Chapter 35: Playing Mahjong in the Stinky Outhouse |
Dr Ge Shu reached the village chief’s house and spotted a figure at the entrance… a young woman?
He felt a chill run down his spine. He was supposed to be the doctor here, so why did he feel like a victim? He had hoped for a peaceful assignment, but now he wanted nothing more than to leave. As soon as he cured these patients, he would look for another place, one with fewer people and fewer secrets.
Yu Xiao fixed her gaze on Dr Ge Shu, and spoke only when he came closer. “Dr Ge Shu, you’re here.”
Dr Ge Shu saw a shadow in the corner, peeking at them.
Every time he faced Yu Xiao, his heart twisted, and her words made his hands shake. He hated her with a passion, but he was powerless to do anything, trapped in his own misery.
“Dr Ge Shu, you’ve done so much,” Yu Xiao walked next to Dr Ge Shu, her eyes scanning him like claws from head to toe. “Coming here so late at night.”
Dr Ge Shu bit his tongue, heading for the door of Gu Jing Rong’s room. He was about to open it, when a warm hand touched his.
He flinched, and Yu Xiao pulled back her hand, pretending to be scared. She gave him a coy look. “Dr Ge Shu, please don’t act like that. I’m a married woman.”
Dr Ge Shu: “…”
Dr Ge Shu walked over, and stood by the bedside, looking at Gu Jing Rong. He noticed the tears in Gu Jing Rong’s eyes, the empty stare, the lack of interest in life. He sensed something was very wrong.
Dr Ge Shu asked, “Where does it hurt?”
“He’s hurt in the stomach,” Yu Xiao cut in from the side.
Dr Ge Shu wanted to tell her to shut up, but he held his tongue. He was a refined doctor, after all. He lifted the blanket, pulled up Gu Jing Rong’s clothes, and exposed a dark bruise on his stomach.
Gu Shu’s eyes darted from the bruise to the pale face of Yu Xiao. “What happened to him? Please don’t tell me he fell.”
Yu Xiao smiled faintly, her voice calm and composed. “He got beaten up,” she said. “Anyone with eyes can see it.”
“Who beat him?”
“Who else could it be?” Yu Xiao shrugged, playing with the hem of her dress. She looked like a child caught stealing candy, not a woman who had just committed a heinous act. “It was me,” she confessed, as if it were nothing.
Gu Shu was taken aback by her honesty. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Curiosity got the best of him and he couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”
He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth. He knew he had made a mistake, a grave one. He felt a familiar sensation, the sensation of falling into a trap.
He saw it in her eyes, the flash of anger and hurt. She glared at him, her voice dripping with venom. “You don’t know?” she spat. “You really don’t know?”
Gu Shu wished he could take back his question, but it was too late. He was trapped to learn her reason.
She leaned closer to him, her breath hot on his ear. “It was because of you, Dr. Gu Shu. You broke my heart that day, when you rejected me. You made me love you, and then you pushed me away. You left me with no choice, but to marry him.” She gestured to the man on the bed, who was barely conscious. “But I never loved him, I never wanted him. I only wanted you. And I couldn’t stand the thought of him touching me, of him claiming what was yours. So I hit him. I hit him hard. I hit him until he stopped moving.”
“…” Gu Shu clenched his fists.
On the bed, Gu Jing Rong let out a whimper. He opened his eyes, tears streaming down his face. “Why…why are you doing this to me…” he sobbed. “I don’t want to live anymore…”
Gu Shu: “…”
Yu Xiao turned to him, her expression innocent and sweet. “Dr. Gu Shu, aren’t you going to help him?” she asked. “You can’t just let him die, can you?”
“…”
As Gu Shu made his way out, he collided with a woman in the yard. She was Gu Jing Rong’s mother, a widow who had lost her husband recently. She wore flashy clothes and jewellery, as if to defy her grief. She glared at Gu Shu with a look of hatred.
A cold shiver ran down Gu Shu’s spine. He was used to the NPCs in the game world showing respect and fear for the attending doctor. Why was she looking at him with such hostility?
He didn’t have to wait long for the answer. Before he could leave the yard, she spat out, “Keep your filthy hands off my daughter-in-law, you hear me?”
A chorus of gasps echoed from the shadows. The villagers who had been watching the scene were shocked. It seemed that there was some gossip between Dr. Gu Shu and the village chief’s wife.
Gu Shu didn’t say a word. He just turned and walked away, strengthening his resolve to leave this annoying place.
Not long after Gu Shu left, the others entered the room. Zhao Lan grabbed Gu Jing Rong and dumped him on the floor.
Yu Xiao asked, “Is everything done?”
“Done,” Lu Xun said. “Lao Luo has already buried that piece of meat in Gu Shu’s house.”
“Hehe.” Yu Xiao laughed wickedly. “Even if something goes wrong, we won’t be the ones to suffer.”
Lu Xun studied Yu Xiao, impressed by her skill. She must have done this before, he thought. She must have fooled the attending doctor many times.
He wondered, are there people like her in the Fourth Hospital? These three were so different from the others, so twisted and odd. They couldn’t be from the Fourth Hospital. He would have known if they were.
At night, Yu Xiao lay in bed, restless and alert. She had seen too many strange things since she came to the village. She felt that there was a link between them, a hidden truth.
“Gu Jing Rong,” Yu Xiao asked, “Did anything happen in the village when your dad went to the temple to pray for meat last year?”
Gu Jing Rong, who was lying on the floor in pain, didn’t dare to move. He said, “Nothing… nothing happened.”
Yu Xiao looked at his pathetic face and knew he was useless. She didn’t bother to press him. She rolled over, pulled the blanket over her shoulders, and fell asleep.
The night shift fell on Sun Yun and Zuo Qing that evening. Zuo Qing had barely slept the previous night, and her day had been filled with exhausting tasks. As the darkness enveloped the room, she felt her eyelids growing heavy.
She slumped on a chair by the door, drifting into a fitful sleep. In her dreams, she smelled something foul and rotten – the reek of an rural outhouse.
The smell was so strong, she jerked awake, unsure if it was the stink or the cramp in her neck that disturbed her. The room was shrouded in blackness, the kerosene lamp having flickered out sometime ago. She reached for her phone to check the time; surely, it was time to switch shifts.
Then she heard it. A wet, crunching sound, like someone gnawing on a bone. It came from the bed, where Zhang Feng lay.
Zuo Qing felt a surge of fear, her hair rising on her scalp. She bit her lip, trying not to scream. She held her breath as she turned on her phone’s flashlight casting a faint light on the room. And then she saw it. A black shape, standing over Zhang Feng’s bed.
The dark shape sensed the light, and spun around, , a bloody arm dangling from its mouth.
“Ahhhhh!”
*
*
The knocking on the door woke up Yu Xiao. Luo Jin was already up, heading for the door. “I’ll check it out.”
He opened the door, and saw Zuo Qing, pale and terrified. He asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s back. The ghost is back.” Zuo Qing’s voice quivered. “It ate Zhang Feng’s arm.”
Yu Xiao and the others ran to the scene. Zhang Feng was still unconscious, and Wang Yang was applying pressure to the wound.
Lu Xun’s voice broke the silence. “What the hell is this?”
Sun Yun held up a tiny stick of incense, her expression grim. “A trap. I found it in the seams of Zhang Feng’s bed.”
Zuo Qing shuddered as she recalled the horror. “We’ve been checking under the beds every night since someone lit incense under Sister Smiley’s bed. But this one was cleverly hidden in the fabric. I was on night duty, but I nodded off. I woke up to a nauseating stench and saw a black shadow by Zhang Feng’s bed, tearing at his hand with its teeth.”
Nauseating stench? That must be the same ghost that had chased Yu Xiao before. She looked at Zhang Feng, who lay still and pale, and handed Wang Yang two talismans. “Use these on him.”
Wang Yang recognized them as life-saving talismans, and thanked her gratefully. He wasted no time in placing them on Zhang Feng’s wound.
Yu Xiao examined the incense in her hand, and a thought struck her. The former village chief had died, but there was no incense in the mourning hall. That was odd—didn’t the dead deserve incense?
And what about the ghosts in the village? There was not a single ghost in the cemetery. Why were they haunting the village? Could they be linked to the plague that had ravaged the village?
“I have an idea,” Yu Xiao announced to the others. “Let’s catch that ghost.”
Lu Xun smirked and gestured at the incense. “Catching ghosts is a piece of cake. Just light this and toss it under someone’s bed while they sleep.”
How convenient. They had the perfect bait.
They returned to the village chief’s house, where Gu Jing Rong was snoring in bed. He had suffered enough on the hard floor for two nights. Now that the troublesome guests were gone, he seized the chance to enjoy a comfortable sleep.
Yu Xiao lit the incense and slid it under Gu Jing Rong’s bed, then joined the others in hiding in the room.
They waited for about twenty minutes, until Yu Xiao heard footsteps. Then a foul smell assaulted her nose, and she saw a dark figure emerge in the room.
Yu Xiao pinched her nose and peered through the darkness, puzzled by the ghosts’ pitch-black appearance, which obscured any features.
The shadowy figure strode towards the bed, stopping at the edge, and then leaned over.
At that instant, a figure leaped out from beside the bed, clutching a small box, and yelled, “How about a game with me?”
The next second, Gu Jing Rong, who had been sleeping on the bed, bolted upright. Even Lu Xun, who had been lurking in the corner, stiffly emerged from his hiding spot.
The three humans and one ghost arranged themselves in four directions, shuffling and dealing mahjong tiles.
Lu Xun, as he played, marvelled, “What kind of prop is this? It’s amazing!”
Gu Jing Rong came to his senses and realised he was on the floor, his hands moving on their own accord to play mahjong. The worst part was that opposite him was a black mass, clearly not of this world.
He opened his mouth to scream, but he met Luo Jin’s gaze, who was clenching his fist and glaring at him, so he choked back his cry.
Zhou Xiao Zhen, who was also playing mahjong, remarked, “What is this thing? It reeks. Is it a shit ghost?”
Yu Xiao was always reluctant to talk about her experience; this ghost had once been forced into a cesspit by her. She cleared her throat awkwardly and said, “Never mind that; let’s get on with it.”
With that, she pulled out a pile of exorcism talismans and spread them out in front of the dark figure.
Dark figure: “…”
“You answer when I ask.” Yu Xiao said, “What kind of ghost are you? Why do you eat the person who burns incense under the bed?”
Dark figure: “…”
“Smiley,” Zhou Xiao Zhen said, “It looks like it can’t talk.”
Yu Xiao furrowed her brow. Why couldn’t any of these ghosts talk?
Gu Jing Rong, who looked like he was about to faint, said, “So the legend is true. Burning incense attracts evil spirits. I thought it was just a backward superstition, but it’s real! Waaah, Mom, I’m so scared…”