Chapter 620: Mortuary No. 2

Comparing the handwriting on the two sheets of paper, Zhang Heng stared at Gu Bei in disbelief. "The one who forced us into this godforsaken place is your daughter?"

"You can't put it like that." Gu Bei looked ashen. "The writing on this paper is indeed my daughter's," he replied weakly, "but her condition at the time was bizarre, almost as if she were possessed by something."

Gu Bei sighed. "My wife and I had experienced this many times. We would suddenly jolt awake from a deep sleep in the middle of the night. When we looked down into the crib, the baby wouldn't be crying or making a fuss. She would just be staring straight at me. It was terrifying. She's obviously just a little infant, but her gaze was full of such vicious resentment that it made me feel like I was looking at a stranger—it terrified me."

"I'm asking about the writing. Don't try to change the subject." Zhang Heng's voice rose as he grabbed Gu Bei by the collar of his suit jacket.

"My daughter is only three years old. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I absolutely wouldn't believe she wrote this." Gu Bei shook his head. "As much as I don't want to admit it, facts are facts. My sister, who died twenty years ago, has returned. She's possessed my daughter."

Gu Bei asked me for the phone and opened an encrypted folder. Inside were some photos he had taken.

A comfortable, luxurious room had been completely trashed. Red ink that looked just like blood was splattered everywhere. Tiny handprints covered the walls, bedsheets, and floor, accompanied by a mess of crooked, rather ferocious-looking handwriting—Gu Tongtong.

With that name scrawled all over the room, even a fool would realize the truth. The Female Infant, whose death had been caused by his own mother, had returned.

"I never wanted to give my daughter that name either. But if I hadn't, my baby wouldn't have survived at all. She would have been slowly tortured to death by that Infant Spirit." Gu Bei wrung his hands together, the veins bulging on his arms. To push a grown man like him to such a desperate state, this "Gu Tongtong" was certainly not simple.

"The grudges of twenty years ago have nothing to do with my baby. She's entirely innocent. To save her, we sought help from the Profound Gate Daoist Sects, but most of the people out there are just frauds. The rare few with true abilities refused to get involved after hearing about the grudge from twenty years ago. It wasn't until a few days ago that we hiked deep into the mountains. Our hard work paid off, and we found the hidden Daoist sect, the Golden Mountain Sect. At first, they refused to involve themselves in this karma either. My wife and I stayed at the Golden Mountain Sect for a day and a night. Since absolute sincerity moves metal and stone, the Dao Zheng there finally decided to help us. They purged the foul yin energy from our baby, but it only treated the symptoms, not the root cause. According to Dao Zheng, the thing possessing the baby was merely a sliver of yin malice. To completely eradicate it, they needed to find the vengeful spirit's main body and kill it. Coincidentally, a few of his disciples were heading to Jiangcheng, so he agreed to have them eliminate this monster for us along the way."

Gu Bei's expression darkened. "I had everything planned out. The moment those Celestial Masters arrived in Jiangcheng, we would strike. But who could have guessed that the baby would go missing at such a crucial moment? I couldn't get in touch with the people from the Golden Mountain Sect, so to get my baby back, I had no choice but to follow the kidnapper's demands."

With the entire sequence of events finally clear, I looked at Gu Bei with a trace of sympathy. Truth be told, he couldn't be blamed for what happened twenty years ago. After all, he had just been a child back then.

"Gu Bei, why did your mother suddenly go back on her word twenty years ago?" Chen Mo asked from the side, voicing the question on all our minds. "Even with treatment, a child with congenital leukemia rarely lives past ten. You still would have been the heir to the Gu clan. She had absolutely no need to worry about an extra competitor, so why would she leave someone to die like that?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was just to get back at Gu Tiancheng." Gu Bei didn't call Gu Tiancheng his father, instead naturally referring to the man by his full name. From this small detail, it was clear he harbored a great deal of resentment toward his father.

"That still doesn't add up. It's perfectly understandable that Gu Tongtong wants your entire family to pay with their lives, but why involve outsiders?" Zhang Heng pointed at himself. "This is a grudge between your family and her. What did the three of us ever do to deserve this?"

After he said that, I gave it some thought and realized there was indeed a glaring issue.

The events of this hospital livestream could be divided into three separate threads. The first thread was the deep-seated grudge between Gu Bei and Gu Tongtong, which tied back to a twenty-year-old secret.

The second thread was the cursed notes Chen Mo and Zhang Heng had received. It was now clear that the one who wrote those notes was Gu Tongtong's vengeful spirit. It wanted us to help it find a birth certificate and a death certificate. I already had the death certificate on me, while the birth certificate was hidden somewhere in the mortuary.

The third thread was the Writer's mysterious disappearance, which was immediately followed by terrifying monsters appearing throughout the hospital.

"What exactly is the relationship between those monsters and Gu Tongtong? Are they using each other? Cooperating? Or could it be that Gu Tongtong didn't actually die, but transformed into a monster that has been living in this hospital all along? But if that were true, she wouldn't need us to fetch any birth certificate for her. She could just get it herself."

My train of thought was crystal clear. As I analyzed these three threads together, I gradually realized the core issue.

"She clearly could have gotten it herself, yet she went to great lengths to lure living people into fetching it for her. Could this all be a trap? A scheme to lure the living down here just to murder them?" My back was drenched in sweat; the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. "The birth certificate is stored inside a mortuary, a place that symbolizes death. Welcoming new life in a morgue... doesn't that imply something else entirely?"

"Hey, what are you muttering to yourself about?" Zhang Heng glanced at me and aimed his dV right at me, seemingly wanting to capture my current expression on tape.

"It's nothing. I was just thinking things through." I voiced everything I had just been contemplating, then swept my gaze over Zhang Heng and Chen Mo. "The demands on those notes are highly likely to be a trap. The entity's true goal is to lure us to a specific location."

Hearing my analysis, the color drained from their faces.

"Then what do you suggest we do now? We've already come this far. Are we supposed to just give up halfway and run back?" Zhang Heng scratched at his hair in distress.

"Let's put it to a vote. Raise your hand if you want to leave." After speaking, I looked between Zhang Heng and Chen Mo. To my surprise, not a single person raised their hand.

"So none of you are going to give up?" I nodded, deciding not to waste my breath trying to persuade them. After all, what I'd just said was only a theory.

"Take me with you," Gu Bei spoke up proactively, terrified of being left behind when he realized I wasn't paying any attention to him. "There's safety in numbers. If we run into danger, we can look out for one another."

"Sure. Even if you hadn't brought it up, I was planning to invite you along..."

"Hold on a second—" Zhang Heng started to say, but I unceremoniously cut him off. "If you want to join us, you need to answer one question first."

I pointed squarely at Gu Bei's soaked trousers. "How did your pants get so wet?"

I was the one who had first noticed Gu Bei's presence. At the time, I had heard a familiar dripping sound and assumed a monster was approaching, which led to everything that happened next.

"We've encountered the monsters in this hospital before, and their bodies were also dripping wet."

"You think I'm a monster?" Gu Bei waved his hands frantically. "I swear, I just followed the instructions in the text message and took a hidden passage from the Diagnostic and Treatment Building all the way down here. On the way, I passed by this massive water tank. I heard a strange sound coming from inside it, and I got curious and tried to take a look. But I lost my grip and the lower half of my body fell straight into the water tank."

"A hidden passage? And you fell into a water tank?" I circled Gu Bei twice. His jacket was completely dry; only his pants were soaked. He probably wasn't lying. "Did you see anything hiding inside that tank?"

"No." Gu Bei had spoken to Chen Mo and Zhang Heng quite normally, but his tone was noticeably colder when speaking to me. It was likely because I had just tricked him earlier.

Snubbed, I didn't press him any further. I beckoned to the others and walked into the darkness alone.

The kidnapper had ordered Gu Bei to head to the mortuary and place the item inside a freezer drawer. Meanwhile, Chen Mo and Zhang Heng needed to go to the mortuary to find the birth certificate. Since everyone's goals aligned, it was only natural that we moved together, forming a new team.

We had only found Mortuary No. 1 on the second basement level, which wasn't the room specified on the notes.

While listening to Gu Bei recount the grudge from twenty years ago, we had already made our way down to the third basement level. Compared to the floor above, it was far more dimly lit. Both sides of the walls were painted white, and patches of that White Fur were beginning to appear more and more frequently.

"Just how many basement levels does this hospital have? If we keep going down, are we going to walk straight into Hell?"

"That joke isn't funny in the slightest."

Carrying Chen Mo on my back, I took the lead. Relying on senses that far surpassed those of ordinary people, I was able to spot the patches of White Fur ahead of time and carve out a safe path forward.

The four of us moved at a snail's pace, primarily because of Gu Bei. His soaked trousers were constantly dripping water. The steady drip-drop severely interfered with my Breath Listening, making it impossible for me to be certain whether the path ahead was truly safe.

After about ten minutes, I suddenly caught the scent of medicine wafting through the air.

Tracing the smell, I discovered a hospital room around the corner of the corridor with its door hanging half-open.

"Did you open this door?" I turned to ask Gu Bei.

"No? I've never even been to the third basement level." Gu Bei shook his head. Judging by his expression, it didn't look like he was lying.

"If it wasn't you and it wasn't us, then who was it? The Writer? Or a monster?" I set Chen Mo down and shined my flashlight at the room's nameplate. Most of the white paint had peeled off, but I could still barely make out a few blurry black characters: Mortuary No. 2.

"Let's go in and take a look."

I pushed the door wide open. The interior was extremely spacious, consisting of two interconnected rooms, one in front of the other.

Two rows of iron beds were lined up in the outer room, with washbasins resting at the head of each frame. Several coats stained with dark patches were discarded on the floor, and a rusted faucet and sink sat in the corner. This appeared to be the prep room where they washed and applied makeup to the corpses.

The inner room, however, was much more terrifying. Patches of White Fur were growing across the doorframe, and a row of mortuary freezers that had long since stopped working lined the wall.

Several of the freezer doors hung open, their sliding trays pulled out. On a few of those extended trays lay shapes with outlines that closely resembled living humans.