CH 161

Translated by Crooked

Edited by Dust Bunny 

After eating breakfast, they soon saw the middle-aged male doctor who admonished them yesterday. He wore a pair of glasses and simply spoke about the deaths that occurred the previous night. He pushed the matter under the rug and then requested that everyone continue working that night.

Because they’d experienced too many mission worlds, everyone could remain calm in the face of this callous NPC.

After the lecture, the girl who spoke with Gu Xizhou this morning led the crowd directly to another floor where the mentally ill were placed. This was also in the second building. Gu Xizhou looked around carefully. This building’s interior was an exact copy of their building, but he didn’t see any patients.

The group moved forward to enter the duty office and asked the nurse working the day shift about the patient who died yesterday. 

When they entered, the nurse was in the middle of speaking with two men in uniform. “The body is in the morgue.”

“Okay.” The taller man nodded.

The nurse saw Gu Xizhou and the others and raised her eyebrows, asking, “Is something wrong?”

“No.” The girl who brought them over was clearly familiar with the nurse and made a mocking gesture, taking everyone to turn around and leave the room.

“Which slot of the morgue is the body in?” asked the funeral home employee in the office.

“You’ll know if you go to the morgue.” The nurse handed over a key ring impatiently.

There were more than ten keys on the ring, which should unlock the different hallways.

Two funeral home employees left the room. One of them shrugged and whispered, “Ge, how many does this make this month?” 

“Someone dies every day in this sanatorium. You get used to it.”

“Ge, we’ll go with you.” Fang Zhi came forward. “We can help you.”

The two men turned to look at Gu Xizhou’s group with surprised expressions. One said skeptically, “Do you work here?”

Fang Zhi: “We’re here for an internship.” 

“Oh, I say… This sanatorium really does need to recruit people.” The tall man laughed. “Then we’ll be troubling you.”

Everyone went downstairs together. The underground morgue had four body cabinets. They didn’t know which one the patient who died yesterday was placed in, so they had to open them all.

After they opened the four cupboards, the two funeral home workers felt a chill rise from the soles of their feet. All four freezers were completely empty. There was no corpse.

“There’s no body. Where did the body go?” asked one of them as the mission takers shared a glance with a ‘sure enough’ expression. 

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“Where did she go?” The nurse raised her eyebrow and pulled out her phone to call the other nurse. Gu Xizhou and the others heard a cell phone ringing nearby. They went around the corner and found the nurse. 

The nurse was kneeling on the ground, as if she were begging for forgiveness. The first year student was brave and directly pushed her over. The middle-aged fat nurse fell sideways onto the ground, revealing her final expression before her death.

There were no injuries on her body, but she was evidently scared to death. Her eyes were as wide as copper bells. Who knew what she’d seen before she died to make her so deathly pale.

The body stiffened after she died and it retained its kneeling position, stiffly unmoving.

“Ah…” The previously calm and collected nurse immediately began to scream, running outside. She sank into madness, repeating incessantly, “Another one died, another one died!” 

“Fuck, what is this woman talking about? It’s not the first time someone’s died?”

The mission taker had just spoken when one of the funeral home workers who still hadn’t left spread his hands and said, “Someone has died every day in this sanatorium. They say that everyone died kneeling like this. Now there’s another dead person every day. You interns might not know about this, so I advise you to leave as soon as possible.”

The man smiled meaningfully when he finished speaking. No matter what questions anyone asked him, he wouldn’t say another word.

“To die kneeling, it means that these workers were admitting their wrongs. They definitely did something…” Fang Zhi said as they walked. 

“Oh, the mental patients are all tied up on the bed with straps whether they’re crazy or not. What else can it be? It’s bullying lonely old people and mental patients, and tying them to the bed because they’re too troublesome!” scolded a thin man.

Everyone knew what the situation was, but only the thin man was direct about it.

They’d stayed awake all night, so they went back to their rooms to catch up on sleep. Gu Xizhou washed up simply and then lay down to sleep. After a nap, the three of them left their room.

They planned to go to the first building where they were on duty last night, but they ran into someone they knew on the way there. 

After Gu Xizhou went downstairs, he glanced over and immediately caught sight of their supervisor. “Isn’t that the doctor who lectured us before?” he asked, pointing.

“Go, let’s follow him.” Si Yu grabbed Gu Xizhou, and Fang Zhi quickly followed. The man’s office wasn’t in the two buildings, but rather in the leftmost row of single-story buildings beside them.

After the man entered his office, he calmly drank tea while watching TV. Gu Xizhou’s trio waited for a while and saw him put down his cup, grab some documents, and leave his office. He closed the door in passing before he left.

After waiting for him to leave, Gu Xizhou walked over to the door and considered climbing through the window. Then, he saw Si Yu pull out a hair pin, twist it in the lock twice, and open the door. 

“What do we want to do now?” Fang Zhi asked with a stupefied expression.

“Look at the patient profiles.” Si Yu sat in front of the computer, searching for the folder with the data on the patients.

After searching around, Si Yu accidentally pressed a button and suddenly stopped on a page. He said lowly, “This woman, she looks like the one who knocked on the door yesterday.”

“It’s her.” 

“But she didn’t have any chain noises,” Gu Xizhou told them. “I didn’t hear any.”

The unspoken implication was: She was a ghost, but she didn’t have the door.

Gu Xizhou had told them about the chain noises before, and Si Yu naturally knew what he meant. He agreed and turned to look through the other information.

“It seems there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Their families don’t visit much.” Fang Zhi said with disappointment. 

“En,” said Si Yu. When it was time to work the night shift again, they had to change groups because two people were missing.

Because someone died in Building One last night, none of the people in Building Two wanted to come over.

“I’ll stay and keep watch over Building Two! I don’t want to go over there with you guys!”

“I don’t want to go either…” 

Seeing that the Building Two group didn’t want to regroup no matter what, Building One had no choice but to divide seven people.

Si Yu drew the stick to go alone, and Gu Xizhou glanced at him helplessly. Was this Si Yu’s so-called good luck?

“Let’s switch. You go with Fang Zhi.”

“No need, I’m fine by myself.” said Si Yu, cradling Gu Xizhou’s face with a faint smile. 

Gu Xizhou and Fang Zhi still kept watch over the third floor, while Si Yu went to the fourth floor, where people died last night.

When they changed shifts, Gu Xizhou asked the nurse for the key to the iron door in the hallway. They had just completed the shift handover when Song Nainai arrived, just as predicted.

“Doctor, can I…”

Song Nainai hadn’t finished speaking when Gu Xizhou pointed at the landline on the desk and said, “You can use it as many times as you want.” 

Song Nainai: “Ah?”

Song Nainai stepped inside and picked up the phone. Soon, Gu Xizhou heard the familiar voice on the other end of the line. The man on the phone tried his very best to placate his old mother.

Gu Xizhou pulled Fang Zhi and said, “Lie down!”

“Why?” 

“Lie down and go to sleep or the old woman will call you to answer the phone.”

Fang Zhi was dumbfounded. Then, he saw Gu Xizhou lay his torso on the desk and go to sleep and immediately copied him.

“Mom, give the phone to the doctor. I have something I want to tell them,” said Song Nainai’s son, enduring his anger.

“Okay.” Song Nainai covered the receiver, about to call Gu Xizhou or Fang Zhi, but then she saw they were asleep. Song Nainai was forced to say to her son, “Son, the doctor fell asleep.” 

“If you want to say something to the doctor, you can tell me, and I’ll pass it on.”

Song Nainai spoke very intimately. The man’s mouth twitched. “Forget it, Mom. Go to sleep; don’t stay up too late. I’ll come get you tomorrow.”

“Okay, Mom will wait for you tomorrow.”

“En.” The man paused, then he suddenly called out. “Mom, good night.” 

“Good night, son.”

Song Nainai smiled sweetly and hung up the receiver, then she left the duty room. After waiting for Song Nainai to leave, Gu Xizhou sat up.

“Fang Zhi, you can sleep for a while. I’ll call you if anything happens,” said Gu Xizhou, glancing at the dark circles beneath Fang Zhi’s eyes.

“Then… Okay. Gu Ge, you keep watch the first half of the night and I’ll do the second,” said Fang Zhi, laying down on his stomach to go to sleep. 

After a few hours, Fang Zhi hazily heard Gu Xizhou calling him.

“Fang Zhi, wake up, someone’s knocking on the door. I’m going to take a look. You keep watch here. Do you have the mirror?” asked Gu Xizhou.

Fang Zhi rubbed his eyes drowsily and nodded. “I do, it’s in my pocket.”

“En, then I’ll go out for a while. Pay attention to safety,” Gu Xizhou warned him. After he went over, he saw that the woman from yesterday had come down from the fourth floor. Gu Xizhou’s lips curled into a smile. 

Gu Xizhou frowned. The woman came and knocked on the door. When she found that it wouldn’t open, she thought, then went downstairs. Gu Xizhou thought there would be screams of terror, but there wasn’t a single sound.

When he saw the woman leave, he directly opened the door and went upstairs. The woman clearly came from downstairs, having stayed there after the incident from last night.

Si Yu…

Gu Xizhou ran upstairs to the duty office, but Si Yu wasn’t inside. Gu Xizhou’s heart jumped. Then, when he was ready to go out, he ran straight into Si Yu coming in. In the face of Gu Xizhou’s pleasant surprise, Si Yu reached out to hold him. 

“Why did you come up here?”

“I saw that thing coming downstairs, and your door was open. If you’re fine, then that thing…”

“I went to inspect the rooms and didn’t run into it,” said Si Yu.

Gu Xizhou’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I’ll go down. Be careful.” 

“Wait, let me hug you.” Si Yu’s voice was deep. He put his chin on Gu Xizhou’s shoulder and his hands on his back, holding him tight.