Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

Good days always fly by.

Two days after Christmas, Chen Ji packed his bags and prepared to go to Kunming.

Inside Chen Yuetan's apartment.

The four of them sat around in the living room, stuffing a small amount of luggage into their suitcases. The atmosphere was quiet.

"My uncle means that I estimate I'll have to stay in Kunming until we find the large tomb."

Chen Ji suddenly spoke up: "But my uncle said there are some clues, so I estimate I'll only stay for a month or two at most."

Du Tingfeng nodded silently.

"Du Tingfeng, your next domain should be coming soon." Chen Ji thought for a moment and said, "It's safer to go with Fei'er and Liu Zi."

"Phi'er lit up the first star in the last domain, and Liu Zi also has a strange object..."

Chen Ji suddenly looked at Liu Zi: "By the way, did you bring the mirror I asked you to buy?"

Liu Zi patted his pocket and pulled out a small pink mirror: "You've told me this so many times, and Fei'er gave me one as soon as she heard it."

"Can I bring this in?"

Chen Ji said, "Sure, it's not a weapon."

"Then what about you?" Du Tingfeng frowned and asked, "Can you enter the domain with Uncle Chen?"

Chen Ji shook his head.

“I asked him, and he said no.”

"To be precise, once my domain river opens, he could theoretically enter. But my uncle has already crossed the domain ten times..."

"Once I enter, my domain will automatically become his next domain."

The difficulty will be close to unsolvable.

He said that the domains from the 9th time onwards are different from those before, and have the highest priority.

Chen Ji gave a brief explanation, but in reality, he didn't quite understand it either.

Liu Zi also looked confused.

"I don't understand," Fei'er said. "So you can only go in by yourself?"

"uncertain."

Chen Ji shook his head: "I'll see what the specifics are later, and I'll let you know in the group if there are any changes."

A red-haired figure flashed into his mind.

"There's one more thing..."

Chen Ji suddenly spoke up, saying that he had to bring it up today.

"Du Tingfeng, actually I didn't say it that day because it was Christmas."

“But Phil didn’t lie to you.”

He carefully chose his words, stammering as he spoke:

"After you brought Sister Yu back... one day, I saw her by chance, and she really did look different."

Chen Ji spoke casually, but in reality, the scene at that time was extremely bizarre!

It was the afternoon before Christmas when Chen Ji came to Du Tingfeng's house to help with the decorations.

As he passed the second-floor balcony, he saw Du Muyu enjoying the breeze through the glass door.

But just as Chen Ji was about to say hello, he suddenly realized... the person standing outside didn't seem to be Du Muyu.

The clothes and body shape are the same, but the face has completely changed!

Du Muyu's skin was deathly pale, and her features were completely different from before. She had become a woman that Chen Ji had never seen before!

Chen Ji was utterly devastated at that moment, frozen in place, unable to utter a single word.

But the next second, Du Muyu turned around... and returned to her previous appearance.

Her voice was as gentle as ever.

It was as if everything before was just Chen Ji's illusion.

"Brother Du, I actually saw it too," Liu Zi said slowly after a moment of silence.

"I just wondered if I was seeing things..."

Du Tingfeng remained silent.

He lowered his head and numbly folded Chen Ji's jeans.

Chen Ji pursed his lips, realizing he had said the wrong thing.

"Haven't you seen her?" Fei'er suddenly asked, throwing down what she was holding. "I told you to take her to the hospital, but you wouldn't listen! I said she looks different, but you pretended not to hear!"

The atmosphere in the room instantly turned cold.

A moment later, Du Tingfeng raised his head, his face expressionless:

“I didn’t let her go back to the hospital because I knew it wouldn’t help.”

"The doctor said that my sister's recovery depends entirely on herself; she's just barely hanging on, and it doesn't matter whether she's in the hospital or not."

"They are powerless to do anything about it."

Phil's expression was as if she had been shot.

"At most, only one year."

"She probably won't make it to next Christmas."

Du Tingfeng murmured, "Is it wrong to want her by my side?"

Chen Ji remained silent, feeling as if his stomach was being tightly gripped by a hand, a wave of soreness rising within him.

"I'm convinced now, the only way to save her is through leverage." Du Tingfeng's voice sounded calm: "Only I can save her."

"besides....."

“My sister and I live together day and night. She is still herself and has never changed.”

Du Tingfeng looked at everyone: "Can you tell me what exactly this 'change of appearance' means?"

Liu Zi opened his mouth, then suddenly became dazed.

The same goes for Phil.

Chen Ji was startled. He clearly remembered seeing that face in its entirety...

But for some reason, the more I try to recall it, the more blurred it becomes in my mind.

In the end, only Du Muyu's smiling face and that ashen face slowly overlapped.

“My sister has never been to the Domain. She has always been an ordinary person who works hard and has never had any extraordinary adventures.”

Du Tingfeng said, enunciating each word clearly, "She has had this disease since I became conscious."

His meaning was simple: Du Muyu's illness was congenital and had nothing to do with ghostly powers.

Chen Ji was speechless for a moment, and according to Du Tingfeng's words, that was indeed the case.

The most important evidence is that the disease started many years ago.

Du Muyu's abnormal behavior only appeared after her condition suddenly worsened.

Moreover, a long time ago, when Du Tingfeng consulted various hospitals... he came to the same conclusion:

The survival rate for this disease is extremely low, and the tumor had already begun to develop in 2019.

In other words, it's a miracle that Du Muyu has survived this long.

"I understand... I'm sorry," Phil said softly.

She didn't bring it up again.

“She’s much better now than when she was in a coma,” Du Tingfeng said, a shadow crossing his brow. “At least she can move around and talk now.”

During the two months Du Muyu was in a coma, her life hung by a thread.

"We still have to enter the domain," Du Tingfeng sighed.

“I’ve already found a caregiver, so my sister will be well taken care of while we’re away.”

His only goal now is to upgrade his chips.

There has been initial progress.

Looking at Du Tingfeng's expression, Chen Ji felt inexplicably grateful to the masked man who had given him the chips.

If it weren't for this glimmer of hope, which became an obsession in his heart, Chen Ji seriously doubted that Du Tingfeng could have held on until now.

None of them mentioned Du Muyu anymore.

A moment later, Chen Ji had packed his luggage.

"You tricked me into coming to Tianhai, and then you left," Liu Zi complained, patting Chen Ji on the shoulder: "Be careful."

Fei'er also said, "If anything happens, just say it in the group chat."

Chen Ji smiled slightly, waved to the two of them, and heard Du Tingfeng's car start outside:

"wait me back!"