The old-fashioned telephone wire's outer rubber sheath was twisted and peeling, exposing the metal wires inside to the air, shimmering with a ghostly light in the dim environment. For a moment, Zhu Jie's blood ran cold, her veins feeling as if they were filled with ice shards.

A severed telephone line couldn't possibly make a call, so it was clear the other party was a ghost. The man who answered the phone was a ghost!

And that ghost was standing outside their door!

Zhu Jie's mind had never been so clear. She even suspected that the time was exactly 2:00 AM, and the guy outside was the mental patient from the broadcast.

Noticing Zhu Jie's reaction, and more importantly, seeing the severed phone line she held up, Tang Qisheng's forehead broke out in a cold sweat. They had almost, almost, walked through the gates of hell again.

Perhaps realizing his identity had been exposed, the man outside chuckled, and his actions became even more reckless. He pounded on the door forcefully. "Open the door, it's me! I'm here to help you fix the cuckoo clock, hee hee hee! I don't just fix cuckoo clocks, I fix patients too. I'm a doctor."

"Open the door quickly! I need to examine your bodies! You're sick, all of you are sick! I'll help you cut off those extra limbs!"

The flimsy wooden door was pounded with loud "bangs," as if it would collapse any second. Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie used their bodies to brace the door.

Even though they knew the man couldn't break down the door, the oppressive feeling made it impossible to do nothing, even if it was just psychological.

After a moment, the man stopped pounding on the door. Before Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie could breathe a sigh of relief, an even more spine-chilling sound rang out. Zhu Jie instantly covered her ears. The sound was like the sharp friction of a knife scraping against a plate.

The guy outside was scraping the wall with a knife, and a very sharp one at that.

No, wait, it was a pair of scissors!

According to the information provided by Jiang Cheng and the others, the person standing outside should be a hunchbacked "doctor" with a huge pair of scissors.

Thinking of this image, Tang Qisheng couldn't help but gulp. The man outside had also been yelling about treating them, the patients, by cutting off their extra limbs.

Suddenly, the sharp scraping sound stopped. The corridor returned to silence. Tang Qisheng slowly widened his eyes. He heard a familiar sound.

"Who's there? Who is it outside?" The voice came from the room across the hall, a young woman, her tone full of fear.

"I'm the maintenance worker here. Did you call for repairs? Your cuckoo clock on the wall is broken." The man outside instantly reverted to his previous casual tone, with a hint of impatience, but he emphasized the words "cuckoo clock."

"Yes... I made the call. You're from the maintenance department, right?" The woman's voice was suspicious. "But why are you only coming now?"

The man's tone grew increasingly impatient. "I've been here for a while, but things have to be done in order, right? You're not the only room that called for repairs. I'm not a god with three heads and six arms."

The woman became agitated upon hearing this. "Were there... were there other rooms that called for maintenance? Did you just come from their room?"

"Yes, Room 3017 also called. Let me make it clear, they called first, so I'm repairing theirs first." The man acted like he was about to leave. "Tell me, do you want it fixed or not? If not, I'm leaving. Actually, it's no big deal if the cuckoo clock is broken. It just means you can't see the time. You can always find me again when it gets light." The man's words sounded natural, not like he was acting at all, but Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie heard it clearly. The woman must have realized there was a problem with the cuckoo clock on the wall and called for maintenance, but they couldn't figure out why the man's banging on the door and scraping the wall with scissors hadn't alerted the woman. How... how did it seem like she didn't hear anything?

Just as footsteps sounded again outside, the woman, seemingly worried that the man would really leave, immediately said, "No, don't go yet. I want to fix the cuckoo clock. I want it fixed now."

"If you want it fixed, open the door. I'm not your family's servant, dawdling around like this." The man's footsteps stopped in front of the door where the voice came from, acting very reluctant.

But Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie didn't hear the sound of the door opening. The woman seemed to be hesitating, after all, the broadcast had clearly mentioned that an extremely dangerous mental patient was wandering around at night.

But in the next second, Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie shivered at the same time. They heard the sound of a door opening, and it was very close to them, extremely close, as if... as if it was the door behind them.

But how was that possible?

Their door was still tightly closed and hadn't moved at all.

Then, something even more unacceptable happened. A familiar voice rang out, "Hey, maintenance worker brother, the cuckoo clock is fixed for now, but it won't stop again, right? At least, it absolutely can't break again tonight!"

Zhu Jie was stunned for a moment, then immediately looked at Tang Qisheng, who was close at hand, her eyes full of horror, because... because that was actually Tang Qisheng's voice!

Tang Qisheng's reaction was even stronger than Zhu Jie's. The feeling of hearing his own voice behind him was so bizarre that it couldn't be described in words.

This ghost... this ghost was actually imitating his voice!

"Are you crazy? Close the door quickly!" Soon after, Zhu Jie's voice also appeared, the slightly trembling tone making the scene even more real. "It's already 11:30 PM. In half an hour, it will be midnight!"

"Zhu Jie's" voice was full of vigilance, with a faint hint of warning. It was all too real, so real that it was chilling.

Zhu Jie immediately turned around and shouted towards the door, "Don't believe him, it's all fake! The mental patient is outside your door!"

Tang Qisheng seemed to have been awakened with courage and shouted a warning with Zhu Jie, "Can you hear me? Don't open the door! We're still in the room, it's all fake, everything you heard just now is fake!"

"There's no maintenance worker, he's the escaped mental patient! He'll kill you!"

But no matter how Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie shouted, there was no response from the other rooms in the corridor, as if they were confined, their voices only able to stay within their own room.

After a while, Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie, their voices hoarse, despaired. They heard the sound of a door opening—

"Squeak—"