Chapter 65 Old Campus "What morgue?!"...
The campus is full of youthful life, so there are often rumors of yang energy suppressing yin energy. Tracing the cause and effect, there is often a not-so-pleasant "past life", which must have been tragic with death and injury and lingering resentment, such as a cemetery, execution ground, abandoned hospital or mental hospital.
The campus and the hospital, as timeless classic horror settings, blend together in this moment, like reading Stephen King in the first half of the night and then switching to Edgar Allan Poe in the second half.
Everywhere was filled with a gloomy and terrifying atmosphere.
These kinds of places often create a sense of desolation to tell a story. They are dirty, dark, damp, cold, with broken windows, creaking doors, faded wallpaper and old objects, iron pipes with red water flowing out, cobwebs, etc. There are two stories in one space - "past" and "present".
The process of the past leading to the present is the essence of terror.
But the hospital in front of us is not "cliché". Although it is a deserted "past", it is bright and clean. As far as the eye can see, there is pure white. The light shines on the ground, and it is hard to see the thin white light shadows. The light enters the spotless white tiles, as if they have been coated with a layer of smooth wax.
The view outside the window appeared even darker, while the darkness made the hospital appear even whiter, as if colors had been taken from the top and bottom of a palette.
Such pristine whiteness brings a greater sense of loneliness and weightlessness than an abandoned hospital. It's not about being drowning in the "old" and constantly fearing unknown attacks from the past, but rather a sense of irrationality that you have nowhere to hide when you stand here. Thus, "white" becomes "pale white".
Against this white backdrop, all colors appear even more vivid, revealing their purest essence. Xue Chao had seen countless shades of red—red paint, red ink, red pen—but he was particularly struck by the red that blew in through the window at this moment, falling onto the stark white, creating a piercing sense of crisis.
It reminded him of a pair of inhuman eyes.
Pu Fengchun rubbed his neck, stared intently, and said in a hoarse voice, "...Red rose petals?"
The rose petals were blown in through the window by the wind, across the corridor, and covered them. She tensed up instantly, wary of Miss Red Rose's return. Deng Dayun also thought it was a young girl and looked around with his eyes down.
Xue Chao's eyes flickered slightly, but he looked at Jiang Ming. Jiang Ming had already stepped forward, picked up a petal, and red juice splashed onto his cold jade-like fingertips. Xue Chao suddenly felt that Jiang Ming's pale skin was also this kind of white, a cold white that needed to be adorned with blood.
"Those roses that fell from the rooftop." Jiang Ming curiously leaned out the window. "A time tunnel? Or is Ninth Middle School hundreds or thousands of stories high now, so it took them to fall...? There aren't any?"
Xue Chao: "Jiang Ming."
"Hmm?" Jiang Ming turned around and saw a trail of conspicuous bloody shoe prints on the white ceramic tile. He stopped at his feet, lifted his foot to look at it, and saw that each shoe sole was stained with a petal. He took two more steps and sure enough, there were more bright red shoe prints.
No one else was spared either. The wind blew, and the flowers pelted them, sparing no one. Even if they picked off the petals and took off their shoes, there were still bloody shoe prints. The white tiles were like a mirror, and the bloody shadows of their shoes stood symmetrically opposite them, moving in sync. As long as they moved, they would leave a mark.
Strange things don't happen without reason. While the group was still studying the bloody shoe print, Xue Chao checked the nurses' station record sheet first: "The rule is that we can't wander around the corridor after 2 a.m., and all patients and caregivers have to go back to their rooms. It's 1:30 a.m. now."
At the other end, the sound of a trolley came from the far end. The nurse's heels hit the ground, tap, tap, getting closer. Just as they were about to cross the corner, the group quickly scurried back into the stairwell. The next second, the nurse's angry scream rang out, the trolley screeched to a halt, and the sound of footsteps echoed, accompanied by the crackling sound of the needle being pushed into the air.
They escaped to the third floor, randomly pushed open the door of a room, and found patients lying on their beds. Two were already asleep, while the other patient was startled. The deflated head of the water bottle turned towards the door, and two goldfish in the bottle swam over, looking in surprise at the people who had suddenly opened the door.
There were NPCs inside, so he couldn't just hide anywhere. Jiang Ming gave a bright yet apologetic smile, closed the door, and said goodbye: "Sorry, I came to the wrong place. Please get some rest!"
“We’ll split up and go to different destinations!” Xue Chao grabbed Deng Dayun and ran. To avoid crossing the 13th step of the east staircase, they climbed to the third floor first and then took the west staircase all the way down to the basement.
The basement of No. 9 Middle School was originally a computer lab where students had computer classes. Now, a chilling coldness swept over them. As they ran forward, the long fluorescent tubes overhead went out one after another. The blinding white light dimmed and turned into an ominous white, emitting a ghostly blue hue in the dark.
Deng Dayun was startled by the blue and white surroundings. For a moment, he thought he had run from the human world to the River of Three Crossings. It wasn't until Xue Chao pulled him through a door and turned on the light that he saw the neatly arranged morgues. His dazed mind couldn't relax, and he was suddenly jolted awake as he was pushed towards the cliff: "What morgue?!"
He was usually silent most of the time, and when he spoke, it was barely a whisper. But now, in his excitement, he blurted out something like a tone-deaf person trying to hit a high note. The first word was a crack. Xue Chao covered his mouth and said, "Ancestor, don't attract attention. Can you please respect the other two who are trying to distract us?"
Deng Dayun immediately shook off his hand, took several steps back, and almost buried his head in his collar. Xue Chao didn't have time to let him act like a quail. He quickly checked the name according to the number of the refrigerated body cabinet: "I'm looking for your cabinet. You should run around the room a few times and make sure to cover the room with your shoe prints so that it's impossible to tell which cabinet you went into."
Why should I go into the closet?
"Can you ask me while you run?"
"……oh."
"The rules prohibit lingering in the corridors, and there are nurses patrolling, so you need to go into a room. However, there are hospitalized NPC patients in the room, and the main role-playing quest is in progress. Unless you can quickly come up with a reasonable and perfect reason that won't get you arrested by the nurses who are looking for your footprints, it would be dangerous to just stay in a room."
Upon hearing "role-playing," Deng Dayun had a sudden inspiration: "There are player storylines in the hospital too?"
Xue Chao nodded. The previous episodes had mentioned "hospitals," although they weren't necessarily the same hospital. The "campus" settings in the different episodes were also different, and the episodes themselves tended to merge in terms of time and space. For example, the rooftop where a girl fell in the first episode was further explored in the third episode with the "loose screw" as a clue, like a series of foreshadowing. The piano piece "Für Elise" from the second episode was broadcast in the third episode, becoming part of the ghost story. So, the third episode, as the "abandoned hospital" that was the predecessor of the campus, could naturally encompass the "hospital" storylines involved in the first two episodes.
Players have identities and purposes in the hospital, and they still need to maintain their personas and follow the storyline.
Having figured this out, Xue Chao knew where the others were. Jiang Ming was taking care of his sick grandmother and needed to find her hospital room; Pu Fengchun was visiting a sick friend and needed to find that friend's hospital room.
The two have similar tasks and difficulties. They both need to find the target NPC based on clues from previous episodes and intelligence from the hospital. They might even have to reenact the "first meeting" mentioned in the letter.
That was their own task. After their unit was over, to Xue Chao, they were just graduates of the nursery school, no longer under his jurisdiction. He only needed to take care of Deng Dayun.
Deng Dayun's character seems easy to bully and should get hurt often, but that's precisely his character. Even when he's injured, he won't go to the hospital. He'll hide under his clothes, and it would be best if he could hide himself away from the world.
Therefore, the other possibility is more likely than that he was hospitalized due to injury.
“Your future self is dead.” Xue Chao casually opened a few mortuaries, each containing a headless corpse with a name tag tied to the big toe. But the mortuary he opened was empty. He gestured to Deng Dayun to look at the name tag inside with his name on it. “Your body is here.”
"..." Deng Dayun clung to the cabinet and peered inside. The small, dark space was cramped and filled with eternal silence. It was not only his final resting place, but probably everyone's final resting place, regardless of whether they were cheerful or introverted, successful or ordinary, admired by thousands or hated by everyone... Death has no class; it is fair and peaceful, like a paradise.
Why did he feel such deep fear at just one glance?
Deng Dayun instinctively tried to move away, but Xue Chao pushed him inside. His feet suddenly left the ground, and before he could feel fear, he thrashed about like a turtle flipping over, his limbs moving haphazardly as he crawled into the cabinet, his legs getting tangled together. Xue Chao then ruthlessly pushed him back into the cabinet.
He could only move his limbs nervously in the dark, trying to untangle his "knot." After finally completing this puzzle game, which was comparable to solving a nine-linked ring, he heard the nurse's footsteps and froze instantly.
Not only was Deng Dayun's cabinet empty, but several other cabinets also lacked corpses, containing only name tags, all belonging to young girls who were still in school. After noting these names down, Xue Chao crawled into one of the cabinets and gently slid it shut.
He was immersed in the narrow darkness, following the approaching footsteps until they stopped in front of the door, where he held his breath and waited.
After nearly a century of waiting, the door was finally pushed open, its harsh creak shattering the silence, followed by an even longer silence.
Deng Dayun guessed that the nurse had tripped over the mess of shoe prints on the floor, and he couldn't help but pray that he could hold her up for longer, until she got impatient and left.
It's unclear which kind-hearted Buddha or God heard his sincere prayer, but the nurse actually closed the door again and didn't come in.
But they didn't leave. Another agonizing silence ensued, then suddenly the crisp sound of a lock clicking shut rang out.
Then came the sound of the nurse leaving without a trace of regret.
Xue Chao's expression changed slightly. Something was wrong. The nurse must have known they were in the morgue. How could she not even bother to come in and take a look? She intended to lock them inside from the very beginning!
The next second, the metal cabinet directly above him was slammed shut with a loud bang. The violent shaking of the sliding door carried all the way down, making his ears ache. And that wasn't the end of it; more and more sliding doors were slammed shut, creating a chain reaction that could be heard far away even through the morgue door, a terrifying and continuous series of loud noises in the dark basement.
Deng Dayun clung tightly to the door, afraid it would be pulled open. The vibration entered his palms, making them numb and painful. He couldn't exert any strength, so he tried his best to prop himself up, pressing his back against the metal sheet above. But suddenly, a force several times louder than the force in his hands slammed down his arched back. He loosened his grip, looked up in shock, and saw no color in his face.
—It's not that someone is knocking on the sliding door from the outside; it's that someone is knocking from inside!
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