The Ballad of a Certain Being

Clatter.

Clatter.

The heels of high heels echoed faintly in the empty corridor, drifting from the glass doors that isolated people's voices all the way to the deep end of the corridor.

Yu Xing's head hung limply, her entire weight resting on the nurse's arm. The nurse's icy body temperature seeped through the thin fabric of her uniform, occasionally brushing against Yu Xing's neck, bringing a chilling sensation.

The air was so cold that even Yu Xing, who was no longer afraid of the cold, shivered at the icy temperature.

Just now in the hall, Yu Xing didn't hear the same thing as Zhang Yu, but he could sense a terrifying presence casting its gaze here and saying something to Zhang Yu.

In the instant of Spiritual Sense, he made the branches completely disappear into another dimension, severing their connection with his plane of existence to avoid being discovered.

But after that, the feeling of being watched lingered, never leaving. This made Yu Xing think that Nanshui Town had a symbol of an "evil god," and perhaps the hospital was deeply connected to that symbol, which was why the evil god didn't trust him, an anomaly, to enter?

In short, because she didn't want to be detected by that gaze, Yu Xing had completely abandoned sight and was now relying entirely on hearing, smell, and feeling.

But he couldn't hear the nurses breathing, nor could he smell the disinfectant that a hospital should have, and he couldn't feel the atmosphere of a hospital at all.

He could only tell from the nurse's movements that he had been led away from the lobby and into an empty corridor, and then the environment changed abruptly.

If the hospital lobby could still maintain order to some extent, then from the moment Yu Xing entered this corridor, he could only feel an omnipresent disorder. The corridor stretched on and on, and the nurses had been leading him for a very long time.

Yu Xing tried to open his eyes a crack, but before he could do so, a premonition and a frantic warning in his mind told him not to open his eyes, not to open his eyes!

OK.

Yu Xing listened to advice, especially his own.

He knew that his and Zhang Yu's appearance was abrupt. Even if he could fool the nurse by faking frostbite, it would be difficult to fool that gaze. Before the nurse led him to where the "patient" should be, that being would definitely test him. This endless corridor was probably the subject of that test.

The nurse walked tirelessly, each step and pace perfectly synchronized, as if she were a precisely programmed instrument.

Yu Xing was as if she were completely dead; she needed the nurses to drag her around and didn't want to move at all.

Finally, after a long, drawn-out period of time, something that had been holding her back loosened with a snap, as if a crack had suddenly appeared in a sealed pane of glass, and the nurse was able to make another move.

She stopped in her tracks, then scooped Yu Xing up in her arms— Yu Xing was nearly 1.9 meters tall, while this nurse, though imposing, was less than 1.7 meters tall, and her female body appeared petite in comparison.

Yu Xing, supported by her back and knees, couldn't help but chuckle to herself.

If someone saw this, they would definitely find it very strange, right?

The next second, his smile vanished.

Because the nurse let out a genuine laugh, and began to hum a song slowly in an unmistakably male voice.

"The mute man wanted to speak, so he became mute."

"The returning child sees his father crawling on the ground~"

"Red souls laugh joyfully, heads bloom like flowers~"

"And you? And you? Which role are you playing?"

The smooth voice carries a joyful laugh, immersed in the cruel lyrics.

The last line of the lyrics, which expresses a question, seems to belong to this song, or it seems to be the voice's owner asking the "patient" in her arms through the female nurse's body.

Yu Xing remained motionless, quietly frowning, playing the role of a pitiful creature consumed by pain.

He felt the "nurse" glance down at him, and only continued forward when he didn't react.

Clatter.

Clatter.

The sound of high heels was still there, but no longer on the flat corridor, but up the stairs.

"Are we finally going to the second floor?" Yu Xing thought to herself.

The hospital has two buildings. The wards house the patients, while the departments that diagnose illnesses are all located in the same building.

If the wards are fraught with danger due to the various crazy and eccentric patients, then the Doctor who never appear in the main building are the ones who know the hospital's secrets.

Having heard the male voice, Yu Xing desperately wanted to see the real person, not the puppet-like female nurse.

The staircase wasn't long, or rather, once you started going up the stairs, the entire space returned to normal.

The nurse carried him quickly up to the second floor, then turned and twisted along the way. Occasionally, other footsteps could be heard, and it seemed that some people brushed past the nurse.

No one spoke or communicated.

Yu Xing was put down in front of a door. He heard the female nurse unlock the door with a key and then half-drag, half-carry him to a cold bed.

At this moment, the premonition that she couldn't open her eyes slowly faded away. Yu Xing listened to the nurse's footsteps receding into the distance, and quietly squinted her eyes. A sliver of white squeezed into her vision through the gap.

Wait, white?

That wasn't the color of the hospital room; it was a white, upright object standing very, very close to him—in layman's terms, he was lying in bed, and that white thing was standing right next to the bed.

Good afternoon, Yu Xing.

The thing said with a laugh.

Yu Xing's heart skipped a beat. When the nurse put him on the bed, he didn't feel that there was anyone else next to him. Even now that he heard and saw her, he still couldn't detect any presence from her.

And this person actually called him by his name.

Since she'd already been discovered, Yu Xing opened her eyes and groaned, "Ouch... it hurts. Are you... Doctor?"

In this way, he was able to see what the other person looked like.

This is a man; his age is hard to tell. You could judge him as either just coming of age or in his thirties.

A man's appearance is hard to describe. Even though his features are clearly defined, they always give the mind a vague, indistinct feeling. All you know is that he is very handsome.

The man was wearing a long white Doctor's coat, with a stethoscope around his neck, one hand in his pocket, and a notepad in his other hand.

After observing it for a while, Yu Xing felt that the other party was strange in every way. It was definitely not human, but some kind of ghost that was difficult to observe.

It's like... indescribable, incomprehensible, somewhat like Zhao Yijiu under the ideology of a ghost.

"Yes, I'm Doctor." The Doctor bent down to look at him, a slightly wider smile curving his lips. "It seems you're quite interested in me."

The singing voice was slightly different from the speaking voice, but Yu Xing still recognized it despite the close proximity.

This Doctor, through the female nurse, hummed a song of incomprehensible meaning to him.