Hospital 444
Chapter 670 - 7: Doppelganger

Chapter 670: Chapter 7: Doppelganger

Hei Dongxie spoke coldly at this time, "Let me make it clear, I have no interest in the story of a childless cat-loving woman."

"What do you mean by childless cat-loving woman?" Lin Yunfang asked, puzzled.

"It refers to... ah, never mind, it’s not important," Hei Dongxie didn’t elaborate further; otherwise, readers would inevitably curse in this Chapter, accusing you, Black Spark, of having only updated five Chapters last month and now even padding the word count with personal touches, rhetorically asking whether your conscience had been eaten by dogs and so on. He went straight to the point, "So, tell me, what’s the matter?"

"A few weeks ago, I saw a middle-aged man wearing a conical hat near the neighborhood," Nie Yuan scratched his head and said, "The man had a cat on his shoulder. Um... he often appears near the neighborhood because it’s rare to see someone with a cat on the shoulder, so I kind of remember him."

At this point, Hei Dongxie was immediately delighted, and Dai Lin’s spirits were lifted as well.

It seemed like an important clue! Worth inquiring about!

"Wearing a conical hat must be another important reason why you noticed him, right?" Hei Dongxie asked eagerly, "So... is there anything else noteworthy?"

Hei Dongxie was very anxious and hoped to obtain more clues about the path to survival from Nie Yuan’s words.

Wearing a conical hat, with a cat sprawled on the shoulder... clearly, it must be related to the Blood Letter Task!

"Um, I feel... that middle-aged man had an aura of command without anger. And, the cat too..."

"The cat? You don’t mean to say that the cat also gave you a feeling of command without anger, do you?"

"Um..."

Hospital 444 had actually conducted research.

Among animals, cats are the ones most easily capable of communicating with spirits.

This is related to the spiritual structure of cats; they possess a unique compound soul structure different from humans, which accounts for the saying that cats have nine lives. Cats have stronger spiritual perception abilities than humans and are also the animals that apparitions often choose to possess.

For some unknown reason, black cats stand out amongst them, their soul structure being more strongly attracted to spiritual entities, and thus black cats often appear in haunted places, leading to them slowly being regarded as omens of ill fortune over time.

However, this was a niche topic of research for the Host Spirit Department with scant papers on it. Only because Dai Lin was diligent with a good memory and wide knowledge did he have some impression of it. Hei Dongxie and Lin Yunfang, on the other hand, had absolutely no concept of this.

"Could it be a Spiritual Cat?"

Dai Lin recalled a paper written by Director Lu Ping of the Host Spirit Department, which specifically studied so-called Spiritual Cats. Director Lu Ping was a rare genius in the history of the Host Spirit Department, known as Eyes of Golden Flame, able to discern at a glance whether animals were possessed by ghosts, and he had made it to the position of department head on this merit alone. A so-called Spiritual Cat is one with a mutated soul structure, a talent purely belonging to soul mutation that does not get passed down through biological genetics. Director Lu himself once kept a Spiritual Cat that had strong ghost-tracking abilities and a great talent for surviving curses. Unfortunately, it was said that the cat had perished tragically during the incident involving The Twenty-seven Ghost Buddhas of the Blood Lotus Temple, and director Lu had been upset about it for a long time.

"Um, I can’t be sure..." Nie Yuan sighed, saying, "But that cat, it definitely gave me a... rather unsettling feeling."

Most Paranormal Doctors believe that the greatest ability of a Spiritual Cat is tracking and acting as an animal medium... but Director Lu thought otherwise. Compared to Paranormal Doctors, Spiritual Cats have one advantage: they are less likely to be killed by ghosts.

At first glance, this seems strange, but the fact is... ghosts generally don’t intentionally take the lives of animals, and this is even more true for Cursed Spirits and even Quasi-curse spirits. It could even be said that ghosts at the Cursed Spirits level absolutely do not kill any creatures other than humans.

A Cursed Spirit is the embodiment of a curse in the form of a rule; it inherently harbors no malice, and the rules of a curse are always aimed at humans, like a set program. For instance, just as the tenants of an apartment are always humans, no animals would go execute a Blood Letter Task.

Even if a Spiritual Cat attacks a Cursed Spirit, the Cursed Spirit would not kill the Spiritual Cat. Therefore, a Spiritual Cat is absolutely safe when facing a Cursed Spirit but still at risk of death when confronted with Fierce Ghosts or Quasi-curse spirits. Director Lu believed that this was the greatest value of a Spiritual Cat. If attempts could be made to turn it into a Cursed Object, it could play a significant role.

Of course... Director Lu’s idea was basically not given much attention. After all, even if a Cursed Spirit doesn’t harm a Spiritual Cat, so what? A Spiritual Cat also can’t hurt a Cursed Spirit even a tiny bit, right? At best, it can act as a scout, but what use is that for treating patients or improving the survival rates of Paranormal Doctors? And if it’s just about finding a scout, there are plenty of Cursed Objects that could replace a Spiritual Cat.

Dai Lin began to ponder.

Could there be any connection between the Spiritual Cat and the inability to open curtains?

The person wearing the conical hat... could it be a doctor from the hospital? Or some other Spiritualist?

That was all the information Nie Yuan could provide; he couldn’t even identify the breed of the cat. In such a situation, Dai Lin was also somewhat helpless – this clue wasn’t much help in solving the current circumstances!

The black shadow behind the curtain could act again at any moment!

Dai Lin slowly approached the curtain.

He observed the spot where the black shadow had emerged just moments before.

"Just now..."

He had personally repelled the shadow with the Devil’s Eye, and since the opponent was a Quasi-curse spirit, he had been all in. There was no holding back. But now that he thought about it, Dai Lin felt that something was off.

"Isn’t that right?"

That was a Quasi-curse spirit!

With his current capacity of tolerance for the Devil’s Eye, could he actually have the ability to easily repel a Quasi-curse spirit without suffering any backlash?

Dai Lin didn’t think he was that incredibly capable.

Although Quasi-curse spirits and Ferocious Spirits theoretically belonged to the same category, they were worlds apart in reality. It’s like wolves and dogs both being canids; can the hunting difficulty be the same?

Quasi-curse spirits theoretically could be categorized as a new level between Ferocious Spirits and Cursed Spirits. They were the curse limit that Hospital 444 could barely treat, also the ceiling for current cursed objects. Among everyone in Hospital 444, only Yin Wuque had managed to live with a Quasi-curse spirit curse object implanted in his body. This was why, back then, Yin Wuque was proclaimed a once-in-a-generation genius at the hospital. Precisely because of this, as long as Yin Wuque stayed alive, the only matter of time was his ability to kill Han Ming in mere seconds. At present, Yin Wuque even had absolute confidence that he could suppress Dai Lin.

Dai Lin questioned himself: Is this for real? I fought a Quasi-curse spirit?

So, the question arises...

Was that black shadow not a Quasi-curse spirit?

Or was it that the apartment imposed restrictions, allowing him to repel it?

But Dai Lin felt that it couldn’t be that simple. He speculated that the largest restriction was probably not letting this Quasi-curse spirit become a full Cursed Spirit. Moreover, even with restrictions imposed, it still shouldn’t have been that easy for him to repel it.

"If it’s not a Quasi-curse spirit..."

Could it have been...

An avatar?

For most ghosts, splitting their soul is not a rare ability. Once an apparition becomes a Resentful Spirit, it can possess avatars. However, reaching the level of a Quasi-curse spirit, it’s difficult to have an avatar with the same abilities as the original. Otherwise, a Quasi-curse spirit would be a bit too powerful.

An avatar of a Quasi-curse spirit should roughly be equivalent to the strongest Fierce Ghost or an ordinary level of Ferocious Spirits. If this were the case, it would make sense that Dai Lin could repel it.

"An avatar..."

An avatar of a Quasi-curse spirit outside the building?

Could the curtain itself defend against the avatar of a Quasi-curse spirit?

No... It’s probably the restrictions of the apartment building. The building itself could decide whether or not to allow ghosts in, so barring ghosts from entering a certain area would be effortless.

Does that mean Dai Lin didn’t need to use the Devil’s Eye just now, and the avatar couldn’t have come in? But if he opened the curtain, the avatar could enter?

Something still isn’t right!

Why would the apartment create such a complicated and puzzling set of rules?

What sort of mystery lies within?

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