Chapter 617: How Did They Die? (2)

White floor tiles blanketed in dust, walls crusted with brown clumps—the room was dead silent. Not even a single bug stirred.

"Morgue No. 1?" It was called a morgue, but there were no corpses inside. Instead, rusted metal tables were draped with filthy white cloths.

The fabric was thick and opaque. Unless you pulled it back, not even a flashlight beam would reveal what lay hidden beneath.

This gloomy room before me, thick with Yin energy and built more like a storeroom, was the morgue. It was vastly different from the one I had seen at Jiangcheng People's Hospital, both in layout and atmosphere.

"Were all morgues like this twenty years ago?"

I turned to look at Chen Mo. Before he could speak, Zhang Heng interjected. "Brother, rein in your curiosity. I really have to hand it to you—having this many questions in a hospital morgue in the middle of the night. Just how strong is your thirst for knowledge?"

Holding the DV, he took the lead and entered the morgue, walking between the rows of metal tables.

Morgue No. 1 wasn't large. Rather than a morgue, it was more like a temporary holding room for corpses. There were only three rows in total, with three "beds" per row.

"For such a large hospital, a morgue that only holds nine corpses seems a bit small." Leaning on his branch, Chen Mo slowly swept his flashlight across every corner of the room. "No, a proper morgue shouldn't look like this. Hospitals have strict regulations regarding mortuaries, and even twenty years ago, the standards wouldn't have been much different."

He stood beside me, not venturing rashly into the room. "Storing corpses is only one of a mortuary's functions. There should also be areas for basic body preparation, like a dedicated room for undressing, redressing, and tagging the deceased. Clothes for the deceased are very different from standard patient gowns. Plus, any bodies carrying infectious diseases would be kept in isolation rooms, with dedicated staff handling monitoring and disinfection."

Chen Mo's point was perfectly clear. A mortuary couldn't just be a single, enclosed room. We might have found the wrong place.

"Are you saying this Mortuary No. 1 isn't the mortuary the note told us to find?"

"I can't be sure. I'm just giving my opinion."

"Close the door. Don't wave the flashlight around—keep the beam low. No matter what happens next, just follow me and run." The sound of dripping water in my ears was growing louder. Feeling tense, I gave Chen Mo a few quick instructions before stepping into Mortuary No. 1 to investigate.

The white cloths used to cover corpses lay flat across the iron beds. When the hospital relocated, this room seemed to have been deliberately cleaned out; not a single item related to the deceased had been left behind.

I reached out and pulled back one of the white cloths. Dark stains remained on the surface of the iron table—they looked like streaks of blood left behind as someone struggled before death, digging their fingernails into flesh.

The room was small enough to take in from end to end at a glance. With white cloths spread across all the iron tables, you could tell right away whether any corpses lay beneath them.

"Look here!" Zhang Heng, the first to enter the mortuary, had found something. He had been searching for the birth certificate mentioned in the note, and while checking under a table, he happened to spot strange symbols drawn on the underside of the iron tabletop.

I squatted beneath the table to take a look. The symbol was similar to the ghostly scribbles we had seen on the walls, giving me a strong sense of déjà vu.

"Nine tables, nine beds..." As I looked at the layout of Mortuary No. 1, it suddenly seemed familiar. Turning it over in my head, I remembered the morgue at Bridge No. 3 Crematorium. 'A beam overhead, nine tables as well, and the exact same layout—could this damned place be connected to Bridge No. 3 Crematorium?'

A terrifying entity of unparalleled ferocity was suppressed beneath Bridge No. 3 Crematorium. Looking at Mortuary No. 1, I formed a theory: 'Could there be something suppressed beneath Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital too?'

I walked over to the center iron table and took out the Precious Daoist Scripture of Azure Earth Temple. This secret tome recorded all the fierce entities sealed by successive generations of the Corpse Driving Lineage, and Bridge No. 3 Crematorium was listed right there among them.

I flipped through the Daoist scripture. The ghostly scrawls inside could only be deciphered by someone from the Corpse Driving Lineage.

"These characters?!" Clutching the Daoist scripture, I ducked under the iron table and compared its pages to the symbols carved on the underside of the metal. It was a startling discovery—the similarity between the two reached seventy percent.

"Why is everything in this hospital white? White paint, leukemia, the White Fur on the doors..." Holding the secret Daoist scripture of Qingtu Temple, I finally recalled an old memory.

The first time I visited Qingtu Temple, I had seen an old man in the side room where Daoist Priest Xianqing practiced corpse driving. Affected by the Blood Fox, that old man had sprouted White Fur all over his body!

"Right! The exact same White Fur!" My expression shifted subtly as a faint chain of clues came together in my head. 'This hospital might be connected to Qingtu Temple. A Corpse Reanimation occurred here, and for various reasons, the incident was covered up before the news could spread. As for why that monster didn't kill me outright... maybe it's because of the book in my hands.'

The Corpse Driving Lineage had enjoyed a glorious history, only beginning to decline in modern times. The secret tome in my hands likely had an extraordinary background.

I still didn't have an answer for why everything in the hospital was white. The presence of the White Fur was only a small clue; finding the real reason would require investigating much further.

There were no corpses stored inside Mortuary No. 1. The place had been abandoned for a long time, and despite searching for ages, we found no sign of the supposed birth certificate.

"Let's go. Looks like the silly med student actually guessed right—this isn't the place we're looking for." Zhang Heng wore a grim expression as he held the DV. I understood how he felt. He had come in full of hope, thinking he could finally settle things here, only to find out that it was just beginning.

Supporting Chen Mo on the way out of Mortuary No. 1, I had just reached the doorway when the dripping sound in my ears suddenly sped up. Even more startling, heavy footsteps were now mixed in with the rapid dripping.

"It caught up to us? Crap! Run!" I hoisted Chen Mo onto my back and bolted. However, Mortuary No. 1 was in an awkward spot—right at the far end of a corridor. Trying to leave meant we would inevitably run straight into whatever was coming in.

The dripping sound grew louder and louder in my ears, and a flicker of unease crossed my mind. 'Am I about to clash with that monster head-on?'

A single monster wasn't that terrifying. Even without factoring in any other hidden live show streamers, I could probably handle it on my own.

What truly worried me was that there might be more than one monster. If a direct confrontation made too much noise and drew more of them to corner us, we really wouldn't stand a chance of surviving.

As we sprinted toward the exit, Zhang Heng and Chen Mo gradually realized something was wrong too. They both heard the strange noises, and those sounds were coming from straight ahead of us.

"Brother, this is a dead end! Why don't we find a room to duck into first? Maybe it'll pass right by us like last time," Zhang Heng suggested.

On my back, Chen Mo patted my shoulder lightly and nodded in agreement. He knew full well that if a fight broke out, winning would be one thing, but if we lost, he would definitely be the first casualty.

Since they both wanted to hide, I couldn't argue. Most of the storage rooms lining the corridor were locked shut. Left with no other choice, the three of us retreated all the way back into Mortuary No. 1.

I eased the door shut as carefully as possible, and we powered off both the flashlight and the DV. Positioning ourselves on either side of the door, Zhang Heng and I peered through the glass panels to watch the corridor.

The sound of dripping water in my ears was gradually drowned out by the approaching footsteps. I couldn't help feeling puzzled—the bandage monster had moved in complete silence. Was a different kind of monster coming after us this time?

Giving a slight shudder, I let out a soft breath and stared intently down the long corridor.

A faint, indistinct glow appeared in the pitch-black hallway, bobbing in the air like a ghostly will-o'-the-wisp. It wasn't very obvious at first, but accompanied by the footsteps and the dripping water, that spectral light drew steadily closer.

"Something's not right." The glass panes on the mortuary doors were grimy and thick with dust. Even with my Judging Eye, I could only make out a blurry silhouette.

The unknown is always the most terrifying. This newly appeared monster had all three of us hiding inside the room on edge.

The eerie light drifted down the corridor until it finally halted right outside the mortuary doors. The heavy footsteps stopped with it.

Zhang Heng and I had already moved away from the glass window and hidden behind the door.

Through the thin door panel, we strained our ears to listen.

Drip... drop...

The droplets kept falling, and that thing stayed right outside the door.

The air inside the mortuary seemed to freeze solid. It was suffocatingly quiet.

"Creak."

The old door was pushed gently, parting by a narrow crack. Right after that, it seemed as though something reached in through the gap.

I didn't dare move rashly, keeping my back braced against the door. When a single push failed to open it all the way, the force behind the door steadily grew heavier.

Zhang Heng and I exchanged a tense glance, neither of us intending to step aside. We just prayed that the thing outside would give up and turn away, exactly as the last one had done.

A second or two passed, and the pressure against the door stopped, though the dripping sound continued.

"Why is it still out there?" I signaled to Zhang Heng with a hand gesture and slowly rose to my feet, intending to peek through the window and see what was happening outside.

Bracing one hand against the wall, I slowly straightened my legs. Just as the side of my face cleared the edge of the window, that eerie light drifted right up to the glass.

I tilted my head up to look, sweeping my Judging Eye across the window—and my pupils contracted violently!

Pressed flat against the grimy glass outside was a man's face!

Almost at the exact same moment, a bloodcurdling scream rang out from the other side of the door, followed by the sound of someone falling to the floor. Instantly, the only light went out.

The sudden turn of events left me rooted to the spot. Why was the monster reacting even more intensely than I was?

Taking Chen Mo's flashlight, I pushed the mortuary door open and immediately saw a man in a suit sprawled in the middle of the corridor, clutching his chest. His muscles were spasming, and fright had even brought tears to his eyes.

"Gu Bei?" I was at a loss for words. Remembering the glow from earlier and seeing the cell phone that had flown three meters away, I immediately pieced together what had happened and quickly called out, "Buddy, we're human. Don't be afraid."

Zhang Heng and Chen Mo hurried out of the room as well. The three of us gathered around Gu Bei, who was still lying on the floor unable to get back up, each of us wearing a different expression.

"There's another living person in this hospital?" Zhang Heng scooped up Gu Bei's dropped phone. He seemed to have discovered something crucial on the screen and hurriedly waved Chen Mo and me over. "You two, get over here and look at this! This guy is looking for the mortuary too!"