Hospital 444
Chapter 92 - 5: Puppets

Chapter 92: Chapter 5: Puppets

Lu Yanran remembered that when her grandmother was still alive, she would often tell her stories that sounded hair-raising.

When Grandpa had just passed away from illness, Grandma insisted that his spirit would return, so she kept a vigil in the memorial hall during the seventh day after his death.

As a child, Lu Yanran was very scared by what her grandma said, but her grandma would tell her, "Yanran, don’t be afraid, your grandpa died a natural death. Even if he comes back, he’ll just be a harmless ghost, not a Resentful Spirit, and he won’t hurt you."

"Isn’t that all the same... the unclean sort?" Lu Yanran was still very scared at that time.

"It’s not the same," Grandma shook her head and pointed at Grandpa’s portrait, saying, "A Resentful Spirit is a ghost that harms people. Ghosts do not. Many people’s spirits will stay in this world after death to fulfill their final wishes before going back to the underworld. Only if a ghost stays in the world for too long will it become a Resentful Spirit."

The things Grandma said in her childhood cast a strong psychological shadow on Lu Yanran. As her father was very filial to Grandma, he would go along with what Grandma said, which only made Lu Yanran even more frightened. It wasn’t until she went to school and read books that she realized what Grandma spoke of, ghosts and Resentful Spirits, was purely nonsense, and she would even argue with her grandma using textbooks from school. But Grandma would just smile each time and say nothing.

Now, recalling the experiences of her childhood, Lu Yanran suddenly felt goosebumps all over her body.

She turned on all the lights in the room and then moved a sofa to block the door, even though she had triple-checked that the door was locked tight.

After that, she turned on the TV and adjusted the volume to the maximum. She randomly picked a channel without caring about the content, which was purely for some courage.

Then, she took her blanket, sat in front of the TV, and wrapped herself in the blanket, her gaze fixed on the front door.

Would there be someone—or something—knocking on the door again at night?

What should she do now?

Thinking back to the night when Zhang Bei claimed he was chased by wolves, Lu Yanran began to doubt his story. Was it true?

Could what chased Zhang Bei have been some unknown horror?

"Ghosts... Resentful Spirits..."

She murmured these words repeatedly, wrapping the blanket even tighter around herself.

After a long while, she slowly turned her head, then looked toward...

The bedroom.

If what Zhang Bei said was true, he must have hidden something in the bedroom.

But the police have already searched here, and they found nothing out of the ordinary.

What could he have left for her?

Lu Yanran wanted to look, but she was also a bit afraid...

Thinking of that bizarre piece of raw meat in the fridge, what could Zhang Bei have left for her?

The unknown is always the most terrifying.

Zhang Bei, her most familiar bedfellow, hid such a big secret from her? He hadn’t told her anything in a month and just kept feeding her this meat from an unknown source?

She thought for a moment, picked up her phone, and called Zhang Bei’s cousin.

Zhang Bei had quite a bad relationship with several of his relatives, and naturally, it wasn’t any better with this cousin. But now, she had no other choice but to ask.

The phone rang a long time before it was answered.

"Hello?"

"Sister-in-law?" Lu Xin’s voice, Zhang Bei’s cousin’s, came through quickly: "The police have come to us asking about Zhang Bei’s disappearance. But really, we have no idea why he’s missing!"

"I, I want to ask..."

"Sister-in-law, you, just take it easy, perhaps Zhang Bei has his reasons for leaving temporarily. Yeah, I’ve also been very busy with work recently, when I’m a bit freer, we’ll come and see you."

Was Lu Yanran not clear? Unless it was about borrowing money, they wouldn’t visit her even in three hundred years.

The reason for the poor relationship between Zhang Bei and these relatives was crucially because he refused to lend them money. His relatives always wanted to know how much inheritance his parents had left him, and they were always scheming to find out about this inheritance, even asking him for loans multiple times. Because Zhang Bei’s father had a bad experience lending money to uncles before, losing everything, no matter how hard or soft the relatives were, he never agreed to lend money to them.

But even so, the grudge between them was never to the extent of kidnapping.

"What I want to ask is, have you seen Zhang Bei this month?"

"That... the police just asked me the same thing. No, I haven’t seen him! We hardly see each other as we’re all busy with our work, so... "

"So, did you exchange any messages?"

"No, not really... Sister-in-law, I know what you want to ask, but I really have no clue. Zhang Bei, well, he’s just a guy who’s a bit too principled, but he really doesn’t have any enemies." Then, Lu Xin’s tone changed, "Sister-in-law, there is something I want to discuss with you. What are your plans now?"

"Plans?"

"What are you planning to do with this house?"

"We bought it outright, using the money from selling that old house."

"So... you didn’t contribute a penny to this house, and your name isn’t on the deed... right?"

Lu Yanran immediately showed a look of disgust. Zhang Bei had been missing for only a short while, and they were already coveting this house? What a laughable thought, as if it would be that easy!

"Mhm, the water I’m boiling is about to be ready, I’ll talk to you later. If you, my cousin, think of anything else, let me know."

Without hesitation, Lu Yanran hung up the phone.

If there was any relative Zhang Bei might have been in touch with, it would be Lu Xin. If even he had no contact, chances are the others wouldn’t likely know the situation either.

She buried her head in the blankets for a good while, before looking up again after about fifteen minutes.

"Forget it... I can’t just sit here waiting for doom!"

The police had searched the entire building without finding Zhang Bei, but according to the surveillance, Zhang Bei had to be inside the building.

Perhaps... he was still alive?

Lu Yanran walked to the bedroom door, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Perhaps only by searching here would she uncover what exactly Zhang Bei had been hiding from her.

The bedroom wasn’t too small nor too large; it held a bookshelf filled with Zhang Bei’s books, which she seldom flipped through, and a closet with clothes she had personally washed and ironed, so there couldn’t possibly be anything inside that she didn’t know about.

If he had left something, it would most likely be in the bookshelf.

She approached the bookshelf, which had five shelves. You could see everything at a glance on the top three shelves through the glass, but the bottom two required opening a cabinet.

She gently opened the second-to-bottom cabinet...

Inside, there were just some ordinary books.

Finally... there was the bottom cabinet.

She never opened this particular cabinet; even when cleaning, she would just wipe the outside.

Intending to pull open the cabinet, she found... it was locked!

This heightened Lu Yanran’s alertness. Where could the key to this cabinet be?

If Zhang Bei had told her to come to the bedroom over the phone and the item was indeed inside, the key had to be within her reach. It was the key he took off last night after work and hung on the clothes hanger.

This wasn’t a key for the house.

She returned to the bedroom and inserted the key into the lock of the cabinet, turned it... and opened it!

Then, she saw, lying inside... a doll dressed in red clothes.

Next to it, there was a small balance scale.

Even if the police had seen it during the search, they wouldn’t have found it unusual.

This doll... Lu Yanran had never seen it before.

She reached out and picked up the doll.

It didn’t seem abnormal and looked like the type you might find in a claw machine at a shopping mall.

But, knowing Zhang Bei as she did, with his straight-guy aesthetic, he definitely wouldn’t like this sort of thing. He was a fan of Gao Da, yet he never bought any action figure, let alone this kind of doll.

When she flipped the doll over, she suddenly saw a small note attached to the back.

"Yanran, if you’re reading this note, I’m probably in grave danger. Remember, eat one gram of the meat I left in the red plastic bag in the fridge, both morning and evening. You must not leave the building for more than twelve hours each day. On the night of the full moon, October 20, someone will come to the house. Unless they give you a red business card with a skull and a black cross on it, and you believe everything they say after receiving that card, do not open the door for that person. Give this doll to him when he arrives, and he will tell you how to use it. Until then, under no circumstances should you think about escaping from this building!"