Chapter 1: Hospital Room

A sharp chemical smell hung in the air, thick with formaldehyde and something far worse beneath it—a metallic stench that reminded Lin Yan of old blood. The odor seemed to seep from the walls themselves, as though something enormous were slowly decaying within them.

Lin Yan opened his eyes.

He was lying on a narrow metal hospital bed. The mattress beneath him was thin, while the metal frame felt cold and unforgiving.

Everything before him was washed in a sickly yellow haze.

A single fluorescent tube buzzed overhead, its dusty cover dulling the light into a murky glow. The walls were painted in an outdated hospital green, though time had done its best to strip them bare. Large patches of paint had peeled away, exposing damp stains and spreading mold underneath. The discoloration crawled across the walls like infected flesh.

A hospital ward.

The cramped room held four metal beds in total. Aside from the one he occupied, the others sat abandoned. Wrinkled gray sheets had been shoved to the foot of each mattress, stained here and there with dark brown blotches that looked far too old to identify anymore.

“Where… am I?”

Lin Yan pushed himself upright and rubbed his temples. His head still felt foggy.

The last thing he remembered was being in his craft studio, sanding a piece of red sandalwood for a handmade comb. Outside his window, the city had been alive with neon lights and traffic.

Now, beyond the hospital room’s grimy window, there was nothing. Only darkness so dense it seemed almost solid, as though it were pressing against the glass.

[Ding!]

[Welcome to Rules Horror: Abandoned Hospital!]

[This medical facility has long been forgotten, lost somewhere between the cracks of time. Its director seems to have… rather unconventional ideas about treatment.]

[Mission Objective: Survive for 72 hours and obtain your discharge papers.]

[Beginner’s Tip: Never forget that the rules are both your shackles and your protection. Those who break them will receive treatment.]

A cold, mechanical voice rang out directly inside Lin Yan’s head, completely devoid of emotion.

At the same time, a faint burning sensation spread across the inside of his left wrist.

He looked down.

Somehow, a pale blue tattoo appeared there.

71:59:48

The countdown ticked steadily downward, one second at a time.

“Infinite flow? Rules horror?” Lin Yan murmured, a slight furrow forming between his brows. As a longtime craft enthusiast and an avid reader of mystery and horror novels, he was more than familiar with both concepts. It was just that he never imagined he’d end up inside one himself.

The initial panic faded surprisingly quickly. In its place came a strange mix of excitement and caution.

The unknown was dangerous, but it also meant entirely new materials to work with… and endless possibilities.

He immediately checked everything he had on him. He was still wearing the same casual clothes he’d had on before arriving. In his pockets were only his phone—now completely without signal—a ring of keys, and a Victorinox Swiss Card. Slung over his shoulder was the small leather pouch he always carried.

Inside were sewing thread, a small spool of fishing line, several sewing needles in different sizes, a block of beeswax, and a miniature file.

They were just the everyday tools he always kept on hand for his craft, but he hadn’t expected them to come with him.

“Looks like personal belongings can be brought in,” Lin Yan observed calmly, his gaze sweeping across the hospital room.

[Rules have been updated. Please read the Ward Rules posted outside your hospital room.]

The mechanical voice sounded in his mind once more.

Lin Yan immediately swung his legs out of bed, moving as quietly as possible. The old terrazzo floor was icy beneath his bare feet, each step producing a faint scrape against the worn stone.

He walked over to the door. It was an aging green wooden door left slightly ajar, with the number 304 sloppily painted across it in crooked red strokes.

Tacked to the wall beside it was a yellowed sheet of paper. The words looked as though they’d been scrawled in blood, now dried to a dark, rusty crimson.

[ Ward Rules

1. Ward rounds take place every day at 09:00, 15:00, and 21:00. During rounds, keep your bed neat and remain in your assigned bed at all times.

2. You must obey every instruction given by a doctor. However, if the doctor is carrying a red stethoscope, ignore everything they say and proceed immediately to the nurses’ station for assistance.

3. Meals are delivered three times a day by the hospital aides. Make sure your food appears normal. If you find an eyeball, a finger, or any other human body part on your tray, flush it down the toilet immediately and pretend nothing happened.

4. Lights-out is from 22:00 to 6:00. During these hours, do not leave your hospital room. No matter what you hear, do not open the door, and do not answer anyone.

5. The call button is to be used only in life-threatening emergencies. Anyone who abuses it will receive “special care” from the nurses.]

There were only five rules, yet every one of them felt deeply, unnervingly wrong.

“Doctors carrying a red stethoscope are dangerous…  and the nurses’ station is some kind of safe zone?” Lin Yan muttered under his breath, mentally filing away the important details.

Then something else caught his eye.

Near the bottom of the page, beneath the fifth rule, was what looked like a line of text that had been deliberately smeared out. It was so faint that it was nearly invisible.

He leaned closer, brushing his fingertips across the faded marks. Years of meticulous craftsmanship had trained his eye to catch even the smallest details. After studying them for a moment, he managed to make out a few fragmented words. “The… numbers… in… the mirror… are… real…”

The numbers in the mirror?

Lin Yan instinctively turned back toward the room, but there wasn’t a mirror anywhere inside.

The only reflective surface was the empty picture frame hanging on the wall opposite the foot of the beds. Its sheet of glass reflected the dim hospital room in a murky, distorted haze.

The instant his gaze landed on the picture frame’s glass, his pupils contracted.

Reflected in the glass, the room door behind him had somehow crept open even farther. A bloated, deathly pale face peered through the gap, its completely white, pupil-less eyes fixed unblinkingly on him.

A chill shot down the back of Lin Yan’s neck, raising goosebumps as cold sweat threatened to prickle across his skin. Every instinct screamed at him to spin around or cry out, but he crushed the impulse before it could take hold.

The rules hadn’t mentioned how to deal with something like this, but perhaps the rule about not responding applied here as well.

He kept his eyes fixed on the picture frame, refusing even to blink. Instead, he kept the face in the reflection locked in the corner of his vision, never looking at it directly.

It was a nightmare to behold.

Its skin looked waterlogged, as though it had been submerged for days—deeply wrinkled and laced with bluish-purple veins. Its lips had peeled back, exposing rows of yellowed teeth.

Worst of all were its eyes.

There were no irises or pupils, only two cloudy white orbs. And yet he could unmistakably feel them watching him.

Time seemed to grind to a halt.

Lin Yan could hear his own heart pounding in his chest, each beat like a drum. Yet not a hint of it showed on his face. Instead, only the faintest flicker of puzzlement crossed his features, as though he were simply studying the dust on the picture frame.

Slowly, he raised a hand, but not toward his weapon. The little combat knife he carried would be about as useful against something like this as a child’s toy. Instead, he casually brushed an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve.

The movement was effortless and casual. It was the sort of absentminded gesture someone would make when they felt perfectly safe, as if they were simply lost in thought.

In the reflection, the pale face tilted its head slightly, as though puzzled by his reaction.

Its mouth slowly parted. A forked, purple-black tongue slid out, gliding across its decaying lips.

Not a sound.

It simply kept watching.

A few seconds later, as though it had lost interest, the face slowly withdrew into the shadows beyond the crack in the door.

Even after the reflection showed nothing out of the ordinary, Lin Yan remained perfectly still for another half minute. Only then did he move, as though he’d simply finished examining the picture frame, and turned naturally to face the room door.

Beyond the narrow gap lay a dimly lit corridor, empty and utterly still. The only sound was the steady drip of liquid somewhere far away, each drop unnervingly loud in the suffocating silence.

Drip… drip…

Lin Yan slowly eased the door shut until it clicked softly into place. Leaning back against the icy door, he finally let out a long, slow breath. Cold sweat had already soaked his back.

For that brief instant, he’d felt closer to death than ever before. If years of painstaking handcrafting hadn’t forged his exceptional focus and emotional control, panic alone might have been enough to trigger whatever instant-death mechanism lurked here.

“Stay calm, Lin Yan. Stay calm,” he told himself. “Everything here follows a set of rules. As long as I don’t break them, I have a chance of surviving.”

Then he turned back to the hospital room. His gaze was now sharp and focused, like a master craftsman inspecting a rough block of wood before carving it.

“First, I need to figure out how this room is put together.”

Then, he began searching the room methodically.

The iron-framed bed held nothing beneath its sheets except clumps of moldy stuffing. The bedside table’s drawer was empty, but Lin Yan refused to overlook even the smallest detail. He ran a fingernail along the bottom of the drawer until he felt the panel shift slightly beneath the pressure.

A false bottom.

He carefully pried it open just enough to reach inside. Feeling around in the narrow space, his fingertips brushed against something cold and hard.

He pulled it out.

It was an old brass key, worn smooth with age. A faintly engraved “7” was barely visible on its surface.

“A hidden item?” Lin Yan murmured as he slipped the key into his pocket.

Next, he walked over to the empty picture frame hanging on the wall.

The wooden frame had begun to rot around the edges. He tapped lightly on the glass before feeling along the back panel. His fingers caught on something hidden inside the backing board—a stiff piece of cardstock.

He pulled it free and found an old black-and-white photograph.

It showed a young boy in a hospital gown sitting with his head lowered, clutching a ragged cloth doll to his chest. The background appeared to be this very room.

But something was different.

Hanging on the wall behind the boy wasn’t an empty photo frame, but a round mirror.

Lin Yan immediately looked up at the wall.

The mirror was gone. Only the empty frame hung there.

He flipped the photograph over. Scrawled across the back in a child’s shaky handwriting were a few short sentences.

“The world in the mirror is backwards.

Uncle Doctor hates mirrors, so he hid them all.

I want to go home, but Mommy said I can’t leave until I’m cured.

The big sister in Room 307 said the numbers in the mirror are the real ones.”

The big sister in Room 307?

Lin Yan committed the information to memory. So there were entities in this dungeon that could provide clues—neutral NPCs… or perhaps ghosts.

His gaze returned to the frame. This time, he ignored the reflection and studied the glass itself.

It’s… thicker than it should be.

Years spent crafting by hand had given him an uncanny feel for materials. The moment he lifted the frame off the wall, he noticed its unexpected weight.

He tested the edge with his thumbs. Creak…

“A hidden compartment?”

His eyes lit up.

He immediately pulled the Swiss Card from his pocket, flipped out the tiny utility blade, and carefully worked it into the narrow seam along the edge of the frame. His hands never wavered. With a subtle twist of his wrist, he applied just enough leverage to pry one side loose.

Snap!

The edge of the frame popped free. Just as he’d suspected, there was a hollow cavity between the glass and the backing. Something had been hidden inside.

Holding his breath, Lin Yan gently fished it out with the tip of the blade.

It was a bloodstained roll of gauze, the dark crimson stains long since dried. And… half of a human pinky bone. A silver ring still encircled the severed bone, and there seemed to be an engraving inside the band.

Lin Yan didn’t touch the bone. Instead, he lifted the bloodstained gauze with the tip of his knife. Despite the grime, the gauze felt oddly cold, as though an eerie chill seeped from its fibers.

[Material Discovered: Bloodstained Bandage (Damaged)

Quality: Common

Description: A bandage that has been tainted by the resentment of someone who met an unjust end. It seems to contain a faint trace of yin energy.]

The sudden stream of information flashed through his mind, catching him off guard.

Almost instinctively, his gaze shifted to the Swiss Card in one hand and the spool of fishing line in the other.

In an instant, a bold idea began to take shape.

Just then, measured footsteps echoed through the silent corridor, drawing inexorably closer.