significance, and there is a reason why some people find it on their own."

Han Fei led several players toward the tenth floor, but they were trapped in a maze of illusions. There was no use in being anxious now.

If this maze of ghosts is orchestrated by a massive act of resentment, then only Xu Qin releasing all her curses could forcefully break through it. Unless absolutely necessary, why would Han Fei let Xu Qin take such a huge risk?
With one hour left before the mission ended, Han Fei and his group arrived on the tenth floor. Everyone wanted to see what the art exhibition was all about.

Pushing open the security door, a blast of cold air wafted out of the room. The scene before him had nothing to do with art, at least not in Han Fei's eyes.

The tenth and eleventh floors were connected, and the hall, which is more than six meters high, is filled with all kinds of refrigerators and freezers.

They were stacked haphazardly together, with cold air constantly emanating from them; these freezers all seemed to be working normally.

"The hotel owner likes to kill people, so these freezers are most likely used to store corpses..." Before Yan Tang could finish speaking, Tie Nan covered her mouth.

The players stood still, all looking at Han Fei.

"This art exhibition is quite different from what I imagined. I thought it would be paintings, but I didn't expect it to be refrigerators." Liuli Cat helped Aunt Li, and the two of them walked at the back of the line.

"Stay close to me, watch out for those gaps." Han Fei's gaze swept across the hall. He gently stroked the landlord's ring, which emanated the strongest chill in this place.

Moving slowly forward, the hall was completely occupied by refrigerators and freezers, with crisscrossing wires everywhere, and a fishy stench that only dead fish could give off in the air.

"Snapped!"

A power line overhead suddenly snapped, and crackling sparks briefly illuminated the darkness. Han Fei saw that a refrigerator door had opened, and inside seemed to be a ghastly green face.

Taking out the Rebirth Blade, Han Fei stood next to Xu Qin and moved close to her body.

"Sister, don't be afraid, I'll protect you."

The art gallery was much larger than expected. Han Fei and his group hadn't gone far when their footsteps became chaotic, as if something else had mixed in with them.

As Han Fei turned a corner, he saw Tie Nan and Yan Tang walking at the very back, with darkness behind them.

"You two hurry up." Han Fei waved his hand. He felt that Tie Nan's back was different from before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong.

He kept opening the freezers, but most of them were empty. Gradually, the subway man lost patience. Just then, he heard Han Fei urging him on, so he immediately quickened his pace and ran forward.

As Tie Nan ran forward, Han Fei saw two more legs appear behind Tie Nan. The other legs were almost in sync with Tie Nan's pace, and their upper bodies seemed to be lying on Tie Nan's body.

Han Fei gestured to Liuli Cat and Aunt Li to go first, then blocked Tie Nan's way.

"Brother, just do as I say in a moment." Han Fei took out the Rebirth Blade.

"What do you need me to do?" Tie Nan was very enthusiastic. He knew that a person's status in the team depended on the contributions they could make.

"When I count to one, bend over as fast as you can." The warm glint of the blade dispelled the chill. Han Fei gripped the sword tightly and thrust it fiercely towards Tie Nan's back.

As the blade approached, Iron Man quickly crouched down, and behind him came the sound of ice and snow melting on a branding iron.

"Didn't you say you were going to count to one?!" Tetsuo clutched his head, terrified.

He sat on the ground, but when he touched it, he found that the ground was covered with black blood.

Turning my head to look behind me, I saw a frozen head fall to the ground.

"It's alright now." Han Fei sheathed the Rebirth Blade and began to examine the corpse.

"He didn't tell you just now because he was afraid of scaring you." Yan Tang reached out and helped Tie Nan up. "Don't you think the reason behind it is heartwarming?"

(End of this chapter)