Just two minutes prior, the hospital had lost power.
Beihan was walking alone in the pitch-black corridors. The long corridor was bathed only in the faint moonlight at both ends, stretching his shadow to unnerving lengths.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of a person reflected in the windows of the patient rooms on either side, standing behind him.
Beihan turned his head slowly, but there was nothing there.
Rather than continue forward, he turned to the side to face a window on the corridor wall and, sure enough, saw the shadowy silhouette again. This time, the figure was dressed in an ornate suit - it was Shiller.
With the lack of light, the suit wasn't vibrant anymore. It was reminiscent of a wilting flower or shedding scales. This towering figure was enshrouded in darkness, bathed only in the light from the moon streaming over one shoulder.
"Why are you following me?" Beihan's throat moved slightly as he questioned.
"Why can you see me?" Shiller retorted.
Beihan clenched his fists in anger, glaring at the image in the reflection: "Stop acting like you understand me, you don't."
"How does it feel to fight violence with violence?" asked Shiller.
Beihan balled his fists tighter, took a deep breath, and said to his reflection: "It's unjust, no different from what those bastards who wish to upset the world are doing."
"But it makes you feel very good."
"I don't feel that way."
"Someone once told you that resorting to violence was wrong," Shiller's words echoed down the empty, dark hallway, as if he were on a deserted stage with Batman as the only audience, yet also as if it were a crowd of millions.
"Out of fondness for her, you took her advice to heart. Your rational mind tells you that she is right. There is no end to violence begetting violence; it will only drag you into the abyss."
"Just like you," Beihan unclenched his fists, his mind replaying the scenes he saw in his illusion earlier.
The silhouette of the prey in the bathroom, the enormous depiction of a naked body, the vibrant red fish, the falling beans, and the opened flowers...
"But it feels good."
Beihan saw that figure behind him step forward, once again placing his hand on Beihan's shoulder.
"You asked me if I enjoy all of this, I answered 'yes.' When you found out they were my enemies, that made you feel good because I did what you couldn't."
"It's something I chose not to do."
"Did you really have a choice?"
The figure of Shiller disappeared, and Beihan, somewhat taken aback, looked at the empty glass. Shiller's voice had completely vanished in the empty corridor, yet it continued to echo in his ears.
After a while, he turned away, saying, "No matter what you say, I will never do what you did. That is wrong, and overly cruel."
Shiller did not respond.
This made Beihan feel stifled, as if he hadn't performed well in an argument, and the other party had already left.
He thought to himself that he could have persuaded Shiller with many reasons just now, showing that his actions were correct, and that Shiller's brutal and cruel methods of revenge were wrong. But he didn't say them.
He didn't even know why. He was very good at debate. His mind was fast, his language logic was clear, and few could outpace him verbally.
But when Shiller's voice rose up, he felt as if his heart had caught fire. Rationality ceased to exist, replaced by noisy, chaotic emotions that compelled him to vent his feelings rather than reason—almost like he had lost his mind.
At this moment, Beihan made a decision. If the hobgoblin that was following him dared to show up again, he would definitely persuade him.
Beihan continued down the corridor until he reached the stairs. As he took a step down, he saw the figure reappear in the glass of the stairwell.
"Keep going up, you will meet the hunter."
Beihan heard Shiller's voice again. He reflected on what Shiller had told him in the examination room. The hobgoblin-like personalities within him could move freely, and he had mentioned four names.
Beihan realized that the illusions he had seen were related to those four personalities in control of Shiller's body. Clearly, the hunter was the one who pursued the prey from the dance floor to the restroom stall.
Beihan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused on the details he had seen in the illusion.
The prey was a woman in a golden dress with grey, short curls, around 50 years old. The lavish jewelry she wore signified her high-class status.
In the dim light of the peripheral vision, Beihan saw many well-dressed upper-class people just like the woman.
Like every evening soiree he had attended in Gotham, they wore satin and wool, adorned with various gemstones, packed in like sardines in the dance floor. Batman was once so close he could hear their pulses.
And not a single one of them knew about the flame of fury that burned within Bruce Wayne. Or perhaps some did know but none cared.
Emerging from his thoughts, Beihan saw Shiller in the glass, looking at him and saying, "Don't turn and run, don't let your guard down... I'll wait for you at the next corner."
The reflection disappeared from the glass.
As he climbed the stairs, Beihan could feel the atmosphere growing cold and ominous. The moment his feet hit the floor of the upward corridor, a red shadow lunged at him.
The pale ghost woman, dressed in red and glaring with bloody eyes, stretched out her ghostly claws and lunged at Beihan at an incredible speed.
Beihan deftly sidestepped, and the ghost woman, missing the mark, let out a sharp shriek.
Just as Beihan was about to turn around and look at the ghost woman behind him, he halted as if he'd thought of something.
He recalled the illusion scene where the vivid image had only been of the back of a woman in a golden dress. The rest were incredibly blurry and vague; he could barely see their exact positions, only faint, indistinct shadows.
"Don't run away…" Beihan muttered under his breath.
Realizing something, he stopped in his tracks, subtly raised his head and continued to walk straight ahead, completely disregarding the ghost woman rushing towards his back.
The ghost woman followed, her chilling coldness causing Beihan to shudder, he saw, in his peripheral vision, the black-haired ghost woman's head peeping from one side of his neck.
Beihan could only see her side profile, one eye trained on him and her mouth agape, a cruel, cold laugh glimmered in her eyes.
Beihan continued to walk straight ahead, not looking to the left or right.
The ghost woman's expressions became more and more distorted. Blood started to flow down her bloodshot pupils, black fluid bubbled out of her mouth, making her face even more terrifying.
The ghastly claws too landed on Beihan's body. Though he felt nothing, from the reflection in the glass he saw that the ghost woman's hand was slowly moving upward, as if she planned to choke his neck.
Beihan curled his lip, he didn't spare her a glance, and continued to stride forward.
The ghost woman let out a sharp shriek against Beihan's ear, the only real harm done so far. Beihan was so startled his head spun, his eardrums buzzing, but he took it stoically and continued to walk forward.
The figure of Shiller in a black shirt emerged in a window on the other side of the corridor. The figure was the same one Beihan had seen in the mirror in the illusion's bathroom.
In his hands was a chillingly sharp blade, the same one it seemed he had used to finish off his prey in the bathroom earlier, now he stared at Beihan with a cold gaze.
Beihan slowed his steps, but was still moving forward.
The ghost woman began to wail intermittently, the ceiling lights shook violently, plaster from the ceiling began to crack and crumble, as if it could collapse at any moment.
Beihan's steps faltered as if he were contemplating something. After a while, he seemed to have reaffirmed his suspicions and continued to walk forward, his steps resolute, all the while his gaze fixed on the window with Shiller's reflection.
Finally, the ghost woman seemed to break down. She let go of Beihan, dropped to her knees on the floor and began to wail mournfully.
The wailing didn't sound like a ghost's; instead, it sounded like a woman consumed by unbearable sorrow.
Beihan finally stopped in his tracks.
The ghost woman's crying intensified. Beihan slowly closed his eyes, his fists again slightly clenched, then without looking back, he briskly walked to the end of the corridor.
He stood before the window where his pursuer had been, and to his right was the staircase leading to the lower floor.
But Beihan didn't turn right, instead, he sidestepped twice to his right, turned left, and backed away towards the staircase. Throughout the process, his gaze never left the window where the reflection of his pursuer was.
He then managed to cautiously feel for the railing and backed up the staircase.
No, something still wasn't right, Beihan thought.
The advice given by the extravagantly suited Shiller, "Don't run away…" was a clue, which meant never turning his back on his pursuer.
In the illusion he saw, the only person in the pursuer's sight was the woman who was walking away from him into the bathroom; he could even see the jewelry she wore around her neck and wrists.
But in his peripheral vision, everyone else was blurred to the point that their outlines were unclear; all he can see were faint shadows, which was not normal.
Although human peripheral vision was not as clear as central vision, as long as there was no problem with the eyesight, all the images within his field of view should not be blurred like that.
This suggested that the pursuer could only see the back of his prey, or that he saw the back most clearly.
This was in line with the rules of hunting. Hunters are not fighters. They do not fight their prey head-on; they either set traps or shoot from a distance and then chase the injured prey—they could only see the back of the prey.
The ghost woman, either under duress from Shiller or cooperated with him from the start, was trying to lure Beihan to turn around from the beginning. Once Beihan turned to face the ghost woman, his back would be exposed to the pursuer at the end of the hallway, making him the prey.
Thus, regardless of how the ghost woman wreaks havoc, Beihan refused to turn around or look back, even if the pursuer shows up personally, acting frightening, he acted like he couldn't see and just walked towards him.
Indeed, the pursuer stood silently in the mirror. Upon closer look, his grey eyes were unfocused, not focusing on anything, as if he had never seen Beihan from the start.
But just as he stepped up on the second step of the staircase, Beihan felt something was not right. If the first advice, "Don't run away..." was a hint, then could the second, "Don't let your guard down..." be a hint too?
Suddenly, Beihan turned his head to look at the window on the upper staircase platform diagonally above him. If he kept backing up the stairs, he would inevitably turn his back to that window for a moment as he passed the staircase platform.
Beihan understood everything.
First, he went backwards up these half-level steps, confirming with the definitely non-reflective white wall behind him. When he stepped onto the staircase platform, he rotated his body 90 degrees, directly facing the window inside the staircase.
He walked forward two steps, arriving at the window and the side of the remaining half-level steps. After moving a few steps to the side again, he once again turned his body and stared at the window, backing up the steps.
After reaching the next floor, he turned around again, making sure he was always facing the window.
Now, the figure of Shiller appearing in the window of the upper floor was wearing an extravagant suit. He smiled at Beihan and said, "Smart."