"What kind of organization is that?" The burn ward doctor furrowed his brow. Just from hearing the name alone, he got the impression it wasn't exactly friendly.
"It's a mutual aid association that people formed on their own initiative. The members are all like us — they each have their own story."
"I'm not comfortable being around a lot of people." The rumors and gossip had driven the woman he loved to her death. Since then, the doctor had refused to communicate with anyone. The only reason he'd talked so much with Chen Ge on the bus was because he had assumed, perhaps preemptively, that everyone on this bus had suffered something even more tragic than his own.
The doctor declined politely. Chen Ge didn't push the matter — after all, anyone hearing about such a strange association would naturally hesitate.
"If one day your body really can't hold on anymore, but you still want to see your wife, you can call me." Chen Ge left the doctor his phone number.
The doctor found it a bit odd, but still noted down Chen Ge's number.
"Brother, you mentioned there's a spectral building in Liwan Town. Could you tell me more about it?" Chen Ge wanted to extract as many clues from the doctor as possible. This was also helping the doctor himself, so Chen Ge felt no guilt about asking.
"That building... you need to search for it yourself inside the town. Sometimes—" The doctor stopped mid-sentence as the Route 104 bus suddenly slammed on its brakes. Every passenger lurched forward, and his words were cut off.
The electric scooter wobbled and tilted sideways, bumping into a woman in a hospital gown who sat with her head hanging low.
Her black hair completely obscured her face — not a single feature was visible. After the scooter made contact with her body, she remained exactly as she was, perfectly still.
"Did I hurt you?" Chen Ge quickly righted the scooter. He looked at the four women wearing hospital gowns in the middle of the bus, tilted his head, and slowly crouched down.
He wanted to see their faces and confirm their identities.
One hand steadying the scooter, the other gripping the seat back, Chen Ge adjusted his angle — but still couldn't see the woman's face. All four patients seemed to have hair growing not just from the backs of their heads but over their faces as well.
Still, Chen Ge wasn't coming away empty-handed. He spotted the name of a hospital printed on the patient gowns.
It was four characters long, but the first one was obscured. The last three read: — Heart Hospital.
Chen Ge mentally cycled through the hospitals in Jiujiang. The well-known ones were Central Hospital, People's Hospital, and Jiujiang Maternal and Child Health Hospital — he had never heard of any hospital with the character "heart" in its name.
"How did these four end up wandering out of the hospital in the middle of the night?"
These four patients were certainly not among the living. Whenever Chen Ge drew close to them, the hairs on his body instinctively stood on end. He had long grown familiar with the sensation — even accustomed to it.
"Four ghosts sitting together — why are they heading to Liwan Town?"
Chen Ge already understood why living people went to Liwan Town, but the reason for the dead going there still eluded him.
"My face is practically buried in her hair and these ladies still aren't reacting? A glance would be nice." Ghosts were not the same as the living — he couldn't just bring them back to his haunted house on a whim. He needed to observe and understand them over an extended period before he could feel comfortable letting them reside in his horror scenes.
Just as Chen Ge was trying to extract more information from the four female patients, the onboard announcement crackled to life. They had arrived at the next stop.
The doors slid open. Rain carried by the cold wind blew into the bus and landed on Chen Ge's back.
"It's raining this hard? Was the weather forecast really that far off?" Chen Ge turned around and looked at the platform outside the bus doors. One glance, and his gaze was locked in place.
Rain poured down in sheets. A woman in a red raincoat stood alone at the center of the bus stop.
Water streamed off the brim of her hood, soaking her hair.
"That was you on the phone with me that day?" Chen Ge stood inside the bus, staring at the woman outside.