Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 47 Sealed Secret Files
The crying sound was like an invisible embroidery needle piercing through the heavy iron gate and precisely stabbing into the eardrums of the two people.

It wasn't loud, but it contained an immense amount of sorrow, like a sponge thrown into water, frantically absorbing all the light and heat around it, causing the temperature in the cold corridor to drop even further.

Lu Yueqi's body trembled involuntarily; her ability to empathize was now more of a burden. The crying seemed to possess some kind of magic, directly evoking deep-seated sympathy and fear, which had a profound impact on her.

She supported Bai Yu, looking warily at the tightly closed operating room door. The red indicator light on the door, which read "Operation in Progress," was off, but it seemed to be covered with a layer of dried blood, exuding an eerie aura.

"Don't listen." Bai Yu's voice was hoarse as he suppressed the soul-tearing pain and the dizziness brought on by the drugs, reminding Lu Yueqi beside him, "Any sound here is a trap. It's using your 'empathy' to lure you in."

Lu Yueqi quickly composed herself and tried her best to shut out the sadness.

Looking at Bai Yu's pale profile and the cold sweat on his forehead caused by pain, she was extremely worried.

"Baiyu, how are you? We need to find a place... You need to rest now!" Her voice was full of anxiety.

"I'm fine." Bai Yu shook his head, this weak and feeble explanation failing to convince even himself.

His condition had deteriorated to the extreme. Although the power of Black Words had temporarily forced back the terrifying "head nurse," each use of it felt like another blow to his already cracked soul porcelain.

He now has difficulty even standing.

He didn't look at the door again, but instead concentrated all his willpower on staring intently at the photo of "Yao" hanging on the wall.

clue……

All the clues are interconnected...

Lu Yueqi's maternal grandfather's diary filled with forbidden knowledge; the "Tower of Ten Thousand Heads" that lured souls to become building materials; the mysterious guide named "Yao"; the Anling Mental Hospital, a giant prison of memories where horrific human experiments were conducted...

There is no coincidence between them.

“Yao…” Bai Yu murmured the name in his heart. He tried to explore the yellowed black and white photo and decipher more information from the girl’s eyes, which were filled with a hint of timidity and unease. “Why is she here? What is her relationship with Wen Maoran? Is she… an ‘envoy’ sent by the ‘Tower of Ten Thousand Heads’, or… the first ‘product’ born from Wen Maoran’s experiment?”

Countless possibilities collided in his mind, but the numbing effect of the drugs acted like a thick fog, hindering his progress and preventing his thinking from penetrating the maze as clearly as usual to find the one and only truth.

"Squeak-"

Just then, a sound like fingernails scraping metal came from a door behind them.

The two turned around abruptly. It was a room with a sign that read "Archives." The door wasn't locked, but just ajar. The strange noise seemed to have been caused by a draft from the corridor.

Bai Yu and Lu Yueqi exchanged a glance, both seeing a resolute look in each other's eyes.

The cries still echoed in the operating room; it was clearly a trap.

Although this half-closed archive room is full of unknowns, it may be the only place they can find answers and get a brief respite right now.

"Walk."

With Lu Yueqi's help, Bai Yu slowly made her way to the door.

Lu Yueqi cautiously pushed the door open a crack and peered inside warily.

The room behind the door wasn't very big, and rows of huge metal filing cabinets were placed against the wall.

The cabinets were all rusty, some with their doors open, revealing kraft paper file folders inside that were moldy from the dampness. The air was filled with a musty smell of old paper and rust.

In the center of the room stood a desk and a chair, both covered in a thick layer of dust.

It looks...it seems safe?

Lu Yueqi helped Bai Yu inside, then immediately turned around and gently closed the door, locking it from the inside.

Although she knew that such physical defenses were meaningless to these ghostly things, they at least gave her some psychological comfort.

"Sit down, don't move." Lu Yueqi helped Bai Yu to sit down on the dusty chair, her tone carrying an unprecedented sense of command.

This was the first time she had spoken in this tone and Bai language.

Bai Yu glanced at her with some surprise, but his body had indeed reached its limit, so he didn't push himself any further. He obediently leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and began to fully circulate his mental energy, trying to expel the drugs that had invaded his body little by little.

Lu Yueqi dared not relax for a moment.

She took a high-intensity flashlight from her tactical belt, turned it on, and a bright beam of light pierced the darkness of the room.

With her other hand, she gripped her specially made psycho-stimulation gun tightly, carefully examining every corner of the room.

Filing cabinets, under tables, corners of the ceiling… she checked everything meticulously. After experiencing so much, she understood that in such a place, any overlooked detail could become a deadly trap.

She breathed a slight sigh of relief after confirming that there was no immediate threat to the room.

Her gaze slowly fell on the huge filing cabinets.

Perhaps all the secrets of this hospital are hidden here...

She walked to the nearest filing cabinet. There was a label on the cabinet door, the writing of which was already blurred, but it could still be vaguely made out that it read "Patient Records 1970-1975 AG".

She pulled open a heavy drawer, and an even stronger musty smell wafted out. The drawer was crammed with dozens of file folders.

She casually picked up the topmost file folder and blew off the accumulated dust.

The file folder had a name written on it: Ping Hong.

She opened the file folder and pulled out several yellowed sheets of paper. The first sheet was a patient's basic information form with a one-inch black and white photo attached to it.

The man in the photo has an honest face, but his eyes reveal an undisguised terror.

Name: Ping Hong

【Age: 42】

[Admission Date: March 11, 1972]

[Diagnosis: Severe paranoia, accompanied by violent tendencies.]

Attending Physician: Wen Maoran

Wen Maoran!
Lu Yueqi's heart skipped a beat.

She quickly turned to the second page, which contained a handwritten medical record.

"March 12: The patient is extremely emotionally unstable, refuses to communicate with anyone, and repeatedly claims that someone is trying to 'steal his face.' Initial sedation with medication has been administered."

"March 20: The medication was not effective. The patient exhibited self-harming behavior, attempting to scratch his face with his fingernails. Physical restraint measures have been taken. Dean Wen instructed that he could be included as a subject in the Phase I clinical trial of 'Memory Stripping Therapy'."

"April 1: The experiment begins. The initial memory stripping surgery is successful. The patient's mood is stable after the surgery, but some memory loss occurs, and the patient is unable to recall their home address."

"April 15: Second surgery. The patient developed severe cognitive impairment post-surgery and could no longer recognize himself in the mirror. However, his 'persecution complex' symptoms had completely disappeared. The experiment... was initially successful."

"May 3: At 3:00 AM, the patient pierced his own eyes with a sharpened toothbrush handle. He was found without vital signs. Cause of death... to be determined."

The cold words record how a living person was pushed into the abyss of complete collapse and death in the name of "treatment".

Lu Yueqi felt a chill rise up her spine, making her feel icy cold all over. She stuffed the file back into the drawer.

She then opened several more drawers, each containing a file that detailed a tragedy strikingly similar to Ping Hong's. These cold files, along with the horrifying graffiti drawn by children on the walls, together formed the complete picture of Wen Maoran's hell on earth.

Just then, her flashlight beam inadvertently swept across a filing cabinet at the very back of the room.

That cabinet was different from the others. It wasn't made of metal, but of heavy mahogany, and it had a huge brass lock on it.

It looks more like a private, old-fashioned safe than a regular file storage box.

Lu Yueqi's heart skipped a beat. She walked over and tried to pull the lock, but it wouldn't budge.

She carefully shone her flashlight into the keyhole. It was a very complex mechanical lock, and her current skills were not up to the task of handling this kind of complicated lock-picking problem.

How to do?
She glanced back at Bai Yu, who was still meditating with his eyes closed, and decided not to disturb him.

She decided to rely on herself.

Lu Yueqi began searching the room for any tools she might be able to use to pick the lock. Finally, her gaze fell on a drawer in the desk. She pulled it open and found a long, thin metal letter opener inside.

Although the chances were slim, she decided to give it a try.

She carefully inserted the tip of the letter pick into the keyhole and, using the little lock-picking skills she had learned, gently moved it around inside by feel.

"Click... click..."

A series of faint sounds came from inside the lock cylinder. Just when she was about to give up...

"Crack!"

With a crisp, light click, the seemingly indestructible brass lock popped open on its own!
Lu Yueqi was stunned. She looked at the ordinary letter opener in her hand, completely unable to believe it.

"You didn't open it."

Bai Yu's voice suddenly came from behind her. He had opened his eyes without her noticing and had silently walked up behind her.

His face was still pale, but his eyes had regained some of their former clarity.

“It… wants us to see what’s inside.” Bai Yu looked at the unlocked door, her voice heavy with concern.

This is a trap. A clever trap that uses "truth" as bait.

Lu Yueqi felt her heart leap into her throat again. But now that things had come to this, they had no way out.

Bai Yu slowly pulled open the heavy mahogany cabinet door.

Surprisingly, there weren't as many files in the cabinet as I had imagined. There were only a few thick black folders, an old 16mm film projector, and a few rolls of film in a metal box.

Bai Yu's gaze was immediately drawn to the black folder at the top.

The project name was written in gold lettering on the folder cover.

"The Tower of Babel Project - Feasibility Report"

Tower of Babel!
This is the code name that appeared in the Bureau of Investigation's Ω-level top-secret files, and it shares the same origin as the "Tower of Ten Thousand Heads"!

Bai Yu's heart began to pound.

He immediately picked up the document and turned to the first page.

A line of handwriting filled with fanaticism and arrogance came into view.

"...Human cognition has its limits, and the breadth and depth of an individual's memory determine the height of their thinking. The root of mental illness is not simply pathology or trauma, but the inevitable result that an individual's cognition cannot bear the 'information' they have experienced. Therefore, the cure lies not in stripping away, but in 'expanding'."

"...If we could connect hundreds or thousands of brains through some medium, constructing a unified 'collective consciousness,' a 'hive of thought,' then the unbearable pain of individuals would be infinitely diluted; the truths that individuals could not comprehend would be answered within this vast 'super brain.' At that time, humanity would no longer be trapped in the prison of its own memories, and we would use this as a foundation to build a tower that allows us to directly communicate with 'God'..."

The document was signed by Wen Maoran in his flamboyant style.

Bai Yu finally understood.

Wen Maoran, this madman, isn't treating patients at all! He's using these innocent patients as building materials, trying to construct his own "hive consciousness," a miniature version of the "Tower of Ten Thousand Heads"! He's not imitating; he's sacrificing! He wants to use this "Tower of Babel" as a stepping stone to gain the "favor" of the "Tower of Ten Thousand Heads"!
And this mental hospital was his "construction site".

Just then, Lu Yueqi took out another folder from the cabinet.

This folder doesn't contain any crazy theories, but rather personnel files.

She opened the first one.

Name: Yao

[Position: Intern Nurse]

[Date of joining the company: September 1973]

[Note: This employee is introverted but thoughtful, and possesses great compassion for patients. She shows a high level of interest and admiration for Dean Wen's 'Tower of Babel Project.' She is the ideal candidate for the project's 'initial linker' and 'guide.']

“The first Linker…” Lu Yueqi murmured these words, feeling a chill run down her spine. “That means…”

Bai Yu took the file from her and quickly flipped through it. At the end of the file was a handwritten note.

“…The experiment went out of control. The echo of the ‘Tower’ was far stronger than I had anticipated. It corrupted the ‘Link,’ and Yao…she was no longer herself. She became the ‘Tower’s’ mouthpiece, a puppet that only knew how to lure more ‘materials’…That fire…I started it. I must purify the ‘construction site’ along with all my sins before it completely becomes the ‘Tower’s’ territory…”

The note was unsigned, but the familiar cursive script undoubtedly belonged to Wen Maoran.

It turned out to be the case.

Wen Maoran played with fire and got burned. He tried to make a deal with the devil, but was ultimately devoured by him. He thought he was the "director," but he didn't know that from the beginning he was just a pawn on the "Tower" chessboard.

That fire wasn't an accident; it was his last struggle.

But he failed.

Although his "Tower of Babel" was destroyed by fire, his mad will, along with the painful memories of hundreds of patients and "Yao" who was corrupted by the "Tower," were forever trapped in the ruins of the hospital, forming a never-ending prison of memories.

"Bai Yu, look at this!" Lu Yueqi's voice trembled slightly.

She took out the rolls of film from the cabinet, which were packed in tin boxes. One of the tin boxes had a title written in red ink on its label: "'Meditation Room' Therapy Video - Patient No. 0".

Patient number 0.

Was he the first person to receive "treatment"?

Bai Yu and Lu Yueqi exchanged a glance.

They knew it was likely a trap, but they also knew it might hold the key to destroying the world.

Bai Yu loaded the roll of film into the old projector and then gently turned the lever to wind up the machine.

"Click... click..."

The old machine emitted a hoarse whirring sound.

A beam of noisy light shot out from the lens and hit the blank wall on the other side.

The screen starts playing.

It was a pitch-black room exactly like the "meditation room" where Bai Yu had stayed before.

A man in a white hospital gown was huddled in the corner of the room, his body trembling violently with fear.

The camera zoomed in, giving the man's face a close-up.

The moment they saw that face, Bai Yu and Lu Yueqi both stopped breathing.

That face was not only filled with fear, but also with pain, struggle, resentment, and madness.

Wen Maoran!
"No... I'm not a patient... I'm the director! I'm the god here!" Wen Maoran roared like a wild beast in the video. "I succeeded... I heard it... I heard the voice of the 'Tower'! It's calling me! It's promising me eternal life!"

Just then, a figure dressed as a nurse slowly walked into the frame.

It is Yao.

But now, her face no longer held the timidity and unease of the photograph. Instead, she wore an incredibly gentle smile, and her eyes held no human emotion, only an abyss-like emptiness.

She walked up to Wen Maoran, slowly squatted down, and softly said in a voice that echoed with countless layers of resonance:

"Yes, Dean. You succeeded."

"Now, you will become the most perfect core cornerstone of the 'Tower'."

"Come, climb to the top of the tower, and become... a part of eternity."

She reached out and gently placed her hand on Wen Maoran's head.

"Do not--!"

The scene abruptly ended with Wen Maoran's final, desperate scream.

The projector let out a mournful cry of exhaustion, a wisp of smoke rose from it, and it stopped working completely.

The entire archives fell into a deathly silence once again.

Bai Yu and Lu Yueqi were still reeling from the shock of the video they had just seen.

They finally got it.

The true "master" of this world is not Wen Maoran.

Wen Maoran unexpectedly became the first "patient" here!
The one who truly controls this prison of memories is the one who has been completely corrupted by the "Tower of Ten Thousand Heads"...

Yao.

　I'm setting a timed post now, going to sleep! I'm feeling a bit better than a couple of days ago; my head isn't as dizzy anymore. However, my cough has been quite severe these past two days, and I still have a slight fever. I'll reply to everyone's comments once I'm fully recovered. Thank you all for your concern!
　　(")
　　
　
(End of this chapter)