Chapter Five: So This Is How They Plan to Drive Me Mad

Shang Yi hurriedly put on his night vision goggles and followed her down to the third basement level, where the armory was located. Tang Ya pointed to a box of military flashlights; Shang Yi immediately understood, grabbed one, and followed Tang Ya to the second basement level, the medical storage room.

He pushed open the door, swinging the flashlight around. The small room contained several cabinets, each packed with medical instruments and a variety of bottles and jars. Against the wall, there was a cage on the floor with an animal inside, writhing restlessly.

Tang Ya opened a cabinet, picked out several small black bottles, uncapped them, and drank them all. Then she approached the cage, pointed at the animal inside, placed her hands beside her head as if sleeping, and her body gradually became transparent, disappearing altogether.

Shang Yi stared at the creature in the cage for a long time, unable to tell whether it was a peculiar dog or a strange cat. It wasn't very large; its face resembled a bear cub, with white fur draped over its head and back, while the rest of its body was covered in black fur.

Realizing Tang Ya had now possessed this little animal, Shang Yi had no choice but to carry the cage, taking the creature with him.

He returned to the monitoring room and smashed the surveillance hard drives into pieces with the skull-crushing hammer. Then, he went to the warden’s office on the first basement level and retrieved his phone and camera. He proceeded to the cell block, dragged the lizard’s corpse to the prison gate, removed its police uniform and mask, and gathered all used weapons and equipment along with the bodies, obliterating them with two grenades.

After handling all the aftermath, he picked up the cage and walked out of the prison, turning back to lock the gate behind him.

At that moment, the system displayed subtitles: “Congratulations on completing the main quest: Prison Break.”

“Winter Sea Haunted House has unlocked the Nine Yin Mountain Prison scenario!”

“Stamina +10, Strength +10, Agility +10.”

“Stamina: The physical endurance of a normal human.”

“Strength: The muscular power of a normal human, usable only in the real world, ineffective against ghosts and monsters.”

“Agility: The reflexes, movement speed, and action speed of a normal human.”

Shang Yi felt a refreshing clarity in his mind, his hands tingled with warmth, and his limbs surged with power.

“So completing main quests can enhance myself. This system is incredible!”

Then, system subtitles appeared before his eyes again: “Upon completing your first main quest, the Nine Yin Mountain Prison archive has been added. Please check the system interface.”

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Upon entering the system interface, Shang Yi noticed a new archive tab.

[Nine Yin Mountain Prison]

Scene archive, guard archive, doctor archive, monster archive, prisoner archive.

He skimmed through the descriptions for each category and finally understood: this prison was never intended for incarcerating criminals. Rather, it used special methods to turn people into mental patients, making them suitable hosts for monsters.

The psychiatric and physical treatment rooms on the first basement level were places where people were driven insane through mental and physical torment. Prisoners would be tortured until their minds collapsed, then subjected to a minor cranial surgery.

Afterward, a grotesque and terrifying monster would enter the prisoner’s brain, seize control of their consciousness, and begin to grow inside their body.

This was the “live prisoner experiment” the warden had mentioned over the intercom.

Any prisoner who entered this place faced a fate worse than death: tragic, inhuman, and utterly hopeless—a descent into madness and misery.

Reading this, Shang Yi was overwhelmed by a chill of terror. Without the system, without Tang Ya, and without a successful prison break, he dared not imagine what his own fate would have been.

As for the warden who managed to escape, Shang Yi now realized he was just a severely schizophrenic patient, incapable of controlling his own actions.

Using his memories of this world, Shang Yi quickly found the path leading out of Nine Yin Mountain.

He flagged down a taxi on a nearby highway and headed toward his parents’ haunted house.

In the taxi, he opened his phone and saw a text message from his mother: “Xiao Yi, take good care of our haunted house. Your father and I are waiting for your good news!”

He checked the timestamp—a mere two minutes before he pushed his parents down the mountain!

From this message, it was clear his parents had already decided to entrust the haunted house to him alone, even before the incident.

Suddenly, he felt the matter of his parents falling off the cliff was far more complicated than it appeared. Their current status couldn’t simply be defined as death; perhaps “missing” was a more accurate term.

Shang Yi repeatedly recalled the details of pushing his parents down the mountain, feeling as though an irresistible force had been guiding him.

He glanced at the little animal in the cage with his left eye and noticed a number faintly visible on the shadow inside its belly.

He became excited—surely this was Tang Ya’s awakening progress!

Looking closer, he found the number was actually “??”!

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He couldn’t help feeling disappointed. With the warden still loose outside, there was no telling if he would come looking for him. Without Tang Ya around, Shang Yi felt utterly unsafe!

Still, two question marks were better than nothing. Perhaps one day, or triggered by some condition, the question marks would transform into a visible percentage! At least there was hope.

The little animal in the cage, seeing Shang Yi staring at it, seemed unsure whether he meant harm. Suddenly, it opened its eyes wide and bared its teeth, claws outstretched, as if to say, “Don’t underestimate me just because I’m small—I’m incredibly fierce.”

Watching the little creature flail about ferociously in the cage, Shang Yi couldn’t help but laugh. Whether it was some mutant dog or a strange cat, what was the point of acting so fierce? It was still his pet in the cage, destined to be led around as a baby.

He grew curious about its species, realizing he now had his phone back. He quickly turned on mobile data and searched for a search engine app.

“So the search engine in this world is called Qiandu!”

He began searching for “animal with white fur on back, black fur on belly.”

The result brought up a name unfamiliar in both worlds of his memory: honey badger!

He immediately searched for “honey badger” on Qiandu.

After reading about it, he couldn’t help but gasp.

Good heavens, what sort of little ancestor was he planning to raise at home?

This was no different from keeping a lion, a tiger, or a leopard!

Fully understanding the honey badger’s unparalleled ferocity, Shang Yi realized his mistake.

This little animal’s aggressive display wasn’t an act—it was genuinely, terrifyingly fierce.

If he were to let it out now, Shang Yi feared it might bite off his finger in a flash! Absolutely terrifying!

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