Die, Replay, Repeat

Chapter 14: The Doctor Appear

"All the better. We're one step closer to unraveling the mystery," Fang Xiu muttered. He had no desire to flee but was intent on investigating the Green Mountain Mental Hospital.

As they moved forward, they soon came across two sizable pools of blood further down the corridor.

The volume of blood was considerable, with splatters marring the nearby walls. Above the blood stains were scraps of shredded flesh and bone, with torn segments of office work and security uniforms.

The torn flesh and bone looked like the remnants of a gruesome meal, scarred with teeth and bite marks. 

Identifying the familiar clothing in front of him, Fang Xiu realized that these were his colleagues and the security guard who had gone to inspect the power supply earlier.

Evidently, they had all been devoured by the Specter.

Seeing this, Fang Xiu immediately understood the pattern behind the Specter's reappearance: three minutes after a man vanished and only two minutes after a woman. The intervals appeared to be determined based on the amount of flesh it consumed.

The women at the sales office were generally attractive, with decent features and slender figures---a requirement of the industry. As a result, their flesh volume was relatively less than that of the men.

The Specter took around three minutes to finish a man and about two minutes for a woman.

"Xiu! Were...were they all eaten by the Specter!?" Zhao Hao's face turned ashen, his entire body shaking.

Fang Xiu didn't answer but stared at the shredded clothes. The cuts on the fabric were clean, evidently made by a sharp instrument. Combining this with the Specter he'd observed in the Green Mountain Mental Hospital, the image of the doctor sprang to mind. It was highly probable that the cuts were made by the scalpel she held. 

At that moment, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from behind Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao. They turned to find Wang Ziteng and his group emerging from the dark corridor.

"My God! What is this place? Wasn't this supposed to be the sales office?" 

"It looks like a hospital!" 

Wang Ziteng and the others exclaimed in shock, their eyes filled with panic and disbelief.

Indeed, no one could have expected that leaving the corridor of the sales office would lead them into an environment resembling a hospital. 

"Fang Xiu, Zhao Hao, have you two discovered anything since you left earlier? Have you seen Zhao and Jia?" Wu Dahai asked with a quavering voice.

"The three people... They..." Zhao Hao trembled as he pointed to the two pools of blood on the floor.

Wang Ziteng and the others looked at where his finger was pointing, and their pupils contracted.

"Blood! So much blood!" Li Feifei screamed. 

"These are Zhao and Jia's clothes!" Wang Ziteng's face turned even paler, cold sweat trickling down his face as he envisioned a horrifying scene. 

"They were eaten..." 

At those words, everyone shivered.

"Mr. Wang! Let's leave quickly, I want to go home..." Li Feifei sobbed, terrified. She tugged at Wang Ziteng's arm, begging. 

Wang Ziteng was suddenly jolted back to reality. "Right, right, let's get going now!"

At first, he planned to lead everyone forward, but as he glanced at the unfamiliar and vacant hospital corridor ahead, he dared not take a single step. He wasn't sure where this corridor led. 

'What if it's the Specter's lair?'

At that moment, Wang Ziteng was under immense pressure, akin to leading a group through a haunted house. But everyone was looking up to him as their pillar of strength, huddling close behind him.

Fortunately, Fang Xiu quickly broke the impasse. After observing the situation, he began to move. He strode toward the depths of the corridor with an air of calmness. Zhao Hao trailed closely behind him. 

Seeing someone take the lead, Wang Ziteng no longer hesitated and advanced forward. However, he didn't follow as closely as Zhao Hao. Be it due to pride or some other factors, both parties maintained a distance of about three meters.

TAP TAP TAP...

The sound of their restrained and cautious footsteps echoed in the empty corridor as if they feared alerting the Specter to their presence. Suddenly, the footsteps came to a sudden halt. 

Fang Xiu, who was leading the way, had stopped. Like a sheep leading the flock, once he stopped, Zhao Hao behind him also ceased his steps. Wang Ziteng and the rest of their colleagues followed suit. 

Wang Ziteng wanted to ask Fang Xiu why he had stopped, but considering his dignity, he dared not utter a word. If he were to ask, it would seem like he wouldn't dare to proceed unless Fang Xiu led the way. 

"Fang Xiu, why did you stop?" Li Feifei's voice was laden with panic.

She was already terrified out of her wits, and her usual composure as a white-collar elite had vanished. Seeing Fang Xiu's sudden stop, she instinctively asked him why, desperate to escape this place as soon as possible.

Fang Xiu didn't reply, his gaze fixed on his phone. After a moment of silence, he declared, "Time's up." 

"What do you mean, time's up?" Li Feifei instinctively asked. Her confusion was mirrored by everyone else. 

Only Wang Ziteng realized what he meant. His face turned ghostly pale, and he quickly raised his left hand to check his expensive wristwatch.

"It's been three minutes!"

Everyone immediately understood and was taken aback.

Just then, a creaking sound emanated from behind them. The sound was sharp, akin to the turning of joints. As they all spun around to face the source, their souls nearly left their bodies.

They saw a woman in a white lab coat, her hair unkempt, with long limbs like a spider's. Her eyes were ghostly white, and she hung upside down from the corridor's ceiling.

The creaking sound they heard was the noise of her turning her neck. 

Since she was hanging upside down like a spider, her face was in the opposite direction to everyone else's. But with a slow 180-degree turn of her head, her eyes met the gaze of each person in the group. 

Silent fear began to spread like a tide. In the presence of the Specter, even the toughest man would shudder in fear. 

The "doctor" stared intensely at the crowd. The next instant, her limbs began to flail wildly. Like some ghastly human-spider hybrid, she scuttled rapidly toward the group.

"Ahh!!!" 

Li Feifei's scream was like a starting signal, prompting everyone to take off in a frantic sprint as if their lives depended on it. 

This time, there was no need for someone to take the lead. In fact, anyone ahead was perceived as an obstacle slowing their desperate attack. 

The narrow corridor of the psychiatric hospital turned into a bottleneck. In their desperate bid to flee, everyone inadvertently shoved and pushed the people in front of them, hoping to clear their own path. 

Some of the physically weaker ones were even knocked to the ground amidst the chaos. 

Li Feifei was one such victim.

Being a delicate beauty, she had been clinging to Wang Ziteng's arm, seeking protection. However, when the crisis struck, Wang Ziteng was the first to toss her aside and bolt for his life.

Wang Ziteng reacted swiftly. He was the first to bolt, leading the pack in their frenzied escape. At this point, Fang Xiu and Zhao Hao were blocking his path. 

But the two men weren't running.

Zhao Hao was simply paralyzed in fear, while Fang Xiu stood there, observing. 

Just as he had suspected, the murderer was indeed the "doctor" he had encountered earlier in the hospital. 

After all, most of the Specters in Green Mountain Mental Hospital were confined to their rooms. Even though they had come across a few open doors during their exploration, they hadn't encountered any Specters. 

The only one they had encountered was this "doctor," who was not a patient but a staff member and, therefore, not confined like the rest."