Outside the last operating room, Qing Li stood silently, observing the scene within.
A man in a white lab coat, wearing a surgical mask, steadily held a scalpel in his hand. With precise movements, he slowly made an incision into Zhu Daqiang’s scalp. Strands of black mist, condensed into thread-like forms, were stripped away and redirected into Zhu Daqiang’s head.
On the operating table, Zhu Daqiang, now more beast than human, let out guttural roars. His eyes were wide open, blood streaming down his eye sockets…
Qing Li watched intently, her gaze focused with curiosity. This was the first time she had ever witnessed a surgery being performed on a ghost.
Of course, the most intriguing part was this: the man before her appeared to be alive.
[Villager girl, save Number 89!]
[Number 89 is so miserable! Was he flayed alive by a ghost?]
[Even though this guy is wearing a mask, his eyes are so beautiful. Wild guess: he must be really handsome.]
When the man completely peeled away Zhu Daqiang’s scalp, a trace of disappointment flashed in his eyes.
Another failure…
“Young lady, this isn’t a place you should be,” the man said suddenly. His tone was unhurried as he removed his gloves, then his mask, revealing an unusual face.
Unusual, because while his features were flawless, they gave off a faint sense of discordance, as if pieced together from the most perfect puzzle pieces. His lips were a striking crimson, and the corners of his mouth were tightly sewn shut with dense stitches.
Yet, this didn’t detract from his looks. Instead, it added an unsettling, almost morbid allure.
Qing Li carefully observed the man again. He was definitely alive. She smiled innocently. “I got lost and accidentally wandered in here. Can you help me find my way out?”
She expected him to refuse, but to her surprise, he smiled gently. “Of course.”
[Villager girl, don’t let his looks fool you! This guy screams ‘psycho’!]
[He doesn’t seem like a ghost. He feels human.]
[Come on, did you see him peel off Number 89’s scalp? Even if he’s human, he’s definitely not a good one.]
At this moment, the viewers in the livestream had no idea that Number 89 was already a ghost.
If they knew the man was performing surgery on a ghost, the shock would have been even greater.
The man walked ahead of Qing Li, his shadow stretching long under the crimson lighting. His unnerving face was bathed in a faint red hue.
In the palm of her hand, Qing Li quietly summoned a finger bone—a tool she had acquired after killing the female ghost.
She silently activated the item, and the finger bone vanished from her hand.
It was a curse-type tool. Once used, it would bring the target a streak of misfortune, potentially fatal in severe cases.
Qing Li’s instincts warned her that this man was dangerous, so she didn’t hesitate to test him with the cursed item.
However, as soon as the tool’s curse began to take effect, the dark aura of misfortune surrounding the man was completely absorbed and dissipated.
“Young lady, that’s not very obedient of you,” the man said, turning to face her. A faint smirk tugged at his lips, pulling at the stitched threads. His expression radiated an eerie malice.
“Just a little joke,” Qing Li replied with a lighthearted smile.
The cramped corridor grew increasingly oppressive, the atmosphere heavy with an unspoken tension.
“Oh, really—”
The man’s voice lingered at the end of his sentence as he continued walking forward.
For a fleeting moment, Qing Li felt an unprecedented pressure weighing down on her, so intense it nearly forced her to reveal her trump card.
This strange and mysterious space undoubtedly harbored untold horrors.
With the man leading the way, the journey proceeded uneventfully. At the end of the corridor, a concrete staircase came into view. He stopped, curling his lips into a faintly amused smile. “Young lady, until we meet again.”
Leaving those words behind, he turned and disappeared into the corridor, his figure fading from sight.
—
[System: Number 100, here’s some advice—do not provoke that man.]
The system’s cold, mechanical voice delivered a rare warning.
Qing Li narrowed her eyes slightly. “And if I do?”
[System: Then you court death.]
Qing Li ignored the system. After all, she was the type of person who, despite weighing 98 pounds, carried 97 pounds of defiance.
They told her not to provoke him? Well, that was exactly what she would do.
She opened her palm, revealing a work badge she had stealthily taken from the last operating room. The badge clearly displayed a photo of the man, along with a name: [Chu Ci].
—
Thump—thump—thump—
The dull sound of a bouncing ball echoed faintly, growing closer and closer.
“Sister, will you play with me?”
A boy’s voice suddenly sounded behind Qing Li.
She turned around to see a young boy in hospital attire standing before her. His face was pale, almost translucent, with a faint bluish tinge. His thin frame radiated frailty, and his pitch-black eyes brimmed with hopeful anticipation as he waited for Qing Li’s response.
[Hint 3: Don’t play hide-and-seek with him.]
“Sure!” Qing Li answered with a bright smile.
“Then let’s play hide-and-seek, okay?” The boy’s childish voice echoed eerily in the silent hospital corridor, carrying an unsettling undertone.
The boy clutched a balloon, his head tilted down. When he lifted his gaze, his dark eyes locked onto Qing Li with a piercing stare.
Qing Li nodded cheerfully. “Mm, I love hide-and-seek!”
“Then I’ll be the seeker. Sister, go hide now,” the boy said in a chilling tone.
As his words fell, the livestream viewers noticed that the already dim corridor seemed to grow darker.
[I think this boy must be the one responsible for the bloody writing on the walls.]
[In this place, the more humanlike a ghost appears, the more powerful they are. Villager girl, be careful.]
[Misbehaving kids? Just give them a good smack.]
[With Villager Girl around, you might want to worry about the boy instead!]
—
“One, two, three…”
The boy closed his eyes and began to count slowly.
As he counted, an eerie chill filled the air, the corridor blanketed in a thin, bone-chilling mist that sent shivers down the spine.
Qing Li eyed the familiar operating room. Without hesitation, she opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it in one seamless motion.
Inside, she was greeted by a familiar face. Smiling, she waved and greeted him cheerfully, “Hi! Didn’t expect us to meet again so soon, Doctor Chu—Ci.”
She deliberately drew out his name, her clear and soft voice playful yet disarming.
Standing before Chu Ci was a corpse, bloodied and gruesome. He looked up at Qing Li, his expression calm and composed.
“Quite soon indeed,” he replied with a smile, grabbing a disinfectant wipe to leisurely clean his bloodstained fingers.
Qing Li’s gaze drifted to the operating table, where she recognized the unfortunate soul of Number 89, Zhu Daqiang.
Even after death, his soul had been experimented on, and now his body wasn’t spared either.
“Is Doctor Chu experimenting with corpse resurrection?” Qing Li asked, a teasing tone lacing her words.
Chu Ci’s slightly upturned eyes twitched ever so faintly. He murmured, “Corpse resurrection?”
It was evident that this was the first time he’d heard such a term.
“Doctor Chu binds the ghosts of the dead to their corpses—aren’t you trying to bring them back to life?” Qing Li grinned and casually slapped a yellow talisman onto the corpse’s forehead.
The corpse, which had been lying with its eyes wide open in death, suddenly twitched its eyelids.
—
[Holy crap, it moved!]
[No way, the corpse’s eyes just opened!]
[What kind of magic did Villager Girl just pull off? That talisman is insane!]
[Is this resurrection? This is blowing my mind!]
—
Not just the livestream viewers, but even Chu Ci, who had remained expressionless all along, showed a flicker of genuine surprise.
A procedure he had spent years unsuccessfully researching had been effortlessly accomplished by this young woman right before his eyes.
For a brief moment, Qing Li felt the intensity of the man’s newly ignited interest as his gaze lingered on her, brimming with curiosity and fervor.