Circle of Inevitability

As Lumian rounded the main building and saw the separate small building housing the psychiatric department, his phone vibrated once.

It was a WeChat message from Franca: "I've arrived near Mushu Hospital, parked diagonally across the street."

"Good, I'm about to enter the psychiatric department." Lumian replied using voice input.

He then put his phone in airplane mode to avoid any unexpected disturbances like spam calls during the operation.

He immediately activated the contract mark below his left shoulder, transforming himself into a shadow creature.

He currently didn't know which room in the psychiatric ward Li Keji was confined in, so he couldn't directly teleport there. He needed to search around, and Shadow Transformation was more discreet than "hiding in shadows", making it less likely to be discovered.

Lumian's body quickly thinned and darkened, merging with his own shadow cast by the sunlight, standing alone frozen on the cement ground.

He swiftly glided along, using the shadows of corners, trees, and corridors to make his way into the psychiatric ward, sneaking into the nearest room.

"Haha, haha." The patient in this room was laughing constantly, laughing so hard his waist was bent, tears flowing from the corners of his eyes.

He glanced at the patient, confirmed it wasn't Li Keji, and immediately retreated through the shadow of the door crack.

As soon as he returned to the hallway, his state quickly returned to normal.

Lumian didn't delay at all and entered the next room.

He suddenly became irritable, wanting to burst out of the shadows and rush to the nurses' station, demanding they hand over Li Keji.

His ears were then filled with loud shouts:

"I'm not crazy! I'm not crazy!

"Caution can indeed handle most situations, but it can't solve all problems.

"When it's time to take risks, you still need to take risks!"

Lumian roughly determined who the patient in this room was and silently retreated to the hallway of the psychiatric ward.

He glided through the shadows cast by various objects, moving into another patient room.

What entered his field of vision was a patient locked to the bed, as quiet as a statue.

A feeling of sadness and grief gradually welled up in Lumian's heart. He wanted to go mad, to harm himself.

Wh— He maintained his rationality and didn't linger long in this room.

After regaining his composure in the hallway, Lumian seriously pondered his recent encounters.

As soon as I enter a patient room, I get infected by the corresponding mental patient?

Mental illness has become contagious, similar to the manifestation of that humanoid Sealed Artifact we encountered before…

I understand now, this place is essentially a dream, and the mental patients also have corresponding symbolism.

They symbolize the negative, crazy, extremely irrational emotions and mental states of the dream's subconscious. And interactions within the dream are essentially spiritual interactions, so once you get close, you get affected…

Why are the doctors and nurses here still normal?

Do they symbolize the dream subconscious's power to suppress madness and extremes?

From this perspective, the thoughts that suppress crazy mentalities and extreme emotions can also be infected, which is reflected in the dream as doctors or nurses occasionally going mad?

Hmm, the doctors here, the nurses here, the medicines and medical equipment here can all be used to deal with the dream's own crazy mentality and extreme emotions. They symbolize the corresponding forces…

Lumian turned his gaze to a nearby treatment cart, looking at the syringes and medicines placed on it.

He felt that in special scenarios, these things might be more useful and effective than the treatment drugs he and others carried.

They were part of the dream's power.

Having understood the special circumstances of the psychiatric ward, Lumian maintained his shadow creature state and moved even faster, just glancing at each room to avoid being infected by the emotions of different patients.

However, he didn't find Li Keji or discover any mushrooms.

Not in the psychiatric ward? Lumian quickly left this place, came to the iron gate at a corner of the wall, re-entered under the pretext of visiting a patient, and approached the nurses' station.

Wearing sunglasses and a mask, he said to the nurse on duty, "I'm here to visit Li Keji."

"Wait a little longer, the patient was sent for treatment and hasn't returned to his room yet," the nurse looked up at Lumian.

"Where was he sent for treatment?" Lumian suddenly had a bad feeling.

The nurse explained simply, "B1 of the main building, there's specialized large equipment there."

B1 of the main building… Lumian nodded, turned around, and walked out of the psychiatric department.

On his way to the main building of Mushu Hospital, he restored his phone signal and sent a message to Franca: "Li Keji has been sent to B1, I plan to go look for him.

"If I haven't sent you a message within a quarter of an hour, have Ludwig come find mom, this should be very useful in B1.

"If all else fails, the corpse wax candle can be used once more, and Chief Yagates's honorific name can also be called upon."

Lumian explained in such detail to tell Franca that he still had a way out, to prevent her from risking herself to save him.

After quite a while, Franca replied briefly: "Be very careful, prioritize your own safety."

Lumian switched his phone back to airplane mode, transformed into a shadow creature, and infiltrated the main building.

This time, he didn't choose the elevator, but glided down the dim emergency staircase step by step.

Arriving at B1, just as he turned into the elevator hall, he saw glass doors at the exit.

At this moment, the glass doors were half open, with a wheelchair placed at the entrance.

A person sat in the wheelchair, their entire body wrapped in white bandages, like a living mummy.

Lumian suddenly had a sense of familiarity.

His spiritual intuition told him that the person in the wheelchair was his "colleague", Old Ding, who had been injured by lightning strike at work.

How did Old Ding end up in B1? Where are his family members? Lumian carefully circled around through the shadows next to Old Ding.

The next second, he saw Old Ding struggling to extend his right hand, reaching towards a white paper pasted on the half-open glass door.

Several words were written on that white paper: "Medical area, no entry to unauthorized personnel"

Lumian withdrew his gaze, not interrupting his infiltration.

As he glided along the shadows on the side of the corridor towards where he suspected patients might be, Lumian gradually became uneasy.

He unconsciously looked down and found that at some point he had separated from the shadows and returned to human form.

His contract ability had naturally become ineffective!

Lumian also noticed that the clothes on his body were slowly changing, transforming into the standard attire of a Mushu Hospital orderly.

Wh— Lumian associated this with the "mummy" Old Ding at the entrance and that notice, thought of the illusory abyss underground and the characteristics of the Mother Tree of Desire pathway, and quickly formed a guess.

There was a strong curse in this area!

The content of the curse was: no entry to unauthorized personnel!

In other words, unauthorized personnel who enter will become authorized personnel, becoming orderlies who frequently enter and exit this place, becoming puppets of the illusory abyss? After figuring this out, Lumian naturally understood how to break this curse.

But he didn't dare to do so.

His method of breaking the curse was to shout on the spot "Mother, I am Your child!"

The essence of this statement was to acknowledge himself as a true Child of God.

And B1 of Mushu Hospital clearly contained the power and influence of the Great Mother, with the "newborn" in the morgue being proof of this.

Under these premises, the Child of God of the Great Mother certainly wouldn't be considered unauthorized personnel!

Lumian felt the abnormal changes in his body accelerating, and for the moment he couldn't think of any other way, so he had no choice but to activate the black mark on his right shoulder and teleport away from this level.

He appeared in the emergency stairwell on the first floor, which was empty.

Fortunately, I could teleport out from B1; otherwise, I would have had to use the corpse wax candle or call upon the honorific names of Madam Magician or Chief Yagates… No, at the speed of the changes just now, the Beyonder ritual wouldn't have had time to take effect… Lumian looked down to examine himself and found that his clothes had returned to normal.

He transformed back into a shadow creature and came to the entrance of the emergency stairwell, observing the up and down movement of the elevators while pondering how to penetrate basement level one and rescue Li Keji without becoming a true Child of God.

Amidst his swirling thoughts, Lumian saw a special elevator come up from B1, and an orderly pushed out a transfer bed.

A nurse stood on each side of the transfer bed, and lying on it was a man with a thick beard, eyes tightly closed, wearing blue and white striped hospital clothes.

It was Li Keji.

Has the "treatment" ended? Lumian's eyes narrowed.

Was I still too late after all?

He watched Li Keji being pushed out of the elevator hall, following in the shadows all the way, out of the main building and back to the psychiatric department.

After confirming Li Keji's hospital room, Lumian first returned outside, behind some green trees, took out his phone, switched modes, and sent a message to Franca: "Couldn't penetrate B1. There's a curse inside; I was forced to leave early.

"Now, Li Keji has completed 'treatment' and returned to his room. I plan to sneak in to confirm his condition. If it's unsalvageable, I'll execute the cleanup plan."

Franca quickly replied: "If the cleanup is too complicated, we can abandon it for now and bring Ludwig to try.

"I think he's very effective against food-type enemies, like mushrooms."

That makes sense… Lumian replied with an "OK" and directly put the phone into the Traveler's Bag.

There might be a battle coming up, so he needed to protect his phone.

Soon after, Lumian in his shadow creature state slipped through the door crack of Li Keji's room, silently rising up in front of the bed.

He looked around, gazed at the still sleeping Li Keji, and began to assess his condition.

Suddenly, Li Keji opened his eyes and sat up.

Seeing it was Lumian, he showed a genuine smile.

"I've discovered the essence!

"I've succeeded!"

Lumian's expression changed abruptly.

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