On the way back, Qi Si subtly shifted his gaze and surveyed the surroundings.
The overlapping, tangled forest formed a natural wall, with rolling white mist deeper within. The only path people could walk connected to the hospital's concrete walls. Even with someone leading the way, they could only wander between the pond and the hospital, unable to go farther or leave.
The corridors inside the hospital building were decrepit and lifeless. At the corners of the first three floors, where the stairwell exits should have connected the floors, enormous iron plates had been nailed up, blocking the Players' sight and path.
The fourth floor was the only place in the entire building they could go.
Cheng Xiaoyu slipped through the wide-open doorway on the fourth floor, vanishing along with his shadow.
Qi Si and Sun Dekuan, one after the other, returned once more to the end of the corridor flanked by the morgue and kitchen.
The iron bed that had stood in the middle of the corridor was nowhere to be seen. The morgue's iron doors were shut tightly and ominously, and now and then came the scraping sound of iron wheels rolling.
Qi Si walked straight into the kitchen, rinsed his hands beneath the tap for a while, then unhurriedly washed the pendulum he had used to contact Cheng Xiaoyu.
He glanced at the time as well. The hour hand of the Pocket Watch of Fate pointed to just before six in the evening—making a trip to the pond seemed to have taken an unusually long time.
Sun Dekuan forced himself to follow Qi Si into the kitchen. Watching the young man wash his hands and then take out the candy jar from his backpack and pour out all the candy, he could not make sense of it.