Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
Entry by: Liu Qunfang (a nurse during 1999 to 2002)
Xiao Hui once told me that there was a problem with the women’s toilet on the fourth floor, but I didn’t believe it.
What problem? I have been working in this hospital for so long, and heard all the stories about the morgue and ghosts that come out at night, but I have never once seen any with my own eyes. It’s all fake.
These kinds of things always get more exaggerated the more they spread from person to person, from one to ten, from ten to a hundred. For example, what I am writing now, I feel like it’s actually pretty mild, but they insisted that I had to record it down. Not just an overview, but all the details too and even all the dialogues as far as I can remember too. Going to this extent, doesn’t that just make everyone feel uneasy and paranoid?
Xiao Hui and the other young nurses didn’t usually do any serious work around here. Every day, they would either gather and chat about girly stuff like make-up or fashion, or tell each other ghost stories. There were a few of them who came from the countryside and they were rather superstitious. One of them was a cleaner named Chen Juan, and she came in with a recommendation from her acquaintance. She said that her home is far into the mountains, and it would take three to five days to walk to Wu Ze Town, which was already the furthest town from this county. And this Chen Juan was especially superstitious.
But Chen Juan never mentioned anything else about her family’s situation. She probably cared a lot about her reputation. When she first arrived here, she was wearing a tattered shirt and a pair of trousers which were so short that her legs were mostly exposed. She didn’t wear socks and her white mesh shoes were completely covered with mud. When she first saw the elevator, she was startled and panicked, refusing to enter it. The other nurses loved to tease her, calling her a country bumpkin. If they met her in the corridor, they would deliberately fan her with their hands and say, “Oh, something smells so bad, I wonder who hasn’t bathed in half a month!”
Being pointed at and teased in the hospital all day long naturally made her feel uncomfortable. Even when she spoke up, they would also tease her about her thick accent. Xiao Hui even once said that Chen Juan feels like she does not live on the same planet as us. She speaks an alien language and dresses like an alien. Even her facial features do not look like a normal human.
But you know, women are always vain. Before half a year passed, she’d learned how to dress up: tying up her hair, pairing her clothes, sometimes she even wore heels. Just like a normal city dweller, she took the initiative to speak to the nurses and constantly chased after every new fashion trend. She probably considered her past too embarrassing so she never answered any questions about her hometown or family and started insisting that she’d grown up in the city and her parents were teachers. None of us exposed her lies either, we only laughed at her behind her back.
But whenever we started telling these ghost stories, her roots would be exposed. She would always interject at the end of each tale, “There is really such a saying. You must believe it. I knew so-and-so who met with an unfortunate accident back before the wheat was harvested.” Really, did she still intend to keep up her guise of a ‘scholarly family’ with these stories?
The day before yesterday, I ran into her and the others chatting about the women’s toilet on the fourth floor.
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.
“Did you know? There are babies crying in the washroom on the fourth floor at night.” Xiao Hui lowered her voice to make her words seem more mysterious.
C ofk bo atfw kfgf ajxfc jyjmx. Ktfs ragfamtfv bea atflg cfmxr bcf ys bcf, kjlalcu lwqjalfcais ab tfjg atf mbcalcejalbc bo atf rabgs.
“P kjr bc veas atja cluta. Pa kjr atf vjs atf kbwfc’r ablifa bc atf rfmbcv oibbg ygbxf vbkc. P gfjiis mbeivc’a tbiv la jcswbgf, rb P tjv ab ub eqrajlgr ab atf obegat oibbg. Cr rbbc jr P uba ab atf rajlgr bc atf obegat oibbg, P ofia j mtlii gec vbkc ws rqlcf. Ktf vbbg bo atf kbwfc’r ablifa atfgf kjr jpjg, jcv pera jr P kjr jybea ab bqfc atf vbbg ab fcafg, P tfjgv atf rbecv bo gertlcu kjafg mbwlcu ogbw lcrlvf—”
Frightened, several young nurses quickly huddled together. However, they still couldn’t curb their curiosity so they continued listening intently. Seriously, I don’t understand, what’s there to be afraid of in broad daylight!
“I knew there had to be something wrong. It was almost midnight then, so how could there be anyone still on the fourth floor! I was so shocked and frightened that I didn’t dare to go in. But suddenly, I heard the sound of a baby crying. It came from inside that dark toilet, and it started getting louder, and louder, and louder. I couldn’t care less about using the toilet by then and quickly ran back downstairs, but the baby’s crying never stopped. It seemed to be chasing me from behind all the way. I felt so frightened that I’ve been hallucinating for several nights after that encounter. Every night I would hear a baby crying beside my bed…” Xiao Hui’s storytelling was so vivid that her own face turned blue too.
Liu Xin was the most frightened of them all. Tears have even welled up in her eyes. After trembling for some time, she finally asked in a small voice, “W-Was it the child of the pregnant woman in ward 31?”
This question scared them all. Someone immediately covered Liu Xin’s mouth. “Let’s not… let’s not talk about this anymore.”
Xiao Hui also frantically waved her hand. “Let’s just go back. Go back to work.”
They quickly dispersed with pale faces. I noticed that Chen Juan was also pretty frightened. She was clutching at the mop with one hand while wiping her cold sweat with the other. She kept her lips tightly pursed and didn’t even interject with her usual sentence.
The pregnant woman in ward 31. Of course, I knew of that patient.
She was a patient Liu Xin was in charge of at that time, a very young girl who was only 20 years old. She was quite pitiful. Other than the furious woman (probably her mother) who sent her to the hospital on the first day, no one else came to visit her. Not even the baby’s father.
We sympathised with her plight and would do our best to look after her a little more. After all, we all felt that this young and beautiful girl was likely pregnant out of wedlock and the man had probably refused to take responsibility.
This girl was rather odd. She didn’t speak much and didn’t like to eat either. Other pregnant women couldn’t stop eating and typically put on weight during their pregnancy, but she grew more and more haggard. With her pale face and dark draping hair, sometimes, she really looked neither like a person nor a ghost.
Later, Liu Xin let it slip that the child was conceived during the military programme at university. There was only a wall between the male and female areas, and these sorts of muddled accidents were not uncommon.
However, unexpectedly, this girl vanished just a week before the baby was due.
It was very strange.
The patient in the bed beside her said that the pregnant girl had a stomachache late that night, and started sobbing while fussing about needing to use the washroom. She supported her back and made her way to the bathroom, and simply never came back.
Liu Xin was the one who was the most affected by this incident and searched all over the hospital. At one point, she thought that the girl might have committed suicide, but there were no bodies. Later, she thought that someone might have come by to fetch her away, but all the girl’s clothes and personal items were still left in the ward.
After this incident, every time someone talked about the women’s toilet on the fourth floor, she’d mention that girl, even if the story was about the fourth floor of the main building and not the inpatient department.
*
A few days later, it was my turn to be on the night shift. Those little nurses were chatting in the nurse’s station, painting their nails, and Chen Juan stayed behind to clean up.
I probably drank too much water that night. I had a sudden urge to use the toilet. Just when I stood up, the head nurse said, “The toilet pipe on the second floor is broken, go to the one on the fourth floor.”
Thinking of how tiring it is to climb to the fourth floor, I grouched, “Why is it broken again? I’m just taking a pee, it’ll be okay, right?”
“No. I’ve already sealed the door during the day because I was afraid someone would use it.” The head nurse was unrelenting to my request.
I contemplated but decided that it’s not that big of a problem. It’s just the fourth floor anyway. Seeing my earlier hesitation, Chen Juan gestured to the clock on the wall and said, “Qunfang-jie, it’s almost 12 midnight. Don’t go to the fourth floor, just bear it for now and go to another toilet after you knock off?”
The midnight bell began tolling.
I waved at her, brushing off her words and hurried upstairs. My shift would only end in another 30 minutes. How could I possibly bear it for that long?
I climbed up one level at a time. The chimes of the bell were getting more and more muffled. Eventually, there was only the light of my torch and the sound of my heels on the stairs left in this all-encompassing darkness.
Such an eerie silence.
This hospital had better add a few extra washrooms soon. Currently, the ladies’ were on the second, fourth, and sixth floors while the gents’ were on the first, third, and fifth floors. What a hassle!
In this quiet and dark night, there was only the sound of my footsteps in the wide stairwell. The echoes sounded like there was another woman quietly following me from behind.
Clutching the torch boldly, I shone the light down just as I turned the corner of the stairs. However the flickering light was too weak to penetrate all the way down to the first floor, and only revealed a wider expanse of the undulating darkness below.
My heart tightened.
Why did I do that? What if I saw a humanoid shadow below?
Sigh, since when was I one to believe in ghosts and superstitions?
That being said, I cannot confirm if what happened next was merely a figment of my imagination or otherwise.
Just when I was about to reach the fourth floor, I heard a soft sound.
I cannot put that sound to words, but it clearly came from overhead. It sounded a little like shoes being dragged across the ground, yet also resembled rustling from the hem of a long skirt trailing across the floor.
