There was no flesh inside the black cocoon. Instead, Lin Yan found himself plunged into a chaotic sea of consciousness, formed from countless shattered memories.
It felt like being thrown into a massive blender.
Voices clamored from every direction. Fragmented images flashed before his eyes. Agonized screams and deranged muttering crashed over him in relentless waves, battering his mind from all sides.
“It hurts… Help me…”
“Doctor… kill me…”
“I am God! I am eternal!”
“Die! All of you, die!”
The director’s consciousness was a vast, churning vortex of madness, tearing at Lin Yan’s mind as it tried to swallow his consciousness and make it part of itself.
“GET… OUT!”
A will steeped in rage and madness slammed into Lin Yan like a sledgehammer.
Lin Yan grunted in pain.
It felt as though his mind were being crushed beneath an unbearable weight. Lin Yan gritted his teeth and clung desperately to the last shred of clarity he had left.
No… I can’t lose myself in here…
He needed… something to hold on to.
An anchor to the real world.
Something real.
He thought of his studio, of all the projects he still had yet to finish, of the sunlight streaming through his window…
No, that isn’t enough.
Then his thoughts returned to that man… in the specimen room.
Why did his face look so familiar?
Then it hit him.
There had been a photograph tucked between the pages of Su Wan’s diary. In it, she stood beside a young man, the two of them smiling brightly at the camera.
That man… was Su Wan’s boyfriend. And he was a doctor!
Could the man in the specimen room… have been Su Wan’s boyfriend all along? Had the director been using his body as a vessel for his core?
“Su Wan!” Lin Yan shouted through their mental connection. “What was your boyfriend’s name?”
Outside, Su Wan’s form had already faded until she was barely more than a translucent shadow. She froze at the question, and two trails of bloody tears slipped down her cheeks.
“His… his name was Chen Mo. He was such a gentle person…” Her voice trembled. “He said we’d open a clinic together someday. We were going to help as many people as we could…”
“Chen Mo…” Lin Yan murmured the name under his breath.
Then he gathered his strength and shouted into the chaos.
“Chen Mo! Wake up! Su Wan is waiting for you! She’s been waiting for you all this time!”
He poured his mental energy into his voice, sending it surging through the director’s turbulent sea of consciousness.
“Su Wan… is waiting for me?”
A faint voice emerged from somewhere deep within the director’s maddened will, bewildered and heavy with pain.
“Who… Who’s calling me?”
“Chen Mo! Think about Su Wan! Think about the promise you made to her! Think about the clinic!”
Drawing on every last bit of mental energy he had, Lin Yan gathered the precious memories Su Wan had shared with him—memories of Chen Mo, of the life they had once dreamed of building together—and scattered them like seeds around Chen Mo’s fragile consciousness.
“Su Wan…”
The voice grew clearer.
“The clinic…”
Stronger.
“Our promise…”
The wavering consciousness began to steady.
“I remember now…”
This time, the voice rang with conviction.
“I’m Chen Mo.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
A tremor swept through the chaotic sea of consciousness.
“I’m not a monster.”
This time, there was no hesitation in his voice.
“I have to go back… I have to go back to Su Wan!”
“NO!”
The director’s will erupted in a terrified roar.
“You are my vessel! You are my heart! COME BACK!”
His frenzied consciousness crashed down on Chen Mo’s awakening mind, desperately trying to crush it back into submission.
“Now!”
A sharp gleam flashed in Lin Yan’s eyes.
He stopped fighting the chaotic psychic forces battering him from all sides. Instead, he gathered every last shred of mental energy and activated Omnicrafting.
He was going to take Chen Mo’s will—the part the director had corrupted and imprisoned—purify it, and forge it into a blade capable of piercing the director’s very core.
Lin Yan’s mental energy surged like fire, engulfing Chen Mo’s faint but unwavering consciousness.
A brilliant white light burst from Lin Yan’s brow. It coalesced before him, taking the shape of a long white sword forged entirely from mental energy, its blade radiating a pure, cleansing light.
The instant the sword appeared, the chaotic sea of consciousness around them recoiled as though a red-hot iron had been plunged into it. Agonized shrieks rang out as the chaos around them rapidly melted away.
“No! Impossible! How can you possibly have this kind of power?!” the director roared in despair.
“Because…” Lin Yan closed his hand around the sword’s hilt, his gaze turning glacial. For that brief moment, he looked like a god passing judgment. “I’m not fighting alone.”
He raised the sword. “This is for Su Wan. For Chen Mo. For every innocent person you destroyed.”
Lin Yan gripped the sword in both hands and brought it down with all his strength.
“Die!”
The blade cleaved through the sea of consciousness, striking straight at its deepest point—the mass of black light that embodied the director’s core, swollen with violence and malice.
“NOOOO!”
BOOM!
White light erupted, and the darkness vanished beneath it.
***
Specimen room, real world
The glass tank holding the young man suddenly began to shudder violently.
Crack… crack…
Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass.
Bang!
The tank burst apart.
Cloudy formalin gushed out in a torrent, flooding the floor in seconds.
The young man inside—Chen Mo—slowly opened his eyes.
The vacancy in his gaze was gone. His eyes were clear and lucid now, shadowed by a deep sorrow.
He lowered his eyes to his chest. A tube was embedded there, connecting him to one of the machines beside the shattered tank.
Chen Mo reached up, wrapped his hand around it, and yanked it free.
Shhk.
Blood spurted from the wound, yet a smile of release spread across his face.
“Su Wan… I’m back.”
His voice was barely more than a whisper.
A soft white glow began to emanate from his body. His form slowly dissipated into motes of light, drifting away as gently as feathers on the wind.
Just before he disappeared completely, Chen Mo turned toward an empty corner of the room and gave a small nod. His lips moved as he silently mouthed, Thank you.
***
Mirror world
With the destruction of the director’s core, the entire realm began to collapse.
Lin Yan felt himself plummeting, though he had no idea how long the fall lasted.
Eventually, he felt solid ground beneath his feet again, and when he looked around, he realized his surroundings had… changed.
He found himself in a clean, brightly lit corridor. The walls were pristine white, the floor spotless. A faint trace of disinfectant lingered in the air, but without the harsh, acrid sting from before.
Sunlight streamed through the window at the far end of the hall, warm and brilliant.
Is this… the abandoned hospital in the real world?
No, this place was far too clean, too normal. It was almost as if… this was what the hospital had looked like before everything went wrong.
A flicker of confusion crossed Lin Yan’s mind.
At that moment, Lin Yan noticed two people sitting on a bench farther down the corridor.
One was Su Wan, dressed in her nurse’s uniform. Beside her sat Chen Mo, a young doctor in a white coat with a warm, gentle expression.
They sat hand in hand, contented smiles on their faces. Bathed in the afternoon sunlight, they looked like any ordinary couple simply enjoying a quiet moment together.
Su Wan spotted Lin Yan and waved, a grateful smile spreading across her face.
Chen Mo gave him a small nod as well, his gaze warm.
Lin Yan walked over to them.
“Thank you,” Su Wan said softly. “Because of you, Chen Mo can finally find peace, and I can finally fulfill my last wish.”
“It’s the least I could do.” Lin Yan glanced around. “What is this place?”
“An illusion Chen Mo and I created together.” Su Wan gazed at the sunlit corridor, her eyes soft with nostalgia. “It’s the hospital we always hoped this place could have been. It won’t last long, but… this is enough.”
She turned back to Lin Yan and held out her hand.
A sheet of paper hovered above her palm, glowing faintly gold.
[Quest Item Obtained: Discharge Papers
Quality: Special
Description: With this certificate, you can leave this nightmarish world.]
“This is your reward.” Su Wan handed him the discharge papers. “Congratulations, you’ve cleared the instance.”
Lin Yan accepted the document. It was warm to the touch.
“What will happen to you two?” Lin Yan asked.
Su Wan and Chen Mo exchanged a smile, their expressions touched with relief and a hint of wistfulness.
“We’re moving on,” Chen Mo replied gently. “The regrets that kept us here are gone. It’s time for us to go wherever we’re meant to go next. Maybe it’s heaven, maybe we’ll be reborn. Who knows? But wherever it is, at least we’ll be together.”
Su Wan nodded, then looked at Lin Yan.
“Lin Yan, thank you. You’re a good person and an incredible craftsman. With your gift, I’m sure you’ll go far.” Her expression grew serious. “But remember, power always comes with responsibility. Don’t ever let it blind you.”
Lin Yan nodded solemnly. “I won’t forget.”
Su Wan smiled.
Her body slowly turned translucent before dissipating into countless motes of white light. Beside her, Chen Mo began to fade as well.
“Goodbye, Lin Yan. And… good luck.”
Their figures vanished completely, melting into the sunlight.
The world around Lin Yan began to blur, its colors gradually washing away like an old photograph left too long in the sun.
He knew it was time for him to leave.
He tightened his grip on the discharge papers as a brilliant white light flared across his vision.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, Player Lin Yan! You’ve cleared the instance: Abandoned Hospital!]
[Instance Progress: 100%]
[Overall Rating: S]
[Points Earned: 5,000]
[Hidden Achievements Unlocked: Crafted to Perfection and Redeemer]
[Exceptional performance detected. Hidden reward draw triggered…]
The system’s cold, mechanical voice rang out in his mind.
The world suddenly spun around him, and then everything went black.