Chen Ge steadied his breathing, the cool night air brushing his face as he assessed the narrow gap between the windows. A meter of cracked brick wall separated Room 304 from 303—daunting but manageable with caution. He knelt by his backpack, carefully placing Xiaoxiao, the mischievous doll, into his shirt pocket, its tiny weight a familiar comfort against his chest. The flashlight and mallet followed, the latter tucked into his pant pocket for quick access. The black phone's mission was clear: enter Room 303 before midnight to confront the entity tormenting Men Nan. The landlady's refusal and the neighbor's tales of Wang Haiming's ghost only heightened the urgency. A fall to the concrete courtyard below would be catastrophic, but precision and speed could carry him across. Should be fine if I'm careful, he thought, his resolve hardening as he prepared to bridge the gap and face the Third Sick Hall's shadow.
Doctor Gao emerged from the bedroom, drawn by the rustle of Chen Ge's preparations. His eyes widened at the sight: Chen Ge poised at the window, mallet in hand, Xiaoxiao peeking from his pocket like a bizarre talisman. "What are you doing?" the psychologist asked, his voice thick with exasperation, a headache brewing behind his temples. Chen Ge's unorthodox methods were pushing the boundaries of his professional experience. "You're just in time," Chen Ge said, grabbing Doctor Gao's arm and pulling him to the window. "We'll stay in contact. You hold the fort in 304; I'm going into 303 to find the source of Men Nan's nightmares." The plan was bold, almost reckless, but Chen Ge's confidence was unshaken, the black phone's mission fueling his determination.
"Why Room 303?" Doctor Gao demanded, his gaze flicking from the mallet to the doll, his eyes twitching with disbelief. The idea of climbing into a cursed, vacant apartment armed with a hammer and a toy was beyond his comprehension. Chen Ge's voice was steady. "The entity behind Men Nan's dreams—his strangling figure—comes from 303. I need to confront it before midnight, or he'll never be free." Doctor Gao's skepticism deepened, but Chen Ge pressed on. "This get-up? It's worked before. Alone, I might falter, but with you as backup, I'm ready." He dialed Doctor Gao's number, slipping the phone into his shirt pocket beside Xiaoxiao. "Keep the line open. If anything goes wrong, get help." Doctor Gao nodded, his hands tightening around his phone, the weight of responsibility for two "patients" now pressing down on him.
"Be careful!" Doctor Gao called as Chen Ge swung a leg over the sill, the mallet secure in his pocket. He pressed his body against the outer wall, one foot anchored on 304's ledge, the other kicking out to nudge 303's window. The unlatched frame gave way with a faint creak, swinging inward. "Doctor Gao, don't hang up," Chen Ge instructed, his voice calm but urgent. "If I scream or go silent, call the police, grab Men Nan, and get out." He leaned forward, stretching his leg toward 303's sill, his center of gravity still tied to 304. His toes found purchase, and he shifted his weight, hands gripping 303's frame. With a controlled release of his left hand, he pulled with his right, swinging his body fully into the open window of Room 303, landing lightly on the dusty floor within.
"Climbing into the neighbor's room to treat a patient?" Doctor Gao muttered, staring at the empty window, his phone still connected to Chen Ge's. In over a decade of psychology, he'd never encountered a "diagnosis" like this—breaking into a haunted apartment to exorcise a nightmare. Chen Ge's disappearance into the darkness left Doctor Gao gripping the phone, his heart pounding as he monitored the open line, the faint sounds of Chen Ge's movements crackling through. The psychologist glanced at Men Nan, still rigid in the living room, and felt the surreal weight of the night. Hai Ming Apartments was no longer just a building; it was a crucible, and Chen Ge was walking into its heart, armed with tools and a conviction that defied logic.
Chen Ge slid fully into Room 303, his sneakers sinking into a layer of dust that coated the floor like a shroud. The room had been untouched since Wang Haiming's death, its layout frozen in time—faded wallpaper, a sagging couch, a table buried under grime. The air was thick with neglect, the sour smell of the building now mingled with a sharper, moldering tang. He flicked on his flashlight, its beam cutting through the gloom to reveal uneven floorboards and walls marred by dark, irregular stains. A threadbare carpet, sullied and frayed, stretched across the room, an anomaly that set Chen Ge's nerves on edge. None of the other apartments, not even the landlady's, had carpeting—why this one? The stench was strongest here, wafting from beneath the rug, a foul promise of something hidden.
Gripping the carpet's edge, Chen Ge yanked it back, the fabric tearing free with a dry rip. No ghosts or bodies greeted him—just a pile of old men's clothes, crumpled and reeking of mildew. The sizes were consistent, likely Wang Haiming's, abandoned since his death. But the smell was too pungent for mere mold. Using the mallet's handle, Chen Ge pushed the clothes aside, his flashlight revealing a grim discovery: several dead sparrows, their bodies intact but stiff, nestled beneath the fabric. The corpses were fresh, no more than a week old, their feathers dull but unravaged. Chen Ge's Dollmaker's Talent had imparted basic knowledge of decay; these birds hadn't died naturally here. Someone had entered this sealed room recently, hiding them under the clothes, a deliberate act that shifted his suspicions. Wang Haiming was dead, but something—or someone—was still active in 303.
The find complicated the mission, suggesting a living intruder or a supernatural force mimicking human behavior. Wang Haiming's death had occurred in this room, though Chen Ge lacked the exact spot. It mattered little; the entity's presence permeated the space. He would search every inch. The living room yielded nothing beyond the clothes and birds, so Chen Ge stepped carefully over the pile, his flashlight sweeping the shadows as he moved toward the bedroom. The black phone's deadline loomed, and the third presence in A Room of Three waited somewhere in this decayed sanctuary, tied to the Third Sick Hall and Men Nan's nightmares. Chen Ge's grip tightened on the mallet, Xiaoxiao's faint warmth in his pocket a reminder of past victories. Whatever lay ahead, he would face it, for Men Nan, for the mission, and for the clue to his parents' disappearance.
Chen Ge stepped into the bedroom, the flashlight beam slicing through the gloom to reveal a rusted metal bed frame leaning precariously against the wall, its springs jutting out like broken teeth. Nearby, several ancient bookshelves sagged under the weight of forgotten tomes, their pages swollen and moldy from years of damp neglect. The air was heavy with a strange, cloying odor—part rot, part something chemical—that made Chen Ge's nose wrinkle. He moved methodically, opening every drawer and cupboard, his fingers brushing over dust-coated surfaces, but found nothing of note: no letters, no photos, no clues to Wang Haiming's life or death. The room felt like a tomb, preserving the man's final days in layers of grime. With a final sweep of the light, Chen Ge turned to the bathroom, the last unchecked space in Room 303, its door slightly ajar, beckoning him into the mission's heart.
The layout of Hai Ming Apartments was uniform, each unit a mirror of the next, so Chen Ge knew what to expect as he pushed open the bathroom door. The half-body mirror Men Nan had described loomed opposite the entrance, its surface catching the flashlight's beam and throwing back a distorted reflection. In the dim glow, Chen Ge's mirrored self looked gaunt, his eyes shadowed, almost unfamiliar—a stranger staring back from a cursed room. He paused at the threshold, not stepping inside, his instincts wary of mirrors after past encounters. The bathroom was small, its corners already scanned from the doorway: a chipped sink, a rusted faucet, a faint ring of grime in the tub. No hidden compartments, no bloodstains, no lingering presence. There do not seem to be any more clues here, Chen Ge thought, the black phone's midnight deadline ticking closer, the room yielding little beyond its oppressive decay.
Back in the living room, Chen Ge stood over the pile of clothes he'd uncovered beneath the carpet, the flashlight illuminating a troubling detail. Every garment—shirts, pants, jackets—was speckled with dark, dried bloodstains, far too extensive for the few dead sparrows to account for. The birds, fresh as they were, couldn't have produced such volume; the stains spoke of a larger, more violent source. Activating his Yin Yang Vision, Chen Ge's enhanced sight pierced the shadows, picking out nuances invisible to normal eyes. The clothes weren't just discarded—they were deliberate, a macabre collection tied to Wang Haiming's final days. With the mallet in hand, he sifted through the pile, examining each piece with care, until his fingers brushed a gray jacket at the bottom, its shoulder and back crusted with blood in a distinctive splatter pattern—blunt force trauma, likely from Wang Haiming's head-banging rituals against the wall.
Something shifted in the jacket's pocket as Chen Ge lifted it, a faint jiggle that set his nerves alight. He reached in, his fingers closing around cold, rusted steel. Pulling it out, he revealed a large, old-fashioned key, its surface pitted with age, far bulkier than the flat copper keys used for Hai Ming's apartment doors. Chen Ge's brow furrowed. Why would Wang Haiming, a patient fresh from the Third Sick Hall, carry a key that didn't belong to his room? Had he found it outside, a random keepsake? No, its presence in his bloodied jacket suggested purpose, a secret tied to his time in the mental hospital or the entity that haunted him. Chen Ge slipped the key into his pocket, its weight a new piece of the puzzle. The black phone's mission—A Room of Three—was unraveling, but the key's purpose remained elusive, a clue to the Third Sick Hall's secrets or Wang Haiming's final obsession.
As Chen Ge turned to leave, his flashlight beam grazed the open window, its glass reflecting a fleeting shadow. His heart skipped—the tenant from Room 302, the young man who'd argued with himself, was leaning out his window, head craned to spy on Room 303. The sight was chilling, the man's silhouette stark against the night. Why is he watching me? Chen Ge kept his movements deliberate, pretending not to notice as he rearranged the clothes to cover the sparrows, but his mind raced. Only the tenants of 302 and 304 could access 303 without the front door, via the adjacent windows. Men Nan, the victim of the strangling dreams, was no suspect. That left 302's young man, whose repetitive arguments—"Are you trying to push me to my death?"—mirrored Wang Haiming's self-directed rants, a sign of possession or influence by the entity in 303.
The sparrows, the bloodied clothes, the key—all pointed to recent activity in a room supposedly vacant since Wang Haiming's death. The young man in 302, with his erratic behavior and now this covert surveillance, was likely compromised, another victim or agent of the Third Sick Hall's specter. Chen Ge's grip tightened on the mallet, Xiaoxiao's faint warmth in his pocket grounding him. The mission's third presence wasn't just Wang Haiming's ghost—it was active, spreading its influence to the living, perhaps through 302's tenant. The key in his pocket, the blood on the walls, the dreams strangling Men Nan—each was a thread leading to the entity's core. Midnight loomed, and Chen Ge knew he had to act, confronting the force in 303 before it claimed another soul or silenced the clue to his parents' disappearance.