34: Walking Corpse

Zhou Shurong followed Qin Yan home and watched as he yawned and walked into the bathroom. Then, Zhou turned and went off to find Zhou Langxing.

Zhou Langxing had neither gone home nor returned to the bar. After Qin Yan left in the car, he found a nearby hotel and checked in.

Following that faint wisp of yin energy, Zhou Shurong twisted and turned through the corridors until he stood glaring at the door in front of him.

The signal was coming from inside. Pressing his ear to the door, he vaguely caught the sound of running water—Zhou Langxing was taking a shower.

Zhou Shurong waited outside until the water stopped, then knocked on the door.

Knock knock knock!

Zhou Langxing, drying his hair, asked who it was, but no one answered.

He opened the door, looked around, muttered something, and closed it again.

Zhou Shurong didn’t go in. Once he confirmed that Zhou Langxing was safe, he withdrew that tiny wisp of yin energy.

He had already exhausted a lot trying to act under Uncle Wei’s nose, resisting the pressure and fear—his body felt like it had been punctured, yin energy pouring out like a broken dam. He really couldn’t afford to waste more.

The hotel entrance was still open. The front desk girl fanned herself impatiently while ranting into the phone:

“So annoying! Making me switch shifts again—I swear I’m gonna smash my head into the manager’s desk!”

Zhou Shurong walked past her, expressionless, and floated out lightly.

The night city was beautiful, even though it was close to the economically struggling west side. There was a difference between East and West City, but it wasn’t as dramatic as online posts claimed. East had more rich folks; West had more poor folks.

He stood at the hotel’s front steps, the evening breeze fluttering the hair of girls passing by.

Their conversation drifted into Zhou Shurong’s ears:

“Seven straight days of overtime, we finally wrapped things up. The boss gave us three days off! What are you planning to do?”

“Sleep in, eat a big meal, pull an all-nighter!”

“That sounds so good, I almost want to cancel my travel plans.”

“Haha! We all have our own ways of unwinding!”

“Being alive is great,” Zhou Shurong murmured softly.

Uncle Wei…

I’m really jealous. Living like a real person.

Under the city lights, all kinds of dazzling glows sparkled. Zhou Shurong squinted slightly, and in that moment, he made a decision.

Where were there lots of ghosts?

—The hospital.

Lin’an First People’s Hospital had the best equipment, the most medical staff, and the top orthopedic surgeons in the city.

Standing in front of the hospital and looking up at the top floor, Zhou Shurong felt incredibly small.

There was something wrong with his eyes.

He saw an enormous mass of black mist swirling above the hospital, like a monstrous creature baring its fangs and claws.

A feeling called fear began to well up inside him again.

He struggled to suppress it. A hospital is the boundary between life and death—either you come out reborn, or you lose your life… The dead are often unwilling, full of resentment, their corpses with open eyes reaching desperately to clutch at their own souls.

He had never been to this hospital before. When he got sick, he always called a private doctor or went to a private clinic—fewer people, better environment, and top-notch care.

His first time at a public hospital was when Qin Yan had a fever and he took him to a small local public clinic.

The resentment here was off the charts…

Zhou Shurong looked up and asked himself—was he really going in?

He went in anyway.

His soul gave no warning to flee.

He trusted his instincts.

At that moment, in a hospital room, a doctor was delivering the final verdict for a patient just brought in.

Shaking his head, he announced the time of death.

The doctor removed his mask and walked out, while a nurse covered the deceased with a thin white sheet, listening to the sobbing of the family.

She was an intern nurse, still soft-hearted, and stayed for a while to gently comfort the family.

The two relatives were young and shared similar features. They weren’t siblings, but a couple who had been married for three years.

The nurse eventually left to give them space to grieve in peace. When the door closed, their crying paused for a moment. They exchanged a glance, then resumed wailing with perfect coordination.

At this time, Zhou Shurong was snacking on some “little treats.”

There were many confused little ghosts in the hospital. “Little” referred not to age, but to strength.

Some huddled dazed in corners, mumbling occasionally, as if calling out to someone;

Some wandered the hallways like drifting clouds, lacking any awareness—doctors and nurses walked right through them without noticing a thing;

Others were clear-headed, recently dead and unable to accept it, still screaming at the staff to save them…

As Zhou Shurong “passed by,” he snatched energy here and there from the spirits like a flower thief in a garden.

Still, he found it odd—there had to be powerful spirits here. So many died in pain; surely some died full of resentment, transforming into fierce ghosts?

Surely, they must have existed. Even he had turned into a ghost over something as trivial as missing a date—there was no way people who suffered worse didn’t leave anything behind.

The lingering resentment above the hospital was proof.

But once inside, he noticed—there were no fierce ghosts.

They’d been here. But they were gone now.

He thought of Uncle Wei and wondered—if someone like him could exist, could there be people capable of subduing him?

There must be.

If the living had no means to deal with the dead, the world would already belong to the dead.

Hospitals would be a top priority for such exorcists.

Maybe, before he even got here, a fierce ghost had already been eliminated.

With that in mind, Zhou Shurong glanced at these weak, resigned ghosts with new understanding—perhaps all the strong ones had been purged, and all that remained were the old, sick, and pitiful. Their yin energy was too faint to pose any danger, so no one bothered getting rid of them.

The weaker the ghost’s awareness, the thinner their yin energy.

The weakest one looked like a torn-up white trash bag. Really. If Zhou hadn’t sensed the yin energy, he would’ve thought it was trash.

He rolled the “trash bag” up and shoved it in his mouth.

No more being picky. He couldn’t afford to be picky. He needed to grow stronger. No more wasting time punching—he now devoured the yin energy straight from the source, chewing and swallowing it whole.

His yin energy was growing, stronger and stronger…

Should he leave?

Logic whispered: Leave while you still can.

Greed urged: Just a little more! Eat a bit more!

Eat more, Zhou told himself. You need to get stronger. You have to protect those two fools dancing on the edge of death. They’re still craving another bowl of Uncle Wei’s wontons!

He convinced himself. Greed took over.

This was heaven. Snacks everywhere. This must be what happiness tasted like.

He was stuffed.

So full, he couldn’t float anymore.

Looking down at his bulging belly, he muttered, “Maybe I need to digest before the yin energy actually becomes mine? Just eating directly might be too crude.”

He looked around, eyes landing on a young couple who had just entered the elevator. They were heading home. Perfect for hitching a ride.

Zhou Shurong slipped into the man’s shadow.

“Wu wu…” the woman sobbed softly.

The man held her gently, “Don’t cry. Mom wouldn’t want to see us like this… Let’s go home, get things ready, and then take her to be cremated.”

The woman leaned on his shoulder, not really crying anymore, just rubbing red eyes.

“I’m a little scared. Maybe we should stay at a hotel for a while?”

“Don’t be scared. We’ve got money now, and our anniversary’s coming up. We can get the place renovated… turn that room into a nursery. It’s time we had a baby.”

The elevator slowly descended. At the fifth floor, one person entered. At the fourth, a few more. At the third, more still… Hospital elevators were busier than office workers.

The man took a deep breath, a sudden sense of urgency rising in his chest, as if something bad would happen if he didn’t leave soon.

He tried to focus on the money they got from the house demolition back home.

After a moment, he smiled.

Sixth floor.

Staff carried a stretcher into another elevator. On the stretcher lay a breathless body, covered in a white sheet.

The elevator was silent, save for the low hum of the machinery. As was routine, the two staff members began to chat, not letting the air settle into stillness.

“What’s this person’s background?” To avoid taboo, they didn’t say “corpse.”

“Just an elderly lady from an ordinary family.”

“How’d she die?”

“Sudden illness. Didn’t take her meds in time, wasn’t sent to the hospital in time, and resuscitation was too late. She stopped breathing not long after arriving.”

“That’s so sad. Didn’t she have kids?”

“She did. Two people showed up—seemed like her youngest son and his wife.”

“So she lived alone?”

“No idea about that.”

Then, they moved on to chatting about when their night shift ended, and what to eat for a late-night snack.

If they had spared even a fraction of their attention, they would’ve noticed the white cloth covering the body was trembling slightly—and it wasn’t because of the wind.

There were two elevators: one public, one medical. The public elevator often had people getting on midway, while the medical one usually ran smoothly without interruption. Even so, both elevators, taken at different times, arrived at the first floor simultaneously.

But the body was supposed to be taken to the morgue on the B1 level. By all logic, the elevator should’ve kept going down.

Instead, it stopped at the first floor.

“Who the hell pressed the button again?” one staff member cursed.

“No—wait! Even if someone outside pressed it, the elevator should’ve gone to B1 first before returning to the first floor!”

The two exchanged uneasy glances.

Just then, the elevator doors slowly opened.

People walked out of the adjacent public elevator one after another. The two staff members looked increasingly pale—one of them frantically pressed the “close door” button.

In this line of work, you weren’t supposed to be superstitious.

But hospitals had their own taboos too—and even those who believed in science would fall into uneasy silence when it came to things like this.

“The elevator’s broken! The door’s stuck!”

Hearing this, the other staffer instinctively looked toward the stretcher—and that glance drained the blood from his face, cold dread rushing up his spine.

The corpse had sat up.

In her tangled hair, two slick, staring eyeballs locked onto them.

The married couple stepped out of the elevator. They had been the first ones in, but so many people boarded after that they were pushed to the back, and had to wait for others to exit first.

The man felt an increasing unease deep in his gut, and his anxiety bloomed rapidly, as if something inside him was screaming: Get out now, or something terrible will happen.

So his tone and expression were off.

“Give me the car keys!” he snapped.

The woman curled her lip inwardly. Now that he has money, he’s got a temper too. She lowered her head and rummaged through her handbag.

They lingered for a while in front of the elevator.

Just as she picked up the keys, a sharp, piercing scream rang out.

It was so close—right by her ear—so gut-wrenching it sounded like someone’s organs had been torn apart.

Startled, she dropped the keys, which fell into the nearby medical elevator.

The man cursed and bent down to retrieve them—only to notice strange gray powder at the edge of the elevator.

Then, he saw a hand reach out.

Each finger was clenched grotesquely, as if trying to grasp something precious.

The terrifying part was, the arm was covered in festering boils.

Each boil was swollen, filled with fluid in strange, swirling colors, like they’d pop at the slightest touch.

A person slowly crawled out—her face, too, was covered in nauseating boils.

The man stared, stunned.

And suddenly, he thought of his late mother—who had died just that night. She’d lain in bed, covered in bedsores from neglect. Disgusting, just like this.

The woman beside him had already screamed.

Yes—that same kind of scream. The one she let out when she found the bedsores.

“Wang Yuechuan! Wang Yuechuan! Get someone to take care of that! It’s disgusting!”

“Then you do it!” he had snapped back.

So, the sores festered. Pus oozed out, dripping onto the floor—drip, drip. Eventually, they became nothing but rotting flesh.

And after the doctor pronounced her dead, they knelt at her bedside and pretended to cry.

While crying, they felt secretly relieved—the old hag was finally gone.

Yes—he’d referred to the woman who raised him as an “old hag” in his heart. He’d wished for her death so he could pocket the demolition payout. Once he got the money, he no longer needed her.

And now, that “old hag” had walked out of the elevator again, just like she had all those years ago—shaking with every step.

He stared at her, his legs no longer his own.

His wife was still screaming beside him.

Zhou Shurong had already sensed something was wrong the moment the scream broke out—and had moved to another location.

The old woman who came out of the elevator… was a corpse.

But no one else knew that.

They thought someone had lost a loved one and couldn’t accept it. Some gathered to watch, others numbly walked out of the hospital.

Even before they got close, they heard strange popping noises, like balloons bursting. Then, they saw two medical staff stumble out of the elevator.

Their horrific, disfigured faces sent people fleeing.

Acid attack?

An infectious disease?

Their thoughts flashed quickly—they just wanted to get away.

“Ah… help… help me—!” the cries for help only made everyone retreat faster.

Doctors and nurses rushed over, gloved hands reaching out to support the two who were clearly in agony.

“Elev… elevator… be careful…”

Then they saw the “person” who stumbled out of the elevator.

That “person” had a red string with a barcode tied around their ankle.

They didn’t believe it was a prank. No one understood the look of death better than they did.

“Go! Get out! Leave this place now!”

This wasn’t the first time something bizarre had happened. Just two weeks ago, a ghost had been taken care of by members of the Observation Society. In fact, they still had agents stationed in the hospital.

The knowing doctors started evacuating people.

Even the clueless ones joined in.

The hospital lobby descended into chaos. People shouted from all directions:

“What’s happening?”

“Where are you? Don’t run around!”

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Is it an earthquake? A fire?”

“It’s an infectious disease! Get out now, don’t get close—!”

“Why aren’t you leaving? Go, now!” someone shouted at the man frozen in place.

The man jolted, like he’d just woken up. He looked around—his wife was nowhere to be seen. She had screamed once and then ran, leaving him behind.

Husband and wife are like birds in the forest—when disaster strikes, they fly their separate ways.

Who isn’t afraid of death?

But his legs felt like they were made of lead—he couldn’t move.

He saw his mother approaching, reeking of a familiar, nauseating smell—the smell of home. The smell had a color: gray.

She walked closer.

Face-to-face.

He saw her clearly—her tangled hair, her pallid face untouched by sunlight for a long time.

She reached out—and hugged him…

Everyone saw a gray dust spreading outward, drifting like a breeze, brushing the skin of those who couldn’t dodge in time.

“Ah!”

“Ahhh—!”

Screams erupted from all directions.

Those grotesque boils sprouted like spring seeds—pop—rising from the ground, multiplying rapidly, spreading across entire bodies in seconds.

Zhou Shurong couldn’t help cursing.

That dust—so much like yin energy—but even more twisted.

Thankfully, he was hiding in someone else’s shadow, safe and sound.