With Mang Dabiao's help, Yang Yong quickly climbed up to the second floor.
Xiao Xuan and the other two were pulled up one by one.
The hospital's second floor was a waiting hall.
Faded department signs hung everywhere...
ENT, cardiology, nurses' station...
Scattered here and there, they exuded an indescribable gloom in the dim light.
Light seemed to slow down here, clinging thickly to every patch of peeling wall.
Everyone's gaze fell on the same spot nearby.
A sign hung there, bearing a single word: Pharmacy.
This was the objective of their trip.
The most impatient person in the group was the young man named Xiao Wei.
When he spotted the pharmacy, unconcealable delight rose in his eyes, and he instinctively let out a quiet cry.
It was not loud.
But on this deathly silent second floor, it was piercingly clear.
Before that quiet cry had fully faded, a chill pressed against his back...
It was not wind, nor had anything touched him. It was a cold that rose from deep within his marrow for no reason.
Xiao Wei whipped his head around.
Everything around him changed in an instant.
It was still the second-floor waiting hall.
But his companions were gone.
Xiao Xuan, Yang Yong, Wang Ying, Zheng Xiaofeng...
They had all vanished without a trace.
He was the only one left in the empty hall.
Even his breathing produced no echo.
This was not quiet. It was the dead silence that came only when his ears were blocked.
"What's going on? Where is everyone?"
His voice dispersed through the empty hall, like a stone tossed into an abyss without so much as a sound.
He panicked.
Just as he was about to move, he caught something out of the corner of his eye behind the nurses' counter...
Something