novelapdf Chapter 209: Father?
Chapter 209: Father?
But after hesitating for a long while, he still picked up the key.
Because he saw a very small notification appearing.
[Ding!]
[You have discovered a special area that has been abandoned.]
[Status: Inactive.]
[Current Danger: Low.]
Sunny looked at the two words "low danger," feeling slightly reassured.
Only slightly.
After all, the system didn’t say "no danger."
He walked to the hospital entrance. The key in his hand automatically turned slightly. The old lock let out a clicking sound and opened.
Inside was dark and cold.
The smell of old antiseptic, decaying paper, and dried blood mixed together, creating a very unpleasant odor. A long corridor stretched deep into the darkness. Ceiling lights flickered, alternately lighting and going dark. An old wheelchair lay on its side in a corner. Its wheel was still slowly turning, as if someone had just left it not long ago.
Sunny swallowed.
"Low danger... low danger..."
He kept reminding himself like reciting a charm.
The hospital seemed to have been abandoned after some mission had ended. No screaming, no patients running chaotically, no obvious monsters. But precisely this silence made Sunny’s scalp go numb.
He walked very slowly.
Each time he passed a half-opened door, he tried not to look inside.
But his luck wouldn’t allow it.
A small sound came from the room on the left.
Sunny startled and turned his head.
There was no one in the room, only a broken mirror. In the mirror fragments, he saw a black shadow crawling on the ceiling behind him.
Sunny immediately stiffened.
Then he didn’t scream.
He only silently stepped to the side.
The moment he left his original position, that black shadow fell. It slammed hard onto the floor, then dissolved into a cloud of black dust, like something that had died a very long time ago but still retained its final attack instinct.
Sunny nearly sat down flat on the ground.
"Low danger my head..."
He didn’t dare curse too loudly.
Afraid the hospital would hear.
Continuing deeper inside, Sunny picked up a few files scattered on the ground. Most had been blurred by moisture, but a few lines were still readable.
"Future cognitive observation project..."
"Subject unstable..."
"Professor..."
"Rover..."
Sunny stopped.
He looked at that name. His eyes immediately widened.
"Rover?"
At this point, curiosity finally edged out fear by a little.
Because the name Rover was too prominent right now. Room 2705 had just won the third round, and the entire apartment complex was talking about him. If Rover’s name appeared in this abandoned psychiatric hospital, that was certainly not ordinary.
Sunny gripped the file tightly and kept walking.
Through some means that even Sunny himself didn’t understand, he always found the right path. A locked door, and the key would drop nearby. A corridor about to collapse, and he’d slip, accidentally falling into another route. A trap springing from the wall, and he’d just been bending down to pick up an old pen, twisting past it by pure coincidence.
After nearly half an hour, Sunny stood before a room at the end of the second floor.
On the door was a nameplate.
[Office of Professor Harlan]
Sunny took a deep breath, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room wasn’t large, but it was very chaotic.
The walls were covered with sticky notes, old photographs, strange diagrams, and red strings connecting randomly between images. A desk sat in the middle of the room, piled with files, empty medicine bottles, an old tape recorder, and a few pieces of broken glass. Beside the desk was a small safe, already open, as if waiting for someone to come and take what was inside.
Sunny didn’t dare touch things randomly.
But his gaze very quickly fell on an envelope placed right in the center of the desk.
On the envelope was a line of text.
[For the fortunate messenger.]
Sunny was silent.
Then pointed at his own face.
"Fortunate messenger? Me?"
He felt insulted.
But still opened the envelope.
Inside were a few sheets of paper and a small tape roll.
Sunny inserted the tape roll into the old recorder on the desk. At first, the machine only produced static, then an aged, hoarse voice rang out.
"If you’re hearing this recording, it proves the hospital has fallen asleep, the mission has ended, but fate has still refused to release this place."
Sunny immediately got goosebumps.
The voice continued.
"You are not Rover."
Sunny nearly threw the recorder across the room.
"I know you’re not him. If it were Rover, he wouldn’t have entered this place by luck. He would have entered because of suspicion, because of benefit, or because he felt this place still had something worth digging up."
Sunny felt this professor understood Rover to a slightly frightening degree.
"Don’t be afraid. I don’t need you to understand everything. A messenger doesn’t need to understand the letter. You only need to bring what’s in the safe to Rover."
Sunny turned his head to look at the small open safe.
Inside was a metal box.
The professor’s voice continued.
"Don’t open it in front of others."
"Don’t sell it."
"Don’t give it to anyone other than Rover."
"Because that thing doesn’t belong to me."
The recorder crackled slightly.
Then the professor’s voice became lower.
"It’s something Rover’s father left behind."
Sunny stiffened.
Rover’s father?
He suddenly felt the metal box was ten times heavier.
The professor’s voice rang out one final time:
"Tell Rover that if he wants to know what his father saw in the fog, open the box when he’s alone."
"And tell him..."
The sound in the tape began to distort.
Sunny leaned in close.
The professor’s voice seemed to stretch out, but was still audible.
"Don’t trust those who pick up the lantern too early."
Click.
The tape stopped.
The room fell silent.
Sunny stood there for a very long time.
Then he slowly looked at the metal box in the safe.
"I really didn’t want to get involved in this..."
But despite what he said, his hands still took out the box.
The box wasn’t locked.
Inside was a badge.
The badge was silver-black, its surface worn, as if it had weathered many years. In the center of the badge was a strange symbol: a half-open door, behind the door a small lantern, and above the lantern an eye looking downward.
When Sunny touched it, the badge warmed slightly.
A notification appeared.
....
[Special Item: Old Badge]
[Information: Sealed.]
[Unlock Condition: Rover.]
....
Sunny immediately closed the box.
Good.
Very good.
Not something he could use.
Not something he should keep either.
The moment the box closed, the hospital suddenly shook.
The ceiling lights flickered violently.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor outside.
Not one person.
But many.
A hoarse voice rang out from an old speaker in the corner of the room.
"Not a patient..."
"Not a doctor..."
"Messenger..."
Sunny slowly turned his head to look at the door.
His face was white.
"I knew it."
That voice repeated:
"The messenger has taken the letter..."
"The messenger must leave..."
"Before the hospital wakes up..."
BOOM!
Some door in the corridor was slammed hard.
Sunny didn’t wait any longer.
He clutched the metal box and turned to run.
The corridor that had been frightening when he arrived was now even more like the contracting stomach of a monster. Room doors on both sides kept opening and closing. From within came sounds of laughter, crying, fingernails scraping walls. A few silhouettes in patient gowns stood in dark corners, turning their heads to look at him with hazy faces that had no features.
Sunny ran until his lungs nearly burst.
A black shadow lunged from ahead.
He slipped on a puddle of water and fell backward, barely avoiding the swipe. Sunny didn’t have time to thank his luck, immediately scrambling up and continuing to run.
"I hate hospitals!"
A door on the left suddenly burst open.
Inside was an old elevator.
The elevator light flickered as if beckoning him.
Sunny didn’t think too hard and charged straight in.
The elevator doors slammed shut just before a cluster of pale white hands reached in.
The elevator fell.
Not going down.
But falling.
Sunny screamed.
He clutched the metal box so tightly it nearly left an indent in his chest.
A few seconds later, the elevator suddenly stopped.
The doors opened.
Sunny tumbled out and fell on cold ground.
He gasped for breath, raising his head to look around.
The hospital was gone.
Before him was the familiar fog near the apartment complex.
Sunny lay on the ground for a very long time.
Then he lifted the metal box before his face and laughed bitterly.
"Rover, you owe me one life."
He really wanted to say a few more curses.
But in the end still opened the message interface.
His fingers trembled slightly as he typed.
[Sunny: Rover, I found something that might belong to you.]
[Sunny: Don’t ask me where I found it. I really don’t want to remember.]
[Sunny: If you want to know about your father, we should probably meet.]
The messages were sent.
At the same time, in room 2705, Rover had just watched the Titan Soul-Sealing Tower finish stabilizing.
A notification sound rang out.
[Ding!]
[You have received a private message from Sunny.]
Rover opened the messages.
The moment he saw the words "your father," his expression immediately changed.
The freshly upgraded room was still filled with gentle life fragrance, but the atmosphere around Rover suddenly went quiet.
Nanoe was the first to notice the change in him.
"Rover?"
Rover didn’t immediately answer.
He looked at the messages for a very long time.
Then slowly sent a reply to Sunny.
[Rover: Where should we meet?]