Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
Lu Xia was excited about his discovery, but Sun Zheng was more concerned about Lu Xia.
“Can you still walk?” Sun Zheng felt the weight of Lu Xia slumped against him, so he couldn’t help but ask.
Lu Xia tried to move his legs, and broke into a smile. “Yeah.”
In the darkness, Lu Xia wrapped one hand around Sun Zheng’s shoulder and placed the other on the wall beside him, and slowly rose to his feet. Halfway through, his legs went numb and he nearly toppled over. Fortunately, Sun Zheng grabbed him in time and managed to keep him upright.
“Hey,” Lu Xia didn’t seem discouraged, and was even chuckling. “Am I heavy?”
Sun Zheng clenched his jaw and ignored Lu Xia’s teasing. “We should first find a place to treat your injuries.”
Lu Xia pressed his weight against Sun Zheng’s arm. “No hurry. I’m still able to walk. Let’s go to Liu Qunfang’s office first.”
“Where is Liu Qunfang’s office?”
“I don’t know which office she is in charge of. We have to check.” Lu Xia struggled to keep his balance, gingerly moving his burnt leg.
While speaking, Lu Xia’s hand began wandering along the curves of Sun Zheng’s body.
Sun Zheng slapped his hand away. His expression was hidden by the darkness, but his sullen tone in his voice was evident. “Where do you think you are touching?!”
“Hey, what’s wrong with me touching around a little. It’s not like you’re a woman.” Chuckling, he patted Sun Zheng with the book he pulled out from the latter’s hold. “Don’t be so prickly. Besides, the thing I was touching was the record book.”
Sun Zheng went silent. After a while, he finally gave in. A small light was switched on and the dim halo gradually expanded, illuminating the record book.
Lu Xia held the book and found it too difficult to open it with only one hand. He withdrew his hand against the wall, and his entire weight slumped onto Sun heng as a result, causing the latter to stagger.
He muttered, “Weak scholar.” He forced the record book into Sun Zheng’s hand and snatched the flashlight over. Resting his chin on Sun Zheng’s shoulder, he said, “I’ll hold the light. Flip through the book quickly, and we’ll see if there’s any mention of her office.”
The light movement of Lu Xia’s chin as he spoke made Sun Zheng feel ticklish. He rolled his shoulders and hastily flipped through the record book in his hand.
The dim yellow light casted a blurry circle of light on the opposite wall of the narrow corridor. Their shadows were intertwined, snugly close and supporting each other. In such a gloomy environment, it held a trace of warmth.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Lu Xia interrupted Sun Zheng who was about to flip even further back into the older portion of the book. “I just remembered.”
“Remember what?” Sun Zheng turned his head in curiosity, but nearly brushed against Lu Xia’s face which was still covered in a thin layer of sweat. He quickly lowered his head again.
Lu Xia didn’t notice Sun Zheng’s reaction, and continued mumbling to himself. “I remembered that when my uncle asked me to come here to investigate, he mentioned that if I had any doubts when looking through the record books, I could always go to the archives on the third floor. They kept all the older records and information in there.”
“That is to say, there could be information about Liu Qunfang?” Sun Zheng’s spirits were lifted, “Let’s head there.”
The shadowed Lu Xia beside him smiled bitterly, replying in a helpless and teasing tone. “I’m afraid you’d have to help me down the stairs like this.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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There was a tremble coming from under his shoulder. Sun Zheng hesitated for a split second, then tightened his grip on Lu Xia. “Do you feel like something has changed? I feel like… something is different…”
Lu Xia surveyed their surroundings. They were still enveloped by the same thick inky darkness, the same gloomy silence, and it still felt as though there were no other traces of life to be found in this secluded space in the chasm. Except for the area lit up by their flashlight, they couldn’t tell that they were in a corner of the same dilapidated hospital.
“What’s different?” Lu Xia didn’t understand what Sun Zheng was hinting at.
“I feel like it’s quieter, darker…” Sun Zheng tried to explain, but he felt that his words didn’t quite make sense, so he trailed off softly.
Lu Xia was still puzzled, confused.
“The difference is kind of like… the darkness of the night sky versus the darkness in a cemetery…” Sun Zheng really couldn’t put this feeling to words, so he reluctantly gave up. “Just forget it, treat it as me overthinking.”
Sun Zheng ridiculed himself inwardly for his paranoia.
However, Lu Xia didn’t brush it off as easily and reminded Sun Zheng to be vigilant. “The time of the fire in 2000 was at midnight, so it should be after midnight now. Most paranormal activities usually happen between midnight and three in the morning, because this is the period of time where ‘things’ are most likely to come out.”
Though they had experienced many inexplicable phenomena so far, Sun Zheng was still unwilling to accept the existence of ghosts and gods. Lu Xia’s old habit of bringing up these occultic talks made him frown.
Lu Xia didn’t notice Sun Zheng’s subtle shift in expression. “But the odd thing here is, if it is a period of higher activity, what we should sense is something moving around, or a general feeling of unease… and not that it is getting more silent…”
“Why are you talking about this so seriously… It’s not like we’re writing a novel here,” Sun Zheng interrupted. “It was just my intuition, stop harping on it and move on!”
He took a step down in a huff. The light swept down towards the flight of stairs leading to the third floor, and Sun Zheng felt a sudden stab of pain in his chest. Dizziness clawed at his head, and the illuminated portion of the stairs morphed into a monochromatic image, as if it was one of the stills in an old movie.
For a split second, he felt as though this was all part of a distant memory, as if it was a scene hidden in the dark mist outlining the blurry circumference of that halo of light.
Something… didn’t feel right…
Sun Zheng didn’t tell Lu Xia about it. He inhaled, steadying his breath, and took another step down towards the third floor of Tonghua Hospital.
Their footsteps were slow and heavy. Sun Zheng felt like they were approaching something step by step, but he firmly suppressed this odd feeling.
After wasting a lot of effort, the two of them finally reached the third floor. The echoes of their footsteps were like a speck of dust, briefly sweeping across the last step of the stairs and vanished without a trace.
Neither of them made a single sound. It was as if they weren’t even breathing.
Sun Zheng found that he could finally describe the feeling he had.
It’s as if the entire world around them had died.
His lips were trembling, but no sound came out.
“Let’s get moving, the archives is the first room around the corner.” Lu Xia’s voice in his ear was the only sign of life in this world.
With an arm against the wall and the other around Sun Zheng’s shoulder, Lu Xia slowly hobbled forward, dragging his injured leg. However, they both came to a startling halt before they even took two steps.
Under their feet was something sticky, something wet.
But what sticky and wet substance could be smeared across the ground on the third floor?
They lowered their gazes at the same time, training the flashlight at their feet.
Blood, bloodstains?
There was a large pool of red. It had both pus and blood, and looked as if it was fresh. Under the light, the sight was extremely shocking.
Whose was it? And why did it suddenly appear here?
With the sudden appearance of blood, Sun Zheng, who had just started to accept the abnormal worldview of the chasm, was once again swayed by his belief in logic and science. Two contrasting opinions clashed in his mind, twisting together, and he finally reacted like a normal person would, “Who’s injured? There must be other people here, let’s go help them!”
He tightened his grip on Lu Xia, wanting to rush off immediately to find the injured person.
Lu Xia held him down with a flourish, displaying a strength that Sun Zheng never knew his friend possessed, and very nearly knocked Sun Zheng off his feet.
“Wait! Take a closer look at it.” Lu Xia’s tone was solemn.
Bearing Lu Xia’s weight, Sun Zheng lowered his body slightly. The flashlight in Lu Xia’s hand illuminated the ground.
This was not the only pool of blood.
The deep red blood meandered along the tiles, snaking long and deep into the darkness of the corridor, leaving trails in its wake.
What’s at the end of such a long trail of blood?
The halo of light slowly extended forward, following the trail. The light skimmed across puddles of blood along the way. How could a human have this much blood? The realisation brought along with it a wave of unease.
Rustle. Rustle.
There was something moving in the dark, stirring their imagination.
Rustle. Rustle.
The blood was still spreading outwards. An ominous premonition also began to spread in the hearts of the two of them.
What’s making that sound?
Rustle. Rustle.
It seemed that all the other ghosts and phantoms in the hospital were far away at this moment. Only this rustling sound and blood stains existed in this moment, spreading like a wide, sinister smile in this dark night, stretching the mental exhaustion of the two men to the point of breaking.
The dim light finally came to a stop.
Within the very same second, Lu Xia instinctively flipped the switch of the flashlight off. As though in a tacit understanding, Sun Zheng channelled all of his strength and nearly lifted Lu Xia completely off the ground as they rushed off towards the first room around the corner.
The door was open!
The two of them rolled in without missing a beat. Sun Zheng slammed the door shut, panting.
Run! Even their screams were stuck in their throat.
At the far end of the trail of blood, was a lump of something.
It was crawling, moving, wriggling.
Rustle. Rustle.
It was like a human body, yet that distorted shape was not one a normal human could make.
The long bloodstains were traces left by “it”.
It almost felt as though everything in this hospital in a radius of that wiggling lump ceased to exist.
Rustle. Rustle.
The two men were still in shock. They panted heavily, but didn’t manage to say a single word for a long time.
What was that? Where was it crawling to?
Would it come back?
After they regained part of their composure, countless questions began popping up in their minds in the blink of an eye, saturating the brain which had blanked out for that split second earlier.
The two men eyed each other. Lu Xia hadn’t even recovered the strength to switch the flashlight back on.
He really didn’t want to see those monsters again…
If that glob of meat were to turn around earlier, what would it look like?
They didn’t dare to entertain that thought.
Before they’d even figured out what it was, the two of them had given in to their instincts. Their brains and bodies screamed at them to avoid that creature and they reacted as quickly as possible.
Lu Xia gradually calmed down, but found that Sun Zhen was still panting heavily.
“Zheng, what’s wrong?” He whispered, as if afraid that someone or something outside would hear him.
“Hurts… My heart hurts… I can’t breathe…” Sun Zheng clutched his chest, still lying on his side on the ground with his legs curled up.
Ewww the imagery! 😭 Just imagining a lump of something wriggling around is ughhh..