A dead silence filled the place. Only their footsteps on the stairs could be heard. By the ghostly glow of a chem light, Dr Chen and the tech guy slowly inched upward, one step at a time.
“I’ve still got eleven exorcism talismans on me. Added together, that gives me at least five minutes of safety. How many do you have?”
“Six. Take them if you need them.” Dr Chen was completely unstingy. He pulled out the few talismans on him and waved them in front of the tech guy.
“Are you crazy? Those are life-saving items! You’re just giving them away?”
“Who said I’m giving them to you for free? One hundred per slip. Want them?”
“Seriously? But I don’t have that much cash on me.” On the market, these talismans cost at least a thousand each. And right now, they desperately needed anything that could keep them alive. One extra slip meant thirty more seconds to live.
In some places, teammates doing missions would even kill and rob each other just to steal ghost-repelling items.
“Alipay or WeChat is fine. Right... there’s no signal right now, is there? Then just give me however much money you’ve got.”
In the darkness, a sharp gleam burst from Dr Chen’s sunken eyes. Just like that, he traded six talismans that were basically scrap paper to him for three hundred-yuan bills and a few coins from the tech nerd.
“We’re on the third floor. The electrotherapy room should be the one at the end of the hall.” The tech nerd recalled the intel they’d gotten earlier. Just as he was about to move forward with Dr Chen, a hospital bed suddenly blocked their path.
“When I installed the cameras before, there wasn’t any bed in this hallway.”
“Do you even need to ask? Other than those annoying guys, that only leaves a ghost.” Dr Chen ignored the tech nerd, who had frozen in place. He took two steps forward and shone the chem light over.
A white sheet covered the medical bed. Something seemed to be hidden underneath. Judging by the raised shape, it was probably a person. The whole thing looked like it had just been wheeled out of a morgue. But where would a psychiatric hospital even get a morgue?
The bed lay across the middle of the hallway. If they wanted to reach the electrotherapy room, they had to either step over it or squeeze past the head of the bed. But anyone could guess what would happen. The moment they got close, that thing would jump out. No telling whether it was a zombie or a ghost.
“Careful.” The tech nerd pulled out a talisman. Just as he was about to use it, Dr Chen had already walked up to the bed.
“You’ve got a death wish? It might be—”
Before the tech nerd could finish, a sinister wind swept over the bed. It carried a rotten stench. The white sheet was blown up, revealing the decayed corpse lying underneath.
But the moment the thing on the bed opened its eyes, it saw a size forty-three shoe flying straight at its face.
“Eat this!” With a crack, the medium through which the ghostly energy was operating got kicked apart by Dr Chen. The corpse didn’t even get a chance to stand before it collapsed.
“Uh...” Aren’t you scared she’s a ghost?”
The tech nerd’s mouth stayed open for a long time. He’d planned to use a talisman first. If it was a ghost, it should’ve been driven off. If it wasn’t, then Dr Chen, this musclebound demon, could’ve gone in with a wrench.
He hadn’t expected the result to be this simple and this brutal.
“So what if it is? Can’t you kick a ghost? These shoes are AJ’s. Cost me one-eighty.”
“...Fine.” The image of Dr Chen as someone reliable vanished in that instant. The tech nerd felt like the man in front of him was just a lunatic who didn’t know his own limits. Messing around with ghosts like this... when he ran into a real Malevolent Ghost, he wouldn’t even know how he died.
So... when the critical moment came, maybe he really did need to ditch him and run alone. Otherwise, Dr Chen’s recklessness would drag him down too.
“Hey, are you coming or not? Hurry up and keep up.” Dr Chen climbed over the bed and noticed the tech nerd was still standing behind it. He called out, sounding a little impatient.
“Oh.” The tech nerd answered, but he really didn’t want to climb over a corpse.
The bed blocked the middle of the hallway, but it wasn’t long enough to seal it off completely. There was about a thirty-centimeter gap between each end and the wall. So he decided to slip through one of the gaps.
“At a time like this, you’re still being fussy?”
“I... AAAAAAH!”
A ghostly hand suddenly stretched out from the wall facing the head of the bed. It grabbed the tech nerd by the shoulder and yanked him into the wall. His scream vanished right after.
“Hey!”
The instant Dr Chen saw the ghost hand, he charged over with the wrench in his grip. But it had all happened too fast. By the time he reached the wall, the tech nerd was already gone.
Without another word, he raised the wrench and smashed it down. But with a clear ding, it sounded like he’d struck a real wall. Dr Chen reached out and felt the cold surface. He couldn’t sense any hidden mechanism or secret door. That hand had appeared out of nowhere.
“Ghost Loop? Or spatial transfer? This place really is messed up.”
Dr Chen didn’t want to just watch that guy die, but there was nothing he could do in this situation. The wrench in his hand wasn’t some heavy tool. It couldn’t break through the wall.
Looks like... now he could only head to the electrotherapy room alone.
————————
“Where is this...?”
In a dark, freezing room, the tech nerd woke from unconsciousness and found himself lying on a bed. His hands and feet were tightly shackled. He couldn’t move at all. Worst of all, he was actually wearing this hospital’s patient gown.
The wind chime on his wrist kept ringing nonstop, warning him that the hospital’s true horror was right beside him.
Compared to that, the zombies from before were basically toys for children.
“Hey! Let me go!” He struggled with all his strength, trying to reach the talismans in his pocket. But suddenly, two cold pads pressed against his temples.
By the dim light overhead, the tech nerd finally saw the person standing above him. They wore a doctor’s coat and a mask. In the eyes exposed above it, the black pupils were no bigger than pinpoints. The rest was all white.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!” His desire to survive made him thrash even harder. The chains binding him clanged loudly, and the whole bed shook.
