Chapter Fifteen: Blood Painting

  What's meant to come will come, I was right in my estimate, but I fell asleep and missed the opportunity. Xie Ping'an is only willing to ask for our help when he has been forced into a desperate situation.

  The bloodstain on the ceiling had dried, and the line of words was written horizontally, with the last few words directly above Gray's bed. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at his bed, where there were dark red stains on the sheets and pillowcase.

  "Damn it! My sheets!" Gare cursed loudly: "Can't you change the way? Do I have to wash my sheets again?"

  I stared at the blood characters on the ceiling for half a day, and then stretched out my hand to compare the width of the strokes with the width of my own neck. The width of the strokes was almost the same as the width of my neck. Was this written by Xie Ping'an's neck? Then how did he get in last night?

  Anyway, Mrs. Hu's situation must be very dangerous.

  "Call a doctor from the mental hospital, I'll check again." I really want to know where Xie Ping'an came in.

  Ge took out his mobile phone and dialed the doctor's number. I walked around the dormitory, the main gate was closed, the windows were slightly ajar, and the screens were intact. There were also iron railings outside, with very small gaps in between, not enough for a person's head to pass through. This was an old building that had been around for many years.

  I checked all the channels that could enter, and no signs of breaking in were found. In the end, I stayed at the southeast corner of Fang's house.

  I suddenly remembered a sentence that Lao Shengui said, the direction of this room is the position of the ghost gate, it's very likely to be the entrance of the yin spirit. Upon closer inspection, there was a very obvious mark on the ground, and when I crouched down to take a look, I could still see some faint bloodstains.

  "Found it!" I stood up and said: "The yin spirit entered from here."

  "Greg put down his phone and said, 'I got some bad news from the doctor.'"

  "Has something happened to Mrs. Hu?" This was the worst outcome I could think of.

  "It hasn't gotten to that point yet," Ge Lei said: "The doctor says her condition is extremely unstable, extremely irritable, and has a certain degree of aggression, she was locked in the ICU."

  As long as nothing happens to her, Ms. Hu is our last lead, we can't afford to lose it again.

  I made a decision on the spot and went to the psychiatric hospital to see Mrs. Hu, and didn't return to the office.

  "Doesn't this situation go without saying?" Even his sleeping place was not safe, which made him feel very annoyed.

  "We'll talk about it when I get back." I rushed out of the room, Mrs. Hu must be in great danger. She was furious because she sensed the danger. Saving people is one of our responsibilities, we absolutely cannot let anyone else die.

  On the way to the mental hospital, Ge Lei called the office many times but couldn't get through. After more than half an hour of work, someone finally answered the phone, and it was Hua Jie's voice.

  Ge Lei reported the situation in our dormitory. Hua Jie simply said "I know, someone will handle it" and then hung up the phone.

  "Hua Jie said someone will handle it." Ge Lei felt a bit displeased.

  "Get off first, we've arrived." I opened the car door and jumped out.

  The second visit to the mental hospital, the old man at the door recognized us. The mental hospital still gives me a very depressing feeling.

  In the early morning, everything around was a thriving scene, with all things reviving and a thin layer of fog clinging to the ground. However, inside the big yard, it was eerily quiet, with almost no sound to be heard.

  I really don't like this feeling, it's like hospitals and places like that, they make me feel very uncomfortable.

  From a distance, I saw the doctor standing downstairs, his spirit somewhat wilted, looking extremely exhausted.

  "Your dark circles are almost as big as a panda's, didn't you sleep all night?"

  "It's really getting to the point where I have to say it. The doctor said in a somewhat hoarse voice: "At dawn, Mrs. Hu suddenly fell ill and became extremely irritable. I had no choice but to administer a sedative to the patient, but it didn't work at all."

  I saw two gashes on the doctor's face, with blood from the wound just congealing, obviously left in the last few hours.

  "Sorry, the patient's condition is very unstable right now, I can't let you see him, it needs..."

  I interrupted the doctor and said: "The patient stabilized after dawn, didn't he?"

  The doctor was stunned and didn't react until a while later, then asked: "How did you know?"

  Greg stared at me with a curious expression, as if I had developed precognitive abilities.

  It's very simple, after the sun comes out, the yin energy weakens and the yang energy strengthens. Most yin spirits and evil things fear sunlight, even if they don't fear it, they don't like to be active under the sun. I just made a simple inference.

  I adopted an air of mystery and said in a low tone, "You just need to answer my questions, this concerns her life."

  "The doctor took a deep breath and said: 'I don't know how you knew it, but you really did get it right.'"

  "You have to let us see the patient, or she may be in mortal danger! I'm not exaggerating." My tone grew increasingly stern, without me even realizing it.

  The doctor's expression became even more astonished, it seems I hit the nail on the head again. He clenched his fists, then loosened them, and then clenched them again, this small action indicating that his heart was slightly shaken.

  I took advantage of the situation and continued: "As a doctor, you wouldn't want anything to happen to your patients either. We won't interfere with your treatment."

  "Alright! Follow me." The doctor led me towards the ward.

  The doctor led the way in front, and we followed behind him at a small run. As we passed by a ward, I suddenly felt a gust of cold wind blow over me, and the hairs on my body all stood up. I gave a shiver.

  Gale also felt it, and we both stopped in our tracks at the same time. The ward was very familiar to me, and I took a look at the number on the door. It was indeed Mrs. Hu's ward from yesterday. There was no one left in the room, and several staff members were cleaning up something.

  I walked to the door and took a look, the walls in the room were all stained with red blood, some of which had already been cleaned up.

  "Stop for a moment, don't sweep yet." The paintings on the wall were all painted with blood, and the bright red blood seemed to be dripping down. Mr. Hu's paintings were also very realistic, with people's heads torn apart, huge bronze tripods, and a small red old house.

  The cleaning staff saw the doctor behind us and finally stopped.

  The doctor didn't understand what I was doing and explained, "These were all painted by her last night. She lost a lot of blood to paint these. If she hadn't been discovered early, she would have died from excessive bleeding."

  "Please leave first." I'm not sure if there's any important information in these paintings. But I think it's highly likely that the content of these paintings is very important to her, otherwise she wouldn't have used her own blood to paint them.

  The doctor didn't understand what we were doing, Zhang was about to open his mouth to ask when Grey said: "These paintings are related to the two malicious murder cases we're currently investigating. The case details need to be kept confidential, please go outside."

  He probably thought it was a bit unbelievable from his professional point of view that the words of a neurotic woman were unreliable, and he still walked out.

  As soon as I entered the ward, I could clearly feel that the room was several degrees lower than outside. I could see dense water droplets condensing on the wall. Something must have happened last night, which is why there's such a gloomy feeling.

  The room was left with only me and Ge Lei, Ge Lei took out his mobile phone to take pictures of the blood paintings on the wall. I smelled a pungent smell and followed the scent to find the 84 disinfectant placed at the door. This stuff can destroy bloodstains, and the side of the wall that was erased is completely irretrievable.

  I shifted my attention to the painting on the wall, from the state of the bloodstains, it seemed that the original painting had been erased, and the bloody painting was the last one, which had not been completed yet, with some bloodstains still not coagulated.

  Gray stared at the bloody head painted on the wall and asked, "It's almost close to the ceiling, how did she paint it?"

  The painting is very high, Gail is relatively tall, and he also needs to jump up with force to touch the edge of the painting. Teacher Hu is not as tall as Gail, she wants to paint at a qualified position, but she must step on something, and there are not many movable objects in this room.

  I saw the scratches on the ground, Teacher Hu had moved the iron bed that was fixed to the ground for painting. It's even harder for Ge Lei to do it, and with Teacher Hu's physical condition, it's impossible to move the iron bed.

  But she did it anyway, and how she managed to is temporarily beyond our consideration.

  I saw that bloody head, the ferocious face covered in blood looked extremely terrifying. Especially those eyes, staring straight at me, just like a living person's eyes.

  Gale said: "This human head looks a bit familiar, as if I've seen it somewhere before."

  I also find it familiar, after looking at it for a while, I recognized that this is indeed the appearance of Xie Ping'an. Mrs. Hu painted her husband, and what I saw was almost 70% similar. There must be some implication in Mrs. Hu's painting of her husband's head.

  "His eyes seem to be staring at something." Grey also noticed.

  If it's not staring at me, then it's looking at the wall opposite. We just need to make some space and we can find the answer.

  I and Gure flashed once, Gure stepped on the broken chair to stand at the same height as human head, eyes looking in one direction.

  "What did you see?" I asked hastily.

  "He pointed at the blood-red house and said, 'It must be looking at that house.'"

  "House?" I went over to take a look, the blood house wasn't even finished yet, and there were still scratch marks on the wall. Mrs. Hu was discovered while painting this very picture, she struggled hard to resist, but the painting remained unfinished.

  The general outline of the house has taken shape, although it's not very clear, but some obvious features can be seen. It's not Xie Ping'an's house, it's another house that looks older.