Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
“I understand her because we both have someone we like. Liu Qunfang was actually very scared,” Lu Xia said, looking at Sun Zheng with bright eyes. “And I’m more scared than her, Sun Zheng.”
Lu Xia noticed that the footsteps of the person he was leaning on had stopped.
His eyes drooped, as if he had something to say, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he simply moved his shoulders then raised his foot again.
Lu Xia glanced up at the dark ceiling and sighed.
“It’s okay, let’s go out first.” Lu Xia added as they turned a corner and continued downstairs.
He didn’t know whether this sentence was meant for Sun Zheng, or it was a kind of self-comfort for himself.
The two of them were silent, walking down the stairs with the dim flashlight. The second floor was already in sight. The edge of their light had already illuminated the cold ground, revealing the dust particles suspended in the air.
Lu Xia’s mood did not calm down. He thought he would let out a long breath of relief, but found that this burden that had accumulated for a long time had penetrated so deep into his mind at some point, completely disrupting his ability to think.
He glanced at Sun Zheng’s profile, but felt that he couldn’t even concentrate on this.
What did he think of him? Or perhaps he didn’t understand his confession?
If it wasn’t for this incident bringing them together, they would still be people from two unrelated worlds. Perhaps a brilliant student like Sun Zheng who was dedicated to academics and had never been in love, really didn’t understand what he said…? This might be a new territory for Sun Zheng after all, one where the man himself couldn’t fully comprehend.
And just like the flashlight lighting up a small area of this hospital each time, Sun Zheng could only explore the unknown territory in this strange new world, a little at a time.
After all, he was just an acquaintance who barged into Sun Zheng’s life all of a sudden. In this long night, they’d helped and relied on each other, they’d butted heads and gone separate ways, but regardless, the only time and place where they’d truly connected with each other, is this one night in this chasm.
“Is it that way?” Sun Zheng spoke all of a sudden, startling Lu Xia.
“Ah! Yes, on the left.” Lu Xia quickly reacted, and quickly shone the flashlight in that direction.
It was even worse than what he had expected…… It turned out that he didn’t even take what happened just now to heart.
“Lu Xia…” Sun Zheng exclaimed, his voice suppressed, “It’s started again…”
“What?” Lu Xia slowed down his pace alongside Sun Zheng.
“That feeling… the same feeling I had when we just arrived on the third floor…”
When they reached the third floor?
The fantasies and thoughts in Lu Xia’s minds promptly vanished upon hearing these words.
That lifeless feeling, the feeling of emptiness as though the entire world around them had died? Even the things reenacting their last moments were gone?
He began to feel discomfort welling up in Sun Zheng’s tensed body.
Lu Xia patted Sun Zheng’s shoulder lightly to soothe him while he glanced around vigilantly. He did not rule out that this was a sign that something was about to reappear.
He couldn’t let Sun Zheng disappear before his eyes again.
After confirming that there were no strange sounds, he whispered to Sun Zheng, “Relax. I’ll keep a look out. You just need to walk towards the laboratory.”
Sun Zheng felt that dull feeling getting stronger and stronger. It came down from directly above his head, making him almost dizzy and unable to distinguish left from right.
Outside of his blurring vision, he could only feel warmth, breathing, Lu Xia.
“Lu Xia…” He called out, as if to confirm the other man’s presence.
Lu Xia noticed that Sun Zheng was no longer walking straight. He did his best to move his weight onto the hand he had against the wall, trying to relieve Sun Zheng’s burden, all while trying to say something to calm Sun Zheng down.
“Zheng, your shoulders give me the same feeling as another person’s,” Lu Xia jokes, pretending to be relaxed, even though he was merely suppressing his nervousness.
Meanwhile, the gears in his head were turning. He was also secretly trying to discern what exactly was the cause of Sun Zheng’s reaction.
Sun Zheng replied in a daze, “Wh…at?”
Fuck, his Sun Zheng is completely zoned out. Under normal circumstances, the correct response would be to ask ‘who’ instead of ‘what’!
“My brother.”
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.
“Again with your brother…” Sun Zheng felt that his consciousness was flickering, as if there was something in a distant place pulling at it. “No wonder you are always putting your arms around my shoulder…”
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But…it was just this once.
“Your brother…” Sun Zheng exerted pressure on his throbbing temple. “What does he look like?”
Lu Xia glanced ahead. They were almost at the laboratory, and had yet to meet anything strange so far. “Tall and thin, with a pale face and dark circles under the eyes…”
The corridor was still eerily silent. Within the darkness were rooms and doors they couldn’t see.
Once his mind had a lull, it would conjure up countless thoughts about eyes staring from the doors lining the corridor as well as the unknown horrors hidden behind them.
Coupled with the unusual atmosphere on the second floor, it only served to make him more and more paranoid and impede his thought processes.
Lu Xia forced himself to talk, chatting about some seemingly ordinary topics with Sun Zheng, so Sun Zheng could maintain the last sliver of sobriety and also to distract himself from unnecessary thoughts.
He recalled the Lu Xiaoyun in his memory, and then continued to chat with Sun Zheng about his brother. “Actually, he is as rigid as you, he also doesn’t talk much…”
His brother was so cold to him that he’d always felt as though he was like a stranger his brother had become acquainted with by chance and had to meet every day… But his brother was a genius in a way. No matter what happened, he could always stay logical and calm.
“So you mean, like me, he also doesn’t have any friends?” Sun Zheng asked easily, without putting any thought into his words.
Lu Xia choked.
“Tsk…” Sun Zheng continued to stagger forward. The laboratory was almost right in front of them. “Lu Xia…”
Lu Xia smiled bitterly. Although he really enjoyed hearing Sun Zheng subconsciously chanting his name, the man was currently so delirious that it felt as if he was drunk.
“We’re here, Zheng!” Lu Xia pushed open the two doors of the laboratory. Sun Zheng seemed to loosened up the moment he realised they’d arrived, and slumped down onto the ground.
Lu Xia quickly lifted him up and propped him up against the wall.
This should be the waiting area outside the laboratory. There were several rows of seats. The floor was covered in light-coloured tiles, and there were several windows on the left, which should be the place where patients would collect their test documents and results.
He scanned the entire hall with the flashlight. There were plants in two or three locations.
That Chlorophytum from a few years ago, who knew if it would’ve tossed away after the dean changed? The plant could have died too. Lu Xia couldn’t be sure.
Even if Lu Xiaoyun could have predicted that he would come here, he probably didn’t imagine that it would have been after so many years, or that the hospital would’ve changed hands.
Sun Zheng was suffering from severe pain at this moment, the kind of pain which spread all over his body. He couldn’t express the extent of his discomfort in words. The whole world before his eyes had become a blurry double image.
Lu Xia found that Sun Zheng had fallen over from the wall back onto the ground again, curled up like last time.
He was a little at a loss of what to do. He wanted to help Sun Zheng up, but seeing him in such pain, he was afraid that if he moved him, the pain would become even worse.
Sun Zheng took a deep breath. He furrowed his brows. “What’s that sound?”
What… sound?
Because Lu Xia had been focusing all his attention on Sun Zheng earlier, he had, in turn, inadvertently been ignoring the subtle changes around them.
Only now did he hear the sound. That sound which made their hair stand on end.
Rustle, rustle.
Lu Xia pulled Sun Zheng up and tightened his arms around the latter’s shoulders involuntarily.
No matter how or where that thing appeared from, he wouldn’t let Sun Zheng disappear again.
Rustle, rustle.
It was a familiar sound. It was the sound made by that ‘thing’.
Sun Zheng rolled shoulders, and suddenly said, “This sound…seems pretty close to us…”
Rustle, rustle.
Lu Xia boldly picked up the flashlight and scanned the walls around them slowly.
There were no signs of it at all.
The floor was also very clean, with no stains on the light-coloured floor tiles.
Rustle, rustle.
He clenched his fist and pulled Sun Zheng closer.
“Hold me tightly, don’t move around.”
Where the hell was it?
Rustle, rustle.
Sun Zheng suddenly felt something dripping on his head.
He touched his head and smelled his hands.
A fishy scent…
“Lu Xia, it’s above us!”
The two looked up at the same time.
In the area of the ceiling illuminated by the flashlight, there was a huge bloodstain.
Blood was dripping down.
The light of the flashlight moved along the trail of blood, following that long stain imprinted on the ceiling as it extended towards the far corner.
Sun Zheng and Lu Xia’s hearts constricted.
At the end of that side was a huge bloodstain.
But that ‘thing’ was not there.
The sound appeared to have disappeared again.
The two of them pulled each other to their feet.
They had to leave this place!!
Sun Zheng gripped Lu Xia’s shoulders tightly and was about to help him up when he suddenly stopped.
His whole world screeched to a stop at this moment.
He felt a sticky limp on his hand. A strong smell of blood hit his nostrils.
Lu Xia also seemed to have stopped breathing. His eyes seemed to be two empty voids.
Sun Zheng saw a bloody mass moving, slowly crawling up from behind Lu Xia’s back and laying down on Lu Xia’s shoulder.
There was a face, a pair of eyes, staring right at him.
“Zheng!!!!!!!”
.
It’s so dark.
The air is so cold.
Where is he?
Snap.
Thank god there’s still the light from the flashlight.
This is… the corridor?
He suddenly felt that this corridor was very familiar. A corridor shrouded in thick black mist, a silent corridor with no one else.
This is that…that unknown corridor.
Why is he here again? Is he hallucinating again?
He peered down at his hand. The large mass of blood that he’d touched earlier had completely disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed.
That face suddenly broke into his mind again.
A feeling of suffocation seized him. He crouched down, clutching his head in pain.
Impossible, impossible.
How could it be like this?
The flashlight rolled out of his hand, rolled twice along the wall, and stopped.
The light lit up the white wall opposite. It was empty.
Just like this corridor, he felt so empty…
“Sun Zheng…” He whispered his name as if to confirm it.
The flashlight had rolled out of reach. He staggered to his feet, bracing himself against the wall.
“… Lu Xia…” He inadvertently called out another name.
His brain gradually sobered up.
He disappeared from Lu Xia’s side, and arrived here.
Sun Zheng dragged his feet towards the flashlight. His feet were heavy, as if the darkness was carrying an unknown weight, as if the thick air had turned into a swamp, and those trapped in it could hardly move an inch.
He can’t see. He can’t see what’s around him.
He can’t feel. He can’t feel any traces of life around him.
Warmth, breathing, he can’t feel anything.
He walked slowly, leaning against the wall, and then stopped abruptly.
He felt something under his hand.
Something of a different texture, as though it was made of wood. He slowly felt along that wooden object. What is it? There seemed to be a lot of nicks etched into this thing.
What could this be?
He started feeling a little anxious. He stumbled forward, crouched down and picked up the flashlight.
He trained it on that wooden object before him.
It’s that door. He almost couldn’t believe he’d actually touched that door. That hideous door.
That stained door, covered in scratches and trails of blood. That old, tattered, run-down door that felt like it was a weathered corpse.
How much anger and desperation must one have to leave such deep scratches.
There was the sound from behind the door again. Something was scratching, clawing at it.
He pressed his ear to the door. It was scratching and scraping at the door so vigorously, yet the door remained motionless.
The metal door handle, covered in rust.
He reached a hand out involuntarily and touched the handle.
He nearly closed both of his eyes in fear and nervousness.
What was behind this door? What was scratching and clawing at the door?
Rustle, rustle.
The handle moved a little, and got stuck.
It was locked.
He tried to turn the handle again, harder this time, but it did not budge. The door was still locked.
He felt himself getting annoyed. He held the flashlight in his mouth, put both hands on the handle at the same time and pushed down on it with all his might.
God this is giving me so much anxiety! 😭 Someone better be paying for their therapy!
nagkahiwalay na naman sila jusq🤺🤺
Omo!!! Is the key for this door?