Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
The first time, he came to this dark and foggy corridor, he walked to an old door.
The second time, he came back to this same empty corridor, he held the handle of this old door.
The third time, what would he do this time?
He slowly walked towards the room.
Sun Zheng’s heart was still pounding. He felt an inexplicable nervousness.
He scanned his surroundings with a flashlight. This strange but familiar corridor. From the moment he entered the operating room, he had a fuzzy premonition…that he would come to this corridor again.
The remaining warmth of the other person was still lingering on his hand.
“… Lu Xia…” he murmured, clenching his hand.
The corridor was so quiet that there was no sound. Even his own breathing was so weak that he could barely hear it. The black mist was deep, and not even the flashlight could not fully penetrate the entire corridor.
It’s like an absolute space, an absolute domain.
His exclusive domain.
He tried to distinguish the small area of the floor and wall illuminated by the flashlight. If he was not mistaken, that door from his memory wasn’t too far away from here. He just had to walk along the wall, and he would arrive there in a few steps.
What was behind him?!
Such a thought popped into his mind. He never turned around before. Which corridor is this? Maybe he just had to look back to confirm.
His left foot stepped to the left, making a slight noise. This sound seemed to scare even himself. Sun Zheng paused for a moment, and finally mustered up the courage to turn around.
Behind him was also pitch black, like a bottomless sinkhole where not even shadows could exist. He was standing on the edge of this sinkhole and if he took another step, he would plunge down and never see the sun again.
Still, he needed to make sure. He just needed to make sure.
He took a step cautiously. With the flashlight shining to the side, he explored the wall.
Slowly, the light finally revealed a colour which was different from the wall. It was a door.
Sun Zheng swallowed, the flashlight moved upwards, and there was a clear line of words on the old peeling door: Internal Medicine 314.
Bingo!
This was really the internal medicine building on the first floor which was opposite from where Lu Xia was.
After passing by 314, the room behind the door he’d previously come into contact with would be Ward 315A.
The ward that cannot be named, the ward that no one could see.
The strange thing is… there was no such ward at the end of the corridor in the record entry, but why was he able to see that room there?
After confirming his current location and finding Ward 315A, Sun Zheng’s hand holding the flashlight was trembling. If it wasn’t for the eerie atmosphere in this corridor, he would have gone straight to 315A to find out what all this was about.
His chest heaved. He tried to control his mood and breathing. He turned around in the corridor again and cautiously retraced his steps to Ward 315A again.
He didn’t know how he came to this corridor, why he was sent to this place, or what awaited him in Ward 315A.
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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The more he thought about it, the more curious he became. Sun Zheng couldn’t help but twist that old-fashioned handle.
Click.
There was a sound, but the door did not budge.
Was it because of its age?
Sun Zheng pushed his body against the door while twisting the handle.
Click.
Still, the door remained motionless.
Sure enough, it was still locked…
He looked at the door disappointedly, but there was nothing he could do.
Upon closer inspection, he noticed the thin red line around the frame of the door again. Sun Zheng thought about Lu Xiaoyun in the tape, who had circled the door of Room 3 of the Department of General Surgery… They hadn’t examined the door carefully back then, but it could very well be connected to this.
Lu Xiaoyun? Did Lu Xiaoyun mention this door?
No…
But Liu Qin must know how to open this door. Lu Xiang knew too, otherwise how could they have sent the patient to this ward? Lu Xiang… Liu Qin…
These two names made his head ache again.
That’s right.
What did Lu Xiaoyun say at the end of the tape?
“What did you throw at me?”
“Something made from a giant clam. I took it from Liu Qin. It’s very valuable. You take it out of the hospital and sell it for some money. Treat it as compensation money.”
Giant clam? The key from Liu Qin?
Sun Zheng frantically tucked the flashlight under his arm and pulled out the giant clam key from his pocket. The key was warmed by his body temperature and its surface appeared lustrous.
Because they had yet to find the function of this key, so they had always only been using it as a method to keep those things at bay, but…
Sun Zheng took a closer look at the rusty keyhole under the handle. Was this door the one that the key could open?
Click.
It took some effort to insert the key into the rusty keyhole, but the fit was perfect.
As expected! A burst of ecstasy leapt in Sun Zheng’s heart.
He leaned against the door, pushing the key further inward while turning it.
Click.
The door made a muffled sound and opened a small crack.
The cold, damp air mixed with a certain rancid smell rushed out.
Sun Zheng was about to push the door further and enter, when he noticed something like a piece of paper falling at his feet.
It appeared to be…a photograph.
Sun Zheng frowned, bent over and picked it up.
It was an old yellowed photograph. In the photograph was the face of …
.
Lu Xia stared at the black figure, his fists clenched with sweat.
His instincts urged him to run away quickly, but his mind firmly suppressed his desire to turn around and run away.
This black shadow, no matter who it was, had to have a connection to Sun Zheng.
He cautiously took a step closer to the shadow. Maybe it had sensed his presence, but it also began to slowly move along the wall of the operating room at the same time.
Lu Xia quietly flicked on the light of the small flashlight, obliquely tilting the light down to the ground. This light was enough for him to follow the black shadow’s movements without disturbing it.
“Zheng?” Lu Xia called again tentatively.
There was no reply.
His brain was spinning quickly under the acute stress and pressure of this moment. This dark shadow was not Sun Zheng? But how could Sun Zheng disappear inexplicably before his eyes?
The black shadow was moving, silently sliding by the window, as if floating. Lu Xia followed step by step, recalling every detail of what happened when the shadow appeared.
At that time, Sun Zheng noticed that Operating Room (4) and the corridor he had been to had a symmetrical structure. As he expected, this operating room was also the only place where he could see the mysterious ward opposite.
Although this idea was extremely absurd , the biggest possibility was that… Sun Zheng had been moved to the opposite corridor again in just a split second.
Thinking of this, Lu Xia felt even more suffocated from his tense nervousness.
That corridor could only be more dangerous than here.
And how did he explain this black shadow before him then?
He remembered the situation in the observation room on the first floor. Before ‘it’ appeared, there were two strange phenomena outside the observation room.
The black shadow which was drifting outside the door, and the door of the empty emergency room which opened by itself.
Could it be that this black shadow was the same black shadow that had appeared on the first floor and it followed them to Operating Room ( 4)?
But what kind of monster is this thing in front of me?
It wasn’t those rustling things crawling on the floor, and it also didn’t quite look like those ‘things’ from the chasm… No…
Lu Xia seemed to have realised something, and lowered his head to peer at himself.
It was not that they were becoming different in appearance, but that he himself was changing, and that’s why he could now see them and approach them.
“You two have been looking for ‘it’ for some time, right?”
What?!
Lu Xia was so startled by the sudden voice that he almost dropped his flashlight. Tensing his nerves, he looked all around, but couldn’t find the source of the sound.
Wait.
This voice…Where had he heard it before?
It was a woman’s voice, a voice which was as dry and dull as wood.
“You’ll see ‘it’ soon…Are you afraid? It’s too late to regret. Follow me. By now, both you and I are already a part of the chasm.”
Liu Qin?!
Lu Xia was stunned by the name that popped into his head. This was Liu Qin’s voice.
But how could her voice be here?
He couldn’t think of any possibilities… When suddenly, his gaze landed on the black figure leaning against the wall.
Did the shadow speak?
Was Liu Qin talking to him?
Lu Xia’s brain could no longer keep up with the development of the whole situation.
“How is it possible for you to wreck my plans? I still have a way up my sleeve…” The voice suddenly paused, suddenly sharpened, “You know what my plans are? Why would you willingly come in here despite knowing what I intend to do? How much do you know?!”
Lu Xia was panicking.
Hearing a voice reduced the cold and oppressive sense of danger, but it made Lu Xia feel much more helpless instead.
No.
A certain experience he had previously made him realise something.
This situation…was very similar to the situation in a certain entry record.
Just like the entry with the kitten, he didn’t say a word, but Liu Qin’s voice seemed to be one where she was talking to someone. She wasn’t talking to herself! She’d already entered the chasm at this point, why would she talk to herself?
So then, who is she talking to?
Suddenly, all the fragmentary clues from the observation room to the present, clicked together, connecting one after another like a long solid chain.
If this black figure was Liu Qin, she first appeared near the observation room. Soon after that, the emergency room was opened, followed by the doors of the operating room…… ‘it’ came. He went up to the third floor with Sun Zheng, and found this black figure in the operating room…talking to someone.
This was completely in-line with all the events on the day of the incident recorded in the tape.
Liu Qin, who entered the chasm, was chased into the operating room and never came out again.
She met Lu Xiaoyun in the operating room.
Now he is standing where Lu Xiaoyun was back then, listening to the dialogue between Liu Qin and Lu Xiaoyun!
An unprecedented emotion and tension filled Lu Xia at this moment. Here and now, he was Lu Xiaoyun, and everything that happened back then was being re-enacted.
Who is ‘it’? What happened to Lu Xiaoyun? All questions now have answers!
Ahhhh I can’t wait for the next chapter! ><