Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
The two supported each other and went into Room 3. After locking the door behind them, Lu Xia carefully scanned the whole room with a flashlight and couldn’t help but let out a puzzled ‘huh’.
“Is this room really the one on the map?” Lu Xia asked Sun Zheng in a low voice, his eyes still surveying the room.
Sun Zheng pointed to the table where records and maps were spread out. When the two of them finally went over to sit at the table, Lu Xia peered at the map.
“Strange… What’s so special about this room?” He confirmed the location, but did not let go of his doubts.
Sun Zheng already had a shadow on his psyche ever since they went to the wrong room on the fourth floor, and said, “Could it be that this map is wrong?”
As soon as Lu Xia heard this, he remembered what he found in the archives room and became conflicted.
“Before that, I have something more important to tell you.” Sun Zheng pulled Lu Xia over with a serious expression. “I encountered a very strange thing after the file room.”
Lu Xia came back to his senses upon hearing this. “Hm, quick tell me. Did that crawling thing do anything to you?”
Sun Zheng grimaced inwardly, thinking, why are you so interested in this, is it because you care about me or are you just curious, but he merely said evenly, “No, what happened then was so sudden that my mind went blank. When I regained my composure, I realised that my surroundings were all different.”
He told Lu Xia what happened after they separated, not leaving out any detail. Lu Xia was still a little excited at the beginning, but as he listened, his mouth gradually opened wider and wider, to the point that it seemed it would become too wide to close at some point. Sun Zheng impatiently made a gesture of ‘shut your mouth’, and Lu Xia quickly closed his mouth obediently, his expression becoming more dignified.
After Sun Zheng finally finished speaking, Lu Xia stuttered for a long time before opening his mouth again. “Zheng… You, you, were you overly frightened by that crawling thing…?”
Sun Zheng raised his brows. “You think that I’m talking nonsense?”
“Of course not,” Lu Xia smiled placatingly, revealing two dimples. “It’s just that this kind of thing is too sci-fi. How could it be possible for you to suddenly teleport from the archives to that place, then from there to the front of the operating room?”
“I feel like the whole journey ever since I entered this hospital is already very sci-fi.”
Lu Xia smiled awkwardly. “Uh, yeah… But as far as I know, there is no explanation for this kind of thing. After all, it’s pretty different from what I know happens in the chasm.”
“Then is there any structure that’s different on any floor of this hospital? One where there are no stairs at the end of the corridor, only windows, and an old-looking door next to it?”
Lu Xia thought for a while, then shook his head.
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.
“What about the other buildings? There are several buildings behind the hospital, could it be in any of them?” Sun Zheng asked.
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Sun Zheng glanced askance at Lu Xia’s exaggerated expression, and continued asking, “What about the operating room? How much do you know about the operating room here?”
Lu Xia shook his head again. “Not much. The operating rooms should have all been moved to the new building outside, but it is possible there might be an operating room left over from the old Tonghua Hospital in this main building. Didn’t you go in and take a look?”
Sun Zheng shrugged helplessly. “I’m not stupid enough to run everywhere. Besides, it was marked with a red cross.”
Lu Xia looked at him, a kind of joy gradually surfaced in his eyes, and he even let out a small chuckle.
Sun Zheng was puzzled, wondering if there was something on his face, and asked uncomfortably, “What are you laughing at?”
Lu Xia waved his hand and said, “It’s nothing much, I was thinking, luckily you didn’t really wander around and nothing untoward happened to you, otherwise… I would lose a perfectly good human crutch!”
Sun Zheng tossed the chair leg on the table, and snorted. “I think this is more reliable than me. You should worry more about whether it was frightened and became dysfunctional.”
Lu Xia moved the chair leg aside with a smile. “It isn’t as comfortable as you, and not as warm as you.”
Sun Zheng told himself to endure the frivolous statements from this guy, and said glumly. “Don’t be too happy yet. Did you forget that I ran into something here just now? We are still not safe here,you better start thinking of a way!”
Lu Xia’s smile remained unchanged. “So you are not angry with me anymore? You don’t want to go your own way anymore?”
Sun Zheng glared at him.
But Lu Xia moved closer. “You also realised that it’s best to travel together, right? How could you bear to leave me, a disabled person, alone?”
These words aroused guilt buried in Sun Zheng’s heart, and he couldn’t help but say, “At that time, I was a little too impulsive… Now, I do think it’s safer for the two of us to be together, and we can brainstorm ideas too.”
Lu Xia nodded. “Does that mean you are willing to find my brother with me?”
Sun Zheng said solemnly. “I understand your feelings, but your brother has disappeared for so long and there are too few clues. We’d better collect clues related to your brother while also searching for a way out.”
A whole bucket of cold water was poured onto Lu Xia. He pouted, glancing over at the open records, then raised his head and asked Sun Zheng, “You were reading the records earlier? Did you find any clues?”
“I didn’t see anything about the door or bloodstains, but, the record I was reading mentioned an incident in this room.”
Lu Xia lowered his head to look at the record, and his eyes stopped on the name of the recorder.
“What a coincidence, this record was also written by a doctor surnamed Yan.”
“Is there any problem?” Sun Zheng leaned over.
“I found a photo in the archives. On it was Liu Qunfang and a boy. On the back was written asking Dr. Yan and ‘that strange uncle’ to visit him.”
“Is that little boy called Gao Letian?”
“What?” Lu Xia looked at Sun Zheng, bewildered.
“You’ll know it when you read the record. I suspect there is something wrong with that little boy.”
Lu Xia began reading this doctor Yan’s record with doubts in his mind. Halfway through, he flipped back to the front again, then continued reading again. After Lu Xia continued flipping through the book several times, Sun Zheng finally became annoyed.
“Can’t you read it all first? ”
“No, I just think this record is very odd, very strange. ”
Lu Xia explained, but his eyes did not stop moving across the record, and the furrow between his brows got deeper and deeper.
Finally, after finishing the record, he let out a long breath and looked at Sun Zheng with a piercing gaze.
“Did you find a problem with this record?”
“What problem?”
“Don’t you think that this record is different from other records? In this entry, there is no one who disappeared.”
Sun Zheng seemed to finally understand. He stared at Lu Xia, waiting for him to continue his explanation.
“You see, in the records we have read previously, there was always a real person who disappeared, and we attributed it to them entering the chasm. In the entry with Lao Zhang and Lao Mao, Lao Zhang disappeared; in Liu Qunfang’s records, Chen Juan disappeared after the fire; in Li Ting’s records, Liu Qunfang disappeared.”
Sun Zheng glanced at the record in Lu Xia’s hand, nodded, and said, “In this record, there is no one who disappeared.”
“Yes, this story is more like the traditional ghost story. It isn’t about the disappearance of a real person, but more about an imaginary ghost, or the existence of something else, the footprints, the phone…” Lu Xia paused. “I suspect that the problem lies with this Dr. Yan. ”
Sun Zheng didn’t reply, and seemed to be deep in thought.
Lu Xia went on to say, “You see, I also found some strange things in the archives. The materials of Liu Qunfang and information on some other people were taken away. All of these happened to be around 2001, which is about the same time as when my brother disappeared. This Dr. Yan, according to the above, was an intern here from 2001 to 2002. He left around 2002, and I’ve also not found any traces of his information…”
“So you mean to say… that this hospital is trying to hide something? And it is related to your brother? And also to this Dr. Yan? ”
“Yes. I think the crux of the problem lies in this man named Yan Yang. Liu Qunfang, my brother, everything points to him.”
Room 3 became silent in this moment of contemplation. Other than the table where the flashlight was on, the rest of the furnishings were drowned in darkness. The room was divided by several large shadows. The standing cabinets and facilities melted into thick black shadows, lurking in this room, undulating as if they were breathing faintly or had a beating pulse.
Darkness stretched on outside the window. The main building of Tonghua Hospital seemed to be covered by a huge curtain from top to bottom, the darkness snuffing out the untold story in the area.
Finally the silence was broken by Lu Xia. He rapped on the table lightly with his knuckles, trying to analyse.
“There are several possibilities. Firstly, this record is like the one written by Lao Mao, and the truth within had been manipulated; secondly, Dr. Yan did not lie, what he wrote is the truth, but he did not mention the key details; thirdly, Dr. Yan didn’t lie or leave out details, but this record isn’t worth racking our brains over it at all, and it was all just the child’s prank. What do you think?”
Sun Zheng was stumped by Lu Xia asking several consecutive conjectures, and only managed to speak after a long time, “Is it possible that both Dr. Yan and the child have problems? Dr. Yan lied and the child also played tricks?”
Lu Xia slapped the table. “It’s possible! Since the kid sent this photo later, it seems that his relationship with Dr. Yan is actually quite good and nowhere near as bad as the record implies. But what does all this have to do with my brother?”
The two fell into a deep period of contemplation.
Lu Xia took over the record again and carefully read it word by word.
Who was it that night? A person who could enter my office; a person who knew my working hours; a person who wanted to get close to me…
“Zheng… I think…” Lu Xia hesitated. “This sentence seems very familiar, do you have any impression of it?”
“Which sentence?” Sun Zheng looked over then shook his head.
“I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before,” Lu Xia’s eyes stayed on that sentence. “Yan Yang seems to be implying something here.”
Sun Zheng didn’t speak, he really didn’t see anything wrong with it.
“This entire entry feels odd. If you connect the few key points here, the phone calls, footprints, a ‘bang’, and the child… that child named Gao Letian might actually have nothing to do with this incident, but Dr. Yan tried to make us connect the child with this incident… this method of recording, these wordings, everything seems very familiar somehow.”
“Familiar?” Sun Zheng asked.
Lu Xia suddenly grabbed Sun Zheng’s hand and said excitedly, “I get it now! We were completely wrong! This Dr. Yan, I never thought he was so smart!”
Again with Lu Xia not telling us anything right away 😞 I don’t need this cliffhangers man 😭😭