This cup of milk tea was ordered by Zhang Xueji, although he himself didn’t get to drink it.
But from the moment he paid for this cup of milk tea, a faint causal connection had already formed between him and the milk tea.
Therefore, the milk tea cup could be used for a divination to find something related to Zhang Xueji.
Xie Qiaoqiao firmly remembered the direction the rim of the milk tea cup was pointing, gripped the empty cup, changed her shoes, and headed out—when she reached the door, she paused and thought for a moment, then turned back to the living room to grab something.
Just to be safe.
After the drill ended, Yuezhang Yan said he wanted to treat Zhang Xueji to dinner—but he needed to return some medical equipment he’d borrowed to the Equipment Room, so he asked Zhang Xuefei to wait for him at the stairwell.
By then, dusk had already started to fall, and the outline of a Moon could be vaguely seen to the east.
The Voice-Activated Light in the corridor was half working and half not, alternating between light and shadow, making the place look a little eerie.
Yuezhang Yan complained, “The Voice-Activated Light in the corridor was reported for repair last week, but it’s still like this.”
This Teaching Building of the Medical Department is an old building.
It was renovated three years ago, but only the exterior was redone; many of the aging circuits inside were never replaced, so the Voice-Activated Light often malfunctions.
They also didn’t install a new elevator, only kept a single Freight Elevator on the east side for moving large equipment, and students aren’t allowed to use it.
Zhang Xueji was waiting on the staircase right next to the Freight Elevator, his back against the wall, relaxing his mind by solving Sudoku as he waited for Yuezhang Yan.
Suddenly, the Freight Elevator beside him made a “ding”—Zhang Xueji looked up in that direction.
The old doors of the Freight Elevator slid open from both sides, and out walked a girl with long black hair, wearing a loose printed short-sleeved shirt.
Her head was slightly lowered, and her long hair fell over the side of her face, so from where Zhang Xueji stood, he couldn’t see her profile at all—only her shiny black hair.
Technically, the Freight Elevator wasn’t for passengers, but Yuezhang Yan had told Zhang Xueji that sometimes, when they were in a hurry for class, they’d sneak a ride on the Freight Elevator.
So Zhang Xueji didn’t think it strange for someone to walk out of the Freight Elevator; he just glanced at her and then lowered his head to continue with his Sudoku.
The Voice-Activated Light above suddenly went out; Zhang Xueji stomped his foot to wake it up—the light snapped on abruptly, so glaringly white that it seemed to have gained extra wattage during those few seconds of darkness.
Squinting from the harsh light, he suddenly realized that the girl was now standing right in front of him.
Startled, Zhang Xueji quickly stepped back—finally, facing her head-on, he could see her face clearly: her skin was very pale, almost bloodless, and there were heavy dark circles under her eyes.
Zhang Xueji hesitated, “Do you need something from me?”
The girl asked, “Are you a Clinical Student?”
Zhang Xueji shook his head, “No, I’m waiting here for my friend.”
The girl took another step forward, her eyes boring straight into Zhang Xueji, “Then why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine?”
This question was utterly baffling. Zhang Xueji frowned, stepped back again, not wanting to deal with her, and lowered his head to message Yuezhang Yan, urging him to hurry up.
The signal was a bit poor; both messages Zhang Xueji sent showed red exclamation marks. The girl kept pressing, “Why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine?”
“Is it because you don’t want to spend five years in university?”
“Why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine?”
“Is it because you think it’s hard to find a job after graduating, or that Interns in Clinical Medicine don’t get paid?”
“You really have no perseverance or work ethic!”
Zhang Xueji frowned deeply and shifted sideways to put some distance between them.
The girl still wouldn’t give up and tried to follow, but Zhang Xueji pressed his hand against her forehead to push her away, while defensively putting away his phone.
This woman seems to have some mental issues.
But what was strange was that Zhang Xueji found he actually couldn’t push her away; feeling odd, he suddenly recalled that punch Xie Qiaoqiao had accidentally landed on him last time.
Zhang Xueji had always been quite confident in his own strength, considering himself to have the strength of a normal adult male.
But after encountering both Xie Qiaoqiao and this strange girl, Zhang Xueji was totally confused—had he gotten weaker after those days in the hospital, or were girls just that strong these days?
His palm, pressed against the girl’s forehead, felt something damp. Zhang Xueji thought it was her sweat and felt disgusted, quickly pulling his hand back.
He saw a patch of dark red in his palm.
It was blood.
The wet, metallic scent of blood started to spread through the space.
For a moment, Zhang Xueji’s mind went blank as he stiffly raised his eyes to look at her—
The girl’s once-slim body had, at some point, swelled grotesquely, stretching the loose, letter-printed shirt tight.
Her skin was bloated and rotten, maggots crawling in her sunken eye sockets, teeth loose and half-hanging from decayed gums.
“Why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine?”
“Why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine?”
“Clinical Medicine isn’t hard at all, as long as you’re willing to work hard, writing papers is easy.”
“Come study Clinical Medicine—come study Clinical Medicine—”
Zhang Xueji broke out in a cold sweat, his legs weak as he staggered back, “D-d-don’t come any closer—”
His back hit the wall, but the Ghost didn’t stop, swaying and looming toward him, her bloated, nearly translucent skin trembling as if pus would burst out at any moment.
Zhang Xueji’s scalp tingled and his mind went blank.
In terror, he rammed his shoulder into the Ghost and dashed down the stairs; as his shoulder hit her, it felt like colliding with the worst quality water balloon, the sloshing sound of fluid only making his head spin more.
He ran down nearly ten flights in one breath, blindly and in the dark, until he missed a step and tumbled down.
Zhang Xueji rolled down the stairs like a wheel, the staircase seeming endless, making him dizzy and chilled to the bone before he finally managed to grab the railing and stop himself.
When he struggled to his feet and looked up, he saw a big red “3” on the white wall across from him.
He was still on the third floor.
Still at the stairwell next to the Freight Elevator.
The swollen corpse he’d knocked into the wall was slowly peeling itself off the wall, a resentful voice echoing in the stairwell.
“Why aren’t you studying Clinical Medicine? Don’t you have the dream of saving the world?”
“If you don’t study Clinical Medicine, this is all your life will amount to. If you start now, there’s still hope.”
“Come study Clinical Medicine, come study Clinical Medicine!”
Zhang Xueji was completely broken down, exhausted both physically and mentally, so he turned and bolted out of the stairwell, running into the corridor with its alternating patches of light and shadow.
On both sides of the corridor were tightly closed classroom doors, and different classroom names flashed past Zhang Xueji’s peripheral vision like a banquet in full swing.
He also saw the Ghost running down the corridor, her hideous face flickering in and out of the Voice-Activated Light!
Zhang Xueji yanked open the nearest classroom door, dashed inside, shut the door, and braced it with his back.
From outside came the force of someone pushing and pulling, and loud banging on the door, the noise waking up every Voice-Activated Light in the corridor.
He didn’t dare let go, pressing hard against the door. Looking up, he realized the entire room was filled with specially treated Cadaver Teachers—this was a Dissection Room for storing Cadaver Teachers!
A demon outside, corpses inside, Zhang Xueji wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling that even if all the Cadaver Teachers in this room came alive, they’d still be cuter than the Ghost outside.
At least the Cadaver Teachers wouldn’t force him to study Clinical Medicine!
The Ghost seemed unable to get in for now, and as Zhang Xueji’s blank mind gradually came back to life, he locked the door and pushed the operating table over to block the entrance.
While pushing the table, Zhang Xueji put his hands together and bowed toward the Cadaver Teachers on the table: “Amitabha, Boundless Heavenly Honored One, Amen—don’t know what you believe in, so I’ll say a Prayer for each.”
Thinking he might have missed something, Zhang Xueji hastily added “Marxism” and “Long Live the People”.
Before he finished his Prayer, a faint click came from behind him; Zhang Xueji’s hairs stood on end as he turned and saw the Ghost’s swollen face pressed against the glass window—she was trying to open the window from outside!
The window latch had already been half broken off by her fingers squeezing through the gap, the skin splitting open, pus and maggots oozing onto the window glass.
Zhang Xueji was so frightened he felt dizzy.
He looked around and spotted an empty Instrument Tray on the table, then grabbed it and smashed it down on the Ghost’s fingers sticking through the gap at the latch.
The soft flesh was quickly smashed to pulp, revealing the hard, pale yellow finger bones beneath; the Ghost screamed on the other side of the window, rotten flesh and soft tissue shaking and falling off her face.
Suddenly, the Ghost pulled her hand back; the rotting flesh that was about to fall off her face instantly grew back, and she reverted from that half-rotten state to a normal face.
Zhang Xueji saw the terror in her expression as she scrambled away along the outer wall, moving so fast it was as if a supervisor was chasing her for her thesis.
The Ghost’s reaction startled Zhang Xueji as well, making him worry if something even more terrifying had appeared behind him—could it be that the Cadaver Teachers had really come to life?
He gripped the only weapon at hand—the Instrument Tray—his whole body stiff as he slowly turned around: good news, the Cadaver Teachers were all peaceful.
Bad news, something alive was pushing on the door from outside. After two failed pushes, the person started knocking loudly.
At the same time, Zhang Xueji’s phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed with a flood of unread messages—the signal had returned.
“Zhang Xueji, are you in there?” Xie Qiaoqiao’s voice came from outside the door, and at the same time, Zhang Xueji saw his phone being bombarded with messages from Xie Qiaoqiao.
Each message said the same thing, asking what he was doing.
An indescribable sense of security welled up inside him.
Zhang Xueji tossed aside the Instrument Tray, moved the operating table away, and opened the door: the Voice-Activated Light outside was its usual dim white, and Xie Qiaoqiao stood at the entrance, her sharply defined face expressionless as she looked at him.
Now, Xie Qiaoqiao’s expressionless face only made him feel warm, like when everyone gathers to make dumplings during the Spring Festival Gala.
Zhang Xueji threw himself into her arms, sobbing.
“Wuwuwu, there’s a Ghost here, it’s too scary, the Ghost forced me to study Clinical Medicine, wuwuwu, I’ll never act for Yuezhang Yan again, I love fluid mechanics, wuwuwu, I don’t want to write a Clinical Medicine thesis, wuwuwu, that Ghost’s face was all rotten, so scary, so scary, wuwuwu, thank goodness you came, your voice is so nice, wuwuwu—”
Xie Qiaoqiao:
What are you babbling about? She didn’t catch a single word, only heard Zhang Xueji howling as he cried, and he was so heavy hanging onto her.