Blood Handprint - Chapter 2
At that moment, neither Wenshan nor anyone else present saw or could have imagined that a smile appeared on the face of the deceased as the doors slowly closed.
As they returned to the door of the duty room, a nurse suddenly screamed, "Look! The handprints on the door are gone—"
The tension that had just subsided surged back into his throat, and everyone stood frozen in place. Suddenly, Wenshan's blood boiled, and he kicked open the door to the duty room. Finding no one inside, he rushed out again, opening every single door in the first-floor corridor, turning on the lights, and searching carefully, but still found no one.
---Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [4]: Wenshan, furious, returned to the group of people and shouted, "Someone must be playing a prank. You three in a group, search the front and back, upstairs and downstairs. Turn on all the lights and search carefully—"
They searched until midnight, but still found nothing. Enraged, Wenshan's forehead arteries throbbed wildly as he chain-smoked. The medical staff, exhausted and weakened by Wenshan's infection, were no longer afraid and assumed it was a prank.
Under the cover of night, he got on his motorcycle and went home.
two
The next day, explosive news spread from the hospital. This news wasn't about the strange events Wenshan had encountered the previous night, but rather that the corpse involved had vanished. The doctors and nurses who had experienced the strange events that night were understandably alarmed, and the case of the stolen corpse was none of Wenshan's concern. What remained for Wenshan was an inescapable, sullen melancholy, like a fishhook tangled at the bottom of the water—he knew he was entangled, yet he couldn't see or untangle himself. The fishhook, unlike him, could be broken and discarded, but he had no idea how to break free. Those soft knocks on the door were like needles piercing his memory, echoing in his mind at any moment.
"It must be a prank," Wenshan finally realized.
There must be some connection between the bloody handprint and the stolen corpse. Unable to completely extricate himself from the situation, Wenshan had no choice but to confront it, first calming himself down and then beginning to deduce the connection between the two events.
He didn't know the motives of the person who stole the body, but that's another matter. The person was quite clever; first, they smeared blood on the corpse's hands—perhaps blood that Wenshan had donated but hadn't used up, maybe blood-stained cotton or used blood bags they found in the hospital trash. Then they left a handprint on the duty room door, and then knocked on it mysteriously with something. After hearing Wenshan get up, they ran to an empty room across the hall or next door and hid. When Wenshan and everyone else went to the morgue, they came out again and wiped the bloody handprint off the door. After doing all this, they left the hospital. After seeing Wenshan, who had been causing trouble all night, leave, they probably sneaked back into the hospital in the early hours of the morning. This time, their real purpose was to steal the body.
The corpse thief was extremely skilled and cunning. His purpose was clearly to create panic in the hospital to cover up or divert attention from the theft of the body. He had already achieved half of his goal; aside from Wenshan, almost everyone was talking about the zombie's resurrection. During this time, because the branch office had no clue about the corpse theft case, the rumors intensified. Almost no one dared to pass by the road in front of the hospital at night. Even more bizarrely, some people claimed to have seen figures hopping around on the road in front of the hospital at night, exactly like zombies in movies. When his wife, Wang Yu, told him about this, he scoffed and asked, "Was the zombie that person saw also dressed in Qing Dynasty official robes like in the movies?"
No matter how much Wenshan scoffed at it, Wang Yu firmly stood on the side of the rumors. She secretly bought pomelo leaves, boiled them into water, and insisted that Wenshan bathe in the pomelo leaf water, saying it was a custom in her hometown that could ward off evil spirits. Wenshan, both amused and exasperated, could not refuse and had no choice but to take a bath in the fishy pomelo leaf water.
Rumors are just rumors. After zombies appeared in people's mouths a dozen times, people busy making a living soon realized that talking about zombies couldn't fill their stomachs, so gradually the zombies disappeared.
Half a month later, Wenshan gradually forgot about that night. He attended an old classmate's wedding banquet at noon, drank a little too much, and didn't go back to the police station, going straight home to sleep. Not long after, Wenshan started dreaming. He was walking on that empty road again. He kept walking and walking until he bumped into a door. He tried to push it open, but couldn't. He gave up, turned around, and started walking back. He walked for a long time without feeling tired; he felt like a machine, only his feet moving. There was nothing in front of him. Suddenly, he started thinking, "Why am I walking like this? Where am I going?" He asked himself these questions and wanted to stop. Just as he stopped, he felt a hard kick from behind, and then his body plummeted downwards...
Wenshan woke up with a start, drenched in sweat and panting heavily.
After drinking a glass of water and calming down, he carefully recalled the dream. All he could remember was walking endlessly, then a door he couldn't open, and then... he woke up in a fright.
After that, Wenshan had the same dream almost every day, and eventually, when he tried to stop, he would be kicked awake. Until that night...
In the evening, a light rain suddenly started to fall. His wife was away on a business trip, and he was home alone. Wenshan watched TV for a while and felt sleepy, but he didn't want to go to sleep right away. He knew he would have that dream again, and the repetition of it made him annoyed. However, he couldn't control the dream. Frustrated, he opened a bottle of baijiu (Chinese liquor) and drank it while walking around the living room without using a glass.
"Damn it, let's see if you still dream when you're drunk!" Wenshan said fiercely to the bottle, as if the bottle itself were that hateful dream.
Suddenly, he stared blankly at the bottle. It reminded him of someone—the person who gave him the bottle: Lu Kang, his childhood neighbor. Wasn't Lu Kang now a psychiatric specialist at the city's rehabilitation hospital? Wenshan immediately put down the bottle, pulled Lu Kang's business card from his drawer, and, without thinking, called him. They clearly hadn't been in touch lately. After a long, drawn-out greeting, Lu Kang finally asked what Wenshan wanted to talk to him about. Wenshan, thinking it wouldn't be appropriate to say it over the phone, said, "Are you free tomorrow? I want to talk to you about something." Lu Kang chuckled and asked, "Is your wife pregnant and suffering from prenatal depression, and is she abusing you? If so, I should congratulate you first and then sympathize with you. There are quite a few cases like this lately. Sigh, modern life is too stressful." Wenshan gave a wry smile and said, "No, no, I haven't been sleeping well lately. Anyway, we'll talk when we meet tomorrow."
After hanging up the phone, Wenshan drank some more alcohol and felt dizzy. He reached for a cigarette on the coffee table, but before his hand even touched the pack, he drifted off to sleep.
He came to the empty passage again, his steps still mechanical. The difference was that today he felt his mind was very clear from the start, except that he couldn't control his footsteps.
After walking for a long time, or perhaps just a short while, he saw another door. Instead of trying to push it open as usual, Wenshan carefully observed it.
The door wasn't large; the peeling paint gave it a weathered and dilapidated look. Above the lintel was a faded, grayish-white spring sun painting, but the four characters "May all your wishes come true" in running script were still clearly visible. Wenshan looked around, trying to find a nameplate or something. He wanted to know why he came to this door every night, who lived there, and what this door had to do with him. But he couldn't find anything, and finally, he had to walk back dejectedly.
---Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [5]: He walked for a long time on the way back. There was only endless emptiness ahead. He wanted to wake up, so he walked anxiously waiting for the kick that would come from behind.
He never got the kick from behind that woke him up; he eventually woke up on his own.
three
Wenshan quickly took a shower, stuffed all his clothes, which reeked of alcohol, into the washing machine, and pressed the automatic wash button.
After getting dressed, Wenshan picked up the key from the shoe cabinet by the door and prepared to put on his shoes and go out. Suddenly, his eyes fell on the ditch by the door. There were clear footprints of wet mud on the creamy yellow ditch. He remembered shaking the ditch when he came back last night. Besides, the footprints seemed very fresh. Wenshan squatted down with his professional intuition and carefully examined the footprints on the ditch. Could someone have come in while he was sleeping last night?
Wenshan remembered that it was raining outside before he went to bed last night, so the footprints must have come from outside. This thought sent chills down his spine. He had been drunk last night and couldn't even remember when he fell asleep, let alone know that someone had come in.
Wenshan quickly put down his bag and rushed back to his bedroom. He found no signs of the room being ransacked. He checked the drawers but found nothing missing. He then went back to the living room and carefully searched the floor inch by inch, but found no more shoe prints or dirt. Finally, he stood up in disappointment. If he hadn't been robbed and hadn't been killed, then why would anyone come in? Were they just standing at the door watching him sleep?
"I must look really handsome when I'm sleeping," Wenshan suddenly thought, making himself laugh.
In the morning, the security guard brought in several thieves, keeping him busy until after noon. In the afternoon, he gave some instructions and drove to the city's rehabilitation hospital. Before leaving, he called Lu Kang, saying he wanted to talk to him alone for an hour. Wen Shan's mysterious tone puzzled Lu Kang.
Lu Kang's office is on the top floor of the hospital. The large glass windows inside offer a view of the distant low hills and the winding border defense line at their foot.
"The scenery is beautiful," Wen Shan said with genuine envy. He truly envied Lu Kang. They had played and gone to school together since childhood, until high school when Wen Shan failed his college entrance exams and joined the army, while Lu Kang successfully entered medical school and later studied in England. Lu Kang happened to return to China and come to this new special economic zone the year Wen Shan got married. Although they saw each other less often now, the friendship they had cultivated since childhood was as solid as family ties. So Wen Shan didn't stand on ceremony when he came in. After surveying the huge office for a week and making a series of remarks, he finally prepared to sit down.
Then he noticed that there was only one chair and one recliner in the large room, and asked curiously, "Where shall I sit?"
Lu Kang, who was standing to the side and smiling, said that usually only doctors and patients come in here. Of course, I am a doctor. So, this is where doctors sit. He pulled over a chair and sat down.
Wenshan was taken aback, pointed to the recliner and asked, "Am I supposed to lie here?"
Lu Kang smiled and nodded.
Wenshan shrugged, lay down without any hesitation, and even crossed his legs.
"Speak," Lu Kang said to Wen Shan, placing the notebook on his lap.
"What did you say?" Wenshan asked.
"Of course I'm referring to your illness," Lu Kang said with a smile.
I am not sick.
If you're not sick, why are you coming to me?
"I just can't sleep well," Wenshan said, sounding frustrated.