Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
“Hey, hello!” A young man’s voice sounded from the device.
(Sun Zheng and Lu Xia looked at each other, and they both saw excitement in each other’s eyes. If they guessed correctly, the person who was speaking should be Yan Yang.)
“Are you sure it can be recorded onto this?” The voice seemed to be farther away, as if the man who was making the recording had turned to speak to another person, “My poor English tape…”
“You don’t have a video recorder or a video camera. Ordinary cameras are useless and those handwritten records are unreliable, so you can only use this.” There was another voice, one which sounded flat, without any inflections in its tone.
(Sun Zheng suddenly felt Lu Xia gripping his hand tightly, his whole body trembling with emotion. He immediately discerned that the new voice must be that of Lu Xia’s brother, Lu Xiaoyun.)
“But…” Yan Yang’s voice sounded very reluctant. “Do I really have to carry this device and walk around with you in the hospital in the middle of the night?”
Lu Xiaoyun ignored the question. Two sets of footsteps sounded, accompanied by a low hissing whirr of the tape. One of them sounded firm and smooth, and the other set should be those of Yan Yang who was holding the device. Because of the shaking from their walking, the audio record became more blurry, and the loud steps from brisk walking nearly drowned out all other sounds.
Only to be punctuated by a dissatisfied mutter. “Can’t you at least wait until I finish the introduction, so that others wouldn’t be so puzzled when they listen to this?”
Without waiting for Lu Xiaoyun to speak, Yan Yang had already continued speaking to the device. This time, the voice was loud and clear. “Well, so: My name is Yan Yang. I’m the one holding this device, and I am currently an intern doctor in this hospital and in the midst of actively preparing for my postgraduate examination… The person walking in front of me is Lu Xiaoyun, hahaha , don’t just assume that it’s a girl from the name…” (The energetic voice suddenly shrivelled and faded out halfway through, and Lu Xia judged that Dr. Yan should have been given a cold stare by his brother.)
The doctor’s voice returned to normal. “He, um, claims to be unemployed… But I think he is very rich, and he might have some connections to the underworld. Well, the most important question here is, what are we doing now? To answer that, let’s start from the beginning…”
(Sun Zheng prodded Lu Xia impatiently: “Can you fast forward?”
Lu Xia shook his head and said in a serious tone, “No. We haven’t ascertained what kind of doctor this Dr. Yan is. Why was he with my brother? What does my brother’s disappearance have to do with him? Before we figure all of this out, we can’t ignore him and fast forward through this part.”
Sun Zheng had no choice but to agree to continue listening.)
There were footsteps in the tape again, but it was slightly different from before. They were no longer brisk walking, and their footsteps seemed quite rhythmic at this time, step by step.
(They are going up the stairs! The two of them realised at once.)
From the tape, it can be heard that while Yan Yang kept a quick pace at climbing the stairs, his voice was still calm and steady, which showed that he had quite a lot of stamina. “Recently, I always see a young man at the door of the third room of our Department of General Surgery. The man would always sleep on the waiting chairs out there but never comes in for consultations. He would always be neatly dressed and didn’t look like a homeless man, so after more than ten days in a row, I finally went forward to chat with him… and I almost thought he was a scammer…”
“Later, the head nurse came to speak to me, then I realised this person was a so-called expert sent by her grandfather to investigate the missing people in this hospital. Of course, I don’t believe in ghosts at all, but Head Nurse Liu persuaded me patiently and earnestly, and asked me to act with him as his assistant and his cover… because I am the most idle person in this hospital…Of course, I most definitely didn’t agree to Nurse Liu because I thought it was exciting and fun, but because I felt that it was very necessary to save those missing persons, such as the Chen Juan that Nurse Liu kept talking about…”
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.
(“So now their relationship is clear. Yan Yang was introduced to my brother by Liu Qunfang later. What an unnecessary move, my brother didn’t need any assistants at all…”
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Sun Zheng’s eyes lit up. “Is it his job to go to those places to rescue those missing people? So it is possible to enter and exit the chasm?”
Lu Xia was not certain either, and hesitantly said, “It should be possible, according to what I’ve researched and heard. My brother was born with a special physique and had a sixth sense. But as for what he could sense and do, I can’t say for sure. But the problem here is, even if there were people who were lucky enough to escape from the chasm… at least I’ve yet to hear of any people who’d gone missing in this hospital managing to find their way back.”
Sun Zheng’s budding hope was completely extinguished now. Discouraged, he added, “Hopefully your brother’s special physique would come into play.”)
“Though I don’t quite understand his explanation about this chasm thing, I still came along with him here today. We are now almost on the third floor. The time now is 11:45 p.m. on April 22, 2001…”
(At this time, Sun Zheng tightened his grip on Lu Xia’s hand suddenly. “Replay that part just now!”
“What’s wrong?”
Sun Zheng didn’t bother taking the time to explain. He directly pressed the back button.)
“…But I still came along…forty-five minutes…”
(He gestured to the tape, motioning Lu Xia to listen carefully.
Lu Xia didn’t understand what Sun Zheng meant, and asked, perplexed, “What’s the matter, is there something wrong with what he said?”
“It’s not the contents of what he said. You, you listen again, there was a sound…” Sun Zheng shook his head and hit the back button again.
Yan Yang’s sentence was played back and forth again and again, but Lu Xia still couldn’t grasp what Sun Zheng meant.
Sun Zheng glanced at him. “Could it be that your ears are not good?”
He rewinded the sentence again, taking advantage of the function of the device’s slow playback.
Lu Xia said aggrievedly, “The noise from the tape itself is too loud and the recording itself is poor. How could I possibly hear anything from it? It’s just that your ears are too sharp…”
“Shh!” )
“But…I still came…tap tap…along with…today…tap tap…almost…third floor…tap tap, tap tap…time now is… eleven…tap tap, tap tap…forty-five minutes…”
(Hearing until this point, both Lu Xia and Sun Zheng have subconsciously straightened their backs, a cold chill running down their spine.
In the murky background sound of the recorded tape , there were the footsteps of a third person.
Moreover, the footsteps should be rather close to where Yan Yang and Lu Xiaoyun were, and sounded as if it was running.
“Did he not hear it? Lu Xia pointed to the tape.
Sun Zheng nodded first then shook his head, unsure, and hit the play button again.
Their attention was drawn to the background sounds of the recording, and didn’t process the long speech Yan Yang said at all.
Both Yan Yang and Lu Xiaoyun were climbing up the stairs of the hospital in the middle of the night. Apart from the noise of the tape and the footsteps of the two people, there were no other sounds except for the footsteps of a third person).
The footsteps of Yan Yang and Lu Xiaoyun were echoing in the empty stairwell.
(Sun Zheng and Lu Xia could almost visualise their own figures from this sound. They were also at the stairs of the hospital, in this dark and empty space, walking step by step.
If there was no third person with them and no other sounds nearby, how is it possible that they didn’t hear those footsteps?)
“Hey, wait, Which floor are we going to? Yan Yang asked in the tape.
The footsteps of the other person were obviously a little slower. A flat voice sounded, “To the fourth floor, the toilet where Liu Qunfang said there was a problem.”
“But that… is the women’s toilet?!”’
“It is night now. ”
“So? Is the time of day a valid excuse for you going in and out of the women’s restroom just… Female ghosts also have dignity too…” This sentence seemed to be Yan Yang muttering to himself.
(Sun Zheng pressed the pause button again.
Lu Xia turned to him, puzzled. “Did, did you hear something else again?”
“What floor do you think they are on now?” ” Sun Zheng asked.
Lu Xia estimated the time the tape started and their speed of climbing the stairs “The third floor? Or they’ll be getting to the third floor soon!”
Sun Zheng nodded in agreement, and without any further explanations, he rewinded a portion of the tap and hit the slow playback button.)
“To the fourth floor…toilet…tap tap…Liu Qun…tap tap…said there… was…tap tap…a problem…”
(The expression on Lu Xia’s face tensed up.
“That’s right. The sound of the footsteps have gotten louder. This means they are getting closer to it,” Sun Zheng explained.
“But neither of them seemed to have heard it at all. How could it be possible that my brother didn’t notice it either…” Lu Xia grimaced.
“Also,” Sun Zheng paused. “There is another even weirder sound…”
He pressed the slow playback button again.)
“Is the time of day…a valid…grandpa…going in and out of…grandpa…restroom…female ghosts also…grandpa…have…grandpa…”
(The replay stopped here. Sun Zheng and Lu Xia looked at each other, both waiting for the other to speak first.
But there was no need for them to say anything. The voice in that section was clear as day.
There was a boy’s voice. Yet the two people in the tape didn’t notice it at all.
“They both can’t hear this voice, which is to say,” Lu Xia finally spoke up. “This voice is not from a real person in our reality… In the middle of the night, why would there be a child loitering around in here?”
“This child is right by them but your brother didn’t notice at all?”
Lu Xia shrugged. “This isn’t a movie. My brother just has a better sixth sense than an average human. Though, I’m more concerned whether this child is the same one as the one that grabbed you earlier.”
“At that time, all I heard were groans so I can’t be sure…”
They turned back to the device.)
The sound of Lu Xiaoyun’s footsteps in the tape seemed to have stopped suddenly. Yan Yang hurried a few more steps and should have stopped at the same spot as Lu Xiaoyun.
“What’s the matter?” Yan Yang’s voice came clearly from the tape.
Lu Xiaoyun was silent for a while, then suddenly said, “Did someone die at the stairs on the third floor?”
How is Sun Zheng hearing the word grandpa though? 😭 I can understand footsteps but man!
I actually had a theory for this when reading: the real danger of being trapped in the chasm isn’t only hunger, thirst, and sanity, but that they would start getting closer to ‘the other realm’. This will explain why Sun Zheng was able to hear the word grandpa
God how are they still sane? I would’ve broke down! 😭
Dr. Yan and Lu Xiaoyun >>>
Иконы🤝🏻