Chapter 12: The ring on the finger

"And speaking of something else, it's just some scary stories that I used to hear when I was young."

"What is it... the intersection, the mirror that can't reflect, and then being pulled into the spiritual world!"

Le Hoa Phat raised his hands, his face a little helpless, as if to say that being haunted by these scary stories was ridiculous.

"But you're a writer, so you must know these old stories," Hoang Tuan caught on and squinted, "The spiritual world? Can you tell me about it?"

"Why, are you interested in this topic?" Le Hoa Phat smiled.

"Alright, then let me inspire you."

Le Hoa Phat paused and continued, "I remember last month there was a patient, a young guy around 23 years old. At first, he didn't show anything unusual. For others, he said he was pulled into a scary world where terrifying events occurred."

"Initially, he was a bit insane, talking nonsense, but his mind was slightly different from others."

"He said that one day, when he went to sleep and woke up, he found himself in a guesthouse. In the guesthouse, there was a strange old woman who constantly shouted for him to marry her daughter."

"Naturally, he couldn't agree, but that old woman attacked him, forced him to marry her daughter, and in the end, he found out that his wife was a man?"

Le Hoa Phat paused and put a piece of vegetable into his mouth, but he forgot that it was still hot, causing him to grit his teeth because of the heat.

"Then he ran away and finally escaped."

"He told some other creepy parts, but I don't remember them clearly. Anyway, they were all typical scenes in horror stories."

Hoang Tuan pondered after hearing these words.

He knew that his friend wouldn't add any seasoning to the story. What he told must be what that young man said.

The young man in the story was in a situation similar to his. He also fell into the plot and eventually escaped.

He just didn't know if it was true or if there was a mental problem causing him to talk nonsense.

Seeing Hoang Tuan's contemplative expression, Le Hoa Phat smiled and waved his hand in front of Hoang Tuan's eyes, "Don't rush to find inspiration, I haven't finished yet."

"Alright, continue."

Hoang Tuan said.

"After that, did he run away? Because of this, he was brought to my psychiatric hospital. At first, there was nothing unusual, his mind was still normal, and we didn't pay much attention."

"But recently, he seemed to go crazy. He kept saying that his ghost wife was coming to find him, wanting to take him back."

"Insane! Of course, we monitored him 24 hours a day."

"But it didn't help? We didn't have enough manpower, and moreover, there have been many patients coming in recently. We couldn't take care of him properly, so we had to move him to a location near the on-duty room."

"We instructed him that if anything happened, he just needed to shout loudly, someone would be able to hear and try to make him feel safe."

"But it was useless. In the past two days, the situation has become increasingly chaotic, and he kept talking about his ghost wife coming."

"It can be said that he reached a point where he was beyond help!"

At this point, Le Hoa Phat wanted to continue complaining, but seeing Hoang Tuan lost in thought, he held back after thinking about it, not wanting to disturb Hoang Tuan.

He felt that his old friend might have gained some inspiration!

Inspiration?

Hoang Tuan didn't think about his novel at all. All he could think about was the world of horror.

Hoang Tuan felt that the person might not be insane.

Perhaps, as Le Hoa Phat mentioned about those who were recently brought into the psychiatric hospital, they weren't insane...

They had entered that world.

But no one wanted to believe it.

However, there was one point that made Hoang Tuan feel a little strange, related to the so-called ghost wife coming to find that young man. Could it be a reminder for him to enter the novel's world for the second time?

Could it be that everyone had different "reminders"?

His was through the novel's reminder, while others' were through their own experiences or witnessing them...

Tran Cong Hung had mentioned that this was the second time he entered the novel's world.

Hoang Tuan now truly wanted to know how Tran Cong Hung reacted when he first came out, and whether he was brought into the psychiatric hospital or not.

If Hoang Tuan could find out these things, it would be very helpful for him to understand that world.

Unfortunately.

Hoang Tuan had no way to freely investigate other people's information, even if he wanted to learn about the real-life Tran Cong Hung, he couldn't do it.

He only had a few tools he had heard of to gather information.

Browsing websites, making short videos, posting articles on Facebook, etc...

He couldn't do anything like a hacker to freely hack and obtain information.

Bling Bling!!~~...

Just as Hoang Tuan was thinking, Le Hoa Phat's mobile phone rang.

"Hello? What's the matter? I'm on vacation."

Le Hoa Phat held the phone to his ear and lazily spoke to the person on the other end of the line.

In the next moment, his face suddenly changed, his tone became very serious.

"Alright, I understand, I'll be right back."

After hanging up the phone.

Le Hoa Phat no longer had the cheerful smile as before.

He put down the chopsticks on the table.

"Something came up, I have to go back."

"What happened? Is it urgent?"

It was rare for Hoang Tuan to see Le Hoa Phat so serious.

"Just the person I told you about..."

Le Hoa Phat whispered to Hoang Tuan.

"He's dead."

Dead?

Coincidentally? !

Hoang Tuan was slightly stunned. He didn't expect that just after hearing about someone, a phone call came in and told Le Hoa Phat that he was dead.

"This meal is not delicious, let's go another time." Le Hoa Phat said, then paid the bill and started packing up, it seemed that he was in a hurry, so it probably wasn't a normal matter.

After packing up, Le Hoa Phat looked at Hoang Tuan sitting in the wheelchair and pondered for a moment before asking Hoang Tuan, "Why don't you come with me? After we finish dealing with it, we can have dinner together."

"Can I come along?"

"Sure, there's nothing for you to do, just don't talk nonsense when you're there."

Hoang Tuan nodded. He was quite curious about this matter. He had a knot in his mind just now, and maybe he would harvest something if he went to see it.

After both of them finished packing up, they hurried to the hospital.

The hotpot restaurant where Le Hoa Phat worked was not far away, and it only took them ten minutes to reach the psychiatric hospital.

Inside the psychiatric hospital.

Le Hoa Phat pushed Hoang Tuan's wheelchair to the door of the ward on the second floor.

At this moment, people had gathered outside the ward, an elderly doctor looked at Le Hoa Phat approaching and waved at him, "Phat, come over here."

Le Hoa Phat pushed Hoang Tuan to the door of the ward.

"What's going on, Anh Hung?" Le Hoa Phat naturally saw this scene and couldn't believe it as he asked the doctor beside him.

"It was discovered by Hong. According to him, the mobile phone in this room has been playing music since early morning, and the patient has been talking to himself non-stop."

"At first, he didn't pay attention, just thought the patient was entertaining himself."

"But just now, he found that there was no sound in the room, so he opened the door to go in, but unexpectedly, he saw this situation..."

The head doctor named Hung spoke while taking out the patient's mobile phone and showed it to Le Hoa Phat. The temporary paused music in it was a classical wedding song.

And the doctor standing next to him had a bewildered expression, still not recovering, he was the doctor Hong mentioned just now.

"Did you call the police?" Le Hoa Phat asked.

"Yes... the police from the nearby station are on their way..."

While listening to the conversation between the two, Hoang Tuan looked into the scene inside the ward.

The entire room was very tidy, and there was nothing unusual.

The first thing Hoang Tuan saw was a young man lying naked on the bed, his eyes wide open, his body covered in tightly tied marks as if he had been bound by something.

The time of death probably wasn't long ago, and there were no obvious life-threatening injuries on his body.

Although for a psychiatric patient, such a death wasn't surprising.

But...

It seemed that there were no ropes in this room.

How did he have those binding marks on his body?

Because Hoang Tuan was sitting in a wheelchair, his perspective couldn't cover everything, which was difficult to avoid.

He was pondering over this suspicion.

The surveillance devices in this hospital were relatively complete, and no one would dare to venture in and kill a psychiatric patient.

But just after moving the body, Hoang Tuan suddenly discovered that there seemed to be a peculiar ring on the other hand of the deceased.

He looked closer and saw that the design of this ring was for women.

Was this ring his?

Hoang Tuan couldn't believe it. He could clearly see that the small ring was so tight that it almost cut into the finger of the deceased, not to mention removing it, even putting it on would require peeling off a layer of skin.

Thinking of what Le Hoa Phat mentioned earlier, a thought suddenly flashed in Hoang Tuan's mind.

A ring...

Could it be?

Was it related to the recent mention of the ghost wife by the patient?