My Healing Games

Chapter 879 The Invisible Friend
Controlling time was something that seemed almost impossible to Han Fei, but it actually happened in the world of Gao Xing's shrine memories. It was also the first time he had encountered such a troublesome ghost.

After escaping the caregiver's pursuit, Han Fei had a faint wrinkle at the corner of his eye. He had stayed in the Ghost Realm for too long, and it seemed as if some of his time had been stolen away.

"If these hatreds were to transcend into something unspeakable, then they would probably be the most terrifying kind of unspeakable."

Still shaken, Han Fei composed himself and arrived at his true destination – the security room.

Seemingly to avoid disturbing the elderly, the security room was built in the most remote corner, and the adjacent corridor was particularly gloomy. All the rooms were sealed with tape and engraved with dates.

For example, midnight, 3 PM, etc., these black rooms are used for unknown purposes. All the doors are locked, and there are no other signs except for the time engraved on the door panels.

"I think I've come to the right place."

As Han Fei passed by the sealed doors of those rooms, he could always hear several footsteps, as if they were following right behind him.

It was only a few simple steps, but Han Fei felt like he had walked for a long time. It was as if he was groping in a labyrinth of time. When he looked back, he found that the door was covered with a layer of dust.

Everything in this eerie nursing home is aging, except for the eternal darkness shrouded in sin.

"The temperature is dropping, and it's getting darker. Will the caregiver follow us again?"

Just walking through a corridor left Han Fei feeling incredibly exhausted, both mentally and physically. He dared not touch anything in the nursing home and went straight to the vicinity of the security room.

Han Fei peered into the room through the service window in the corridor.

Although the security room is located in a remote area, it is quite spacious, equivalent to three ordinary hospital rooms. It is also equipped with various professional riot control tools, as well as all the items needed for the security guards' daily lives.

However, none of this was Han Fei's focus. He saw a man in the uniform of an Immortal Pharmaceuticals test subject walking around in the security room.

His expression was terrified, his pupils were throbbing, and he kept repeating something under his breath.

"A Nian?"

Han Fei was surprised to find the target so easily. He gripped the doorknob of the security room, but dared not open it immediately.

The random quests at the shrine couldn't be that simple; he worried he had overlooked the danger.

"The clock in the security room is still ticking, and you can clearly hear the ticking sound, but the hands of the clock keep cycling between midnight and 12:01. It's as if the people inside are trapped in that one minute!"

To prevent any accidents, Han Fei tried calling A Nian's name from outside the house, but the man inside couldn't hear him at all; the door separated them into two different worlds.

"It seems I have to go inside and bring him out, but the problem is, if I go in, will I be able to get out on my own?"

With the mission objective right in front of him, Han Fei was unwilling to give up. He slowly turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to the security room.

"A Nian?"

The stench of decay filled the nostrils. The security room was pitch black, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. There was no one inside.

"how is this possible?"

Han Fei went around to the window again, and A Nian was clearly pacing back and forth in the security room.

The scene seen through the window is different from the actual scene behind the door; it's as if they're on two different timelines.

How can we get him out of here?

Han Fei carefully observed A Nian's every move, trying to figure out what A Nian had experienced through his subtle expressions.

As a master actor and a practical expert in criminal psychology, Han Fei listed several possibilities.

"For a minute, he seemed to have encountered something beyond his comprehension. He was completely disoriented, terrified, and hesitant. He should have known how to solve it, but doing so would come at a heavy price."

Han Fei's exceptional memory allowed him to memorize all of A Nian's facial expressions. He entered the security room, stood in the spot where A Nian first appeared, and began to imitate A Nian, walking around the room.

"I triggered this mission after obtaining the distress bottle. The two photos inside the bottle are probably not something an ordinary person could get their hands on; they were most likely stolen by an insider. What did he want to express through those two photos?"

Han Fei's masterful acting allowed him to perfectly replicate A Nian's every move. He was like A Nian from another timeline, and the two almost overlapped.

Han Fei was completely absorbed in the experience, and he didn't know how long he had been walking; time seemed to slowly lose its meaning.

It could be a few minutes, or it could be an hour. When Han Fei looked up again, he heard the sound of the clock ticking.

The clock in the security room was still, but the sound of the hour hand ticking was definitely coming from the clock.

Slowly turning his gaze, Han Fei looked at the window of the security room. The reflection in the glass was not Han Fei's image, but A Nian's.

The other person stood there blankly, as if they could also see Han Fei through the window.

The two of them were standing in the room and could see each other through the window glass, which was a very special experience.

"A-Nian?" Han Fei called softly. He wanted to go closer to the window, but as soon as he made a sound, A-Nian's image disappeared: "He must have seen me."

Han Fei hurriedly ran out of the security room and stood outside, observing Anian through the window.

Ah Nian's expression changed noticeably; he seemed surprised by Han Fei's appearance, but just a minute later, he reverted to his previous demeanor.

"How am I supposed to communicate with him? My voice can't get through..."

Han Fei re-entered the security room, hoping to try anything, and he tore open a slit in the abyss of greed, pouring the ghost blood flowing in Changshou's body onto himself.

The blood of longevity can reduce the effects of the ghostly aura in the nursing home and dispel illusions; Han Fei wanted to take a gamble.

He imitated A-Nian again, and the longevity of the ghost blood played a key role. When the sound of time passing rang in their ears, Han Fei and A-Nian looked up at the window together.

They saw each other reflected in the dusty glass. Although Ah Nian was startled by Han Fei's bloody appearance, he quickly realized what was happening and walked straight to the window.

Han Fei did the same thing as A Nian, and they both came to the window at the same time.

Unable to hear each other, Ah Nian raised his hand first and wrote on the dusty window: Who are you?

Han Fei looked at the words that appeared on the windowpane and wrote a sentence on it as well—I found your distress bottle, I'm here to rescue you.

A-Nian is trapped in the past. The words he writes will appear in Han Fei's world, but he cannot see what Han Fei writes.

Unable to communicate, but that didn't stop Anian from calling for help. He had already realized something and continued writing on the window—there's a book in the drawer that records the order in which flowers bloom. Go to the garden, find those flowers, pick them, and put them in the book.

Han Fei stared at the word "them" on the window; the flower that Anian mentioned didn't seem to be a real flower.

Han Fei smashed open the locked drawer and found a nearly blank book inside, with dates marked on a few pages.

"Time? The order in which the flowers were bloomed?"

Han Fei looked out the window, where Ah Nian, through the glass, took out a photo album from a drawer, filled with pictures of relatives and friends.

He held the photo album in one hand and wrote on the windowpane with the other.

"Hops open at three in the morning; wild roses and dandelions open around five in the morning; then black nightshade opens at six in the morning; peonies open at seven; half-flowers open at ten in the morning; sunflowers open at noon..."

"At 3 p.m., marigolds bloom; as the sun sets, four o'clocks and night jasmine bloom in succession; at 10 p.m., the moonflower is the last to bloom."

Upon seeing the blooming time written by Anian, Han Fei immediately thought of the black rooms in the corridor, all of which had a time stamp engraved on their sealed black doors.

"Could those flowers be hidden in a sealed, black room?"

Having memorized everything Ah Nian wrote, Han Fei ran out of the security room with the blank book in his hand. He stopped in front of a black door, looking at the words engraved on it.

"At three in the morning, the hops that Ah Nian was looking for bloomed."

Drawing his Rebirth Slayer Knife, Han Fei broke the lock and pushed open the door.

The dark room exuded an indescribable eerie atmosphere. Rows of shelves were filled with flowerpots the size of human heads, but none of them contained any flowers.

After a quick glance, Han Fei noticed that each flowerpot was engraved with a name, suggesting that the flowerpots were named after living people.

“Gao Xing has always claimed to be the owner of the garden. In his shrine, the flowers may represent people’s souls, and these flowerpots should have held the memories of others.”

Han Fei recalled every word that A Nian had written, and the other party asked him to go to the garden and pick those flowers.

Quietly closing the black door, Han Fei ran towards another long corridor.

The location of the garden was marked on the topographical map he had seen before. The garden of the nursing home was built in the middle of several buildings and was the center of the entire Yiyang Tiannian Nursing Home.

Two more wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, and Han Fei's body seemed to be soaking in a quagmire, requiring more effort with each step.

Having evaded the relentless pursuit, Han Fei finally opened the door to the center of the nursing home, where an endless sea of ​​flowers appeared before him.

"This ghost realm is way too big!"

It's unimaginable from the outside of the nursing home what a complex world lies hidden within. Layers of timelines intertwine and intertwine, rendering normal investigative methods completely ineffective, which explains why it's classified as a haunted building.

"Once you find those flowers, leave immediately. This place is not safe to stay."

Han Fei walked into the sea of ​​flowers, and when his body touched those flowers, a large number of unfamiliar memories that did not belong to him flooded into his mind.

Each flower in this garden represents a soul, a memory.

Healing starlight fell on the petals, and Han Fei tried his best to soothe those souls. He walked for a long time before finding the wild roses and dandelions.

Reaching out to touch the flower stem, Han Fei heard the cries of two children, and a memory surfaced in his mind.

Anian, dressed in casual clothes, was playing with her two children. The house was brightly lit, the television was playing the news, and a delicious meal was laid out on the dining table.

Everything was so warm and harmonious, but the next moment a knock on the door suddenly sounded. Standing outside were Ah Nian's two children, their eyes were bleeding, their chests were marked with experimental numbers, and their skin was as dry as tree bark, slowly cracking.

"Dad, didn't you say you could give us eternal life?"

"Didn't you say those uncles and aunts could cure our illnesses? But why do I feel so much pain?"

The child's cries grew louder and louder. Ah Nian seemed unable to distinguish between reality and his imagination. He collapsed to his knees in despair.

(End of this chapter)