Chapter 7878 Tu Penglai
The hospital director came to introduce: "The patient's name is Gong Chunlei. He has been living here for over six years. His condition has always been very delicate. Before, he could hardly even walk on his own. His physical examination indicators were also..."
Li Ao interrupted, "What do you mean by subtle?"
The person in charge wiped a cold sweat from his forehead. "Degenerative systemic muscle atrophy can lead to irreversible organ failure. Generally, for patients like this, no matter how well they are treated, they try to delay the decline as much as possible. Gong Chunlei has the longest life expectancy among such cases. At least, that's the only one I've seen in my career."
In other words, according to the physical indicators of a normal person, Gong Chunlei should have died long ago, but he has survived to this day in such a weak state, which can be called a miracle of life.
Tu Lanxun thought, of course it was a miracle, because he had died a long time ago.
N continued, "There was only Xiao Zhang and the zombie inside. Xiao Zhang was restrained and sitting on the bed. The zombie was slumped over in a chair next to her. He had just been sucking her."
Tu Lanxun opened his eyes wide and waited for N to continue explaining.
N said, "Do you still remember the woman next door in that shabby rental house?"
!!!
A long-forgotten memory suddenly struck Tu Lanxun. It was the first time he'd ever seen a dead body. His next-door neighbor had been reduced to a skin, draped over the edge of his bed like a jumpsuit. Tu Lanxun had called the police at the time, but later, caught up in a whirlpool of ghost stories, he stopped paying attention.
At that time, N was still knocking on the wall next door, provoking her half in a warning and half in a threatening way.
If that neighbor was sucked into a skin bag, then if he met that destined villain again today, wouldn't Xiao Zhang inside also...
Tu Lanxun hid his face behind the blueprints and, taking advantage of the angle he turned, whispered, "Can this be solved?"
“Yes, he could,” N said, “but I forgot to mention that he ran away the moment I entered.”
She had forgotten that the male ghost in front of her was the plague god among all the plague gods. Even the old ghost who sucked human skin would run away when he saw him.
It seemed like he just took the time to come out and give Tu Lanxun a message and pour a basin of cold water on him.
"Captain Li, we can break in now." Tu Lanxun whispered to Li Ao, "The alarm is lifted."
Li Ao glanced at Tu Lanxun with distrust, and Tu Lanxun added, "How far have you progressed in popular science education? There's no danger in there, but it might be a little beyond our understanding."
Li Ao understood.
"Everyone, evacuate the corridor. Consultant Tu will stay."
The police officers and hospital staff quickly evacuated, but Li Ao did not withdraw the group that was preparing to storm the rooftop, waiting for Tu Lanxun's action.
She walked forward, took a deep breath, and stepped sideways toward the locked door.
Then an elbow to the door.
The door collapsed.
Tu Lanxun dared to guarantee that she heard the sound of Li Ao choking on saliva.
The door was completely scrapped and in a terrible condition. There was a large hole where the door lock was, letting in light. The whole door was like a bent cardboard, sticking up on the floor, swaying back and forth by inertia like a pirate ship.
Tu Lanxun patted the non-existent dust on her elbow. She only used a little effort and didn't feel any pain at all.
Li Ao: ...
He now suspects that the fighting champion is not Xiao Zhang, but her.
The space inside the ward was exposed before his eyes. Xiao Zhang sat cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed. On the chair next to him was Gong Chunlei's...body.
Li Ao rushed towards Xiao Zhang, who slowly woke up under the influence of N. After seeing the person in front of him clearly, he asked in confusion: "Captain Li? Miss Tu?"
She is still confused.
Xiao Zhang's memory came back to him, and he jumped up in a defensive posture. He glanced around, and when he saw Gong Chunlei's body, his face suddenly changed from alert to astonishment, and finally froze pale.
Tu Lanxun was just about to help the staggering Xiao Zhang, but the girl sat down on the ground, and even Mikhail's elbow couldn't stop her from falling.
Xiao Zhang burst into tears at Li Ao: "Captain Li, did I kill someone? I don't remember anything. I won't be expelled from the team and forced to wear a vest, will I?"
Li Ao and Tu Lanxun persuaded Xiao Zhang for a long time before he finally came back to his senses. After knowing that he did not accidentally kill someone, Xiao Zhang regained his spirits.
Tu Lanxun was afraid that the corpse would scare her, but Xiao Zhang was very brave and even got closer to look at Gong Chunlei's body. "Oh my God, it turns out that someone has died. This is the first time I've seen such a strange thing happen to a living person..."
Tu Lanxun's friendly reminder: "Dead."
Xiao Zhang readily accepted the advice and gently grasped Tu Lanxun's arm. "Miss Tu, Teacher Tu, this is what you're studying, right? I knew it. You have to teach me well. It will be useful for my future work... My learning won't be in vain. I can teach you martial arts. I was the martial arts champion of our class."
Li Ao looked at Xiao Zhang hesitantly.
The severely disabled door on the ground was still upside down in the shape of a boat, no longer moving, and had turned from a pirate ship into a banana boat.
The on-site problem was solved and Xiao Zhang was safe again, but new problems arose.
Where did that weird thing that sucked human flesh go?
It turns out it has an exact location, but after being scared away by N, no one knows where it is hiding or when it will commit the next crime.
If they haven't left the sanatorium yet, then the dozens of patients including Ms. Tu Penglai...
The hospital manager's face turned pale: "We won't close down for rectification."
Li Ao and Tu Lanxun looked at each other, and successively asked the anxious dean and the confused demolition team to leave. The latter still didn't know how the door was opened.
The only people left at the scene were police officers including Li Ao and Xiao Zhang, Tu Lanxun and the invisible N, as well as the doctor in charge of Gong Chunlei and the nurse who called the police.
"Let's start with you, sister. Can you tell me about the ward again?" Li Ao asked.
The nurse was a woman in her late fifties, strong and robust, with a deep voice. "About a year ago, I had a patient in this room. Sometimes during the night shift, I'd doze off and see a ghostly figure, flickering before my eyes. I didn't think much of it, I just thought it was a sleep nightmare."
"Later, that patient was discharged, and I moved to a new place. But last night, I wanted to make some extra money, so I accepted the cleaning lady's offer and came here to clean. In the middle of the night, I saw a ghost again. This time, it was more real than before. It was a little girl, floating around without legs. It was terrifying."
The nurse had heard about the mysterious intrusion and didn't dare to delay, so she hid in the lounge until dawn and called the police. As for why she didn't call the police until dawn, it was because she didn't dare to use her mobile phone at night for fear of receiving a midnight call.
"You watch quite a lot of movies," said Li Ao.
Tu Lanxun asked: "Do you remember the exact time when you saw the ghost before?"
"A year ago? No, it's been there for several years, but I thought it might be because of something wrong with that house, so I didn't pay much attention to it. Wasn't it the end of last year when our Lucheng was invaded by a large-scale strange invasion? I was too suspicious. But about a year ago, that ghost disappeared."
Tu Lanxun pressed the issue: "Are you sure it disappeared a year ago?"
The nurse thought for a long time and said, "Eight months."
Tu Lanxun perked up: "What's the frequency? How often does that ghost appear?"
The nurse said, "Half a month? A month? I can't tell. I'm not always on the night shift. Anyway, I remember the ghost was a girl with long hair and two legs missing. They were dragging on the ground like a snake, a bit like a dolphin's tail."
The timing and frequency are right.
The female ghost who came to the ward regularly was Sonia.
But why did Sonia regard the sanatorium as her own refuge?
N suddenly whispered in Tu Lanxun's ear, "Which ward is Auntie staying in?"
Tu Lanxun uttered through gritted teeth: "Not this one."
Moreover, Ms. Tu Penglai has been hospitalized for nearly two months.
"Who originally lived in this ward?" Li Ao asked.
The file was quickly transferred from the head of the hospital. It turned out that the person living here was an elderly woman named Mu Xiaozhen, who turned out to be a retired expert from the Academy of Sciences who had attended a meeting in the capital.
This name sounds familiar to Tu Lanxun.
The matter came to a standstill. Ms. Mu Xiaozhen had been discharged from the hospital eight months ago, and it would take time to find out her whereabouts. Li Ao turned to arrange follow-up, and Tu Lanxun was left idle.
Since I'm here, I might as well go and see my biological mother Tu Penglai.
N walked beside her. It was getting dark earlier and earlier in late autumn. It was just past three o'clock, but the sky outside was already tinged with yellow. The two walked side by side in the corridor.
N said, "You've never mentioned your family before."
Tu Lanxun was lost in thought: "You didn't mention it either."
N was so angry that he ignored her.
Tu Lanxun also knew that he was strange. His biological mother was in the same city and was sick. But even though Tu Lanxun now had money and friends and had long since escaped from the huge debt, she had never taken the initiative to visit Tu Penglai.
Even though she had traveled to all the towns and cities around Lucheng, she had never set foot in the Yangui Sanatorium.
It seems... a bit inhumane.
She walked downstairs and turned around the stairwell on the fourth floor. She saw a row of spacious and clean wards bathed in twilight. According to the house numbers, the one in the middle was Ms. Tu Penglai.
Tu Lanxun slowed down her pace. She suddenly felt a little grateful to fate for having to tie her and N together, so that she wouldn't have to go into the ward alone. N seemed to see through her thoughts and sneered, "Are you still not leaving?"
The two knocked on the door and entered the ward.
It was time for the afternoon fruit in the nursing home. The nurse who was delivering the fruit plate passed by Tu Lanxun and went out. The nurse looked at Tu Lanxun strangely, as if she didn't understand why she showed up just now.
Because of the blood relationship between Tu Lanxun and Tu Penglai, it can be seen at a glance.
But what is more obvious is the complete separation between the two people's personalities and temperaments.
——She still looked so sharp, with thick and long eyebrows and a head of black curly hair that was draped wildly. Even her plain pajamas could not hide her inherent aggressiveness, and even the golden light of the sunset could not soften that hardness.
Ms. Tu Penglai has a very sharp beauty, which has nothing to do with her appearance and is entirely due to her aura, so it cannot be diminished by the vicissitudes of time. But at this moment, it is like a slightly blunt knife, poking aimlessly on the soft pillow.
She gave Tu Lanxun a powerful look, then smiled and said, "Here I come."
Although they have two similar sets of facial features, the black curly hair painted with blue does not have the feeling of a predator. Instead, it looks like a black sheep that is always thinking about its own things. It is dull, but it can suddenly bump into someone and cause a lumbar disc herniation.
Tu Lanxun stopped not far from the bed and said in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, neither confrontational nor too intimate, "Well, let me see you."
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