Chapter 55 Circle (Part 3) Morgue.

For some reason, Xia Zhu felt they were pressed for time and couldn't afford to waste it on aimless exploration. So, the six of them went to a consultation room on the left side of the hall under the pretext of discussing something.

She wanted to share her speculations about the spirit, suggesting that the dream might not be as simple as it seemed, but merely a series of repetitive monster battles. However, before the meeting could officially begin, screams erupted from outside the consultation room.

A girl ran breathlessly to the door, her shoes stained with thick blood. Xia Zhu remembered that Feng Feng had put his arm around her shoulder earlier.

"Monster...monster! The monster is here again!" She was covered in sweat as if she had just come out of the water, her hand hidden behind the wall as she pointed towards the hall.

Suddenly, a bare fleshy spike pierced through the girl's thin body, the sound as light as if it were penetrating a bed of cotton.

She looked down in disbelief at the weapon that had pierced her body. Confusion came before the pain. She opened her mouth halfway, wanting to say something, when a powerful force pulled her body away.

Several people rushed out of the clinic and followed the bloodstains on the floor all the way to the lobby. The screams had stopped, signaling the end of this one-sided massacre.

Thick blood spread like a red carpet all the way to Xia Zhu's feet. Three monsters lingered satiatedly around the five corpses.

All the NPCs died, not one was left.

Ji Wuchou beside her had already charged out like an angry cheetah, fire hammer in hand. The kind girl was perhaps feeling sad for the non-player characters in the story.

But.

Something's not right.

Xia Zhu stood rooted to the spot, unable to move as if her feet were nailed to the ground, and could only watch Ji Wuchou's figure leap between the three monsters.

A layer of cold sweat rose up on her back.

None of the NPCs were spared, but the dream continues.

That means the spirit is not among these five people. That means it is still in the shadows, like a director of a play or a consumer about to purchase an exquisite item in a shop window, observing everyone's every move with a scrutinizing gaze from the shadows.

Xia Zhu felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave, but even so, her companions had already thrown themselves into a new round of battle, and she could not stand idly by. So she simply grabbed her small sword again and charged into the mountain of corpses.

The thick blood on the floor clung to the soles of her shoes, gradually slowing Xia Zhu's movements. As expected, a sharp, intense pain shot through her calf.

The new round of fighting subsided amidst sweat and blood.

Feng Mian stood silently to one side, and Xia Zhu looked up and met his gaze.

"Something feels off," he frowned, a strange feeling creeping into his heart.

“Liang is not among these people.” Xia Zhu pointed to the pile of NPC corpses on one side.

"Furthermore, these monsters are utterly unoriginal, just endless attacks, and even the deaths of these people are..." Ji Wuchou also noticed something.

Even the deaths of these people seemed to be pre-planned by the plot.

Even though they sensed something was amiss, they were still clueless about how to solve it. Xia Zhu lowered her head and wiped the small sword with the hem of her clothes when Feng Feng's voice came from the end of the corridor.

"This is…"

She bent down with her back to everyone, seemingly picking something up from the ground. The whole process was eerily slow, until Feng Feng turned around with the object in his hand, looking at Xia Zhu with a bewildered expression.

“Ah Zhu, it’s the mugwort sachet you gave me.”

“But…” Feng Feng frowned, her eyes almost overflowing with doubt, “But the sachet has always been on me.” She lowered her head and lifted the small green pouch at her waist with her palm.

"Why are there two identical sachets?"

Xia Zhu's eyes widened slightly. She first reached into the inner pocket of her clothes. The mugwort sachet that her grandfather had sewn by hand was still inside. Moreover, the two sachets were not the same style. She had specially embroidered a maple leaf with childlike stitches on the sachet to give to Feng Feng.

So, when she looked at the sachet in Feng Feng's hand that was exactly the same as the one around her waist, a tingling sensation from the depths of her bones climbed up her spine to her cerebral cortex.

Before she had fully regained consciousness, Xia Zhu had already walked to Feng Feng's side. She said abruptly, "It's okay," and then gently patted her shoulder.

No one spoke. An eerie atmosphere permeated the crowd, like an invisible ghostly hand, its damp chill caressing everyone's skin.

Xia Zhu looked around aimlessly, her gaze finally settling on a floor plan on the wall.

The navigation map shows that the hospital has four floors. Xia Zhu woke up in the room on the third floor, the lobby is on the first floor, and the NPC is probably set to wake up on the second floor.

Therefore, the hospital also has a basement level.

There was no name label next to the basement level; instead, there was only a black circle.

“Let’s go check the basement.” She had something she wanted to confirm, so even though the circle looked ominous.

They went down to the basement level again via the fire escape.

The temperature here was much lower than on the ground, and the light was dim. Feng Feng could even clearly feel the cold; without the power of physique within their bodies, their physical condition was not much better than that of ordinary people.

A heavy fire door blocked their way, and Xia Zhu and Ji Wuchou had to work together to push it open.

The door had barely opened a crack when a chilly aura seeped out from behind it.

"This isn't great, the basement of the hospital." Feng Feng couldn't help but complain, hugging his arms to try and warm himself up.

The rusty door hinges creaked, the sound particularly eerie in the deathly silence. Feng Feng's heart pounded, and he instinctively grabbed Xia Zhu's hem. Although he was a little scared, he was even more excited, feeling a thrill like he was exploring a haunted house.

Xia Zhu and Ji Wuchou walked in front, Feng Feng and Ying Ya followed behind, while Feng Mian and Ying Huo stayed at the very back of the group without saying a word.

Especially Ying Huo, after arguing with Feng Feng, seemed to be consciously trying to reduce his presence.

Behind the door was still a long corridor, but there were no longer any examination rooms or wards on either side, and no lights overhead. The cold walls were inlaid with dim emergency exit signs.

Green light shone on everyone's profile.

There was no light source in the corridor; the only light came from a room at the end with its door wide open.

The light blurred the view inside the house, only brightly attracting those who had strayed into this place to continue forward.

After an unconscious swallow, Xia Zhu took a step towards the end of the road. She had a premonition that the answer lay hidden at the end. To avoid being attacked by monsters in the darkness, everyone treaded lightly, walking one after another close to the wall.

The rectangular spot of light seemed to be not far away, but they walked for a very long time, so long that beads of sweat appeared on Xia Zhu's forehead and the injury on her calf flared up again.

"This is..." They finally saw the only room with light on and understood why the air here was so cold.

The room was eerily spacious with three walls of refrigerated shelves, and countless stainless steel drawers were tightly fitted into the metal frame, like an extremely cold industrial honeycomb.

"Is this the morgue? This is the first time I've ever seen one!"

“This is certainly not an ordinary morgue. Would a hospital with only three floors above ground need so many cold storage compartments?” Feng Mian’s voice came from near the door.

At a glance, this place could hold at least several hundred corpses.

Feng Mian is right. Under what circumstances would a small hospital have so many corpses?

The bright incandescent lights overhead shone down, reflecting the swaying figures of the group on the spotless floor and the gleaming silver-gray metal drawers. Their own colors, in a way, disrupted the order of the morgue, like an eternal block of ice beginning to melt, something about to seep out from its frozen state.

A massive cooling system seemed to be hidden above the room, tirelessly pumping cold air into it, with a low, constant hum emanating from the ceiling. This sound wasn't irritating; rather, it was like a cold, mechanical heartbeat trying to fill the empty room, or perhaps an indifferent prayer.

In short, it was so harmonious that it made people drowsy, and they just wanted to pull open a metal drawer, lie down, and have an eternal nap with bones completely soft.

Apart from these chilly cubicles, a jarring wall clock was embedded in the wall at the entrance. Xia Zhu walked to the clock and found that the time had stopped at exactly three o'clock.

"Is a morgue just a place to store corpses?"

Feng Feng's voice was suppressed by the buzzing sound, and it reached Xia Zhu's ears in an indistinct and hazy way.

“Isn’t that obvious…” Feng Mian replied speechlessly. The two looked towards Feng Feng’s position in tacit agreement and found that she had opened one of the drawers at some point.

Feng Feng's face turned deathly pale, as if she had seen something terrifying. Xia Zhu noticed that her uninjured hand was gripping the edge of the drawer, her fingers trembling involuntarily, her knuckles turning white.

"But it's me in here."

Her voice, eerie and icy, pierced Xia Zhu's ears. Xia Zhu felt a sudden boom in her brain, as if something had snapped. She rushed to Feng Feng, took her hand, and looked down at the refrigerated compartment together.

The once healthy skin now had a desolate grayish-white color, and the lovely freckles were now mixed with bluish-purple lividity. The eyes were closed, covered by long eyelashes, and the lips, which should have been full, were covered with dead skin, devoid of color.

She was right; the person lying in the morgue was indeed Feng Feng. His clothes were even intact, his skin unharmed, as if he had simply taken a nap inside.

The sight of his sister's lifeless face suddenly appearing in the morgue was so shocking that Feng Mian felt like vomiting. He bit the soft flesh inside his mouth to prevent himself from actually throwing up. The taste of rust filled his mouth. Without hesitation, he pulled open another drawer.

And lying in this newly revealed drawer is the equally pale and lifeless "Fengmian".

The intense sorrow that had just been on Feng Mian's face turned into confusion.

"What...what's going on? Are we already dead?"

As he spoke, he seemed to remember something and immediately pulled open another drawer above his "corpse".

He had considered that it might be "Ying Ya" or "A Zhu" inside, but he never expected that the drawer would contain a second "Feng Mian". He subconsciously took a step back, his lower limbs feeling weak, and couldn't help but raise his head to meet the eyes of everyone present, finally settling on Xia Zhu's face.

She was staring at the three corpses in the drawer with absolute indifference.

Beneath the swirling, chilling mist, the pale "Feng Feng" suddenly opened those honey-colored eyes that Xia Zhu knew all too well.