Hospital 444
Chapter 634 - 4: The Star-crossed Lovers

Chapter 634: Chapter 4: The Star-crossed Lovers

Traveling from Atlanta to Washington such a long distance, most people would generally choose to fly.

But Melody was different.

She had to take her daughter to Washington to see Alex, and flying was definitely not an option.

And taking the train was no safer; anything could happen.

Melody held her daughter’s hand, dragging the suitcase, and walked toward the garage ahead.

Therefore, the best way was to drive there.

Melody put the suitcase into the trunk of the car, then had her daughter sit in the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt.

"Sit tight, Melias," Melody emphasized, "Never unbuckle your seat belt, understand?"

Her daughter Melias nodded.

Then Melody got into the car, checked the map navigation on her phone again, and started the engine to set off.

Destination... Washington, D.C.

...

However, the car had not been driven even a kilometer when it suddenly stopped moving.

"Could it be..."

Melody looked at the car that wouldn’t start, although the gas tank was clearly full.

She instructed Melias, "Stay put, don’t move around."

Then she opened the car door, lifted the hood, and checked if the car had broken down.

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Whenever she wanted to go to Philadelphia to see Alex, this kind of thing would happen. Compared to her previous trip to Detroit, when she unexpectedly encountered a gunfight—a scene she had only seen in films before—a car breakdown was a minor incident.

She had specifically chosen this car for its high safety performance.

At that moment, another car passed by, and the driver rolled down the window to reveal the face of a bald Black man who asked, "Is your car broken down? Do you need help checking it?"

Melody looked at the Black man in the car, shook her head, and said, "No, it’s fine."

She was now quite certain that the car was beyond repair.

Clearly, the curse was still at work.

Meeting Alex would be much more challenging than she had imagined.

"It seems I’ll only have the option to take the train."

The effect of the curse was far greater than Melody had thought.

...

"This is a photo of me and my wife."

Alex showed Dai Lin the photos he had taken with his wife in Philadelphia and Atlanta on his phone.

"This was taken in front of the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum," Alex said to Dai Lin, "and this one is the Martin Luther King Museum."

"Was Reverend Martin Luther King from Atlanta?"

"Yes. That’s a source of pride for the people of Atlanta," Alex continued. "Margaret Mitchell, on the other hand, is the author of ’Gone with the Wind,’ the novel which the famous film is based on."

"I’m aware of that; the novel is quite popular in China too."

Dai Lin looked at the photos on the phone.

From the phone photos, you could tell that Melody was slightly showing; she was pregnant at that time.

"The child now..."

"She doesn’t talk much. Actually, I haven’t seen her with my own eyes, not even once."

Dai Lin couldn’t help but fall silent.

Originally, Alex had planned to have Melody come to Philadelphia to give birth, but the unforeseen global Black Swan event that struck a few years earlier completely disrupted their plans.

The population of Philadelphia was three times that of Atlanta, and the situation there was dire at that time, with hospitals overcrowded and the government even temporarily halting the issuance of gun permits.

Hospitals naturally became extremely dangerous places, and a single bed became very rare.

"At that time, I was really worried..."

As a doctor, Dai Lin could relate all too well.

During that period, hospitals were so overloaded that many patients had to be placed in hallways. Pregnant women were among the worst off because, after all, the baby has to be born, so even if they weren’t sick, they had to come to the hospital.

Pregnant women usually have even lower immunity than average, making their situation very critical.

And then, the most tragic thing happened.

"At that time, I... I was diagnosed..."

Hearing this, Dai Lin was stunned.

Even though he had heard about their plight from Director Green, he was unaware of these details.

"Now when I think back, it felt like I was struggling on the brink of death. At that time, the hospital was so full of patients, and the treatments so limited. I vividly remember lying in my bed in the crowded hallway, watching patients beside me die one by one, being zipped into body bags."

The despair and helplessness of that time were beyond his imagination.

He also clearly remembered the young man in his twenties in the bed next to his.

"I thought it was just the flu..." The young man was from Boston and had arrived in Philadelphia less than a week before his diagnosis, "I don’t want to die... We won’t die, will we?"

The young man was put in a body bag two days later.

He was conscious and able to speak until ten minutes before his death.

Ten minutes later, he was a cold corpse.

At that time, Alex thought he might follow in his footsteps.

But he hadn’t yet seen his own child be born, hadn’t been able to hold her in his arms or name her.

After those long months passed, Alex finally struggled free from the grip of death. When he was discharged from the hospital, he felt like he had lost half of his life.

During the time he was hospitalized, his wife Melody gave birth to a daughter.

But even after recovering, Alex didn’t dare let down his guard.

After all, no one knew if the disease might recur, and there was still a high risk of relapse according to various reports. A newborn baby has low immunity. At that time, he was coughing from time to time, which made him worry; if the disease relapsed while he was caring for his wife and daughter, the consequences would be unimaginable. He planned to wait a while before seeing them.

Thus, for quite some time, he saw his wife and daughter only through video calls.

"There will be a vaccine one day, and then everything will get better. Fortunately, you did not get infected when you were in the maternity ward. One day, we will surely meet."

At that time, Alex truly believed that.

However...

Dai Lin looked at Alex and said, "So when your new house was finally ready, and you were preparing to bring them to Philadelphia... Has this strange curse prevented you from meeting each other to this day?"

"Yes. It feels like it’s punishing me... If only I had gone to Atlanta to take care of them after I was discharged..."

Just then, his phone rang.

Alex saw it was his wife Melody calling, and he answered immediately.

"Hello, Melody... What? The car broke down? You’re going to the train station now?"

Upon hearing this, Dai Lin’s heart tensed.

It seemed that the previous encounter with the vagrant was no coincidence.

The curse was still in effect, preventing the family of three from reuniting.

What should they do now?

"You’re on your way to the Atlanta train station now? Okay, be very careful on your way."

Dai Lin watched as Alex’s complexion turned paler and sighed inwardly. This couple really seemed to be star-crossed...

He stepped aside to let them talk for a while longer.

By now, the sky was growing darker.

The day after tomorrow was the premiere of Alex’s movie "Kaiju" in Washington, D.C. They had been looking forward to it for a long time and hoped that with the help of the Cursed Object from 666 Hospital, the family of three could reunite there.

Could this modest wish ever be fulfilled?

Originally, Dai Lin’s only purpose was to use this case to see if it involved a High-Dimensional Curse and to figure out a way to escape with Dai Wei. But now, he sincerely wanted to help Alex and his wife.

...

Nighttime.

The Atlanta train station.

Melody looked at her phone, checking the roughly twelve-minute call record with Alex, then put the phone back in her pocket.

Then, holding Melias’s hand in one hand and the suitcase in the other, she walked toward the train.

"A doctor from 666 Hospital will escort Alex personally..."

But could they meet Alex at the film premiere in Washington day after tomorrow?

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