"How we met again and how we hit it off immediately are all redundant and cumbersome descriptions. Anyway, five years after I graduated, I returned to China and prepared to set up a hospital in Jiangcheng."

"I had expected that a hospital that only cared for the rich might not make any money, but Correa unexpectedly found quite a lot of sponsors. Those arrogant tycoons, old men from the Overseas Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and some wealthy businessmen I knew or didn't know were all on the sponsorship list."

"I was very surprised. I thought these rich people might never come to this hospital in their lifetime. How did Correa convince them? But the tall, thin, dark-skinned man smiled mysteriously and told me that all mortals will die one day. When they are on the verge of death, they will naturally turn to me for help."

"I was surprised. I was just a surgeon and didn't know how to prolong life. I felt like a charlatan, but Correa soon gave me a handwritten book that contained some content I had never thought of before."

"It is some kind of ritual, a special ritual that can summon a being beyond human cognition who reigns over this world. By offering sacrifices to Him, one can gain extraordinary power and even revive the dead."

"The contents of this manuscript are obscure and difficult, filled with puzzling annotations and certain mumblings that only a madman would say in his sleep. But it must be said that these contents are very attractive. Which doctor doesn't want to understand the mystery of life and bring the dead back to life? However, I have received higher education. We call this kind of thing superstition. I find it very strange. Is Correa relying on this to fool those rich people?"

"Until, until he showed me a small-scale ceremony. It's hard for me to describe the process of the ceremony. I can only say that when the ceremony was going on, I regretted witnessing it all. But when the results of the ceremony appeared, I was shocked. All the science I knew was gone in front of the man who stood up again. I'm very glad to have met Correa, otherwise, I would have been blinded by a false world all my life."

"The construction of the hospital went smoothly. I don't know what means Correa used to get the workers to agree to the preliminary preparations for the ceremony. I feel sorry for the workers who died, but when I think about their sacrifice for the well-being of more people, I feel relieved."

"After the hospital opened, I welcomed the first patient. It is hard to describe how excited I was when his stopped heart was refilled with blood and his livid skin regained its color."

"As for the sacrifice, don't worry, I think Correa will find a way."

"The next surgery is about to start, and I have to get it done."

These words are different from what Lu Ban had seen before. Most of the previous words went from neat to messy and finally became illegible, but the current words were a bit sloppy at the beginning, but later on, they became calm and correct, and combined with the content, there was a creepy feeling.

Lu Ban knew that this should be the record of Dean Zhao Gongping.

"Ritual, is that really the case? This hospital was built for a ritual. They succeeded and successfully summoned something through the ritual. Is this something that can resurrect the dead?"

"No, that's not right. The dead can't be resurrected, but the dead can walk, just like what I saw in the foreign land. Perhaps Zhao Gongping's ritual is not to bring the dead back to life, but to let something occupy the bodies of the dead, making them act as if they are alive?"

"Yes, just like the wandering doctors, workers, and nurses in the hospital, they act according to their own obsessions. Or, it is the summoned creatures that control the bodies of these people."

"That man, Correa, is very strange. He seems to have mastered a lot of similar knowledge and was able to persuade those wealthy businessmen. It turns out that the reason they invested in this hospital was to perform this ritual. They tried to use this ritual to prolong their lives, so they invested without considering the return."

"But why did they stop investing? Was it because something went wrong with the ceremony? Was it the reason for Zhao Gongping's death?"

"According to the description, Zhao Gongping should have been the dean when he was about 35 years old. He has been in office for almost 20 years, so he is almost 50 years old. He looks unnaturally old, perhaps due to the influence of the ceremony."

"So, when the ritual could no longer be performed here, the investors stopped giving money, and the hospital went bankrupt. But the inability to perform the ritual doesn't mean that the ritual is completely ineffective. It is still effective in some way, causing people to disappear."

Lu Ban felt that he had vaguely grasped the core secret of this hospital and this mission.

Now there are only two questions left.

First of all, who is this hospital’s ritual connected to, why did the ritual go wrong, and what should we do with this strange hospital building now.

Another question is, where are the melody fragments left by Du Danping when he visited the hospital, and why did he fail to solve the problems of the hospital?

"I'm afraid I'll have to sort this mess out before I can survive until tomorrow morning."

Lu Ban thought.

"According to nurse He Bisong's description, the old man in room 502 was already critically ill, but he was able to stand up that night and waved to her. It seems that this was related to the room at the end of the corridor. Perhaps that was where the ceremony was held."

He put away his notebook, picked up the crowbar, and walked out of the room.

Even though the corridor was bright and spacious, Lu Ban felt it was covered with a layer of gray.

He saw that the half-open door at the end of the corridor seemed to have opened a little more. Lu Ban quickened his pace and came to the end of the corridor.

The door was ordinary and could be opened easily.

Lu Ban took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

It was a spacious room, and its layout was not dissimilar to that of an operating room. There was a bed in the middle, and various medical instruments beside it. However, the most eye-catching thing was that next to the instruments there was a huge transparent container, and the container was filled with dirty, gray, sticky liquid.

"cement?"

The first thing Lu Ban thought of was what was overflowing in Zhao Gongping’s mind.

But the texture of this thing is even more special.

Lu Ban walked closer and saw that the thing was as gelatinous as jelly. It seemed to have life and was constantly wriggling.

The arrival of humans may have awakened it, and the thing suddenly stopped moving.

Then, an eye opened.

One, two, three, countless eyes opened on the strange creature in the container. At the same time, there were mouths full of uneven and ugly teeth, countless mouths. Those millions of eyes and millions of mouths seemed to be asking for food, and countless gray mucus was secreted from them.

Lu Ban stared at this blasphemous creature, and suddenly, a song sounded in his ears.