Chapter 42: The Truth about the Hospital |
With a bright and breezy “Hey~”,” Yu Xiao announced her return to Qiao Qiao, who sat on the floor like a discarded doll. “Missed me?” she asked, as if they were old friends reunited after a long absence.
Qiao Qiao could only gape at her, speechless and stunned. She felt a surge of confusion and fear, mixed with a faint trace of admiration.
How did Yu Xiao return? Her not-so-experienced mind told her that patients who left St. Elizabeth’s would never come back. How did she come back so confidently, wearing a white coat as if she owned the place? Was she really the new dean of St. Elizabeth’s?
Yu Xiao looked at her with a disdainful “Hmm~” and tugged at her arm. “Don’t be so dirty. Get up from the floor. Come on, let’s take a walk.” She spun around, her eyes sparkling with nostalgia. “This place hasn’t changed a bit, has it? It brings back so many memories.”
She walked along the corridor, inspecting the walls that had been patched up since the last riot. “Are the others still the same? Oh, Qiao Qiao, don’t lag behind. Stay with me.” She said, as if they were best friends.
Qiao Qiao reluctantly followed her, pulling her fingers out of her mouth and stuffing them in her pocket. She felt like a puppet on a string, dragged along by Yu Xiao’s whims.
Yu Xiao reached the nurse’s station, where the staff were chatting about their dinner plans. She barged in, flinging the door open with a loud bang. “Surprise! I’m back!” she shouted, grinning from ear to ear.
The nurses froze, recognising who it was. The one they hoped they would never see again.
They turned their heads, some even cracking their necks with a 180-degree angle turn to avoid her gaze, hoping she would go away.
The nurses had no choice but to turn their heads again, their necks twisting in unnatural angles like salty pretzels. They forced themselves to smile, their teeth stained with blood.
If you ignored their twisted necks and horror-filled eyes, the scene looked quite heart-warming.
With a bright smile, Yu Xiao greeted. “Everyone’s still here, I see. That’s good. That’s very good.” She scanned the faces of the nurses, looking for any signs of change. “Where’s George, by the way?”
The nurses tried to reply, but their necks were too twisted to draw breath. They could only gasp and wheeze, pointing with trembling fingers towards George’s office.
Yu Xiao nodded, oblivious to their distress. “Oh, he’s still in the office, huh? Well, I’ll go find him then.” She sauntered away from the nurse’s station.
The nurses collapsed on the floor, sobbing. They hugged each other, grateful for their narrow escape.
Yu Xiao was about to knock on George’s office door when she suddenly remembered something. She stopped and frowned, tapping her chin. Before, she would always go to his office to see him, but now things were different. She was the boss now. She had the power. She should be in her own office, waiting for George to come to her. Yes, that was more fitting.
She smiled again, humming a satisfied tune. She turned around, ready to head back to the first floor. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Qiao Qiao hiding behind a wall, peeking at her with fearful eyes.
“Qiao Qiao,” Yu Xiao called out to her, making her jump.
Qiao Qiao pressed herself against the wall, hoping to disappear. She heard that eerie voice say, “Go find George, tell him to come to my office and see me.” She felt a cold shiver run down her spine.
Yu Xiao winked at her, then turned away, swaying her hips as she walked. She hummed louder, drowning out Qiao Qiao’s whimper. She was happy. She was very happy.
Descending to the first floor, Yu Xiao glimpsed her colossal portrait hanging on the wall. She frowned, thinking to herself, “This won’t do. Not everyone who comes here deserves to see my true face, right? No, I have to conceal the portrait.”
She approached the door of the director’s office, turning the handle softly, and the door opened with a creak.
The interior remained unchanged, a perfect replica of the past. The previous time Yu Xiao had been here, she had fled in a hurry. This time, she lingered in the office, admiring the details before sinking into the leather chair that once belonged to the director. She lifted the pen from the desk and spun it between her fingers, idly waiting for George’s arrival.
Soon, footsteps resounded from outside.
Thud, thud, thud!
She knew who was knocking without looking; Yu Xiao stifled her grin and said, “The door’s open, come in.”
Dr George, clad in a white coat and gold-rimmed glasses with a pallid complexion, stepped in. His expression, as ever, devoid of any emotion. He met Yu Xiao’s gaze behind the desk, feeling a twitch in his eye, but he kept silent.
“You haven’t changed a bit, still the same as before,” Yu Xiao propped her chin on her hand. “You were so eager for me to return. Now that I’m here, are you happy?”
For George, it wasn’t simply about being happy or not. He yearned to completely obliterate the person standing before him, extracting their brain and devouring it.
A shiver of disgust ran through George. ‘Oh, no, can’t eat this,” he thought, pushing the idea away. ‘Eating brains like these would mess me up.’ He had a delicate palate, and he preferred his meals fresh and juicy, not mushy and mad.
He looked up at the clock on the wall. He had to prepare for the next day. “Tomorrow morning, the first batch of patients after the hospital renovation will arrive,” he said solemnly to the girl sitting across from him. “Everything remains the same as before. When they try to enter the director’s office, you must be here.”
“Alright, got it,” Yu Xiao nodded, her voice dripping with boredom. “So what should I do? Hide in the office like the previous one, and whoever knocks, go out and take care of them?”
George’s eye twitched again, as it always did when he talked to her. He said, “The conditions for opening the director’s office, the conditions for stamping on the discharge report, are all decided by the director himself. You don’t need to ask me.”
“Really?” Yu Xiao asked excitedly, her eyes instantly lighting up. She leaned forward, clasping her hands together. “Can I do anything I want?”
George glanced at her, feeling a surge of irritation. He added, “Of course, you can’t prevent patients from reporting you afterwards.”
“Hmph,” Yu Xiao snorted, glaring at him. She crossed her arms and pouted. “Didn’t expect you to be so petty, holding grudges, huh?”
“…”
George didn’t reply. He felt that communicating with her was a form of torture. He endured for a while, couldn’t hold it in, and turned around to leave.
“Wait up,” Yu Xiao called after him, smiling mischievously.
George turned around, his face expressionless.
She arched an eyebrow at him, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Why you gotta be so damn rude? Call me dean or something else respectful.”
…
She watched him go, a smirk curling her lips.
Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She answered it, still chuckling. “Hello? Who’s this?”
On the other end, Luo Jin heard the laughter in her voice and felt a pang of curiosity. What could be so amusing?
“Did you receive the delivery?” Luo Jin asked.
“Huh?” She sounded confused, as if she had forgotten about it. “Oh, I’m not in the ward right now, haven’t seen the delivery.”
Luo Jin frowned. If not in the ward, then where could she be? If she was in a treatment instance, he wouldn’t be able to call her.
“You…” Luo Jin hesitated, his mouth forming a word that he quickly swallowed. He wanted to ask her where she had been, but he remembered that they were not friends, merely acquaintances. He had no right to pry into her personal matters. He changed the subject abruptly. “We can talk about the prop issue later, since you haven’t received the delivery yet. But I have something to ask you now.”
Yu Xiao felt a jolt of surprise when Luo Jin spoke to her today. He was usually quiet and reserved, but now he seemed eager to chat. “What’s up?” she asked, curious.
“What are your thoughts on hospitals?”
Yu Xiao paused for a moment, sensing a hidden meaning behind his question. He was not talking about any ordinary hospital; he was referring to the one they were currently in. She wondered what he was aiming at, but she decided to humour him. She pondered for a moment and replied, “It’s a place of mystery, fear, and possibility.”
“Which possibility?”
“The possibility of survival,” Yu Xiao said, her voice calm. “That’s how I see it.”
A brief silence followed, and then he said, “Me too.”
“Huh?”
“I feel the same way,” Luo Jin elaborated, his voice softening. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone who enters this hospital is a terminally ill patient.”
Yu Xiao hadn’t looked into that, but she had some inklings. “I have a vague idea.”
Luo Jin went on, “And did you know that everyone entering this hospital is under thirty-five years old?”
“Hmm?” Yu Xiao hummed, genuinely clueless. “Really?”
“All the patients I’ve met so far.”
Luo Jin was a veteran at the Fourth Hospital, and he surely knew more than Yu Xiao. She felt a surge of curiosity and anticipation, as she sensed he was about to reveal something important. She instinctively leaned forward, her posture alert.
“I’ve been here for several years now,” Luo Jin’s voice was grave. “I started as a clueless newbie, but I soon climbed to the top three on the stability scoreboard. Over the years, I’ve not only completed one treatment instance after another, but I’ve also tried to discover the truth about this place. Questions like why it exists, what it wants, and whether anyone can escape.”
She listened avidly, her eyes wide. “And did you find the answers?”
“Not exactly. It was all speculation, until I met someone from the First Hospital in one of the instances.”
“The First Hospital?” They were the pioneers, the first ones to enter this place.
“He told me that someone had left this place,” Luo Jin revealed. “Not by dying, but by truly, completely getting out.”
Yu Xiao gasped, incredulous. “How did they manage that?”
“I’m not certain,” Luo Jin admitted. “He said that this place is, in fact, a chance for young people who are doomed to die. If you collect enough time here, you can leave and live a normal life in the real world, just like a healthy person.”
“How… much time is enough time?”
Yu Xiao gripped her phone tightly, feeling the slickness of her own sweat on the metal case.
“Dunno.” Luo Jin hesitated for a moment and said, “But we reckon it’s around seventy years.”
“Why?”
“Seventy is already old, and death should be a normal thing for someone at that age.” Luo Jin explained, his tone tinged with confusion. “Of course, it’s just our speculation. After all, I don’t know anyone who’s left the hospital…”
Yu Xiao hung up the phone, feeling a heavy weight on her chest. Since arriving at the Sixth Hospital, she had not had much time to reflect. She had not wondered about the reason for this hospital’s existence or even entertained the idea of leaving.
All she desired was to earn more points, just to prolong her life a little.
Luo Jin’s words made her consider things she had never thought about before. Could they really escape this place? And after escaping, would they still have sufficient time to live like healthy people, ageing with dignity?
She lifted her hand, pulled up her sleeve, and saw that the timer on her wrist had halted, freezing at just over twenty days left.
Seventy years…
A lifetime of days, a multitude of points, a countless toll of deaths…
Yu Xiao felt her mind reel, but she grasped the enormity of this number. So immense that the hospital still stood, and new souls still wandered in, never to escape.
No matter, a sly grin twisted Yu Xiao’s lips.
She did not dread the challenge of amassing points; she dreaded the scarcity of chances. Survival was her only goal, regardless of the time it took, regardless of the ordeals she faced, she would not cower!
Yu Xiao returned to her ward, where Zhao Lan and Zhou Xiao Zhen were enjoying their meal.
Zhou Xiao Zhen spotted her and waved cheerfully, “You’re back? Just in time, we’re having lunch.”
Yu Xiao did not bother to remove her white doctor’s coat, she simply pushed up her sleeves and joined them at the table.
Zhao Lan said, “Luo Jin’s package came. We didn’t send the talisman to them since you were away.”
“Alright,” Yu Xiao nodded, “I spoke to Luo Jin at St. Elizabeth earlier. He… shared some things with me.”
“Whmat’s goimng omn?” Zhou Xiao Zhen inquired, her words garbled by a mouthful of food.
“Let’s talk after we finish eating,” Yu Xiao decided to postpone the discussion until they had finished eating, lest it spoil their appetite and digestion.
She switched the topic, “Do any of you ever wonder what will happen after we leave?”
“Leave?” Zhou Xiao Zhen echoed, her eyes glazed over, “Leave where?”
“Leave this cursed place, the Sixth Hospital, and go back to the real world.”