Chapter 82: The Elevator to the Morgue

The ICU is the intensive care unit. Only the severely ill, those who could draw their last breath at any moment, were admitted here.

The little boy's mother lay in the hospital bed with an oxygen tube attached. Her palms faced upward, her fingers naturally relaxed. She didn't look like she was sleeping; it looked like a deep coma.

'How could a person on their deathbed pull out their own tubes and run out of the ward?' I was slowly beginning to form an answer.

I knocked gently on the door. The little boy glanced back at me, taking a long time before he finally came over to open it.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, his head lowered and his expression dim.

I looked at his tender face. There were no slap marks on it, only tears he hadn't yet managed to wipe away.

"How long has your mother been lying here?"

"A day and a night."

"What about your dad? Why are you the only one in the room?"

At the mention of his father, the little boy buried his head between his shoulders, clenching his hands into fists as he refused to say a word.

"Sorry." I quietly backed away to the door. Just before leaving, I asked one last question: "Who told you to knock on the door of Ward 9114? It couldn't have been your mom, right?"

"No." The little boy looked behind me. "It was an old grandpa."

"Did he have any distinct features?"

"He had really deep wrinkles on his face, and... he didn't have a body, just a head."

"Just a head?!" I closed the door and headed toward Ward 9114. Most of the time, children said baffling things, but who could guarantee they weren't telling the truth?

When Jiang Shihan had her episode on the bed, she had pointed at the window. At that time, I had indeed captured an old face using the Underworld Live Show Phone.

Thinking back on it now sent chills down my spine. The face had appeared in the glass window on the ward door. If it had been a normal person, their height should have been about the same as mine.

Walking down the dim corridor, everything around me was dead silent. The wards on both sides had their lights off, completely pitch-black. Even if I peered inside, I wouldn't be able to spot anything of value.

Passing the duty room, I noticed the duty nurse still hadn't returned. Seeing no one around, I pressed my hands against the counter and vaulted inside.

The duty room wasn't large. The nurse's station was in the front, and there was a separate room in the back. Because certain departments required twenty-four-hour shifts, doctors were allowed to sleep in the duty room at night.

Pushing the door open, I found duty logs, medical charts, and detailed files for every ward and their respective patients laid out on the desk.

Duty regulations were posted on the wall, mandating that all patient needs be met and stating that dedicated personnel would check the posts at regular intervals.

Just looking at the written documents, anyone would assume the doctors and nurses here were entirely dedicated and diligent in their duties.

But the reality was that an hour had passed since the duty nurse left her post without authorization, and the hospital had yet to make the slightest response.

"It seems strings have been pulled. This must be a hint from the higher-ups."

I had kicked the door and shouted, yet no one from the hospital had come forward to handle it. Whether it was the nurses or the doctors on duty, they all seemed to be deliberately ignoring the top floor of the hospital.

"Was it a hint from Director Li?" I was now seventy percent sure that Huang Guanxing had not been killed by the Underworld Live Show. If the Underworld Live Show had taken action, it wouldn't have left so many flaws; it would have been just like Grandpa Huang, who was directly sent flying by an out-of-control truck.

That kind of death required no investigation at all. It was like fate—inescapable for anyone.

In comparison, Huang Guanxing's death seemed bizarre, hiding all sorts of shady details.

"The more of these little tricks you pull, the more you expose." Staying behind tonight was a very wise decision. Surrounding Jiang Shihan, I could see the complex interpersonal relationships operating behind her back.

It was just a hospital transfer. Was there really a need to have a high-ranking hospital executive like Director Li step forward personally?

"They are afraid. Afraid that my appearance will cause unpredictable consequences." Finding Jiang Shihan's medical chart and the logs related to Ward 9114, I stood in the room and began flipping through them.

"Admission date: 23rd at 16:00. Transferred by the Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau. At the behest of Ganding Pharmaceuticals and her family, admitted to the special care ward—Ward 9114."

"Night of the 23rd: Patient exhibited severe dehydration symptoms, accompanied by intermittent seizures and difficulty breathing."

"24th at 06:00: Patient began experiencing hallucinations, describing imaginary scenes to nurses, doctors, and accompanying family members."

"24th at 21:00: Patient exhibited self-harming tendencies; abnormal behavior worsened, and she physically assaulted medical staff."

"24th at 23:00: Medication injection completed. Patient's condition improved."

"25th at 09:00: A psychological physician from Henshan Psychiatric Hospital began relevant psychological treatment for the patient."

"25th at 12:00: Patient resumed a normal diet but refused to communicate with anyone."

"25th from 19:00 onward: Patient began using her personal belongings to draw patterns on the walls and ceiling."

"25th at 23:00: Patient exhibited self-harming behavior once again."

"26th at 02:00: Patient attempted to flee the ward and smashed the door lock, but was seen and promptly stopped by the duty doctor."

...

The records regarding Jiang Shihan were incredibly detailed. Reading through them, I noticed two very strange points.

First, Jiang Shihan's initial symptoms were not severe; it was only as the hospital's treatment progressed that her condition actually began to worsen.

Second, looking across the timeline, Jiang Shihan never had an episode or engaged in self-harm during the day. But once night fell, she acted like a completely different person.

"The same person, two entirely different behaviors. So what exactly changed? Was it her, or the surrounding environment?"

Since entering Ward 9114, I had heard a similar phrase multiple times—do not close your eyes when the sky turns dark.

What did this sentence mean? If I closed my eyes, would some unimaginable, terrifying entity appear in front of me? Or did it mean that the top floor of the hospital late at night was different from the daytime?

I finished reading all the records. In the subsequent days of treatment, Jiang Shihan's behavior had grown increasingly bizarre. Not only did she completely close herself off, but she also frequently did inexplicable things.

The doctors were at their wits' end and could only keep her in the hospital for observation, waiting for specialists from the provincial capital to arrive.

The records were very detailed, yet they lacked the most important element—the specific treatment process.

Jiang Shihan's attending physician was a psychologist who had just returned from abroad. Perhaps if I found him, many questions would be easily solved.

"Henshan Psychiatric Hospital." Memorizing the name, I put the items back in their original places and vaulted out of the nurse's station.

The door to Ward 9114 was still open, casting a faint light out into the corridor.

"If I can just make it through tonight, the initiative will be in my hands." I hadn't taken more than a few steps before I suddenly stopped, my eyes fixed on a shard of glass on the floor.

"That's..." A few drops of fresh blood stained the sharp fragment. If I hadn't looked closely, I wouldn't have noticed it at all.

"Crap!" I shouted, yanking the door completely open to look inside the room.

Ward 9114 was completely empty. There was no one inside.

"Jiang Shihan is gone!" Panic instantly seized my heart as I rushed into the room, tore open the curtains, and looked under the bed.

"Nothing. Nothing. Completely gone."

From the moment I entered the intensive care unit to when I came back, only four or five minutes had passed. The other party had actually used this narrow window to take Jiang Shihan away.

"They couldn't have gone far. There's still time to catch them!"

I pulled out my phone and immediately called the police, then turned on its flashlight and followed the trail of blood.

"The glass shards are scattered toward the east side of the corridor. She must have gone this way." I hadn't gone more than a few meters before I spotted the blood on the floor, proving my guess correct.

But the scene that appeared next filled me with a faint sense of dread. The blood trail ended right at the elevators in the center of the building.

"They took the elevator?" I glanced at the floor indicator above the doors, and cold sweat instantly broke out all over me. "Basement Level 3!"

I didn't know exactly what the hospital's basement was used for, but it couldn't be anywhere good. It was highly likely the location of the morgue.

"Why would they take Jiang Shihan to a place like that? Are they planning to scare her to death?" That method was a hundred times more agonizing than a knife. It was psychological torture—letting fear crawl over every nerve like man-eating ants until she died in the deepest despair.

"No, I have to save her!"

The elevator was taking too long to arrive. Like a madman, I dashed into the emergency stairwell and sprinted downstairs.