Chapter 607: Death Certificate

"I don't know if you guys noticed, but the walls and ceilings in this hospital have been repainted many times." Zhang Heng tapped the wall, scratching away a layer of white paint. "The original color was light green, but someone later painted over it in white. That's very strange. Why would the hospital go out of its way to paint the walls white?"

"Could they be covering something up?" Chen Mo stood next to Zhang Heng as the two of them searched the area around the wall for anything useful.

The Writer and I stood in the middle of the sterile operating room, each lost in our own thoughts.

Out of everyone present, I was the only one holding the clue from the Underworld Live Show. 'Why is everything in the hospital white? Even the green walls had to be painted over. Does white have some special meaning? Is it really like Chen Mo said—to cover something up?'

Looking at the operating room equipped with a threshold, the longer I stared, the more terrifying it felt.

The door was left slightly ajar. Even though we had the advantage of numbers, it offered no sense of security at all.

"These are the clues you found ahead of time? A threshold? White walls?" the Writer mocked. "Are you just messing with us? What do these things prove? That a ghost is trapped in the operating room, and it happens to like white?"

"Watch your tone, ugly, or I wouldn't mind pulling out my camera so the public can see the true face of a famous suspense author."

"You wouldn't dare!"

The two of them seemed to have clashing eight characters by nature, going tit for tat with neither willing to back down.

I took all of this in, a thought flashing through my mind. 'Both of them are very calm. They clearly have something to rely on. Could they be the two live show streamers?'

The Writer and Zhang Heng bickered for a few more sentences before simultaneously falling silent, showing great restraint.

"You all better not turn a deaf ear to what I said earlier. This building is bizarre." After speaking, Zhang Heng was the first to leave the sterile operating room, heading toward the adjacent surgical prep room and emergency observation room.

"I've found the death certificate mentioned on the note, but I'm not sure if it's the one that person wants." Zhang Heng's statement sounded somewhat contradictory, but when he opened the cabinet in the observation room, I finally understood what he meant.

The metal cabinet was locked, but so much time had passed that the iron backing had peeled away. Zhang Heng didn't have to expend much effort to pull out the contents and toss them onto a nearby table.

"See for yourselves."

I walked over to the table out of curiosity. It held a large pile of yellowed document folders. I randomly opened a few, only to find that they were entirely filled with death certificates.

"Just how many people died here?" Death certificates from over a decade ago were different from modern ones. They came in duplicate: one copy for the patient's family, and one retained for the hospital's records.

According to standard procedure, the archived death certificates for patients would be temporarily stored in the record room. It was absolutely impossible for them to appear in a surgical prep room.

I touched the mask on my face, my eyes narrowing. 'Unless these death certificates couldn't be exposed. There are very few people with the authority to withhold death certificates in the operating room. This must be connected to the hospital's higher-ups at the time. Just what exactly happened in the Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital twenty years ago?'

The death certificates were spread out on the table, mixed with medical records and personal documents. Thanks to the dry, sealed environment of the operating room, these files had been preserved. But since they were from twenty years ago, the paper was very fragile and would crumble at the slightest touch.

"Be careful." The four of us relied on the light of a single flashlight to flip through death certificates and medical records in the pitch-black operating room. The feeling was hard to put into words.

"Lymphoma, multiple myeloma, lung cancer, stomach cancer..." Terms that symbolized death entered my eyes one after another. Even someone with a will of iron like me gradually began to feel an invisible pressure.

"I'm done looking. What is all this?"

The Writer tossed the death certificate in his hand to the side. Zhang Heng set down a medical record at the same time. "They say nine out of ten cancer patients die. Getting this disease really is despair-inducing."

"It's not as severe as you make it sound. Cancer is a chronic disease that can be treated. As long as you stick to the treatment, you can survive for a very long time." Contrary to our expectations, the most indifferent person among us was actually Chen Mo. Perhaps because he was a medical student, he was earnestly examining the records on the table one by one.

"Watch your wording. To a normal person, surviving and living are not the same." The Writer seemed a bit tired. He casually grabbed a medical record, placed it on the table as a cushion, and sat down. "Living is full of hope and possesses an infinite future. Surviving is just staying alive for the sake of staying alive. That way of existing is a torment, full of despair. There's very little you can do each day but watch the Grim Reaper inch closer step by step."

"Spoken like a true writer. You can't even protect yourself, yet you still have the leisure to preach big principles." Zhang Heng pushed the Writer aside. "If you're not going to work, then don't get in our way."

The Writer laughed out of anger at Zhang Heng's actions. "Do you guys really believe that bullshit note? It's just a prank, or maybe a new kind of murder tactic. Most supernatural phenomena in this world actually stem from human fear of the unknown. To me, that's just cowardice and compromise."

"You don't believe in ghosts and gods?" I interjected, sweeping a glance over the Writer, a bit confused by his intent. "Didn't you say earlier that you were a supernatural research enthusiast?"

"I've researched supernatural phenomena for many years, but I return disappointed every time. I don't deny the existence of ghosts and gods, but do you think it's possible to convince me with just a few scraps of paper?" The Writer stretched. "Find it yourselves. I'm going to outline my novel. If I turn tonight's encounter into a book, it should be a bestseller, right?"

The Writer patted the dust off his legs and stood up. The medical record he had just been sitting on was torn to pieces.

I shook my head, not paying it any mind at first. But when I saw the name of the deceased on that medical record, my heart seemed to skip a beat.

"Gu Tongtong?"

It was a very playful girl's name that sounded quite cute, yet the feeling it gave me was somewhat terrifying.

'Before I entered the hospital, I saw a missing person flyer in Gu Bei's car. The kidnapped Female Infant seems to be named Gu Tongtong!'

'Sharing the same name? No, the probability of the surname and given name being exactly the same is far too low.'

My spine tingled; the situation was spiraling out of control. My brows furrowed. I had placed most of my attention on finding the live show streamers, neglecting the inherent terror of this broadcast.

'If it's not a shared name, then Gu Tongtong died twenty years ago. In that case, what is the situation with Gu Bei in the private car and the woman who vanished into the dense forest? Are they dead too? Or is there another reason?' There was a breakthrough in the case. I believed I had found the death certificate requested by the note.

I walked over to the death certificate without drawing attention. I had no intention of sharing this secret with the others. Compared to the other streamers, I held no advantages. Only by utilizing the dangers of the broadcast itself could I carve out a path to survival.

'I'm currently in the middle of a broadcast for the Underworld Live Show. Every broadcast from the Live Show is a life-and-death crucible of extreme difficulty. It tolerates no distractions, and I have to go all out.' Bracing myself, I cast a glance at the departing Writer. He walked very casually. 'Out of so many death certificates, he just had to pick Gu Tongtong's to sit on. Was that intentional, or a coincidence?'

Looking down, Gu Tongtong's death certificate was already in pieces. Too much time had passed, and the words on it were completely blurred.

'Age three, cause of death: malignant tumor of the hematopoietic tissue?' I didn't know much about medicine, but there was someone who specialized in it right here.

"Chen Mo, what kind of disease is a malignant tumor of the hematopoietic tissue? Can hematopoietic tissue even get cancer?"

Chen Mo, who was anxiously flipping through death certificates, didn't even raise his head. "Theoretically, any cell has the potential to become cancerous. The hematopoietic tissue tumor you mentioned is actually leukemia."

"Leukemia...?" I regretted it a little after hearing his answer, as I might have unintentionally leaked an important piece of information. Fortunately, the Writer was far away, and both Chen Mo and Zhang Heng were busy searching for things, so they didn't notice.

I breathed a sigh of relief, tearing my gaze away from Gu Tongtong's medical record as thoughts flashed through my mind. 'Why is it called the "white blood" disease? Is it because the patient's blood is white? And what about the clue the Live Show gave me: why is everything in the hospital white? Is this related to Gu Tongtong?'

A Female Infant who had been dead for over twenty years had suddenly resurrected, only to be kidnapped and brought to an abandoned hospital.

'Perhaps there are no kidnappers in the hospital at all? Is everything the doing of the Female Infant?' I smelled the scent of a conspiracy, cold sweat beading on my forehead. I hadn't even finished exploring a tenth of this hospital yet. There was no telling how many more terrifying things were hidden in the deeper, darker places!

"White blood..." I pressed my finger against the table. While no one was paying attention, I secretly stuffed the medical record into my pants pocket.

'The exact words on the note were that the person needed a birth certificate and a death certificate, but it didn't say what they needed them for.' I still couldn't be entirely sure that the one who gave Chen Mo and Zhang Heng the note was Gu Tongtong, so I wasn't planning to leave the group and act alone just yet.

There were too many things to think about and too few clues. My face beneath the mask grew increasingly grim.

"What are you spacing out for? Hurry up and search!"

Seeing me dazed by the table, Chen Mo flashed his flashlight at me. The sudden glare interrupted my thoughts. I looked down at the table full of death certificates. "Search? Search how? You don't have any clues. Do you know which death certificate it needs? We might as well take all of these and head straight to the morgue in the Third Ward to look for the birth certificate."

"Long nights bring many dreams. What you're saying makes sense, but I can't shake the feeling that if we don't figure out the reason behind this, it'll be very dangerous once we reach the Third Ward." Zhang Heng looked up at me. He seemed like he was about to say something else, but his gaze completely froze the instant he saw me, as if he had turned to stone.