"Sir! Sir, can you hear me?!" Cheng Ming involuntarily raised his voice, remembering that the old gatekeeper was a bit hard of hearing, but surely not this deaf.
Cheng Ming was practically yelling into his ear.
Yet, the old gatekeeper remained unresponsive.
Cheng Ming was getting anxious. He immediately reached out to pat the old gatekeeper’s shoulder, but just at that moment, the gatekeeper suddenly tilted his head, causing Cheng Ming’s hand, meant to land on the shoulder, to slap directly onto the old man’s head.
What happened next was something Cheng Ming could never have anticipated—the gatekeeper’s head was like a cream cake that disintegrated under Cheng Ming’s light touch. The gory mass of flesh and blood splattered onto Cheng Ming’s palm, and an eyeball popped out through the security booth’s window, rolling into the nearby shrubbery.
Cheng Ming’s eyes widened, his entire body frozen in place as though struck by a Body-Stabilizing Skill, the hairs on his back standing on end.
He wanted to pull his hand back, but his body wasn’t obeying his commands.
The gatekeeper slowly raised his head, glancing at Cheng Ming with the one remaining eye, then lowered it again, resuming scrolling through short videos on his phone.
It was as if nothing had happened.
Only then did Cheng Ming inhale deeply, like a drowning man pulled ashore, the rush of air flooding into his lungs. He stumbled back several steps before tripping over the curb, landing hard in a clump of sparse bushes.
Instinctively wanting to flee, distancing himself from this eerie place corrupted by supernatural forces, a deep-seated worry pulled his gaze back toward the inpatient building not far away.
He couldn’t run away; he couldn’t bear the thought of his mother ending up like the gatekeeper... The grotesque image filled him with dread.
Cheng Ming bit down hard on his lower lip, the sharp pain briefly dispelling his fear. He licked the metallic-tasting blood on his lip, then dashed toward the entrance of the inpatient building.
The doors to the inpatient building were firmly shut, unresponsive to his presence, which would normally trigger their automatic opening. Without hesitation, Cheng Ming picked up a stone from the shrubbery and hurled it forcefully at the glass sensor doors.
With a crashing sound, the tempered glass shattered into countless pea-sized pieces, and Cheng Ming ran across the broken glass into the inpatient building.
The entrance to the inpatient building housed the admission and discharge processing and payment windows. Behind these were the hospital staff, sitting lifelessly like puppets, their skin exhibiting an unsettling reddish hue.
Cheng Ming picked up another stone, smashing one of the window panes and climbed over the counter.
He couldn’t remember which ward his mother was in, but he knew this information would be recorded in the hospital’s computer system. As a patient’s family member and admission representative, Cheng Ming’s name would be among the records.
As long as he could find his name in the archives, he’d know his mother’s ward number.
"I’m sorry."
Cheng Ming apologized to the staff member sitting in the chair, then shoved the chair aside.
The staff member’s hands, which had been resting on the keyboard, detached from their body, the sticky gore spreading across the desk like spilled strawberry milkshake.
Cheng Ming grabbed the keyboard and mouse, quickly locating the patient admission records in the computer. He typed his name in the search bar and hit enter.
After a brief pause, the screen filled with hundreds of admission and discharge records. Cheng Ming found the most recent admission entry by date and clicked it open swiftly.
"Ward 607..."
Cheng Ming glanced at the staff member, whose arms had been severed and upper body began to dissolve, once more leaping over the counter, sprinting toward the emergency stairs.
The sixth floor wasn’t that high, there was no need to use the elevator... Not to mention the Mysterious Creature Hunter’s standard training manual: in areas contaminated by supernatural beings, or within environmental uncanny entities themselves, if both stairs and elevators exist, stairs should always be prioritized over elevators.
The former is an open structure, while the latter is enclosed. In terms of safety, stairs massively outperform elevators.
And in terms of reliability, compared to elevators that depend on both electrical and mechanical systems, stairs made of reinforced concrete are clearly a more reliable means of passage.
Cheng Ming raced up the stairs, taking two or three steps at a time. In well under a minute, he reached the sixth floor.
Kicking open the fire door on the sixth floor, Cheng Ming froze mid-step.
The corridor was crowded with people in hospital gowns and nurse uniforms, staggering like sleepwalking zombies. Occasionally, when two people collided, a scene of grotesque carnage would unfold.
The air was thick with the stench of blood to the point of suffocation. Forcing himself to take a deep breath, Cheng Ming reached out to push the nurse blocking his path.
But just as his hand was about to touch the nurse, she abruptly turned around, revealing a face with indistinct features facing Cheng Ming.