"Maybe it's because this hospital is particularly huge?" Natasha pondered before replying, "There were quite a number of patient rooms along the way when we came, so long hallways might be necessary?"
"However, the rooms aren't very spacious." Batman had a look around and stated, "What is really strange is that most of the rooms here are either doubles or singles, and there are no communal wards—it can't be that all the patients have highly aggressive and dangerous conditions, right?"
"If so, it would be better for the operators of the hospital to construct more large wards and appropriately include single or double rooms. This not only reduces construction costs but also accommodates more patients."
"Also, have you noticed," Batman moved to the wall adjoining the room and after knocking said, "The wall between the rooms is particularly thick, but the corridor and external walls are normal."
Natasha was somewhat perplexed by what he said, so she said, "What are you trying to imply?"
Batman paced at the door, reasoning from the beginning.
"This scenario is created by the killer devil. He would construct a complex hospital with corridors, patient rooms, lobbies, various rooms; rather than simply confine us into a space. There must be a reason."
"In deducing the methods, I always hold to the principle of equivalent exchange—only a better reward would prompt the murderer to resort to more complex methods."
"Since the killer devil's objective is to kill us, and he has no legal constraints here, he wouldn't resort to convoluted tactics like a normal person just to divert the police and evade criminal charges. That is to say, the benefits he can reap from using such methods are direct."
"In this game, the only direct benefit is to kill us and win."
"This implies that his creation of a complex scenario is for the purpose of killing us."
"Therefore, can it be interpreted inversely that he cannot kill us without creating this complex scenario?"
"The preceding course of the game also substantiates this." Batman said while twisting his fingers, "The killer devils in these games, they seem very powerful, with various kinds of abilities, but they chose not to utilize these abilities directly to kill us; instead, they veer off the path. This indicates that their abilities certainly have drawbacks."
"For instance, the first copycat killer devil... never mind that he has no idea about Dick's habits; from start to finish, he only transformed into one person, rather than taking advantage of our scattered forces to confuse us by turning into others. It isn't that he doesn't wish to do it; rather, he can't. He does not possess such an ability."
"The second arson killer devil doesn't need further explanations. If he really had the power to manipulate flames from a distance, why didn't he ignite our skin directly? Instead, he had to create overwhelming flames around our surroundings; this could hint at his inability to do so."
"The third gemstone killer devil is no different. His size is so large that he could have killed us with one strike, but he would rather play a game with us. Whatever curiosity he claimed about human nature is all nonsense. I have observed before, through his reluctance to throw the cage away, that he was not able to control his power well. His power was massive but very slow."
"Furthermore, although many gemstones possess astonishing hardness, it also suggests a lack of toughness and thus, fragility. To shatter such a large gemstone man would be a bit troublesome, but if we work together, it is not impossible."
Batman paused, then continued, "This makes perfect sense. We are not like players in a game that have countless lives."
"We only have one life in this game, so if he were to bring out ten invincible monsters, that are immensely strong, extremely fast, can shape-shift, teleport, and intrude dreams, then this would no longer be a game but a unilateral slaughter. The organizers obviously wouldn't do this."
"Therefore, various restrictions must have been imposed on the killer devils, such as not being allowed to attack within a certain time, and the power of the killer devil itself is also flawed."
"Now we need to consider where the flaws lie for this current dream killer devil. He has not directly killed anyone yet, and we need to determine whether this is because the safety period has not yet elapsed or is it because he cannot directly kill."
"But one thing's for sure: the creation of such a complex hospital as a dream scene is certainly meant to compensate for his shortcomings and better achieve his objective of killing us."
"Then this hospital is his modus operandi. By connecting the various peculiarities in the hospital, we can discern his character, and thereby determine his weaknesses."
"Firstly, the most unreasonable aspect of this hospital is its architectural structure. No hospital operator would deliberately construct very thick walls, very small patient rooms, and very long corridors. This would be an anti-human design in any hospital."
"That's the key to understanding," Batman said, stroking his chin. "The question is whether the key lies in the thick walls, the small rooms, or the long corridors."
"I believe it is the latter, the first two points serve the last one."
"Firstly, if the key lies in the thick walls, and if the killer devil wanted to build an impregnable fortress, he should have thickened the external walls as well, rather than just the walls between rooms, which does not provide any protection."
"The small rooms serve the same purpose. Since the ultimate purpose of this hospital is to kill us, the focus won't be the hundreds—or thousands—of patient rooms which we hardly go into."
"On the contrary, we are almost certain to take the corridors. Whether for hospital exploration or daily activities, the hospital corridors have the greatest impact on us."
"Another piece of evidence is that the doctors and nurses in the hospital kept hinting that we are ill, but they made it quite easy for us to pick up on their attitudes, as if trying to provoke us into reacting by either proving them wrong or escaping."
"To prove them wrong naturally means making repeated visits to the doctor's office, inevitably shuttling back and forth through the corridors. If we were to try and escape, even more so."
"In other words, the key to killing us lies in these longer than usual corridors."
Batman looked up at the room once again, saying, "The division into small rooms and the addition of thick walls are both meant to mask the abnormality of the corridors."
"We often go to hospitals and have some idea of how many doors there are in a hospital corridor."
"So he had to create many small rooms to simulate the spacing of doors in a regular hospital. Since the corridor is too long, and there is a limited number of doors, the rooms may be lengthened, making us feel strange as soon as we enter. So, he chose to make the walls thicker to return the rooms to a normal size."
At this point, Natasha glanced around her room and indeed noticed the peculiarity.
The room was rectangular, with two windows, each with a bed beneath it. However, she noticed that the room was long and had large cabinets on two shorter sides, with beds on one of the longer walls and nothing on the other.
Natasha remembered there was a large locker like this one in her room. It wasn't filled with medical supplies, but with sculptures and decorative ornaments.
She didn't think much of it back then, but now it seemed strange. Why were there so many decorative items in a psychiatric patient's room? Were they hoping for self-harm using these items?
"This is for further improving the structure of the elongated room," Batman tapped one of the lockers and said, "Thicken the walls, block off with two lockers, the room's length-to-width ratio essentially becomes normal."
He walked over and knocked on the footrail of the patient's bed and said, "This bed is less than two meters, at most one and a half, which is also to increase the visual size of the horizontal space."
"But our bed... Oh, yes, if our bed was shortened, you'd have noticed it right away. So, our bed is normal," she added.
Batman nodded, he appreciated team members who trusted his abilities implicitly.
"But what do long corridors have to do with our deaths?" Natasha asked again, "Are they trying to tire us out? Making us walk around regular corridors doesn't save the effort. Why go to such great lengths to extend this straight line distance?"
"Unless the straight line is very important," Batman started pondering in silence.
He replayed the image of the long corridor they just went through- a dim, straight corridor leading to the end with doors on both sides.
Suddenly, two different yet similar scenes overlapping popped into his mind.
"A bus," he said in a deep voice.
"What?" Natasha asked, puzzled.
"The structure of the long corridor and the wards is like the structure of a bus and the seats on both sides," Batman said, his eyes wide open.
He squatted down in front of one of the lockers, pulled out a pile of papers underneath, and with no pen at hand, he used some dust on the window sill to sketch a simple diagram.
"This is the hospital's long corridor," Batman drew a straight vertical line.
"These are the symmetrical wards on either side of the corridor," he drew multiple horizontal lines on the vertical line.
"This is the aisle on a bus," he drew another vertical line below.
"These are the bus seats or the gaps between them," he added multiple horizontal lines on the vertical line.
"These are two nearly identical patterns, each with a vertical line and plenty of short horizontal lines."
"But it's still too abstract." Natasha couldn't figure out the connection. She looked at the diagram on the paper and said, "So why would the killer mimic the hospital's structure after a bus structure? What's the point of this?"
Batman felt he was almost there but just missed it by a hair. The truth was on the tip of his tongue.
There was a "bang", the door received a knock. Fortunately, Batman had locked the door, so it didn't open.
Natasha turned her head and finally got a clear view of the face of the red-dressed female ghost. It was a face with no skin, charred muscles, a mouth slit to the ears, and bloody eyeballs, pressed against the observation window on the door, it was terrifying beyond words.
"Bang! Crash!"
Batman took his hand off the shattered observation window, he rubbed his wrist and said: "Sorry, I had an instinctive reaction when I saw that face."
"Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!"
A series of bloody handprints raced past the window. Natasha's gaze followed the blood handprints, all the way up the window.
The dark hair suddenly fell, and the ghost face "bang" slapped on the glass.
This time, Natasha truly took a step back. It was a typical jump scare.
But in the next second, the IV pole shattered the glass with a "bang" and even bent the safety railing with a "ding".
Natasha, who was under the window, grabbed the IV pole and aimed it upwards. After a metal deformation sound that made your teeth tingle, the IV stand with protruding brackets turned into a bare spear.
Natasha took a breath and carried the IV pole towards the door.
Batman turned to unlock the door for her, but she brushed him off.
Bam!!!
In the pitch-black long corridor, a door panel flew towards the wall across. Natasha retracted her leg, holding her spear, striding like a dragon and a tiger, glancing left and right.
Finally, she turned back to look at Batman and said,
"Sorry, it was an instinctive reaction."