My Healing Games

Chapter 643 Knife
The words behind the mask seemed to be written for Han Fei; it was a question that transcended time and space.

Even if happiness is a monster, I'd still want to get closer, right?

Upon recognizing the problem, Han Fei immediately arrived at the answer: the more one lacks something, the more one cares about it.

He desperately wanted to hold onto happiness, because he had never experienced happiness before.

“At first, his mask still showed his own image, but in the end, it turned into a clown covered in paint.” F also looked at Number Eleven’s mask: “He wanted to be a clown who only laughed, a clown who didn’t think about sadness. I sympathize with the boy’s situation, but I don’t agree with his actions.”

"Perhaps he doesn't need your sympathy or approval?" Han Fei said calmly, watching as F took the clown mask and put it into the backpack brought by the group of players.

“Happiness is something only children seek out; for adults, happiness is something they have to create themselves,” F said pointedly. “You look like a child who hasn’t grown up.”

"Me?" Han Fei did not refute. He had forgotten too many things, including his childhood.

Walking to the bedroom window, Han Fei looked towards Building 1. The window of Bedroom 11 faced Building 1 directly, and he always felt that something in that building was attracting him.

"I get scared when I get close to the window, I feel like someone is going to push me off, but I still keep trying to walk towards the window."

A weak meow came from the backpack. Han Fei reached out and stroked the cat's head. "Did you feel it too? Didn't we live in Building Number One before? My family should be there. They left a light on for me that would never go out, and they would prepare hot porridge and delicious meat for me. I should go there, but I'm also very scared. I don't even know what I'm afraid of?"

Since losing his memory, Han Fei often feels dazed and occasionally speaks in a neurotic manner. He sees everything as if it is shrouded in a veil called nightmare.

The cat's meows grew louder, and Han Fei's heart pounded even harder. He slowly raised his head.

Outside the window, there was a head that was completely bald, like a balloon, standing upside down by the window!
Her cloudy eyes were filled with pills, and the woman's thick, deformed hands suddenly grabbed at Han Fei.

"careful!"

F and Li Guo'er ran towards Han Fei, but they were still too far away to help him.

An arm with bulging veins stretched out in front of Han Fei's face. He had never expected this to happen. His mind went blank, and his eyes were fixed on the woman's face.

Just when everyone thought Han Fei was about to be dragged out of the window by the woman, Han Fei's hand holding the knife moved.

The blade, illuminated by the dim candlelight, sliced ​​through the darkness, leaving two neat cuts on the woman's arm.

No blood was flowing from the wound, but the woman seemed frightened and fell off the pipe, dragging her injured arms.

When Han Fei stood by the window and looked out, he couldn't find any trace of the woman. He only saw that the window on the third floor seemed to be open.

"Are you alright!" Li Guo'er ran to Han Fei, her face full of surprise: "You can use a knife?"

"I...don't remember." Han Fei looked at his hands. After he forced the woman away, a voice came from the depths of his mind. He still couldn't hear what the voice was saying, but he could clearly feel that the voice was becoming clearer and clearer, as if it was getting closer and closer to him.

"Why are there so many voices in my head?" Han Fei usually appeared dull and ordinary, but after that slash just now, neither Li Guo'er nor F dared to underestimate him.

“The knife left behind by Number Eleven can hurt them, but…” Han Fei glanced furtively at the black knife in F’s hand. He felt that the black knife was a bit out of place, as if the hilt and the blade were pieced together: “That knife seems to be mine.”

Han Fei had no recollection of F, but he felt a strong possessiveness toward the knife in F's hand, a very strange feeling.

“You seem to be quite skilled with knives as well. There aren’t many people who can handle knives these days, and even fewer who frequently use them to kill.” F coldly put away the black knife, placed all the masks in the cabinet into his backpack, and walked out of the bedroom.

"Hey, don't mess with F," Ah Chong whispered to Han Fei. "He really has killed people, and more than one."

Han Fei nodded slightly: "So that's why the knife in his hand turned black?"

"I don't understand what you're saying, just pay attention." Ah Chong scratched his head: "Haven't I heard your voice somewhere before?"

Everyone was wearing a white mask, and their memories seemed incomplete; no one dared to be sure of the other's identity.

"I don't know." Han Fei didn't pay attention to Ah Chong. He looked down at the knife in his hand. The knife left behind by Number Eleven looked very ordinary, except that two words were crookedly written on the hilt: "Companionship".

"This knife is called 'Companionship'? To accompany someone with a sharp, pointed knife?"

Han Fei couldn't understand, but Li Guo'er next to him thought it was normal: "When emotions are intense to a certain degree, coupled with a lack of proper ways to express them, love and murderous intent become intertwined, and you want the person you love to stay with you forever. I've had that impulse before."

"Looks like I'm not the only one in this world who's sick," Han Fei muttered to himself, making Li Guo'er roll her eyes.

The two walked out of the bedroom. As Han Fei took the knife out of the bedroom, the clouds above the residential area slowly dispersed, and the sky was filled with blood-red streaks, as if a giant eye was slowly opening.

"The knife the child hid in the bedroom was called 'companionship,' and behind the mask, he said happiness was a monster. This child's worldview is just like the nightmares I have."

Having been abandoned time and again, treated like cats and dogs, and given large amounts of medication every day, the city in the child's mind has completely changed. Perhaps the neighborhood that Han Fei and his friends are entering is the world as seen through the eyes of No. 11.

Completely sealed off, as if living deep within a well, with a giant, malevolent eye growing from the sky above.

"The strong woman was probably the last foster mother of No. 11. Her eyes were stuffed with pills, and her gaze was fixed on the medicine. She seemed to be urging the child to take the medicine. The eye above the community should represent the traffickers' surveillance of the child. No matter where he escaped, he could not escape their gaze."

The more Han Fei thought about it, the more curious he became about what happiness looked like in Number Eleven's eyes.

"Didn't you see a ghost before? What does a ghost look like? What was it doing when you saw it?" More and more players began to feel uneasy, and they surrounded Li Guo'er, asking all sorts of questions about ghosts.

“Ghosts can only be seen under specific circumstances.” Li Guo’er’s voice came from under the mask: “For example, when he kills someone, or at the moment a living person dies.”

"Oh!"

A loud bang came from the corridor, followed by screams. All the players who heard the noise started running outside.

"Don't panic!" F's reminder came too late; Qianye and the other two players guarding the corridor had already chased after them upstairs.

"What happened?" Ah Chong shouted.

"The sentry has been dragged away! It's that woman! She ran upstairs!"

"Don't rush to chase them, and whatever you do, don't rush up!" Li Guo'er's reminder was useless; those players had already run far away.

"The Sentinel's hidden talent is enhanced perception; we can't lose him." F seemed to know the hidden talents of every player, and these players seemed to have been carefully selected by him, each with a unique role.

The player running in the lead seemed to have already engaged with something; he was thrown away by a tremendous force, his body slammed against the wall, and he tumbled down the stairs.

"Seventh, seventh floor, on the seventh floor!" These players were in excellent physical condition. After falling, they struggled for a few moments before getting up again. He picked up the mask from the ground and hurriedly put it on.

Shouts, yells, and chaotic footsteps echoed in the stairwell, with everyone crowding between the sixth and seventh floors.

"Make way!" F, wearing a trench coat, grabbed Ah Chong and squeezed through the crowd, but the sentry and the woman had already disappeared from the stairwell: "Where's the sentry?"

"Didn't catch it." Qianye shook his head, took out a cigarette from his pocket, and then lit it with a lighter. "That thing was much faster than me. Are there really ghosts in this world?"

“Those who are faster than you aren’t necessarily ghosts.” F glanced at Han Fei out of the corner of his eye.

“Indeed, you five-second man are faster than me.” Qianye, with a cigarette in his mouth, slowly became excited, his previous laziness gone, and his eyes began to change: “Didn’t you say that knife can kill ghosts? I’ll create an opportunity for you to kill it.”

Exhaling a puff of smoke, Qianye and F passed each other by a step and arrived on the seventh floor.

He was dressed in flashy clothes, but he seemed to have some real skills. At least he had the confidence to face the unknown. When so many players were afraid, he dared to move forward alone.

“You go over there too.” F pushed Ah Chong hard. He seemed to know Ah Chong’s hidden talents and abilities, and knew that Ah Chong would unleash his potential and activate another personality the more danger he encountered.

This scene was also witnessed by Han Fei at the back of the group, and a thought inexplicably popped into his mind: "It seems that only I could see their abilities before? But how come I have lost this ability now? These game participants are all so strange, and they seem out of place with me and Li Guo'er."

Han Fei's mind was still in a daze; even the simplest questions required him to think for a long time.

Before he could get an answer, Qianye and Achong had already opened the door to their room on the seventh floor.

A giant cat-skin doll fell out from behind the door. The doll was about the size of a five or six-year-old child, but it was covered in cat skin, making it look eerie and creepy.

"Is that a cat?" Ah Chong hid behind Qian Ye, his body almost shrinking into Qian Ye's shadow.

"Look at your cowardly appearance, I really don't know why Rose and F are so optimistic about you." Qianye flicked his cigarette butt at the cat-skin doll. He was about to walk into the house when the doll, which was covered in cat skin, suddenly seemed to come alive. Like a child, it used its hands and feet to quickly climb into the house.

"Alive?" The players were all startled; all the "living things" in the building were deformed.

“The ledger uses a cat to represent a child; this is probably what a cat looks like in the eyes of a ‘ghost.’” Ah Chong gripped Qianye’s floral shirt tightly. “What an outrageous neighborhood. Are all the people living here crazy?”

Han Fei and F downstairs sneezed at the same time, but neither of them paid any attention to it.

“There’s more than one monster. Keep an eye on what’s behind me.” Qianye was worried about the sentry’s safety and decisively went inside.

A strong stench hit him, and he looked to both sides but could not find the source of the stench.

Taking another step forward, the cat-skin doll that had just escaped cautiously peeked out from the bedroom. It lay on the floor in utter terror, its body trembling uncontrollably.

"Are you afraid of me? You're actually afraid of a gentle man with an 8-point charm rating?" The stench at the tip of his nose grew stronger and stronger, and Qianye slowly realized that something was wrong. He noticed that the cat-skin doll's eyes were secretly looking upwards.

"That stench seems to be coming down from above my head." Qianye looked up and saw a fat man lying on the ceiling above the doorway.

His fingers were deformed like syringes, and tentacles resembling restraints grew from his back. He exuded savagery and stench, and yellowish-brown saliva dripped continuously from his open mouth.

"Holy crap?" Qianye was tall and handsome, and his face was very close to the man's face.

After a brief exchange of glances, a tentacle resembling a restraint pierced Qianye's face, seemingly preparing to pierce through his eye socket.

"Get out of the way!"

Qianye reacted very quickly, dodging to the side. As he avoided the tentacles, he shouted behind him to warn his companions, "It's on the ceiling!"

Before he could finish speaking, the man fell from the ceiling, his fingers, now deformed into syringes, piercing Qianye's body.

Terrified, Qianye rolled on the ground to dodge, yelling, "F! Attack!"

F, waiting for his chance, slashed the monster's neck before it could stand up.

When he used that black knife, Han Fei felt as if his heart had been pricked by a needle, and he seemed to hear a crying sound coming from the black knife.

To be precise, when F swung the knife, there were many people screaming and resisting inside the hilt of that black knife.

"F mainly uses the blade to kill, but I seem to be different..." Han Fei fell into confusion again: "How can I kill without a blade, only the hilt?"

The black blade's slashing effect far exceeded everyone's expectations. As the blade sliced ​​through, a finger-width wound appeared on the monster's neck, which was impossible to heal.

The monster, which had narrowly escaped being beheaded, crashed into the door of the adjacent kitchen and fled through the open window.

F seemed surprised by Black Knife's power. His eyes narrowed slowly: "Starting from the same point, shouldn't I be the first to get 100 points this time?"

"If you had been any slower, he would have killed me. That thing looks disgusting." Qianye got up from the ground, rummaged in his pocket for a while, and then took out a comb and combed his hair.

“The woman is the foster mother, and this man is probably the ‘ghost’s’ foster father. The tentacles represent ropes and restraints, and the syringe at the fingertips should represent forced injections.” F wiped the black knife, not a drop of blood on the blade. It seemed as if the things he had chopped off had been eaten by the black knife: “Can good become so terrifying after being alienated? Human nature is truly unfathomable.”

(End of this chapter)