Chapter 269: Arrival
Jiang Che held the girl in his arms; she was very light.
"What’s your name? My daughter’s name is Tuantuan." Jiang Che looked at her legs and couldn’t help but furrow his brow.
He reached out to pinch her limp calf; the muscles were so slack that the skin barely bounced back when pressed.
With both legs lost and malnourished, her limbs looked even more skin and bones.
Just touching them, Jiang Che felt as if he might snap her legs in half.
The sound of bones grinding together was also painfully obvious.
"My name is Cao Ai. My brother is Cao Yong. Uncle, just call me Yi." Leaning against Jiang Che’s shoulder, Yi felt, since the supernatural descended, this was the first person apart from her brother to pick her up and care about her legs.
"Let’s go, I’ll take you back." Jiang Che held Yi with one hand, the other cradling the box.
Cao Yong was a little at a loss; with time passing, his hands could finally move again.
He had only seen Jiang Che before in live streams.
When Jiang Che streamed for the first time, he hadn’t watched—just heard that someone had escaped alive from a SSS-grade dungeon at Red Pearl Mental Hospital.
He didn’t watch the stream. Hearing this, he only thought it might be another sort of disaster.
He’d never dealt with mentally ill people, but every story he’d heard was about someone faking insanity to escape trial after killing someone,
or genuinely losing control and murdering many, many people.
To him, the mentally ill were no different from evil lunatics.
But now, for the sake of survival, he was begging this mental patient to lead them out of here.
Listen to what Jiang Che says. What kind of talk is that?
Kids should have a happy, carefree childhood?
Even without the arrival of the supernatural, he doubted he’d have a happy or carefree childhood.
Up close, he looked at Jiang Che—under the side light in the night, half his face vanished in shadow; the rest, bathed in orange-yellow glow, was gently smiling at the girl, a soft, sincere smile.
Could someone like this really be mentally ill?
Or is this what mental illness really looks like—moods shifting with no warning?
Seeing both of Jiang Che’s hands full, Cao Yong, nervous and awkward, looked more at the box in Jiang Che’s hand. "Uncle, how about I hold this for you?"
Jiang Che glanced down at the box in his hand, weighed it—since it wasn’t heavy, passed it to Cao Yong.
As soon as Cao Yong spoke, he regretted it. Jiang Che had come empty-handed but chose to only take this box—it must be precious.
Would Jiang Che think he was scheming for the box?
But to his surprise, Jiang Che simply weighed it, then handed it over without a second thought.
When he took the box, he paused, stunned—it had looked heavy, handled with such care by Jiang Che.
But in his palm, it was impossibly light.
Softer even than the stones by the roadside.
He held it delicately in both hands—light doesn’t mean what’s inside isn’t valuable.
"No need to be so careful. It’s just a bunch of dried flowers inside." Seeing his cautious look, Jiang Che quickly spoke up.
He himself didn’t really know why he’d agreed to take these two children with him.
Maybe when Cao Yong stood before him, he felt like he was seeing his own reflection.
If there’d ever been hope of escaping Red Pearl Mental Hospital, he would have been like Cao Yong.
Dried flowers?
Cao Yong looked at the metal box in his hands.
This whole box, and inside was merely a bunch of dried flowers?
He couldn’t understand it, but he still held it reverently in his palms.
He followed behind Jiang Che, all the way to the edge of the city.
Night pressed low, a layer of deep blue mist drifting through the sky, points of starlight brightening the darkness above.
The moonlight was gentle, but beneath it, the Dark Forest was anything but.
The city lights behind them shimmered, while the Dark Forest ahead was draped in a pale white mist.
Watching Jiang Che walk toward the Dark Forest, Cao Yong’s steps faltered.
He’d heard far too many tales of the Dark Forest—how could he not be afraid?
Yet seeing Jiang Che move forward without pause, he hesitated only a second before following into the Dark Forest.
The moment he stepped inside, it felt like every sound in his ears vanished.
The cacophony all disappeared, leaving only the crunch and snap of branches under Jiang Che’s feet in the lead.
He kept close behind Jiang Che, as the forest showed not the slightest movement.
The tree trunks, twisted into grotesque faces, didn’t creak with the wind—just stood stiff, weirdly silent.
"As long as you don’t touch them, nothing will happen."
There was plenty of space between the trees; walking in a straight line was no problem.
"Is it always like this?" Cao Yong asked, startled. If a little caution was always enough, would they all be so fearful?
"Of course not."
Cao Yong instantly realized his slip and found his own thought ridiculous.
If the secret were that easy, it wouldn’t fall to him to discover it.
Jiang Che led the way in front—he wasn’t foolish enough to literally walk all the way back.
With every step, the ground beneath his feet rolled and shifted on its own.
It looked like a single step, yet it brought them miles away.
Cao Yong only felt the strangeness—in this forest, with every step, the whole scene around them changed.
Though darkness blanketed the woods so thoroughly they seemed unchanged, a careful look revealed subtle differences with every step.
One moment the grotesque faces on the tree were staring him down, the next, they’d turned away.
"Lord, are we in danger? This forest is shifting..." Cao Yong’s heart tightened.
"You have sharp eyes." With one stride, Jiang Che brought them to a different world.
"We’re here." Jiang Che looked toward the long concrete path at the entrance to Red Pearl Mental Hospital.
He’d once been desperate to escape down this road, yet today was his first time returning the proper way.
This time, it felt like coming home.
"We’re here?" Cao Yong and Yi were stunned, seeing the view ahead had shifted entirely.
Unlike the blinding lights of Leng Feng’s dungeon, Jiang Che’s side showed only the distant, gentle white lights of the mental hospital.
The lights weren’t that bright, but compared to the treacherous glare of Leng Feng’s dungeon, they felt warm instead of ominous.
Cao Yong looked back at the forest, and all of it seemed so, so far away.
His feet no longer hurt with every step—no thorns, no sticky blood beneath him.
For the first time in so long, he was truly standing on solid ground.
As soon as he entered, he saw, on the far side of the gate, a patch of barren ground—unlike Jiang Che’s side, it was full of black soil and scattered brown clay jars.
In the middle was only a narrow cement walkway, dividing the two territories apart.