Chapter 3: Alone in the Underground Palace

  "I was suddenly woken up by a nurse last night, and a bunch of doctors and nurses rushed in with all sorts of equipment, right next to me. You know, that thing that gives electric shocks, what's it called? A pacemaker or something? They zapped the girl a few times, gave her some injections, but after a while, when there was no response, the doctor said she couldn't be saved. Then her family came and cried for a bit, and later the girl's body was wheeled away. By now, that girl is probably already at the crematorium."

  "I bought a watch last year!" I cursed in my heart, "This is truly a beauty that is short-lived, heaven envies the beautiful! Such a delicate and lovely person, actually withered away just as she was about to bloom into youth and enjoy all the good things life had to offer!"

  Li Haibo poked me with his finger: "What's wrong? Handsome boy, are you okay?"

  "The handsome guy" is a teasing nickname among our close friends, usually when we hear this word, we would punch each other, but at that moment, I couldn't help but think of the girl's face, her slightly furrowed eyebrows, so pitiful and lovely, my eyes also turned red suddenly.

  Li Haibo stood up, seemingly still feeling some pain in his legs. He leaned against my shoulder and said: "You little brat, whenever you see a beautiful girl in the past, you're always so shy. I didn't expect that you'd fall in love at first sight here! Look at you now, it's okay, just having met a girl once, it's no big deal."

  I nodded and said to Li Haibo, you sit down first, I'll go aside for a moment.

  After that, I helped Li Haibo sit down and walked to the foot of the bed where the girl had lain, gazed at the bed for a moment, bowed my head slightly. Then, I collected my emotions, supported Li Haibo and walked out of the ward.

  As I walked out of the hospital, I couldn't help but look around in all directions.

  What Li Haibo didn't know was that the machine used to rescue the girl wasn't a pacemaker, but a defibrillator. The injections were for opening up the vein pathway, and the direct injection should have been dopamine or adrenaline-like emergency medication.

  Li Haibo did not know that the girl was still in the hospital morgue and had not been sent to the crematorium. After a person's death, their body is rarely cremated immediately, but rather placed in the morgue for two or three days. This allows relatives sufficient time to arrange funeral rites and ensures that the deceased will not suddenly come back to life. Only then is the body sent to the crematorium. Of course, sometimes when the identity of the deceased is unclear or the cause of death is unknown, family members need to identify the body or undergo DNA fingerprinting analysis, or a forensic doctor needs to perform an autopsy, and the body will be kept in the morgue for a longer period of time.

  What Li Haibo didn't know was that when I bowed my head, it wasn't just to pay respects to this beautiful flower that had withered and died before its time. It was also to sneak a peek at the medical record hanging from the foot of the bed - her name and bed number. And her name and bed number would be marked on the freezer in the morgue.

  I knew all this because I had taken a course in forensic medicine at law school. The teacher took our whole class to the morgue and dissected a corpse right before our eyes, after which I didn't eat for three days and felt like vomiting whenever I saw meat.

  However, after hearing about the girl's death, I made a secret decision.

  I want to go to the mortuary and take one last look at her.

  This idea is so evil, but I myself can't control myself.

  I will never forget her face, even if it's just a glance at her again, I'm willing to pay any price.

  Also unforgettable is:

  Name: Xiao Luqi.

  Age - 19 years old.

  Cause of death - cardiac arrest.

  Bed number —— 8033542.

  It just so happened that today was Saturday, I sent Li Haibo home and then returned to the entrance of my own district, but didn't go in. Instead, I walked around the block, eating a meal of Shandong-style boiled dumplings at various small shops and buying some things along the way.

  I went back to my room. I threw the plastic bag onto the sofa and sat down on it with a thud, leaning sideways to sort out the things inside.

  Let me introduce my little nest first. To save money, I rented a big one-room old apartment. The so-called old apartment is generally a house before 1998 and no more than six floors. In order to be quiet, I live on the sixth floor. The first floor usually has two or three households, with small rooms that are very cramped. The decoration of the corridor and room is generally older. The surrounding neighbors are all elderly people, from time to time, one will leave upstairs and downstairs, and then a mournful cry will sound throughout the night, making it difficult for you to sleep. And what's called a big one-room apartment is that the bedroom is slightly larger than a single one-room apartment, with a steel-reinforced concrete partition wall separating a small living room from a bedroom, with a sofa inside.

  My kitchen is not separate, it's connected to the living room. Although I've learned how to cook from my long-term single wandering life, I rarely do. Because the landlord refused to buy me a refrigerator, vegetables and meat can't be stored. Although I mentioned it to him several times, he always rejected me. So I gave up.

  I pulled out a pair of medical latex gloves from the plastic bag, opened the packaging and sniffed it, without the smell of rubber, very thin, after wearing it, I basically didn't feel much. These gloves are probably worn by doctors when examining patients' throats or anuses. For doctors, these two holes in the human body, apart from one being for intake and the other for output, really don't have much difference.

  Then I pulled out a bulging package, inside which was a raincoat, the thick kind. There was also a pack of masks. Blue ones with wrinkles on them. I put the mask, raincoat and gloves together on the armrest of the sofa.

  Then there are two LED flashlights, very powerful. Both were turned on and tried out, the effect was good, and then they were turned off and put aside.

  At the very bottom of the plastic bag was a bath cap, a pencil, a pair of pliers and three ear scoops with thin handles but sturdy materials.

  After taking out the things, I thought that there was nothing else needed. Then I picked up the fruit knife and started sharpening the pencil. Next, I used pliers to fix the ear scoop, found a pair of scissors, and cut two holes in the raincoat.

  After doing all this, I stood on the windowsill, took a few deep breaths, gathered my things and went downstairs.

  When I arrived at the chest hospital, it was still early and they hadn't finished work yet.

  This hospital is not big, it's just an ordinary community hospital and a small-scale hospital, maybe without ICU - if the treatment doesn't work, they'll send the patient to a bigger hospital. But when it comes to treating things inside the chest cavity, this thoracic hospital is one of the top-ranked hospitals in Shanghai, a well-known hospital. Inside the chest cavity, apart from the heart, there's also the lungs. Both are important stuff. If either goes wrong, it can be fatal.

  Fame brings many visitors. Calamity claims many lives.

  So, there must be a morgue here, and it's not hard to find. Morgues are usually located in the basement of the hospital building or in a separate isolated bungalow next to it. I walked around the building and didn't see any strange bungalows, so I concluded that the basement is the only possibility.

  I walked into the hall, found a seat in a corner and sat down, pretending to be careless while scanning around, locating the position of the camera, then stood up, walking carefully to avoid being continuously captured by the camera.

  I found two safe channels of stairs and retreated. When I found the third staircase, I walked in without hesitation.

  Because of this staircase, the smell of disinfectant coming up is particularly strong. The morgue is usually just below here.

  It's clear that this corridor is rarely walked, the lights are not on, and as soon as you walk in, you feel a heavy atmosphere, making your skin crawl. But I have a reason to take the stairs. Generally speaking, when someone dies in an emergency room or ward, they're directly taken away on a mortuary bed via the elevator to the morgue underground. However, no one wants to share an elevator with a corpse, so the elevators for transporting corpses are separate. If I, as a non-staff member, were to take that elevator, it would definitely draw attention and be faithfully recorded by the cameras - all the building's elevators have cameras, whereas the safety corridors basically don't.

  However, the mortuary is also prone to fires. Once a fire breaks out, the elevator cannot be used. To put out the fire, one must walk through the safe passage, which is where I am now.

  There was no light, and after walking down a few steps, I couldn't see my fingers when I stretched out my hand. I took out the flashlight from my pocket and continued to walk down while feeling my way.

  Drip, drip...... As I moved forward, a chilling sound of dripping water started.

  I warned myself not to be afraid. This sound was made by the disinfectant water. The mortuary had strict disinfection requirements, and in order to ensure the quality of disinfection, many hospitals set up several sinks with cans filled with disinfectant water on top, connected to infusion tubes, and adjusted the flow rate. In this way, the disinfectant water could continuously drip into the sink, purifying the stench of decaying corpses that lingered in the mortuary.

  But no matter how I comforted myself, this monotonous voice made my nerves tense.

  My undergraduate university was nicknamed "Sanatorium". The courses were not tight, the exams were not too difficult, it's easy to graduate if you want to, but hard if you don't. So students had a lot of free time. I, who was interested in all sorts of strange things, actually learned how to pick locks out of curiosity.

  The stairs turned a corner and continued downward. Below the turn, the long, bright light of the safety passage indicator emitted a faint green glow. Very faint. The light had just escaped from the lampshade when it was swallowed up by endless darkness. This tiny point of green in the midst of the blackness made my scalp tingle and my whole body break out in sweat.

  If there was another wailing ghost cry at this time, I would definitely wet my pants on the spot.

  Continue to grope down and finally come to a iron gate. On it hangs an ancient lock.

  As expected.

  I pulled out the bathing cap and gloves from my backpack and put them on. This way, I wouldn't leave any fingerprints or hair behind as evidence. Then, I took out three ear scoops from my pocket, lifted up the lock, took a deep breath to calm myself down, trying not to be distracted by the sound of dripping water, and started fiddling with it.