The creaking sound of the pushed meal cart was slowly approaching. Zhao Mingyue took the initiative and walked forward. If the other party didn’t make a move, she’d just pretend she didn’t see it. After all, she had just arrived and didn’t understand the situation yet.
The cart pusher acted as if it hadn’t seen her, brushing right past her side.
Zhao Mingyue pressed herself against the wall, instinctively holding her breath. The ghost walked right past her eyes, carrying a burnt, greasy smell. It wasn’t pleasant, but still better than the stench of decay.
Zhao Mingyue heard the ghost muttering something in a low voice. Its tone was hoarse and gloomy.
“The chef is very short-handed. What should I do.”
It heavily emphasized the words “short-handed,” as if deliberately stressing them.
“Short-handed?”
In common parlance, “short-handed” meant needing helpers. For some reason, Zhao Mingyue felt that the “hands” this ghost spoke of were meant in the literal sense: human hands.
The meal cart continued onward. Zhao Mingyue’s eyes darted, and suddenly, a bold idea struck her.
In that extremely brief moment, she re-evaluated her purpose for coming here and her own positioning.
Just moments ago, she’d thought she should be cautious, try not to clash with the ghosts here, and see how things developed. But now, thinking it over carefully, something felt off. She came here as good as bringing Bai Yu to wreck the place. If she chickened out now after arriving, how would that work?
Wasn’t the other party targeting her and Bai Yu? They even proactively invited her here.
This time, she absolutely had to turn this place upside down. She didn’t have the strength, but Bai Yu did!
After discussing it with Bai Yu in her mind, Zhao Mingyue got her answer.
“Go ahead and do it. Leave everything else to me.”
“Alright!” Zhao Mingyue gripped her Magic Staff with both hands. It could be said that with this one sentence from Bai Yu, the gloom that had just been spreading in her heart vanished completely in an instant.
With Bai Yu backing her up, what was there to be afraid of?!
“Those guys hiding in the shadows must be trying to confuse me. I don’t believe it. That letter was just coincidence, placed here for me to find?”
“Mystery solving, is it? If I just charge straight into the wards one by one, do I still need to solve mysteries?”
“I’ll kill all the ghosts here for them. Let’s see if they can still sit tight!”
“If they have the guts, then let me keep solving mysteries and ignore me completely.”
“Even if all the ghosts are dead and they still don’t come out, I won’t be at a loss.”
Zhao Mingyue muttered to herself. A smile even appeared on her face. Where was the nervousness and fear from before? She was the complete opposite of the person who’d first entered the hospital. Even Bai Yu couldn’t help but wonder if this girl had been stimulated by something to change so drastically, so suddenly.
But this change was a good thing.
She had been wanting to remind Zhao Mingyue just earlier. Although the purpose of this trip was partly to temper her, constantly being timid wasn’t helpful.
The key wasn’t timidity, but steadiness. Acting decisively on a foundation of steadiness was the correct choice.
With her here, Zhao Mingyue didn’t need to be afraid of anything. She just needed to decipher the secrets of this place. That was more than enough.
Who knew, this girl didn’t even seem to want to decipher the secrets anymore.
The meal cart ghost walked to the next ward ahead and placed the saucer in front of the door. Just as it straightened up to leave, Zhao Mingyue arrived.
The ward door opened a crack, and a jet-black arm reached out to grab the saucer on the floor. Zhao Mingyue held her Magic Staff with both hands and shouted inwardly, “Miss Rabbit, give me courage!”
She lifted her leg and kicked straight at the ward door. The soles of her shoes were already covered with a network of Blood Threads. With a loud BANG, the ward door was violently kicked open by her. The Blood Threads clinging to the door frame crashed heavily into the pitch-black Evil Ghost, sending it flying.
The saucer remained where it was, crushed into flying ash by Zhao Mingyue’s stomp.
“Hmph, I knew it. If I didn’t solve the mystery, I wouldn’t be able to enter. Each ward definitely corresponds to a specific patient, and that patient’s list is in that Dr. Sun’s office.”
“As long as I followed the clues you gave, I’d definitely be lulled into a false sense of security, or become fearful and thus be affected by this place.”
“Ghosts are best at controlling mental energy, especially when a person is highly tense and fearful inside. To a ghost, fear is the best food.”
Zhao Mingyue stood at the ward doorway, watching the patient-gown-clad Fierce Ghost that had slammed into the wall, ready to flee through it but blocked by the Blood Threads. Her eyes were fierce, her smile confident. Well, that was how she felt, anyway. In reality, she wasn’t very fierce; she was more like a fierce yet adorable little thing.
Entering the room, Zhao Mingyue took a deep breath and even reached back to close the ward door.
In one hand, she carried her nine-jin solid-metal Magical Girl Wand, styled like a pointed hammer, its head angled towards the floor.
With her other hand, she put away her flashlight, stuffed it in her pocket, and also touched Miss Rabbit’s head.
Her movements somewhat bore the shadow of Bai Yu facing an enemy.
Bai Yu had been wondering just moments ago what kind of stimulation had caused Zhao Mingyue’s sudden drastic change. The reason wasn’t as complicated as she’d thought. On top of Zhao Mingyue’s belief that she should be just a tad more reckless, she was still pondering one question—a question she’d been thinking about since entering the hospital.
If she were Bai Yu, coming to this hospital alone, what would she do?
Yes, Bai Yu.
Zhao Mingyue didn’t want to be “herself” right now. She wanted to be Bai Yu. Because “Zhao Mingyue” was too cowardly, while “Bai Yu”—her actions were clean, decisive, and ruthless. No matter what happened, she could maintain a clear head. Emotions like fear and terror simply didn’t exist in her.
Closing in, Zhao Mingyue raised her hammer and aimed straight for the Evil Ghost’s head.
The Evil Ghost wore a patient gown, with a number on its chest.
Just as Zhao Mingyue had said, even if she solved the mysteries step by step, she’d eventually end up in these wards.
The hammer, covered in Blood Threads, solidly smashed onto the Evil Ghost’s head. The Evil Ghost tried to counterattack, but its speed was no match for Zhao Mingyue’s.
One hammer blow sent the Evil Ghost sprawling. Zhao Mingyue raised her hand and added another hammer strike.
Just as the Evil Ghost braced its hands on the ground to get up, the hammer came down again.
“Whoever you are, I’ll beat you to death first.”
The second hammer blow smashed the Evil Ghost back down. Zhao Mingyue continued to raise her arm, swinging the hammer with full force, really rounding it out. She even mused that it was a pity she didn’t have a knife in her hand, though the hammer was pretty handy too.
After three hammer blows, most of the Evil Ghost’s head had been smashed apart. It wondered how these two seemingly slender and weak arms could unleash such terrifying power.
The Evil Ghost stopped moving. Zhao Mingyue frowned.
If I were Bai Yu, seeing an enemy lying on the ground like this, having lost combat ability, what would I do?
Finish it off!
Right, definitely finish it off!
Seven consecutive hammer blows, all enhanced by Bai Yu’s Blood Thread Enchantment.
From Bai Yu’s perspective, the ghost was smashed to pieces, dissipating into black smoke and vanishing. It couldn’t be more dead.
“Little Sister Yu, there’s something here!”
Just as Zhao Mingyue was about to wipe away nonexistent sweat and sigh about how hard she’d worked, she saw a withered, branch-like, shriveled ghost hand reach out from the wall. It seemed to want to rescue that ghost, but it was a step too late because of Bai Yu’s obstruction.
A large swath of Blood Threads on the floor surged and wrapped around the wrist of this ghost hand, preventing it from retreating back into the wall to escape.
“This person must be a big fish!” Zhao Mingyue casually stuffed the Magic Staff into the opening of her backpack, then reached out and started pulling on the Blood Threads, helping Bai Yu drag the thing inside out.
Even when she’d kicked the door open, Zhao Mingyue had been putting up a bold front. Imitating Bai Yu wasn’t something achieved in an instant. But now, having personally killed a ghost, her confidence had doubled.
Perhaps realizing it couldn’t escape, the ghost behind the wall chose to sever its own arm to save its life. Before Zhao Mingyue could even exert much force, the arm was torn off, falling to the ground and dissipating into a cloud of black smoke, vanishing.
“There are more ghosts!” Zhao Mingyue’s eyes narrowed as she caught sight of another figure under one of the hospital beds from the corner of her eye.
A moment later, Zhao Mingyue emerged from this ward, Room 106. She even politely and conscientiously closed the door behind her.
Dusting off her hands, after successfully solo-killing two Ghostly Monsters, Zhao Mingyue no longer felt a shred of fear or terror.
Even without hugging Miss Rabbit at this moment, she felt the effects of Miss Rabbit’s buff.
That being…
With Little Sister Bai Yu here, I am invincible!
Bai Yu didn’t quite know what to say for a moment. She felt she understood Zhao Mingyue. This girl often lacked a bit of brainpower and was a bit scatterbrained and jumpy, but she never expected her to go from tiptoeing around completing a quest one moment to unleashing a Musou-style ghost slaughter the next.
“Mingyue, you… what’s gotten into you?” Bai Yu wondered if Zhao Mingyue had fallen under the enemy’s mental influence.
“Huh?”
“I mean, how did you suddenly become so… bold?”
“Because I just realized that being afraid is useless. Then it hit me: if our identities were swapped, what would you do if you were here?” Zhao Mingyue admitted openly.
“What would I do…”
For the next while, Zhao Mingyue started going in order, hammering her way through one ward after another. Some wards had as few as one ghost, others as many as three. She was truly like a Bai Yu-possessed force of nature, afraid of nothing and hammering everything from start to finish.
Even Bai Yu was momentarily speechless. She really wanted to say, “Girl, I, Bai Yu, have killed some people. My fighting style can be considered grand and sweeping, but I’m really not this reckless.”
If it were really her here, she would definitely prioritize solving the mystery, then use the clues to deduce the BOSS’s location, and then go straight for the kill without wasting time.
Drip. Drip.
In the first-floor restroom, Zhao Mingyue had just emerged from slaughtering a ward when she heard the sound of dripping water.
The first-floor restroom was very large and empty, usually used by patients for washing up and laundry.
Zhao Mingyue walked in, Magic Staff in hand, heading towards the dripping faucet.
The faucet had been dripping for who knows how long; the sink was almost overflowing.
Gradually, Zhao Mingyue noticed the dripping liquid turning reddish, until it had completely transformed into fresh blood.
The speed of the blood dripping and flowing increased. The water in the sink was tainted with red, bubbling and gurgling outward. Soon, something floated to the surface. It appeared to be a human head. Zhao Mingyue saw the thick mass of black hair.
At the same time, the sound of violent banging against doors came from the toilet stalls. Something inside wanted to get out.
She was in the Women’s Restroom. In the darkness of night, an eerie dark red glow began to emanate from within the restroom, as if the Hell Gate were opening.
The sink in front of her bubbled even more violently. That head began to turn, the bloated, swollen face aligning towards Zhao Mingyue. Its eyes, showing only the whites, snapped open and began streaming with blood.
BANG BANG BANG!
The banging from inside the stalls grew more and more frantic. Just from the sound alone, it was clear the stall doors wouldn’t hold for much longer.
The thing inside was about to come out.
At the same moment, if Zhao Mingyue hadn’t misheard, similar commotion was coming from the Men’s Restroom next door.
She now had two choices. One: leave now and trigger a chase scene, hiding somewhere until these two things left. But there was a high chance they wouldn’t return to their original spots; they would only wander the building, potentially running into her at any moment.
Two: stay and fight these two things head-on.
“Bai Yu, you take the Men’s Restroom. I’ll handle the Women’s.”
As soon as her words fell, a graceful silhouette stepped out from behind her back, like her own reflection inverted.
“Alright.”
Bai Yu spoke, pressing the head in the sink back down with one hand, then expressionlessly walked outside.
This girl Zhao Mingyue was trying hard to prove her worth. She had no doubt been influenced by the Dragon Girl’s words. She’d said more than once that she didn’t want to be a burden. It was nearly becoming an obsession.
Once they were out of here, she’d find a chance to have a proper talk with her.
Though, what exactly would she talk about? To be honest, this change was a good one, wasn’t it?
Accompanied by a muffled bang in the Women’s Restroom, the Fierce Ghost shrieked and flew out, charging straight for Zhao Mingyue. Its hands had black, claw-like nails.
This Fierce Ghost hadn’t reached the Red-Clothed level. Its clothes were merely stained with some blood that hadn’t fully spread. It could only barely be considered a Half Red-Clothed.
And from the Men’s Restroom, it was a brawny, elderly male doctor, his white coat completely soaked red with blood.
· · ·
On the hospital rooftop, the Rabbit Mask Girl sat on the edge of the building, swinging her slender legs, clad in black-and-white striped stockings, back and forth. In her hands, she toyed with a bloodstained Rubik’s Cube.
Behind her, three masked individuals were discussing something.
Their target today was Zhao Mingyue. The plan was to stage a strange encounter, a ghost story for her, then cure the “illness” of their new member Wang Xinxin. After that, they’d capture the ghost inside Zhao Mingyue and bring it back. Their Boss was very interested in her.
As for Lu Liangting, he was an unexpected variable.
Lu Liangting wasn’t the priority; two members had already been dispatched to hunt him down. The main issue was with Zhao Mingyue.
Zhao Mingyue wasn’t following their planned steps at all. She wasn’t being chased by the two Fierce Ghosts to the second floor or Dr. Sun’s office. Instead, this woman had directly started fighting the two Fierce Ghosts.
They had some method of linking to the ghosts’ vision. From the perspective of one of the Imps, they clearly saw that Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost Doctor fail to withstand even a few moves from the quest target before being hacked into a pile of minced flesh.
Their quest target was even leaning against the wall, her gaze fixed directly on the Imp they were using for surveillance.
They had absolutely no idea how they’d been discovered. Judging by the shape of her mouth, she was clearly saying:
‘Scram.’
Only then did they realize something seemed very wrong.
“It’s fine. We have numbers. No. 7, find a way to lure Zhao Mingyue to the third floor and surround-kill her directly!”
One of the masked ones started giving orders. Hearing this, the Rabbit Girl sitting on the edge of the rooftop shook her head.
“Sigh, working with these vermin, how could we ever complete the quest properly?”
