Chapter 1176: Whose Heart Lies in the Jar

Seven corpses had appeared in the hospital in a short span of time. Each death was bizarre in its own way, and there was no obvious thread connecting them.

"Dr. Sun asked me to pay attention to how they died, but looking at the cause of death alone doesn't reveal much. Could Dr. Sun be trying to use these seven people's stories to tell me that ghosts really exist?"

Chen Ge had far too little information. He couldn't extract much of value from Dr. Sun's stories and could only force every detail into his memory.

Outside the hospital, lightning split the sky and thunder rolled. The downpour hammered the glass windows like a hysterical patient, fat raindrops pelting down with a ceaseless boom.

The four of them reached the entrance to the fourth ward's corridor. Dr. Sun stopped questioning Chen Ge and simply led the way upstairs.

Once inside the corridor, Chen Ge's heartbeat began to quicken. He felt like he couldn't catch his breath, and Dr. Sun's stories kept replaying in his mind.

"That doctor who monitored the surveillance once saw a strange figure dressed in red appear in the corridor. That person went upstairs and never came back down. Tonight is far too strange—could we run into her?"

By all rights this should have been terrifying, but after the thought crossed his mind, all Chen Ge felt was his heartbeat accelerating, along with an indescribable emotion stirring inside him.

It was complicated. More than fear, it was curiosity and excitement.

"Curiosity killed the cat. I need to calm down."

When they reached the second floor, Chen Ge noticed a headless cloth doll sitting at the stairwell landing.

The doll had been hand-stitched. Its body was torn open, revealing blackish-red stuffing inside.

"Why would something like this be in a hospital?" Chen Ge was about to walk over when someone grabbed his hospital gown. He turned around and saw it was Patient No. 2. "What's wrong?"

"You've got a broken leg and you're still this reckless? Don't go wandering off—stay close to us." Patient No. 2's tone was full of genuine worry. It was clear he truly had Chen Ge's well-being at heart.

"Alright, I just wanted to take a closer look." Chen Ge didn't quite understand it himself, but his eyesight was remarkably sharp. Even in darkness he could make out details clearly enough. It was probably some kind of eye condition, or so he told himself.

Walking up to the corner of the wall, Chen Ge slowly furrowed his brow. The doll's body seemed to contain animal organs. It looked rather repulsive.

"Don't get too close. There used to be a pregnant woman in this hospital. A mistake by the obstetrician caused her baby's death. After she was resuscitated, her mental state deteriorated. She was transferred to the third ward, and during her stay she kept searching for her child." Dr. Sun stared blankly at the doll on the ground.

"Are you saying this doll was put here by that pregnant woman?"

"Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone else. In truth, she was quite pitiable. Perhaps the blow was too great—she refused to acknowledge that her child had died. She kept telling everyone around her that her child was still alive, right beside her, and that at night it would crawl up next to her pillow." Dr. Sun pulled Chen Ge away from the headless doll.

"Would you call that delusional disorder?" Chen Ge asked. He'd been sick long enough to have picked up a thing or two.

"Partly, and partly not." Dr. Sun turned back with a faint smile. "That pregnant woman's situation is rather similar to yours. She refused treatment. Perhaps somewhere inside she understood that once she was cured, she might never see her child again."

"Similar to mine?" Chen Ge was somewhat confused.

"If the price of being cured was forgetting every story you ever fabricated, forgetting every person in those stories, would you still agree to treatment?" Dr. Sun said it offhandedly, but Chen Ge felt it was a test.

He thought carefully for a moment, then gave no answer. He had no intention of revealing what he truly felt.

"A patient who never wanted to be cured from the start—no amount of doctoring will help. The pregnant woman's condition worsened. She would often shred bedsheets and curtains to make simple dolls, then place those dolls on the stairway. She believed that doing so would bring her child back. To this day I still don't understand what she meant by 'come back'—whether the child would be drawn to the dolls and return to find its mother, or whether the dead child would crawl inside the doll's body and come back to keep her company."

"Whatever the case, I don't think we should hate this doll. It may look frightening, but it contains that pregnant woman's obsession." Chen Ge stood in front of the headless doll with his plaster-cast leg, and his words caught both Patient No. 2 and Dr. Sun off guard.

"You're sympathizing with the pregnant woman?" Dr. Sun wanted to confirm.

"I wouldn't say it's sympathy exactly. Let's think about this rationally—did that pregnant woman do anything wrong? Even if that child became a ghost, did the child do anything wrong?" Chen Ge's way of thinking ran differently from the doctor's. "They're both victims. The one truly at fault is whoever killed them."

"You think this tragedy was caused by the doctor?" Dr. Sun had barely finished speaking when Dr. Gao, who had been moving like a walking corpse, furrowed his brow slightly.

"It may not necessarily be the doctor's fault, but it's certainly related to him. So many things have happened in this hospital—who can guarantee that the doctor wasn't being interfered with by some kind of entity during the operation?" Chen Ge looked at the headless doll at the stairwell landing. "Wrongdoings have their origin, debts have their debtor. If something insists on seeking an answer, then the blame should fall on whatever exists in this hospital."

"Are you trying to reason with ghosts?" Patient No. 2 couldn't make sense of Chen Ge's behavior either.

"Whether ghosts exist in this world is still uncertain. I'm merely stating my own view." Chen Ge shifted his gaze. "The hospital gets cleaned during the day. The fact that this doll is here in the corridor now means that pregnant woman might still be alive. There are other survivors in the hospital, and that's good news for us."

"That pregnant woman passed away during the third month of her treatment. When she died, we found her cabinet completely filled with dolls." After Dr. Sun finished speaking, Chen Ge and Patient No. 2 froze.

"She's already gone? Then who put this doll here?" Patient No. 2 still didn't believe in ghosts. "The people who would know about the pregnant woman would be the doctors. The killer is imitating what the pregnant woman did back then—could the killer be one of the doctors?"

As soon as he said it, he looked at Dr. Sun with open suspicion. Honestly, he suspected Dr. Sun quite strongly.

"When Zhang Jingjiu was injured, both Dr. Sun and Dr. Gao were with us. Even if the killer is a doctor, we can rule them both out." Between a doctor being the killer and a vengeful spirit returning, Chen Ge felt the latter was more probable.

Amid the争论, the group reached the second floor. The empty corridor was plastered with photographs of doctors, and the scene gave Chen Ge a strange sense of déjà vu.