Chapter 91
Chapter 91
Blind and foolish.
Tu Nan chewed on those words. Her subconscious urged her to climb out of bed. Ignoring the weeping He Ling, she began to observe her surroundings.
It was a somewhat familiar dormitory, messy and cluttered. To the left of the entrance was a door; her intuition told her it was the bathroom.
Tu Nan walked over, her hand pausing just as it touched the door handle.
A question popped into her mind.
What would it look like inside once she pushed this door open?
Would it be clean and bright, or damp and dim?
She pushed the door open, and a wave of damp air hit her face. It was a terrible bathroom. The mirror directly facing the door reflected her current appearance.
A pale, thin face with long hair tied back in a simple ponytail. She looked drained of energy.
She tried to pull at the corners of her mouth, and the person in the mirror smiled along with her. However, there was still no mirth in those eyes, making the smile appear stiff.
She withdrew her gaze and tried hard to think about what she should be doing now.
Clearly, her day’s work was over, yet she felt an inexplicable sense of anxiety. It was as if something was pushing her from behind, refusing to let her stop, as if there was still something waiting for her to do.
Tu Nan stood still for a moment, thinking, then walked over to He Ling, who was still crying.
Her intuition told her that the person in front of her was important.
But as for why she was important, she wasn’t clear yet.
“Stop crying,” Tu Nan said, crouching down in front of her. “Did you kill her on purpose? If not, what you should be doing isn’t crying, but pulling yourself together.”
He Ling’s movements paused. She slowly raised her tear-stained face to look at her.
Her eyes were red and swollen; she had clearly been crying for a long time.
“On purpose?” She tilted her head, her expression turning twisted for a moment. “What do you know? How could I possibly have done it on purpose!”
“She was so important to me, how could I have killed her on purpose!” He Ling screamed at her. “It’s all the fault of that damned patient… Why wasn’t it him who died? Why does this damned mission have to require getting a positive review from the patient!”
Tu Nan’s breathing suddenly quickened.
Patient… mission… positive review…
Fragmented memories flooded into her brain all at once. She clutched her head, barely able to withstand the influx.
“A natural-born monster like him will definitely go to hell!” He Ling continued to curse viciously. “I really don’t understand. He was just a mission target. Why did Weichun have to accept the red string he gave her!”
A faint memory fragment flashed through Tu Nan’s mind.
A slender, pale wrist with a red string tied around it.
“It’s one thing to accept it, but she actually wore it!” He Ling grew more and more agitated, her eyes bloodshot as if she were possessed. “She even told me she thought he might not be a bad person. Otherwise, why would his file say he has an extraordinary desire to save women!”
Tu Nan snapped her head up to look at her.
She remembered. She finally remembered!
Who she was, why she was here, and what she needed to do now.
“York?” she asked, her voice raspy. “The patient you’re talking about is York, right? He was the patient Yi Weichun was responsible for?”
He Ling’s cursing stopped abruptly.
She looked at Tu Nan with a strange expression. “How do you know that?”
“He is the patient I am currently responsible for.”
“Is that so?” He Ling looked deeply at her and suddenly burst into laughter. “You really are unlucky. Hahahaha! No matter which woman it is, once they get involved with him, they always meet a miserable end.”
Tu Nan frowned.
In truth, she was deeply concerned about the time dilation between this dreamscape and reality.
She had been trapped in this dream for a long time. If the time ratio between the dream and reality was one-to-one, then the task the Dean had assigned her had already failed.
Even more terrifying was the fact that at the beginning of this dream layer, she had even forgotten who she was.
If the dream shattered into another layer, she might very well lose herself within it and never wake up again.
But right now, she had no choice but to resolve the predicament before her first.
“Calm down first,” she said, attempting to soothe He Ling.
In the previous dream layer, it was precisely because of He Ling’s volatile emotions that the dream had shattered.
It was now certain that the dream she was currently in belonged to He Ling.
And the cause of Yi Weichun’s death was the key to this dreamscape.
Perhaps only by unraveling this mystery could she escape from the dream.
She decided not to provoke He Ling for now. Tomorrow, she would go to the hospital’s Archives Room to see if she could find any useful information.
For now, she needed to find a way to establish an Anchor Point for herself within this dream-something that would let her know exactly where she was every time she saw it.
She poured a cup of water for He Ling and comforted her for a while. Although it didn’t seem to do much and He Ling continued to weep incessantly, her emotional fluctuations were at least less intense than before.
Tu Nan climbed into bed and lay there for a while, contemplating her next move.
The faint, intermittent sound of He Ling’s sobbing drifted up from below the bed. Perhaps due to exhaustion, Tu Nan eventually drifted off into a hazy sleep while listening to it.
*
The next day, Tu Nan got out of bed early.
He Ling was still sitting by the desk. Having likely stayed up all night, her complexion was as ghastly as a ghost’s.
Even so, she still had to go to work.
While at the nurse’s station previously, Tu Nan had overheard the nurses gossiping about how detailed patient files were kept in the Archives Room. The file the Head Nurse had given her earlier only contained basic records of the patient’s condition. The files in the Archives Room would be much more detailed, potentially even including specific incidents involving the patients during their stay at the hospital.
Understandably, the Archives Room was not a place just anyone could enter.
The Archives Room was located on the Third Floor, directly across from the Head Nurse’s office door. The door was secured with a large Lock. After some inquiries, Tu Nan learned that the key was in the Head Nurse’s possession.
People passed by the Head Nurse’s office frequently during the day. If the Lock on the Archives Room was opened, it would certainly be discovered immediately.
She could only go at night, and she had to find an opportunity to steal the Archives Room key from the Head Nurse.
As everyone knew, the Head Nurse was a giant deep-sea Octopus. An Octopus possessed extremely high intelligence, and Tu Nan wasn’t confident she could steal a key from one.
She didn’t have much interaction with the Head Nurse and had only seen her a handful of times, let alone knowing where she might keep the key.
Tu Nan thought long and hard.
Due to those long tentacles, the Head Nurse didn’t like wearing the hospital uniform, only hanging her ID badge around her neck. From this, it was evident she didn’t carry the key on her person. The most likely possibility was that the key was kept inside her office.
And the Head Nurse locked her office door every time she finished work.
She needed to sneak into the Head Nurse’s office before she clocked out, then find a way to subdue her, locate the key, and finally use it to open the door to the Archives Room.
The problem was: how was she supposed to subdue a Head Nurse whose single tentacle could take on three of her?