Hospital 444
Chapter 273 - 9 The Tenth "Person

Chapter 273: Chapter 9 The Tenth "Person

Feet crunched on the frozen ground, producing clear, crisp sounds from time to time.

Everyone proceeded at a steady pace, ensuring their steps were as synchronized as possible, not too fast, nor too slow.

All of them tilted their bamboo poles towards the mist, and porcelain dolls were the only source of security they could cling to.

Ten minutes had passed.

They gradually approached a nearly abandoned farmhouse, following along the edge of the mist.

Dai Wei looked at the country path ahead and suddenly remembered playing there with his cousin as a child. Everything from those days... still vivid in his mind.

Could this dense mist ever disappear one day in the future?

Over the past decade, many villagers had prayed that perhaps one morning they would wake up to find the fog completely vanished, leaving no trace. However, it was evident this was pure wishful thinking.

"Look..."

At that moment, Lin Tai pointed to a house ahead.

The house, half shrouded in the mist and half exposed, presented a bizarre sight.

"Should we go around it?" Dai Wei asked.

"No," Lin Tai replied, "That would take us beyond two meters."

"Then what do we do?"

"Go through the house. Through the window."

Was this really necessary?

Meanwhile, at the Dai residence.

Dai Wei’s parents sat around a table, while Dylan was hiding in the room, sneaking glances at his parents.

"Don’t worry too much," the father reassured the mother, "Now, we can only trust in him."

"I just remembered what happened with Lei San..."

"That kind of situation is rare."

"Yes... I’m probably just overthinking it."

As she spoke, her hands trembled violently.

The couple would never forget the chilling words that Lei San had said when he found them.

"It’s too bizarre, during the count-off, there were ten people in total! Ten! Out of nowhere, an additional tenth person emerged! But as the captain, I thoroughly reviewed the other nine people, and I couldn’t determine who the tenth person was!"

"How is that possible... Tell me, which nine people? I was there for the daytime lottery; I remember clearly who was drawn."

"I-I think I’m going crazy..." Lei San said crying, "Those nine people were Niu Jun, Luo Yujun, Zhang Heng, Lin Xie, He Yun..."

He rattled off eight names in one breath, and Dai Wei’s parents clearly remembered these were the people who had been selected in the lottery today. There was no mistake!

So who was the last one?

"And the last one is... Ge, Ge Nian Cheng!"

Upon hearing this name, Dai Wei’s parents were stunned.

"Lei San, you..."

"I remember, Ge Nian Cheng was indeed drawn in today’s lottery!"

"That’s right, he is the village chief’s son! I was even the witness at his wedding!"

"Yes! These nine people, including me, that’s ten in total! Ten people exactly! How is this possible? Ever since White Mist secluded the village, we’ve been drawing lots for eight people each day, plus a fixed captain each month! There’s never been ten people! Never!"

Such a mysterious occurrence filled everyone with immense terror.

"Has everyone collectively lost their minds, unable to tell the difference between nine and ten people?"

"How can that be! Take Luo Yujun, for example, he is our village’s mathematics teacher!"

For a moment, the three of them fell into silence.

"The stele says that we must find the extra tenth person within a month. Otherwise, a terrible disaster will strike!"

Before Lei San, patrols only ever experienced a reduction in numbers, never an increase!

But Dai Wei’s mother remembered that it had happened before. As the team leader, she was the only one who remembered when someone was missing, and it was only after she repeatedly reminded them that the others recalled who had been reduced.

This White Mist seemed to have the power to twist human minds.

"Could it be like this?"

Dai Wei’s father proposed a hypothesis, "That fog, it makes us all... our IQs drop, so we can’t even tell nine from ten...?"

"But don’t we see it very clearly now?"

If you go by what the stele says, it seems like there was always the possibility of "an extra person" occurring.

And these people, aside from He Yun, were all villagers from inside the village! Many of them were old acquaintances of Dai Wei’s father, such as Luo Yujun and Zhang Heng, who used to be mahjong buddies.

As for He Yun, although he was the only outsider, everyone in the village remembered his situation very clearly. He arrived suddenly on the evening before the big fog when the Shěn Family was hosting an engagement party.

"Tell me, what happened? There must have been something unusual, right?" Dai Wei’s father asked Lei San, "Something like this has never happened in all these years."

"Let me think..."

After recalling for a while, Lei San said, "Actually, everything went smoothly this time. Ge Nian Cheng was particularly brave. Despite his youth, he really stepped up when needed. At that time, more than half of his porcelain dolls had been knocked down; I was quite worried for him."

"More than half? So in the end..."

"In the end, there was only one leg left on his porcelain doll. It was a close call."

"Only one leg left? Was it that dangerous?"

"Yes... I thought so too. He’s the village chief’s son, after all. If anything had happened to him, how could I... How could I explain it to the village chief? It was a relief that all ended well, but when we counted a tenth person, my heart went cold. I reported it to the village chief right away, and he said not to spread the word, that he would investigate. But, but I was scared! As the team leader, if this incident really brought disaster to the village... I, I... how should I take responsibility?"

...

As he recalled this, Dai Wei’s father’s hands trembled involuntarily.

"So, we never found out who the tenth person was. Therefore, the village chief could only choose to make Lei San responsible."

"Responsible with his life..."

"Without doing so, people in the village would keep dying."

"Yes... I still remember the terrifying way those people in the village looked when they died..."

At this time, Dylan was listening to these words through the crack in the door, her face turned extremely pale.

"Guilin, I’ve figured it out now. The patrol at that time must have had nine people. But at the end of the patrol, a tenth person appeared, an extra bamboo pole, a tenth porcelain doll. And for some reason, we felt that this person had always been part of the village!"

"Do you really... think that?"

"That person is still in the village!"

"This... can’t be possible, right? At least, it can’t be Nian Cheng, right? Jianguo, we watched this kid grow up!"

"Anyone could be the one. Even Nian Cheng is not excluded. I will find that person, I must!"

"Speaking of which... why is everything related to He Yun?" Dai Wei’s mother, Zhang Guilin, also had no fondness for this man: "Back then, Li Sheng and Wen Xin were about to get engaged, and he had to come and snatch the bride. Five years ago, he and Li Sheng went on patrol together, Li Sheng died, and He Yun survived. Everyone in the village suspected that he was the one who killed Li Sheng, but only Wen Xin firmly believed in him. However... this also happened before the incident with Lei San."

The incident at that time caused quite an uproar. Because of his close friend Li Sheng’s death, Ge Nian Cheng nearly beat He Yun to death. Su Wenxin insisted on believing that He Yun would not seek personal vengeance under the guise of the White Mist to kill Shen Lisheng. Because there was no evidence, the village chief could not let this doctor from the city die in the village; he was ultimately exiled to the edge of the village closest to the White Mist, while Su Wenxin would rather sever ties with her parents than not be with him. To this day, the village still curses these two continuously.

"I’ve said it before, everyone is worthy of suspicion. Whether it’s He Yun or Nian Cheng... no one is an exception!"

Dai Wei’s father... Dai Jianguo said decisively.

The tenth person, hidden within the village. That person... came from the White Mist, and was of the same kind as those unknown entities!