WTNL Chapter 23

Fukang Hospital
Chapter 23: I fvcking believe you!

The morgue was pitch black, so dark one couldn’t see their own fingers.

The icy air was thick with the pungent smell of formalin, and the faint stench of rotting corpses could be detected.

The sound of bare feet scraping against the floor echoed as they moved slowly and sluggishly through the darkness.

“Jingle,” “Jingle.”

The bizarre sound of bells chiming rang out from all directions, echoing in the vast, empty morgue.

In the corner of the third morgue, Qi Shen curled up on the ground, shivering violently.

He buried his head deep between his knees, clutching something tightly in his hands. As if possessed, vague, muffled screams escaped his throat from time to time.

“Jingle,” “Jingle”—

The ringing of the bells was getting closer.

Qi Shen widened his eyes in terror, staring intently into the bottomless darkness before him. His mind had already begun constructing horrifying images of its own accord.

Pale corpses swaying, closing in on him step by step. The bells on their ankles chimed with each movement. Pairs of cloudy, lifeless, dead-gray eyes staring at him, before slowly reaching out their stiff, icy hands—

“Ah! Ahhh!! Ahhh—”

Qi Shen let out sharp, intermittent screams of terror, scrambling backward.

“Jingle, Jingle.”

The sound approached rapidly.

Too close, it sounded almost as if it were ringing right next to his ear.

The next second, a hand abruptly emerged from the depths of the darkness without warning. It clamped tightly over Qi Shen’s mouth, forcing the rest of his scream back down his throat, turning it into meaningless “mhm mhm” sounds.

“Shh, be quiet!”

The young man’s deliberately lowered voice sounded by his ear: “It’s me.”

But Qi Shen still acted as if he was caught in a nightmare. Like a fish out of water, he struggled and trembled frantically. The strength a person could burst out with in despair was simply too great. Wen Jianyan could barely hold him down. The back of the other party’s head kept banging against the metal cold storage unit, making strange noises in the darkness.

If this continued, it would definitely attract the attention of that group of corpses, and all his previous efforts would be in vain.

“Don’t move.” The other party spoke rapidly, his voice calm: “I’m also here looking for your sister.”

“!!!”

The moment those two words were spoken, Qi Shen abruptly stopped struggling.

He was still trembling in fear, but the look in his eyes gradually cleared, seemingly having finally snapped back to reality.

Qi Shen panted heavily, rolling his eyes with difficulty, trying to see the person covering his mouth.

He couldn’t see anything.

However, in the dead silence, he could vaguely hear another breathing sound near him besides his own. Although slightly rapid, it was controlled evenly and steadily.

The hand covering his mouth and nose was strong and warm. A human body pressed closely against him. The chest rising and falling with breath, the hot temperature of the skin—all of it transmitted over from the darkness.

Qi Shen finally calmed down.

He gripped the other party tightly and refused to let go, as if clutching the last straw of salvation.

“…”

The face of the “straw of salvation” twisted slightly in the darkness.

Hiss.

This guy’s grip is really strong. The spot he’s squeezing will definitely bruise later.

Wen Jianyan had been very careful along the way.

As an old acquaintance who had been targeted by this garbage live broadcast room several times, he had already had a vague premonition about this situation before even stepping into the elevator.

Therefore, to prevent another chase scene from happening, Wen Jianyan had been memorizing the layout and routes from the moment they entered the morgue.

Although the darkness also brought him considerable obstacles, after groping around in the dark for a while, it was no longer a problem.

Wen Jianyan carefully listened to the sound of the bells, making noises in the other two morgues to lure away the corpses blocking the corridor, and then swiftly leaving. While carefully avoiding the sound of the bells, he rushed towards the third morgue.

It was only after holding down Qi Shen that he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank goodness, I made it just in time.

The ten-minute search time should also be almost over. Wen Jianyan stared into the darkness before him, every nerve in his body subconsciously taut, silently counting down the time in his head.

Waiting in the darkness was always agonizing. After an unknown amount of time passed, that familiar voice rang out again:

[Ding! Congratulations to the streamer for completing the scene: Hide and Seek!]
[Reward Points: 5000]

The instant the voice fell, the jingling sounds of bells in the distance vanished instantly, as if they had never existed.

Wen Jianyan instantly felt as if he had received a general amnesty. He slowly let out a breath, his body relaxing bit by bit.

He let go of the still-trembling Qi Shen, took out his phone from his pocket, lit up the screen, and ended the looped playback of the audio recording.

The moment he pressed the stop button, only a boundless dead silence remained in the darkness.

Compared to just a moment ago, the current dead silence felt incredibly reassuring.

Not far away, the sound of a cold storage unit door being pushed open rang out. Su Cheng’s half-nervous, half-hesitant voice came from the first morgue: “Hey… a-are you guys still alive?”

Wen Jianyan wiped his face and raised his voice: “Still alive.”

Su Cheng’s voice noticeably relaxed: “That’s great… you really scared me to death just now.”

He had huddled alone in the cold storage unit, nervously listening to the noises outside.

Suddenly, the faint light seeping through the cracks of the unit abruptly disappeared, leaving only pitch black. Following that, things grew increasingly bizarre.

The sounds of bells grew more numerous and chaotic. He could also vaguely hear the sound of rapid, deliberately muffled running. From time to time, various strange noises also sounded from different directions, making Su Cheng’s heart pound with fear. He huddled inside the cold storage unit, not daring to move a muscle.

While worrying if they had done something wrong, he also couldn’t help but worry about the safety of Wen Jianyan, who wasn’t with him. It wasn’t until the notification sound of the quest completion finally rang that he finally felt relieved.

“Why did the lights go out?”

Wen Jianyan slumped onto the floor. As the adrenaline wore off, the side effects of the thrilling scene just now finally kicked in.

His hands and feet were weak now, making it almost impossible to get up. He could only command Su Cheng with a feeble voice:

“I turned them off. You… walk towards the elevator. You should be able to feel the power switch about five steps to the right of the elevator doors.”

Through the walls and corridor, Wen Jianyan heard the sound of Su Cheng groping forward in the darkness. Occasionally, there were a few “clangs” of a person bumping into the open doors of the cold storage units, as well as the sound of the other party inhaling sharply.

Three minutes later, a “snap” sounded in the distance.

The power switch was flipped on.

The fluorescent tubes overhead buzzed and then lit up all together.

The sudden light made Wen Jianyan’s vision blur. He subconsciously narrowed his eyes and only got used to the brightness after a while.

Aside from the open cold storage unit doors, the narrow morgue had returned to its original state.

In the third morgue, the corpse that had vanished into thin air was also lying obediently back on the iron bed. Except for the white sheet covering it not being restored, the rest was almost exactly the same as before.

Soon, Su Cheng rushed in from the corridor: “Are you alright?”

Wen Jianyan’s face was pale. He stood up unsteadily and waved at the other party, signaling that he was fine—

Then he suddenly rushed to the corner, leaned against the wall, and started dry heaving.

Su Cheng: “…”

No matter how you look at it, you don’t look fine at all.

He stepped forward, his gaze sweeping over Qi Shen, who was still sitting blankly in the corner. He essentially figured out what had happened—Wen Jianyan must have thought of some method earlier, so he rushed out of his hiding spot to save the NPC.

Su Cheng patted Wen Jianyan’s back. The young man’s back was hunched, trembling slightly from dry heaving. Under his palm, he could almost feel the other’s protruding, thin bones.

A few seconds later, Wen Jianyan straightened up, exhausted.

His face was deadly pale, making it completely impossible to see that he actually had the courage to rush out of his hiding spot.

Su Cheng stared at the young man before him with a bewildered look.

Truly… he didn’t know whether this guy’s psychological quality was good or bad.

If you say it’s good, it’s not like he runs faster and throws up more frequently than anyone else every time he encounters a ghost.

If you say it’s bad, sometimes the things he manages to pull off make even Su Cheng feel terrified just thinking about them.

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and wiped the corner of his mouth. Except for his face being slightly paler than at the start, he looked no different than before.

He took two steps towards Qi Shen, who was still slumped on the floor. Before he could say anything, his peripheral vision was drawn to something to the side—

Wen Jianyan turned his head to look at the iron bed and subconsciously gasped.

That corpse had returned, yes, but the white sheet covering it had also been lifted, clearly revealing its complete appearance.

This was a male corpse.

A large wound was split open across his neck, neatly severing the aorta. Through the pale, outwardly curled flesh, the ghastly white cervical vertebrae could faintly be seen.

But this shocking throat-slitting wound wasn’t the real reason it caught his attention.

The reason it attracted Wen Jianyan’s gaze was because of his face—

On the corpse’s deadly pale face, fine black threads, like crooked worms, pierced through the bruised, purplish eyelids and lips, tightly sewing his upper and lower eyelids and mouth together.

Judging by the color of the wounds, they should have been sewn on while he was still alive.

Su Cheng raised a hand to pinch the toe tag on his foot and read: “Zhang Hua, 25 years old. Estimated time of death: April 20, 2014, 2:00 AM.”

Aside from this, there was no other information.

Wen Jianyan walked to the table, scrutinizing the male corpse before him. He wasn’t a medical examiner, but he naturally had his own way of gathering information.

He lifted the other’s hand and inspected it.

There were calluses on the finger joints. Based on the locations, he was likely a long-term manual laborer.

There were ligature marks on the wrists. Judging by the color of the bruising and the angle of wrist rotation, he was tied behind his back while alive. The tying technique was not very professional, and there were signs of forceful struggling.

But clearly, he had failed; otherwise, the corpse wouldn’t be lying in front of them now.

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[Holy crap, the streamer is badass!]

[My god! This is a high-difficulty side quest… Even in a C-rank instance, a high-difficulty side quest isn’t something that can just be casually completed. He really has some skills.]

[And that operation just now was truly amazing. I really didn’t expect anyone to come up with that kind of solution… Not only did he memorize the map, but he could also accurately predict the positions of the corpses through sound. Is this an escape master entering an instance?]

[Yeah, it belongs to the level of theoretically possible but practically as hard as ascending to heaven. Actually, I firmly believed the streamer was a newbie before, but now I have to lean towards the “fake identity” faction…]

Wen Jianyan secretly memorized the details he observed from the corpse; they might come in handy later.

At this time, Qi Shen, who had been slumped on the floor the whole time, finally got up and slowly walked forward.

He held his breath slightly, looking at Wen Jianyan with a mix of disbelief and hope:

“Brother Zhao, you just said… you came to look for my sister… is, is it true?”

Wen Jianyan was roused from his deep thoughts by the other party’s voice.

“…”

Crap, almost forgot about this.

Generally speaking, Wen Jianyan wouldn’t tell this kind of lie when he had far less information than the other party, especially when it involved a close relative the other party knew extremely well, while he knew absolutely nothing.

The probability of this kind of lie being exposed was too high. Even Wen Jianyan couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be any flaws.

But the situation earlier was urgent. In order to stop Qi Shen from continuing to struggle madly and bringing a fatal disaster upon them, he had to resort to this poor move…

Lying feels great for a moment, but covering up the lie is a crematorium.

But what could he do now?

He’d just have to try his best to cover it up.

Wen Jianyan mustered up 120,000 points of spirit, took a deep breath, turned to look at Qi Shen, and slowly nodded:

“That’s right.”

Su Cheng looked at Wen Jianyan with a bewildered expression, his head full of little question marks.

Bro, what are you talking about?

Wen Jianyan didn’t look at him but instead used a deep tone to say:

“A-Qing and I used to be a couple.”

“What?!”

Qi Shen and Su Cheng exclaimed simultaneously.

On the list Xue Mingyan gave Wen Jianyan, the basic information of the corpses was written, including the one that had been missing from the beginning and hadn’t reappeared to this day.

Lin Qing, female, twenty-nine years old.

Although their surnames were different, based on the previous situation, Wen Jianyan boldly guessed that this deceased person was likely Qi Shen’s sister.

So he took a gamble.

“But… but… my sister never told me.”

Qi Shen said somewhat incredulously, “She actually dated you? This… how is this possible?”

Excellent, I bet right.

Wen Jianyan inconspicuously breathed a sigh of relief.

Very good, then I can freely improvise from here on out.

“When she came to school to visit you, for some reason, she happened to chat with me. Although a long time has passed and I’ve forgotten the content of our conversation, I can still remember the way she smiled at me that day. I think… I fell for her from that moment on.”

Wen Jianyan sighed softly.

“Later we exchanged contact information and slowly became familiar with each other just like that.”

Qi Shen recalled for a few seconds, then seemed to realize something. His eyes widened slightly as he slowly inhaled a sharp breath: “…You two met when I was a sophomore in college?”

The details matched; it’s steady.

Even if Qi Shen argued that his sister had never come to school to visit him, Wen Jianyan still had a way to smooth things over.

The two had different surnames, so it was highly likely they were separated since childhood and drifted apart due to family reasons—then, her coming to the school could also be explained as: although the sister didn’t say it outwardly, she actually cared deeply for her younger brother. That’s why she secretly came to visit him at school outside of work, but never informed him.

As long as he brought the other party into his own rhythm, the rest would be much easier.

“We had been dating in secret. But because our age gap was too big, and I was your college classmate, your sister was always unwilling to make our relationship public.”

Under the light, the handsome young man raised his thin eyelids. Beneath long and thick eyelashes, a pair of clear, amber eyes looked over steadily. The sorrowful gaze was almost scalding enough to make one’s heart tremble:

“Later… we broke up.”

“The next time I heard A-Qing’s name, it was the news of her death.”

He looked sorrowful and deeply affectionate. His handsome facial contours were shrouded in a layer of melancholy colors, enough to move even the hardest of hearts: “That’s why I requested my advisor to arrange for me to join the internship team at Fukang Private General Hospital. I just wanted to secretly see her one last time.”

Su Cheng: “……………”

I fucking believe your ghost talk!

You dog scammer, you’re not even acting human anymore! Scamming me back then was one thing, but now you’re even scamming NPCs!

The new victim, Qi Shen, revealed a deeply moved expression on his face, clearly having completely believed the other party’s lies.

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[…]

[Looked up at the name of the live broadcast room; I think everyone knows what I want to say next, right?]

[Shameless… truly too shameless…]

[Since we’re all here, let’s all spit before we leave! (Tipped 50 points)]

[Pah! (Tipped 100 points)]

[Although I know this dog scammer is making it up, his deeply affectionate look is really so handsome…]

The air fell into dead silence.

A long while later, Qi Shen slowly took a deep breath, as if making up his mind: “Since you and my sister had this kind of relationship, then I don’t plan on keeping this matter from you anymore.”

“Just now, I think I heard my sister speaking to me.”

Wen Jianyan took a step forward, his eyes widening in astonishment: “What?”

“She… told me to leave this place quickly,” Qi Shen said absentmindedly.

He opened his hand, revealing the object he had been clutching tightly in his palm the entire time—it was a narrow card, something resembling a staff ID badge:

“And then, and then she also shoved this to me.”

Wen Jianyan reached out and took the card from his palm.

In an instant, a familiar voice rang in his ear.

“Congratulations to the streamer for obtaining a hidden item within the instance (Hard)!”

[Collection Progress: 1/4]

Wen Jianyan steadied his mind and looked at the card in his hand.

The lamination on the ID badge was slightly creased, with a few drops of dried, brownish-red blood splattered on it. Through the bloodstains, Lin Qing, wearing a white coat, smiled in a passport-sized photo.

—Attending Physician, Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.

Wen Jianyan looked up at Qi Shen and asked carefully, “This photo… can I keep it?”

His face was pale, his thin lips pursed, looking exceptionally fragile: “Ours was an underground romance all along. I don’t have anything to remember her by, not even a single photo…”

“Of course.”

Qi Shen sighed with a sorrowful expression. He stepped forward and patted Wen Jianyan’s shoulder:

“You… keep it.”

“…”

Su Cheng, who had spectated the entire process from a god’s-eye view for the first time, had a complex expression. After hesitating to speak for a long time, he ultimately couldn’t bear it and looked away.

After all…

As a former victim, the sense of déjà vu in this scene was simply too strong.

__

Author’s Note:

Su Cheng: …Isn’t this fucking me in the last instance!

Please be a human, I beg you.jpg

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