My Healing Games

Chapter 453 Different Paths Lead to the Same Destination, All Roads Lead to the Underworld

Standing in the aisle on the third floor of the mall, looking at the women's clothing store window, the mannequins behind the glass are wearing colorful clothes, and their faces are all etched with the same expression.

They were looking at Han Fei, and Han Fei was looking at them, until one of the models couldn't help but blink.

Goosebumps rose on Han Fei's neck. He had no idea how many ghosts were hiding on the third floor. He braced himself and approached the women's clothing store where Huang Li had once stayed.

The shop window has been changed to a new mannequin. She is wearing clothes similar to those of the oriole. If you look closely, you will find that she also looks somewhat similar to the oriole, from her open eyes to her full lips, and the bloodstains flowing down her lower abdomen.

In a moment, Han Fei felt that all the models were looking at him. Each model seemed to have her own life. They didn't have any direct malice towards Han Fei, but just wanted to keep him here, bend his arms and legs, and fold him into the same model as them.

Countless eyes stared at Han Fei in the darkness. At first, they just watched, but as the darkness gradually spread, heads emerged from shop windows. They were wearing brand-new clothes and opened their arms to Han Fei.

The curtain in the fitting room kept trembling. Han Fei arrived at the place where he first met the woman in red. The store floor was piled with clothes that had been tried on, but the customer in the store was still very dissatisfied. It seemed that what she wanted to find was not clothes she liked, but her lost skin and body.

Flesh and blood are the outer garment of the soul. The mall owner stole his wife's favorite coat, and now his wife has returned to demand repayment.

The mall's loudspeakers crackled like a child's happy laughter. Midnight music was turned on, its low, oppressive melody enveloping all the figures moving about in the darkness.

Her voice was clear and melodious, slow and gentle, like a caged oriole singing, except that her throat was filled with razor blades, and every song was mixed with blood.

The shrine owner's hallucinations became increasingly severe; the sounds in his left and right ears changed from different to the same. When he could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion, that was when Han Fei completely succumbed to delusion.

He could hear his heart pounding faster and faster with the drumbeats in the music, as if it were about to burst out of his chest.

That feeling of urgency and impatience pressed in from all directions; the shopping mall was slowly turning into a prison and a maze, trapping him inside forever.

“You will die here too, just like me, just like all of us…”

Laughter echoed in the women's clothing store. The full-length mirror reflected a woman trying on different coats as she changed into red ones, eventually removing the last piece of human skin.

A dark hole remained in the chest pierced by the steel bar, and the hole in the chest of the person in the mirror reflected Han Fei's face.

The woman slowly turned around, and all her reflections in the mirrors looked at Han Fei. She raised her hands, and Han Fei felt his neck being gripped, a force far beyond his ability to resist.

Li Daxing is terrifying, but he is just the weakest one here.

As his feet slowly left the ground, the intense feeling of suffocation made Han Fei's cheeks turn purple. He felt that if he didn't escape, he might really die here.

He brandished the Rebirth Blade and used the shrine's owner's broken fingers to grab his own neck. As he slashed his neck until it bled, the intense feeling of suffocation lessened slightly.

"Don't stay on the third floor for long."

Giving up on finding the mall owner's ex-wife, Han Fei rushed upstairs.

The once-normal elevators have all been transformed into long, saliva-covered tongues; the ribbons and light chains hanging from the top of the mall have become strands of black hair; and the lights embedded at the very top resemble open eyeballs.

Absurd, weird and terrifying.

Running wildly across the tongue, racing against death and vengeful ghosts, Han Fei finally reached the fourth floor. The first thing that caught his eye on this floor was an old man.

The other person was wearing the same work uniform as him and had a work badge on.

The old man was also surprised to see Han Fei come up. He walked unsteadily and stumbled toward Han Fei.

He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something to Han Fei, but Han Fei only noticed that the other man's uneven yellow teeth were covered with a lot of wood chips.

"You've come to replace me, haven't you? Is it time to hand over the shift? I've finally waited for you. I thought you'd never bother with me again." The old man's speed increased, like a giant insect, his limbs swinging rapidly forward, his body contorted in a violent manner.

"The person who will replace you is called Li Daxing." Han Fei continued upwards. He climbed the elevator and saw the back of the old man's head.

The old employee's head had been hollowed out, leaving a large hole from which moldy, smelly sawdust kept spilling out.

"Wait, wait for me, wait for me!" The old man also climbed onto the elevator, using his hands and feet, his expression becoming increasingly distorted.

"Is this the corporate culture of the shopping mall? Everyone is so enthusiastic?" Han Fei couldn't shake off the old man who was closely following him. He had to be extra careful now, because if he accidentally slipped, he might never have a chance to get up again.

The benefits of drastically increasing stamina became apparent at this moment, and Han Fei reached the fifth floor before the old man could catch up.

A strong stench filled the air, and a faint light appeared in the darkness. Han Fei shook off the old man and decided to stay on the fifth floor.

When he first saw Li Daxing, the man was standing on the fifth floor holding something. Han Fei suspected that the large item Li Daxing was holding was his missing colleague.

The delicatessen reeked of a pungent stench that could knock a person unconscious. Han Fei looked at the shop with its small lanterns hanging around it, and before he even got close, he heard the sound of a cleaver hitting a cutting board. Pieces of meat splattered onto the white cloth, and the chef seemed to have gone mad.

Looking into the distance, Han Fei entered the store and looked towards the kitchen. The chef standing with his back to him was tall and imposing, but next to his cutting board were all kinds of knives, axes and the like.

The ingredients used by the chef were not taken from the refrigerator, but from suitcases next to the kitchen.

After chopping the meat on the cutting board, the chef kicked the suitcases next to him aside and forcefully opened the cabinet door, which was densely packed with black suitcases.

Pick one out at random, and the suitcase is still stained with blackened blood.

The chef, who was standing with his back to Han Fei, suddenly stopped what he was doing as he unzipped the suitcase. The suitcase was empty; there was nothing inside.

Turning around slightly, the chef stretched his neck, tilted his head back, and stared at Han Fei with a bloodied face: "So... you ran here."

With one hand dragging a suitcase and the other holding a thick-backed cleaver for chopping meat, the chef rushed out of the kitchen.

"Are you working yourself to death?"

Han Fei turned and ran. The number of dead people in that store was not just one or two.

After the chef chased Han Fei out of the deli, all of Han Fei's suitcases were moving, as if the "food" inside was about to come out.

The shopping mall now felt completely unfamiliar. Han Fei had many paths before him, but it seemed that every single one of them was a dead end.

"You can run this fast while dragging a suitcase? If you catch up with me today, all those 30 points of stamina I gained will have been for nothing?"

Han Fei had no recollection of the chef at the deli; he hadn't had any contact with him since entering the world of memories, and now he could only speculate based on his experience.

On the fourth floor, in the men's clothing section, the old man wearing the work uniform of a secondhand store seems to be Pei Yang's master, the old man who died in the store some time ago. From this, we can infer that the chef also died in the mall.

I don't know if it's because of the shrine, but everyone who dies in the mall is trapped here forever.

There was more than one delicatessen on the fifth floor. Although there were no crazy chefs in the other shops, there were diners sitting in the dark. All of them were sitting with their backs to Han Fei, seemingly waiting for the chef to serve their food.

When Han Fei saw Li Daxing on the fifth floor, he must have become a customer there.

As the sound of running approached, some diners who had been sitting with their backs to Han Fei slowly turned their heads. Their bloodshot eyes, almost popping out of their sockets, stared at Han Fei. Blood-stained steamed buns fell to the ground, and bright red tongues darted out of their mouths as they slowly licked their chapped lips.

They discovered something even tastier.

One by one, the diners stood up. They were dressed in different ways, some well-dressed and some in rags. They came from different places and received different educations, but when they saw fresh, running human flesh, they still excitedly chased after it.

Some people pretended to be gentlemen, quietly condemning others, while secretly preparing knives and forks in their hands behind their backs.

Someone took out a rope and swung it in front of Han Fei, saying they wanted to save him, but their face was full of greed.

Every diner pretended in front of the crowd, and no one openly proposed to share Han Fei, but everyone who came to watch Han Fei harbored such thoughts.

Han Fei also didn't understand why the shrine's master was having such a crazy hallucination. He felt that after experiencing many things, the shrine's master had begun to become extreme, and he was uncontrollably tilting towards the abyss.

"We can't let them catch us!"

Han Fei managed to escape from the diners' encirclement with all his might. In this situation, he was lucky to even save his own life, let alone find Li Daxing's colleagues.

The stench from the cooked food area gradually faded, and the small lanterns hanging at the restaurant entrance became blurry. Han Fei clutched his heart, panting heavily.

The intense stress and strenuous exercise put immense pressure on both the body and mind.

Bending down, Han Fei had no idea where he was hiding. The sounds in his left and right ears were starting to mix. The orioles playing on the mall's loudspeaker had stopped singing and were now emitting painful howls and screams that didn't sound like a human being could make.

His heart was pounding, and his veins were showing on his skin. Just as Han Fei was about to reach his limit, he suddenly heard a rustling sound above his head.

The faint light shone on the floor in front of him. Han Fei turned his head to look behind him and saw that the television on the shelf had been turned on at some point. A woman with disheveled hair and bleeding from her abdomen appeared on the screen. She was wearing a bright red dress and was laughing unconsciously.

She walked forward step by step, tiptoeing, as if she were dancing.

Her slender hands stretched out to both sides, and she slowly walked onto the unfinished cement platform.

People stared in astonishment at this madwoman, this beautiful yet mad spirit.

Her wounded feet sank into the dust as she gazed at the massive building still under construction, slowly raising her head.

Her mouth was open, as if she was saying something, until she lost her footing and fell!

The woman on the television screen fell downwards, but Han Fei heard the sound of wind in his ear!
Looking up, the hideous face was right above her, and the woman's face seemed to be torn apart by the fierce wind!

Instinctively, Han Fei swung his knife upwards, but missed everything. He looked around with lingering fear. All the televisions were turned on, and the black and red screens were repeatedly showing the woman's fall.

"It doesn't seem like she committed suicide?"

The woman's final state was clearly abnormal; her laughter was terrifying, far more chilling than her crying.

Moreover, Han Fei saw it very clearly: the woman's last step was an accidental misstep.

"She dances like a marionette."

They hurriedly fled the appliance section, but where could they escape to next?

The entire shopping mall was like a devil's furnace, where everything was changing. Only now did Han Fei truly understand the horror of the world's alienation.

The shrine's owner is slowly going insane, his hallucinations and reality-based memories twisting together. Without the blessing of the shrine's owner's mother, and without completing that previous task, perhaps the entire world of memories would have turned out this way.

"The mission requires survival for thirty days, but in reality, it's impossible for a normal player to survive to the end. I must become the new master of the shrine before the world is mutated to its worst state."

Screams rang in his ears, and Han Fei was forced to run to the top floor. He dared not stop for a moment.

The mall was in complete chaos. Han Fei looked at the elevator that had reached its end and silently turned around.

There were passageways all around, but no way to escape.

Hungry diners, stealthily moving suitcases, a crazed chef, and an endless stream of monsters beyond Han Fei's imagination crawling out of the darkness.

"I originally thought these things would appear gradually, so that I could be mentally prepared."

As he retreated, the shadows washed over Han Fei like a tide.

They were slowly approaching, trying to drag Han Fei into it as well.

"If you all fall into darkness, who in the world will help you?"

With seemingly no other choice, Han Fei retreated step by step until he reached a small shop on the top floor. To avoid being engulfed by the darkness, he climbed onto a table at the shop's entrance.

He was standing at the highest point of the mall, with the railing at his feet.

Turning his head, Han Fei looked down from the seventh floor.

In the center of the shopping mall on the first floor, familiar and unfamiliar figures were looking up at him, seemingly waiting for him to jump.

(End of this chapter)