144. Breaking Superstition
Liu Qingjiang's face Pale, swollen, and had some bloodshot veins. He was wearing a safety helmet, and the shovel was dragging beside him. He was looking at the center of the pit, at Lu Ban in the center of the pit.
Liu Qingjiang raised his hand, held the shovel high, and then smashed it down.
Lu Ban dodged to the side as soon as he raised the shovel, gripped the crowbar tightly, and loaded the [Last Words] at the same time.
However, Liu Qingjiang's shovel landed between those heads, cracking the ground and turning the aged cement into rubble, which was then scooped up and moved aside.
Then, Liu Qingjiang picked up the shovel again and repeated the action, seemingly unaware of Lu Ban's presence.
"Can't he see me?"
Lu Ban stood diagonally opposite Liu Qingjiang, with his back against the wall, Motionless.
Liu Qingjiang simply shoveled away, digging open the ground and unearthing the workers' remains.
"The designer of this hospital was a foreigner who committed suicide after completing the design. The construction team leader also seems to be suffering from mental Living Stake. They created Living Stake using workers who died in accidents to try to suppress something, but will that really work?"
Lu Ban had seen all sorts of strange and bizarre things and evil gods in other lands, and in his opinion, the custom of Living Stake was probably a legitimate feudal practice.
If there really are those demons and monsters, they are not afraid of living people, so why would they be afraid of dead people?
If we're talking about ghosts fighting ghosts, these workers were harmed by you so much that their bodies couldn't even be buried and are now sealed in cement forever. If it were Lu Ban, wouldn't he haunt them every night, seeking revenge on the people who buried him? Why should he help you protect the hospital?
The so-called "Living Stake" is probably the result of another ritual, the purpose of which may not be to suppress anything, but to summon something.
The rituals of evil gods in various exotic lands always involve human sacrifice; only the scent of death and souls can attract these bizarre, evil, and indescribable beings.
"It seems the missing people have all entered this alternate dimension. Is this the other world?"
Lu Ban thought of the setting in a horror game he had played before. In that game, humans could potentially enter another world due to the influence of supernatural forces. One of these worlds was the Otherworld, which was full of anomalies and monsters and was extremely dangerous.
"It can be seen that they may have survived for a period of time after entering this place, but with the erosion, they eventually all mutated into monsters. Moreover, these monsters seem to act according to their obsessions in life. Liu Qingjiang felt guilty because of the workers' deaths, so he wanted to dig up the workers' remains. Xu Xiao wanted to escape from here, so he kept asking for help at the nurses' station?"
He saw Liu Qingjiang dig up a pile of dirt, put it in a cement bag, and drag it out of the room. His movements were stiff, like a machine that had been neglected for a long time.
"As for the doctor from earlier, perhaps he had a failed surgery or something else that caused him to become obsessed with this place, so after accidentally wandering into it, he's continuing his original work?"
Lu Ban thought of that obstetrician-gynecologist.
However, new questions arose.
"Wait a minute, but this hospital shouldn't have an obstetrics and gynecology department, so where did this obstetrician and gynecologist come from?"
Lu Ban began to suspect that the obstetrics and gynecology department of this hospital was hiding a secret, perhaps closely related to the hospital's deepest secret.
"Is he the kind of private doctor who delivers babies for rich people?"
He thought that some doctors would secretly deliver babies for wealthy people, some of whom were currently popular celebrities, some were mistresses or concubines of wealthy men, and some were even more sinister illegitimate children who violated moral principles.
"No, it can't be that simple. This hospital used Living Stake Living Stake its construction, which should be part of some kind of ritual. The designer of this hospital committed suicide. The investors in this hospital are foreigners and Overseas Chinese Chamber of Commerce. In other words, this hospital may have been built for some purpose from the very beginning?"
Lu Ban left the room and stood by the wall near the window. The world outside was pitch black, so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face and there was nothing to be seen.
"Moreover, judging from the situation just now, there should be more than just one or two missing people in the hospital. There are many more lost people here. However, with such a large number of missing persons cases, it is impossible for the police not to intervene in the investigation. According to the information Song Yunyan gave me, Nanhua Private Renji Hospital has not been subject to any similar investigation."
He saw Liu Qingjiang enter the room again, digging continuously, and then leave with the rubble. But the pit kept getting bigger and bigger, and he could never reach the end of it, as if it had a life of its own.
"From an outsider's perspective, I should be missing by now. The only way to get out is to unravel the secrets of this hospital."
Lu Ban realized that two hours had passed since he came in, and it was still early until six o'clock.
Where are the fragments of Du Danping's Melody Fragment?
He walked down the corridor and saw the nurses' station on this floor.
In the nurses' station, a nurse sat with her hands empty, as if she were knitting, but in reality, she had nothing. Her rotting face was reduced to two holes, and she sat there blankly, as if nothing had changed.
Lu Ban returned to the stairwell and saw the footprints that looked like a baby's crawling marks stopped there, as if the thing wouldn't follow Lu Ban upstairs.
"Or does it need to be guided by someone to climb the stairs?"
As Lu Ban stood there pondering, a sound suddenly rang out, which was particularly jarring in the silent corridor.
That was the sound of machinery running.
Lu Ban looked up and saw that the elevator next door had suddenly turned on at some point.
The floor indicator showed the first floor, but soon, accompanied by the sound of machinery, the elevator arrived at the second floor.
But the elevator didn't immediately go to the third floor; instead, it made a sound indicating that it had arrived.
Ding-dong—
This startled Lu Ban.
According to the elevator's operating mode, the only possibility for it to operate this way is that someone pressed the elevator button on the second floor.
But in this hospital, besides myself, who else can control the elevator?
Lu Ban heard the sound of the elevator doors closing and the sound of steel cables being pulled.
The number on the elevator has changed to the shape of 3.
Ding-dong—
The elevator arrived, emitting a crisp notification sound.
Then, the door slowly opened.
Lu Ban saw a doctor in a white coat standing inside. He wasn't wearing a mask, and the corrosion wasn't severe enough to reveal his appearance.
It looks familiar.
Lu Ban remembered that this was the same person he had seen in the doctor's profile at the nurses' station on the first floor.
Zhao Gongping is the director of Nanhua Private Renji Hospital.
"He didn't disappear from here, so how did he end up here?"
Lu Ban hurriedly stood by the wall. Since he didn't know the dean's modus operandi, playing dead was the best option.
He saw the dean walk slowly towards the nurses' station, passing in front of Lu Ban.
Lu Ban noticed that the dean was holding a surgical Hammer and scalpel, as if he were about to perform surgery.
Holding his breath, Lu Ban watched the dean walk by.
However, Dean Zhao Gongping did not take any further steps.
The figure in the white coat stopped in his tracks, his body remaining still, but his head turned almost 180 degrees to look at Lu Ban.
"Die"
"Die"
"Die"
He uttered broken words, raised the Hammer in his hand, and smashed it down at Lu Ban!