Horror Game Designer

When would a person admit that they were crazy? Was it because they saw something they couldn’t process, or was it because their worst imagination had become reality?

Situ An’s home was always enveloped by sunshine. His home was always bright as if the owner were deathly afraid of the dark. However, many bloody stories took place at such a sunny location.

Every sick room was a record of the treatment process of every special patient. They were transformed from humans into seeds of the shadow world. This was the truth of ‘home’.

“I can see that your son loves you, and he desperately wishes to live under the sun.” Xuan Wen opened her hand, and the cold light slipped through her fingers. “But his heart is already rotten. Even the strongest sun can’t warm his heart.”

With a slight nudge, Xuan Wen and the woman entered the hospital. The boundary was shattered. Various images appeared in Situ An’s mother’s mind. The woman called Situ An’s name inside the hospital but received no response. Outside the hospital, Gao Ming’s chest was covered in blood.

The more unstable the middle-aged woman was, the greater the flaw of ‘home’. The God of Flesh and Blood used this rare opening to grab the blind man’s five fingers!

Flesh grew between the blind man and Gao Ming like a bridge. The God of Flesh and Blood turned himself into a path. The blind man's status was weak. He could be consumed by the mud figurines at any moment.

“The God of Flesh and Blood and the big dog are connecting home to the real Li San Hospital. They have become the path.” Gao Ming had a mad idea. He wanted to get the God of Flesh and Blood to open the torture room and hand all the death portraits to the red raincoat.

“I might be trapped here forever! Bring my family and escape through this path! Find your child!”

The red raincoat, who had been spacing out in the torture room, was stunned. She accepted the death portraits and then looked at Gao Ming.

“Your child is waiting for you.” This was not a plea. This was a simple narration of the truth. Moments later, the red raincoat put all the death portraits inside her coat. Her body turned into an unstoppable rain. She rained on the God of Flesh and Blood and the blind man as she walked out into the world. Gao Ming released the red raincoat to save the blind man!

The bloody rain wetted the intestines. The broken divine figurines in the fleshy walls opened their eyes. The tenants in Si Sui Apartment were triggered as well. Granny Shen, who was always aloof, appeared beside Auntie Busybody. She placed some bamboo plates on the ground and grumbled, “What a tragedy…”

As if sensing the changes around him, Situ An, who was pinned to the torture devices, smiled, “The God who is found in death and silence, the taboo that is taken out of the game, and the anomalies that I’ve collected for decades are all hidden at home. Thank you for bringing me home, Gao Ming!”

The sun mixed with blood. The crack in the sky became clearer. The warm home was shattered. Or rather, this home was showing its true self. Gao Ming ignored Situ An. He ran into the hospital and moved between the different departments. This hospital hid all of Situ An’s secrets. His life, memory, changes and dark thoughts were exposed before Gao Ming.

His mother’s apartment represented Situ An’s residual love and kindness. The hospital carried all of his sins. Walking down the corridors, Gao Ming was experiencing Situ An’s life and how he tussled between the real world and the shadow world to become a devil in Han Hai’s shadow.

“These are all fake! I’ve gone insane. This is all an illusion!” Situ An’s mom cried. She was under a lot of pressure.

“Even though the woman is mad, we can’t leave. Why?”

“She is merely using madness as an excuse to avoid accepting the truth.” Xuan Wen walked out of a counselling room, holding a thin sheaf of paper. “This might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

“What is that?”

“Her death notice. She died here many years ago.” Xuan Wen didn’t expect to find this notice at the hospital. “I need you to lure her here.”

Through Situ An’s phone number, the ringtone in the heart rang. The familiar melody was not only a memory but also the woman’s obsession with her son. “Situ An! Situ An! Are you here?” Hearing the ringtone, Situ An’s mother entered the endless cycle of the hospital corridors. She followed the ringtone and ran forward. Along the way, she saw the sins Situ An hid.

“Situ An, stop running! Wait for mother, Situ An!”

Memories and horror flowed into her mind until the middle-aged woman saw herself in Situ An’s memory. Two different kinds of memories collided, causing her unimaginable pain. Her mind felt like it was being torn apart. In the end, she collapsed in the corridor.

“Situ An…” At that moment, the sun was no longer warm, the verdant greenery turned pale, the children’s skin started to crack, and the warm home was chilling. In the bleeding sky, the giant and ugly Gods fought with the red raincoat. Everyone at home could see the truth exposed before them. The moving walls of flesh crumbled the human corpses. Inside the smelly lake filled with stomach juices, the broken figurines turned around with grins. Gao Ming had used all of his trump cards: the monsters in the death portraits, the God of Flesh and Blood and the red raincoat.

To become the new owner, he had to kill the old owner. However, Situ An’s imagined mother blocked Gao Ming. Situ An’s mother died a long time ago, and Gao Ming knew what happened to Situ An.

The man’s transformation occurred at Li San Hospital. He was unwilling to give up his studies. While he worked, he looked after his sick mother. He did everything he could. He believed he had done everything, but he was still slower than death.

His mother’s sudden death ruined him. It twisted his stubborn soul. Negative emotions grasped his heart. He couldn’t accept the truth. He suffered from nightmares for many days. In the layers of the nightmare, he met Lu Zang. Doctor Lu had never encountered such a wonderful seed. He valued Situ An and told him the shadow world’s secret.

In Lu Zang, Situ An saw the hope of bringing his mother back to his side. He knew from Lu Zang that Han Hai was just a dream, a game of fate. Once fate was killed, everything would be reset.

The two shared the same goal. They started their plan twenty years ago. To achieve that goal, they worked together to move the shadow world’s Li San Hospital into the real world. They also set up many rituals and sacrifices around Han Hai to ease the infiltration of the shadow world. Most of the horror games Gao Ming saw in the future were designed by Lu Zang and Situ An.

“Situ An’s earliest goal was very simple. However, he changed as time passed. His ambition burned away his conscience. He turned his own children into ghosts and murdered his family. His hands were covered with blood. He had forgotten his earliest goal and his love for you.” Gao Ming sighed. “Situ An has long forgotten what love is. He can’t even be called human anymore. You are just a fragment of his imagination, a lie he told himself.”

“What are you talking about? I know my son! He is not the man you accuse him of!” The middle-aged woman had never been so furious. She was like a wounded lioness. Despite her weakened body, she had to protect her child.

“We found this at the hospital.” Xuan Wen took out a yellowed death notice. “This is your death notice. Situ An was worried that you’d become his new weakness, so he left this behind. When he told you he came to work, he came to check on your death notice! He needed to remind himself that his mother was dead. You are just a creation in his mind. You are not real!”

“Impossible! This is fake! You falsified this! You are scammers!” The middle-aged woman didn’t even look at the notice. “You are not going to trick me! My son will come home soon!”

“Falsified?” Xuan Wen’s expression became complicated. She realised she had greatly underestimated the greyness within humanity. “Do you know why Situ An refuses to let you leave home? Go and take a look at the room at the end of the corridor.”

The middle-aged woman seemed to have known something. She didn’t move. In the end, it was Xuan Wen who opened the door for her. In the tiny room, there was a simple set of tables and chairs. The same death notice was pasted all over the walls. It was not hard to imagine Situ An sitting there all alone after he left home. He was always reminding himself that the woman at home was not his real mother. He couldn’t allow any weakness to appear in his heart. The cigarette ash fluttered through the air. He might even pull open the window to look at his ‘home’ that was not far away.

“We’ve been here for less than half a day. Is it possible that we’ve done this?” Xuan Wen picked a random death notice from the wall. “When Situ An needed you the most, you left this world. The current you is merely a creation of his mind and his only humanity.”

Li San Hospital was Situ An’s home, not because he was born there but because his mother died there. Fate formed a closed circle, and the same thing was going to happen again.

The windows in the corridor reflected everything that was happening in the real world. The red raincoat was captured by the broken Gods. The figurines heard the summon, and they pulled the red raincoat into the corrosive lake. The red clothes were burned away. The path formed by the God of Flesh and Blood had collapsed. Gao Ming heard the growl of God.

“I’m sorry, but the only thing I can do now is to kill you.”

Situ An’s mother was his last trace of kindness and love. It was a flawless reflection of humanity. She had not done anything wrong. She was caring and fair. She was nice to everything. In her eyes, the world was always gentle. This might be Situ An’s last revenge on Gao Ming. If he did not murder his last bit of kindness, Gao Ming would never become the new parent of this home. However, if Gao Ming murdered Situ An’s mother, Gao Ming would break his own principles and kill an innocent woman.

Even if he couldn’t kill Gao Ming, Situ An wanted to break something precious to Gao Ming. He used his purest love and memory of his mother to set up his revenge.

No matter how Situ An was twenty years ago, he had changed. The man had become a monster.