Chapter 43

Chapter 43

The two of them reached the underground parking garage.

“What now? How are you going to get back up?” Wen Miao turned to look at the elevator, which had just slowly closed its doors and begun its ascent, a look of confusion on her face.

“It’s fine. I know where there’s an internal elevator.”

He had an old man to thank for that. Earlier that afternoon, the man had stopped him to ask for directions to the orthopedics department. Nan Mu had spent quite a while leading him around the hospital, which gave him the chance to discover this particular service elevator.

Nan Mu pulled on his mask. He had been spooked earlier, so even in the deserted underground garage, he was taking full precautions.

After leading Wen Miao through a series of twists and turns, they finally found the “legendary” internal elevator. It was large, seemingly designed to accommodate hospital beds.

A shattered yellow sign lay on the ground by the elevator doors, looking as if it had been run over by a vehicle.

“Who was driving? Their skills are terrible…” Nan Mu muttered as he stepped over the debris and pressed the call button.

Wen Miao lifted her leg, intending to kick the fragments to the side, but the elevator arrived quickly. She immediately abandoned the thought and followed Nan Mu inside.

Nan Mu pressed the button for the seventh floor.

The doors slid shut, followed by the mechanical female voice of the elevator announcement: “Going up-”

The elevator jolted upward for a moment, but for some reason, the numbers on the display started jumping erratically. Then, the elevator seemed to grind to a halt.

“What’s happening?” Wen Miao gripped the handrails on both sides of the elevator tightly. “Is it breaking down?”

This was the first time Nan Mu had experienced something like this. He pressed the door-open button, but there was no response. He then reached for the emergency call button.

Fortunately, someone picked up. After learning they were trapped and confirming the elevator was currently stationary, the operator told them not to jump around and to wait a moment; they would dispatch someone to handle it immediately.

Wen Miao breathed a sigh of relief, patting her chest. “That scared the life out of me. Thank goodness someone answered…”

Before she could finish, the elevator suddenly shuddered. Having just let go of the handrails, Wen Miao lost her balance and pitched forward. Nan Mu instinctively reached out to grab her arm, pulling her toward him with enough force that she ended up huddled in his arms.

The elevator gave a violent shake and dropped a floor before getting caught on something again and coming to a stop.

The two of them stared at each other, hearts racing, before realizing they were standing far too close.

Wen Miao was the first to let go. In her panic, she had clung tightly to Nan Mu’s waist the moment she got close to him. Now, she felt a searing heat spreading from her arms all the way to her fingertips.

As the initial terror faded, the silence in the elevator became stifling. Wen Miao felt like she should say something, but she had no idea what. *Say something, anything… anything at all.*

Steeling herself, Wen Miao managed a dry, awkward comment. “Talk about bad luck. What a piece of junk elevator…”

“Yeah, it is pretty crappy.”

Wen Miao: “…”

*No, I can’t let the conversation end there.* Wen Miao didn’t dare let her eyes wander, so she stared fixedly at the elevator doors while racking her brain for another topic. “I wonder when the rescue team will get here?”

“They should be on their way.”

And just like that, the conversation died again. The atmosphere in the elevator grew increasingly strange and awkward, to the point where a bizarre thought popped into Wen Miao’s head: *Maybe the elevator should just shake again?* She really couldn’t think of anything else to say…

Fortunately, at that moment, Nan Mu finally seemed to remember how to speak. “I just thought of a story.”

Desperate to break the silence, Wen Miao gave an encouraging reply. “What kind of story?”
“I heard this from a doctor while I was at the hospital these past few days. He said that one day, he had just finished an emergency shift in the middle of the night. It was around the same time as it is now.”

Nan Mu gave his phone a little shake. Wen Miao saw the time on the screen jump from 23:59 to 00:00.

“He was taking the elevator home that night, and there happened to be a nurse inside when he got in. The two of them rode down together, but when the elevator reached the first floor, the doors didn’t open. Instead, it kept descending straight to the third basement level. Then, the doors slowly slid open, and he saw a little girl standing right outside.”

Nan Mu paused for a moment before continuing. “Suddenly, the doctor slammed the ‘close door’ button.

“The nurse asked, ‘Why didn’t you let her in?’

“The doctor replied, ‘The third basement is the hospital morgue. The hospital ties a red ribbon around the right wrist of every patient who passes away… and that girl had a red ribbon tied around her wrist.'”

It was only then that Wen Miao realized Nan Mu was actually telling a ghost story. She couldn’t help but swat at him. “What is wrong with you? Why are you telling ghost stories at this hour?”

Nan Mu was just getting into the swing of it and had no intention of stopping. “No, it’s true. I just heard it from an ER doctor this morning. And I’m not even finished yet; there’s more. When the nurse heard that, she gave a sinister laugh-”

“I’m not listening! I’m not listening!”

Wen Miao covered her ears, trying to drown out Nan Mu’s ghost story with her own voice.

After a moment, Nan Mu seemed to have finished. She finally let go of her ears and said crossly, “The hospital doesn’t even have a third basement! You’re a liar!”

Nan Mu chuckled. “Then I remembered wrong. It was the second basement.”

“Nonsense! Aren’t the first and second basements both underground parking lots?”

Nan Mu asked with mock seriousness, “Have you ever been to the second basement?”

Wen Miao froze. Of course she hadn’t been to the second basement. She didn’t have a car, so she usually didn’t go underground; she always left through the main entrance of the hospital lobby on the first floor.

But even if she hadn’t eaten pork, hadn’t she at least seen a pig run? If the first basement was a parking lot, then the second basement… shouldn’t it be a parking lot too?

She suddenly hesitated, unsure if her logic held up.

Seeing that Wen Miao had never been to the second basement, Nan Mu continued with absolute certainty, “You haven’t, right? The second basement is the morgue.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Just as Wen Miao finished speaking, the elevator suddenly emitted a series of creaks and groans, swaying as it descended another floor.

Both of them watched the elevator display screen. The characters for ‘B1’ flickered and buzzed for a long while before finally changing to ‘B2’.

*Ding-dong-*

“Second basement floor reached,” the cold, mechanical female voice announced, making Wen Miao jump.

Almost as a reflex, she instantly grabbed Nan Mu’s arm and held on tight, her eyes fixed on the elevator doors.

The doors slowly slid open. Through the widening gap, both of them could clearly see a blood-red light illuminating the dim area outside…

“Didn’t you see the warning sign? I’m fixing the damn elevator, why the hell are you riding it?”

As the doors opened, a repairman wearing a red vest stood outside, grumbling and cursing. When he saw the two of them, he glared. “Don’t you know this elevator is under maintenance? Why are you still using it?”

Nan Mu and Wen Miao instantly thought of the shattered yellow fragments near the entrance on the first floor that someone had smashed into.

So, it turned out *that* was the warning sign…