Chapter 612: It Caught Up Again

Wooden boards were nailed over the windows, but faint traces of light still seeped through the cracks.

After I dragged Chen Mo into the Third Ward, the three of us stood frozen by the window, staring down the deep, dilapidated corridor that led who knew where.

"Morgues are usually in hospital basements. How about we look for a way downstairs first?" Zhang Heng's hand was sweating where he gripped his dV. He didn't dare stray too far from me.

"Have you guys thought about this? Most of the deaths at the Cancer Research Hospital were caused by surgical accidents or failed resuscitations. All surgeries and emergency procedures took place in the Diagnostic and Treatment Building." Chen Mo leaned against the wall, barely keeping himself upright. "Since people died in the Diagnostic and Treatment Building, wouldn't it make more sense to build the morgue there? Why go through the extra trouble of putting it in a completely different building? Corpses aren't like other things. Even in a hospital, they shouldn't be exposed too much. They're usually handled quietly. There's no reason to specifically transfer them from one building to another."

"You make a fair point." I gave a slight nod. Ever since he had gotten hurt, Chen Mo's mind seemed much sharper as he tried to prove his worth. People really were forged under pressure.

"The hospital wouldn't go through the extra trouble of moving corpses without a hidden agenda." I pressed the wooden board back into place, committing this window's location to memory. "The predecessor to the Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital was the Cancer Research Society. It was reportedly a public-welfare organization that received massive backing from the higher-ups, and they conducted a lot of experiments here. As for why the morgue was built under this building, I have two guesses. First, far more people died in this building than in the Diagnostic and Treatment Building, so they simply put the morgue here for convenience. Second, they might have needed the corpses of the deceased patients for experiments. That would make sense, too."

"Once a person dies, their cancer cells also become inactive. If this was for research, it doesn't make much sense." Gripping the windowsill for support, Chen Mo tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied it to the wooden board. "Just leaving a mark. I'm worried I won't remember the spot."

"That's way too obvious. If the Writer or anyone else with bad intentions spots it, we're screwed." Zhang Heng tore the cloth strip down and stuffed it into his pocket. I noticed the gesture but didn't call him out on it.

"What the hell are you doing? If we don't leave a mark, how are we supposed to find our way out?"

"Shut up. We're being chased by a monster and can barely even hide as it is, and you actually want to leave a trail? I'm warning you, don't try anything funny."

Seeing that Zhang Heng and Chen Mo were about to get into a shouting match, I let out a dry cough and stepped in to pull them apart. "Keep it down. Danger is everywhere, and you two are in the mood to bicker?"

I was just casually urging them to stop. There were very few true idiots in this world, but plenty of people who played the fool.

Zhang Heng had spent years navigating the entertainment industry, making him an absolute veteran. Chen Mo wasn't someone to be underestimated, either.

After all, when I first met Chen Mo, the kid had been holding a paring knife. He had kept it on him the entire time.

But ever since the three of us left the Diagnostic and Treatment Building, Chen Mo's knife had seemingly vanished. I hadn't heard a blade hitting the ground in the meantime, which meant he definitely still had it on him. Yet, looking at the kid's current behavior—weak, vulnerable, and completely defenseless—no one would guess that he had a razor-sharp knife hidden on his person.

This kid was far from simple. He was young, and his experience and background couldn't compare to Zhang Heng's or mine, but thrust into danger, he was transforming at an astonishing rate.

I could feel an intense willpower radiating from him. He wanted to survive.

'Chen Mo is a good prospect. If we survive tonight, maybe I can talk with him more and have him handle a few things for me.' Of course, I only thought these words to myself. I would never say them to their faces.

Chen Mo and Zhang Heng also knew this wasn't the time to argue, and they quickly shifted their attention to this bizarre building.

"Other than the doors and windows all being boarded up, it doesn't seem much different from the Diagnostic and Treatment Building, does it? The architecture is basically the same." Zhang Heng muttered a couple of times, "It's just that these rooms are a bit strange."

He pointed to a nearby department door. It was a completely ordinary wooden door, but likely due to mold, some White Fur a few millimeters long had grown along the bottom edge where it met the floor.

It was very fine, like downy fuzz.

I hadn't paid attention to it at first either, but as I walked past the door, a peculiar stench caught my attention. It wasn't the usual putrid smell of rotting objects, but a completely different kind of stench—the exact same smell I had caught off that monster!

Crouching in front of the door, I used my Judging Eye to examine it closely.

"It looks almost the same as mold. Strange, why does this seem so familiar? I must have seen it somewhere before. I should have an impression of such short White Fur, shouldn't I?" Unable to recall it for the moment, I grabbed the door handle and jiggled it a few times. More than twenty years had passed; there was no way the door could withstand much force, and I easily pulled it open.

As the wooden door swung open, an even thicker wave of that strange stench poured out.

"What was this ward used for?" I turned to look at the nameplate. The words on it had been scrubbed completely clean, leaving no clues behind.

"Come here and follow me."

"Is it really a good idea to just go in? I don't think we should complicate things. We should hurry to the morgue, find the birth certificate, and then leave this hellhole before..."

"If the mastermind behind all this sent you here to retrieve a birth certificate and a death certificate, do you really think just doing as they say will let you survive?" I looked at Zhang Heng. "You already have the answer in your heart, so why lie to yourself? Rather than handing everything over to some ethereal ghost, we're better off investigating this and uncovering the real cause. That way, we seize the initiative. Whether the one hiding behind the scenes is a human or a ghost, we'll have the confidence to break their game."

"Brother, it's easy for you to say that standing there. You haven't seen the things tied to this note, so of course you aren't nervous." Zhang Heng lowered his dV, and I could see that his palms were slick with sweat. "You can ask the med student over there just how terrifying the malicious ghost that gave us the note really is. Do you think we wanted to come to this place? We were backed into a corner with no other options, forced against our will."

I didn't listen to the rest of Zhang Heng's complaints and just glanced at Chen Mo. The moment that note was mentioned, the med student who had just begun to transform reverted to his previous state. Fear brimmed in his eyes as he silently lowered his head.

'Is it really that terrifying?' I felt like I might have misunderstood some things. I wanted to borrow Chen Mo's note for another look, but in the end, I didn't say it out loud.

Chen Mo had hidden a paring knife for himself without telling anyone. From this action alone, while he was grateful I had saved him, he hadn't chosen to completely trust me because of it.

Since he held reservations, I couldn't fully believe what he said about the note. There was a chance he was deliberately hiding something.

Without further nonsense, I walked straight into the ward. It was a two-bed room, and while the space wasn't large, everything was arranged in perfect order.

The cabinets, beds, walls, and floor tiles were all white, so starkly white that it was piercing and somewhat unsettling.

"This ward is perfectly normal. We should just hurry up and look for the basement."

I ignored Zhang Heng. Using my Judging Eye, I followed the bottom edge of the door inward.

The White Fur growing at the bottom of the door had spread outward from inside the room. Right where the hinges met the wall, a massive patch of the surface was covered in this white fuzz.

"That's disgusting. I've got goosebumps." Chen Mo and Zhang Heng both retreated outside the ward, leaving me as the only one in the room.

"With this stuff growing on the walls, it feels like I'm facing a living creature rather than a wall." The temperature in the room wasn't high, and it was well-sealed. The entire building was still intact after so many years. The ward wasn't exposed to wind or rain, so why would mold grow here? And such a large patch at that?

Mustering my courage, I reached out and touched the White Fur on the wall. The sensation was extremely strange—it felt like I touched it, yet also like I hadn't. My fingertips could only feel waves of piercing chill.

"This is getting more and more complicated." I wanted to feel it a bit longer, but the faint sound of dripping water suddenly echoed in my ears. It was weak, and I couldn't pinpoint the direction; I could only roughly sense that the dripping was gradually approaching.

"The sound of dripping water? Slowly getting closer? Oh crap, it's that monster!" I had learned my lesson. Without the slightest hesitation, I immediately bolted out of the ward. "Leave now! The monster might have caught up to us!"

"It caught up with us?!"

Chen Mo was so terrified he nearly lost his footing, and Zhang Heng looked wildly left and right, his heart pounding wildly. "Which way is it coming from? Dammit, where do we run?!"

Both of them had lost their nerve, and I was the only one still keeping calm. "I don't know exactly which way it's coming from. I just heard the sound of its approach, and the dripping has gotten louder! It's picking up speed! Turn off the flashlights, don't make any loud noises, and stick close to me!"

Not giving Chen Mo a chance to speak, I snatched the flashlight right out of his hands and clicked it off, then gave Zhang Heng a hand signal to put away his dV.

The two were terrified out of their wits by the monster and didn't bother asking me for the specific reason. They shrank back and hid against the wall behind me.

Seeing the state they were in, I grimaced. "We still don't know which direction the monster is coming from. Don't just focus on hiding—if that thing creeps up right behind us, you won't even know it."

I focused my attention, listening to the shifts in the dripping sound. The monster was indeed approaching this spot.

'How did it find us? Everything was perfectly fine before...' I suddenly looked down at my hand. All the changes had started when I touched the White Fur with my hand. 'This stuff really is connected to the monster.'

The dripping sound grew clearer and clearer. The corridor was pitch black in both directions, and even with my Judging Eye, I couldn't see clearly.

I didn't know which side of the corridor the monster would emerge from. At this point, I could only take a gamble. "Take the emergency staircase on the left, quick!"