Chapter 1 The Archives

With the nurse ghost gone, the rest of the journey went much smoother. Led by Zhu Jie, the two quickly found the archives. Pushing the door open, a musty smell hit them in the face.

After cautiously closing the door, Tang Qisheng took out his phone and used its light to search the dim room. Zhu Jie volunteered to stay by the door and keep watch.

It was called the archives, but it looked more like a junk room. Besides a few deep green filing cabinets taller than a person, there were also some broken desks and chairs piled against the wall, as well as some medical instruments he couldn't name.

Fortunately, medical tape was stuck to the side of the filing cabinets, marking the dates of the archived files. According to the boy's description, Tang Qisheng found the corresponding drawer. After a search, he found a special file bag.

It was special because it had a bloody handprint on it. The bloodstains had long since dried, but it was still a shocking sight in this environment.

"Found it!" Tang Qisheng excitedly pulled out the file bag.

Zhu Jie, who was keeping watch, turned her head anxiously and urged, "If you've found it, let's leave quickly. It's too quiet outside, something doesn't seem right."

"Give me a little more time."

He quickly opened the file bag and found only a few pieces of paper inside. Looking at them by the light of his phone, Tang Qisheng's breathing quickened. The truth was slowly coming to light.

The owner of this file should be the boy's mother. The experience matched perfectly. More importantly, the woman's name had been changed to Mei Yuanling, the name of another corpse.

Seeing this, Tang Qisheng naturally thought of Director Mei. The following content confirmed his guess. Mei Yuanling was the boy's mother, and the crazy院长 (yuanzhang,院长 means hospital director) dismembered Mei Yuanling's body in order to take revenge after the boy dug out his eyes. He used the most insane experiments to transform her into the vengeful ghost guarding the first floor of the hospital.

This was why the cloth doll couldn't find the woman. Even if it saw her, it wouldn't recognize her. After all, she had been completely transformed, with a new name and a new identity. Even if they met, it would be as a vengeful ghost hunting down the cloth doll.

On the last page, Tang Qisheng found a passage of scribbled handwriting. He recognized the handwriting; he had seen it in the files in the director's office drawer. It was the director's handwriting.

Bringing his eyes close and trying to decipher it, Tang Qisheng was finally able to understand it. In the handwriting, the director stated that Director Mei was one of his most outstanding works and needed special protection. He also needed to put her on display from time to time to inspire the other medical staff in the hospital, so that they would also receive this honor if they worked hard.

But what alerted Tang Qisheng was that the most critical part about the woman's experiments was missing. That page had been removed.

Putting the paper back into the bag, Tang Qisheng walked out with the file bag. "Let's go, we're leaving here."

To Zhu Jie's surprise, Tang Qisheng didn't immediately go back to report. Instead, he turned and walked towards the display room next door. "Hurry up, you've already got the files, what are you hesitating about?"

"I want to take a look at the display room. The files say the display location is in the display room." After the nurse ghost incident, Tang Qisheng's mind was muddled. He vaguely felt that he had overlooked something important, but he couldn't figure out what it was. "You keep watch at the door, I'll go in and take a look and then we'll leave."

According to the files, Director Mei was in a deep sleep during the exhibition and posed no threat as long as she wasn't disturbed.

"Okay." Zhu Jie sighed helplessly as she guarded the door. "But be quick."

The display room on the fourth floor was very large, divided into three large exhibition rooms. Director Mei's location was in the innermost room. Tang Qisheng passed through various severed limbs and countless organs soaked in formalin before finally arriving at the innermost room.

This was a dark room, displaying relatively complete corpses. As the light from his phone moved, the corpses soaked in the solution seemed to come alive in the contrast of light and shadow.

"Empty..."

Standing in front of a huge glass container, Tang Qisheng clenched his fist in shock. According to the number, this was where Director Mei's body was stored, but now she was missing.

Recalling what the doctors on the second floor had said, they said that Director Mei was awake. At the time, he thought those doctors were bluffing to force him out of hiding.

Looking closer, there was a folded piece of paper stuck to the bottom of the glass container.

Swallowing, he carefully reached out and unfolded the paper. The familiar handwriting instantly caught Tang Qisheng's attention. This was the missing page from the files.

It recorded some of the details of the experiment, as well as the abilities that Director Mei had acquired as a test subject.

"Disguise, complexity of humanity far exceeding ordinary test subjects, amazing memory, skilled at deceiving the mind, familiar with the weaknesses of the management personnel on the other floors of the hospital, a powerful existence in the hospital second only to the director..."

Below was a sketch, showing a woman with her limbs disassembled and sewn back on in reverse, her face peeled off, and her skull sawn open. The various parts of her body were marked with bright red numbers.

Thoughts flashed back in an instant, and his originally chaotic brain cleared up, as if some kind of restriction had been lifted. Tang Qisheng couldn't help but shiver.

So Director Mei was the waving ghost that Zhu Jie had mentioned. Tang Qisheng had been wondering why the most terrifying waving ghost had seemed to disappear since he appeared. So... so the waving ghost had been there all along, disguised as Zhu Jie and following him all the way!

No wonder the high-heeled shoe ghost was scared away. How could a ghost mistake someone? Zhu Jie was Director Mei!

Also, how did Zhu Jie know that walking backwards could escape the control of the scissor ghost? And she was familiar with the routes on each floor of the hospital...

There were too many unreasonable things, but he had been blinded by Director Mei's abilities and hadn't noticed. Tang Qisheng regretfully knocked his head, but it was too late to say anything now.

"It's okay, there must... there must still be a chance. She hasn't tried to kill me and has been acting with me for so long, she must have something planned."

Soon, Tang Qisheng, who had calmed down, understood Director Mei's plan. She wanted to use him to find the hidden boy and cloth doll and wipe them out in one fell swoop!

Thinking this through, Tang Qisheng's heart was filled with hope again. He could play along, pretend he didn't know, trick Director Mei away, and then take the opportunity to escape, taking the files back to the elevator. As long as he got into the elevator, his life would be saved.

The more Tang Qisheng thought about it, the more feasible the plan seemed. But he had to think of a reasonable excuse to get Director Mei away from him. What excuse would be good?

Time was running out. Tang Qisheng paced back and forth in the innermost dark room. "I've got it!" He suddenly stopped, his face flushed with excitement. A perfect excuse had formed in his mind.

But just as he gathered his composure and turned to walk out, he suddenly seemed to catch something out of the corner of his eye.

By the light of his phone, he saw "Zhu Jie" wearing a cotton mask standing in the shadows, toes pointing backwards, clapping her hands, one at a time, with the back of her hand.