Translator: CinderTL
Could the woman imprisoned here be Xiaoting? The thought flashed through everyone's minds simultaneously, but it was Fatty who voiced it aloud.
According to Yuan Xiaoyi's memory, Xiaoting had disappeared alone within this eerie Medical Building. Now, confronted with such a gruesome scene, it was hard not to connect the two.
Wen Liangshan, who was about to bravely enter the building, looked on the verge of tears. He seemed to already envision Xiaoting's ghost beckoning him from within, his legs trembling uncontrollably like cooked noodles.
Jiang Cheng spoke up, "Don't panic. The woman who was locked inside wasn't Xiaoting."
Wen Liangshan, his face crestfallen, replied, "Brother Jiang, you don't have to comfort me. I know you're worried I won't go in, but I, Wen Liangshan, am a man of honor. Even if I die, I want to die knowing the truth."
Cutting through the useless banter, Jiang Cheng explained, "Look at the intensity of her struggle. I doubt the woman inside had much chance of survival."
"But Xiaoting is different. She's not dead, just trapped here. As our mission stated, we're here to rescue her. If she's already dead, what's the point?"
"So, Xiaoting's ghost isn't in here?" Wen Liangshan seemed particularly fixated on this.
Jiang Cheng patted his shoulder. "Hurry up."
"Oh, right, right."
Wen Liangshan figured Jiang Cheng had a point. If she was already dead, what was the point of trying to rescue her?
He didn't seem to realize that whether there was a ghost inside had no necessary connection to whether Xiaoting had died there.
The important thing was that someone had died here—a woman consumed by intense resentment.
Perhaps it wasn't Xiaoting, but did that mean another ghost wouldn't kill him?
Wen Liangshan, who was naturally thin, held his phone in his left hand for light. Using his elbows and feet, he propelled himself deeper into the mortuary cabinet.
Jiang Cheng stood ready to act, prepared to rescue him at the first sign of trouble.
The cramped space made Wen Liangshan, who normally didn't suffer from claustrophobia, feel suffocated.
Instead of using his phone's flashlight, he relied on the screen's glow for illumination.
"It's so cold... Why does it feel like it's getting colder deeper inside?" Wen Liangshan's muffled voice echoed from the depths of the mortuary cabinet, sounding slightly distorted.
Fatty waited anxiously, blurting out, "Of course it's cold! You're climbing a mortuary cabinet. If you want warmth, try the crematorium."
Wen Liangshan couldn't hold back his tears any longer and burst into tears.
"Did you find it?" Jiang Cheng asked, frowning. He could sense that something was increasingly wrong around them, as if a pair of eyes were lurking in the darkness.
"I found it!"
"Hurry!" Huai Yi urged in a hushed voice.
Since they had split up, they hadn't heard from the other team, leaving them with a persistent unease.
"What's going on?" Wen Liangshan's voice suddenly boomed, much louder than before. "Brother Jiang, someone's already signed this!"
"Signed it?" Fatty blinked in surprise.
"Yes! It's Shi Xiaoya! Her name is right here—I saw it clearly!"
Could the other team have come here first and signed it? Jiang Cheng pondered. According to his theory, each floor of this building was like a self-contained mini-dungeon. Whichever team signed their name on a floor would effectively clear that floor's dungeon.
Given the current situation, it was clear that the crisis on this floor had not been resolved.
"Pull him out!" Jiang Cheng ordered. He and Huai Yi each grabbed one of Wen Liangshan's legs and dragged him out of the mortuary cabinet. Jiang Cheng then crawled inside.
The situation inside was more complex than Jiang Cheng had anticipated. Wen Liangshan couldn't possibly handle this alone, and if they wasted any more time, everyone would die.
The cabinet was deeper than Jiang Cheng had expected. After quickly crawling to the end, he found the blue binder he had been looking for.
The first few pages had been turned over, with creases still visible, revealing only the signature section.
The name "Shi Xiaoya" was clearly written there.
Jiang Cheng had seen Shi Xiaoya's signature in the security office. After carefully comparing it, he was certain it was her handwriting.
This raised a crucial question: if Shi Xiaoya had been here and successfully left her signature, why hadn't the crisis on this floor been resolved?
Could there be something wrong with the signature itself?
He picked up the register, intending to examine it again, when a subtle detail caught his eye: the page with Shi Xiaoya's signature seemed slightly wider than the other pages in the register.
Gradually, a daring hypothesis formed in Jiang Cheng's mind. He gently pulled at the page bearing Shi Xiaoya's signature.
In the next instant, the page came loose and fell out.
It was as if it had never belonged in the registry book in the first place, but had been inserted midway through.
Even more horrifying, Jiang Cheng noticed a line of black text at the top of the page: "Voluntary Body Donation Statement."
Signatory: Shi Xiaoya.
Even Jiang Cheng was stunned by this brazen act. To slip a body donation form into the middle of a registry book? Who could have predicted such a thing?
No wonder the crisis on the fourth floor persisted despite Shi Xiaoya's signature. She had unwittingly signed a body donation form! What good was that?
Well, not entirely useless. From Jiang Cheng's perspective, it strongly suggested she was about to meet a grim fate.
Picking up the registry book again, Jiang Cheng carefully verified everything, swiftly signed his own name, and hurried out of the mortuary cabinet.
"It's taken care of," Jiang Cheng said. "Let's get out of here."
As they hurried away, Jiang Cheng briefly explained what had happened inside. Fatty Huai Yi and the others listened in stunned silence, especially Fatty, who couldn't help but curse the ghosts for their utter lack of conscience. "They must all be orphans," he muttered, "or they'd never come up with such twisted schemes."
Wen Liangshan was engrossed in the story when Jiang Cheng suddenly stopped talking.
Before leaving, Huai Yi had snatched a metal pole used for hooking corpses. Though heavy, it felt surprisingly comfortable in his hand and gave him a boost of courage.
As expected, their escape encountered no further obstacles. The chilling aura that had permeated the corridor had dissipated. Not far ahead, they spotted a rusty pushcart tucked in a corner.
It was the same one that had nearly collided with them earlier. Now that the supernatural event in Room 9 had ended, the cart stood motionless.
At the end of the corridor loomed the staircase to the fifth floor. Unlike the ones they had used before, this staircase appeared far older and more weathered.
The staircase only had steps leading upward; there were no stairs descending to the lower floor. At the foot of the staircase stood two rusted iron poles.
The poles were anchored in large red plastic buckets—the kind commonly used in laboratories—filled with hardened cement. One pole was placed on each side, forming a barrier across the staircase, crisscrossed with a dense web of yellow caution tape.
The tape crisscrossed like a spiderweb, its dense layers making their skin crawl.
(End of the Chapter)
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