Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 83

"Whose call was that?" Fang Lei asked me from the car.

"It's Li Yang's!" I climbed into the car and said to the driver, "Sir, please go to the West City Mental Hospital!"

The driver glanced at us, said nothing, and stepped on the gas, sending the car hurtling away.

“He just called to say that Juanzi told him there used to be an air-raid shelter under that old teaching building before liberation, but it’s been abandoned for a long time. Li Yang said he wants to go down there and take a look,” I replied.

"Is he alone?" Fang Lei was a little worried.

"Getting out of there isn't that easy. He said he'd contact the school to see if they could let him go. So maybe he still won't be able to get out by the time we get back!" I replied.

"Oh!" Fang Lei nodded in understanding.

And so, the taxi took Fang Lei and me straight to the West City Mental Hospital, where countless clues seemed to be gradually becoming clear before our eyes...

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 20: The Madwoman

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 20: The Madwoman

The West City Mental Hospital twenty years ago.

Dr. Huang was quite surprised when he first saw Zhou Xiangrong. At that time, he was a newly hired intern, and faced with such a woman with a peculiar temperament, he naturally found it difficult to equate her with schizophrenia. To be honest, Zhou Xiangrong was not actually beautiful, but with her elegant demeanor and aloof, otherworldly air, she was undeniably beautiful, as if she were a woman born to attract men's attention.

Another thing that Dr. Huang found strange was her condition. Under normal circumstances, she was perfectly normal, showing almost no signs of schizophrenia. However, when it came to mealtimes, especially when given relatively good food, she would become hysterical and frantic, even to the point of self-harm, which would send chills down the spines of any doctor or nurse. Therefore, to prevent her from having another episode, she was the only patient in the hospital with the worst diet; what she ate could only be described as pig swill.

"This doesn't taste good!" Dr. Huang once said this when Zhou Xiangrong was eating a plate of white rice and boiled vegetables with her hands for dinner.

But Zhou Xiangrong's reaction was unexpectedly calm. She asked Dr. Huang in a cold, monotone tone, "What's the delicious thing?"

"What is it?" Dr. Huang didn't expect Zhou Xiangrong to ask him that question.

"Hehe!" Zhou Xiangrong suddenly laughed, her eyes flashing with an almost obsessive light, and said, "Of course it's a person!" After saying that, she licked her lips, as if she had just eaten not white rice and vegetables, but fragrant human flesh.

Dr. Huang could only categorize this answer as the ramblings of a mental patient, but ever since that conversation, Dr. Huang had always taken special care of Zhou Xiangrong, and she seemed to have noticed this as well.

One evening, when Dr. Huang was making his rounds, Zhou Xiangrong suddenly called out to him, "Dr. Huang."

"What's wrong?" Dr. Huang asked curiously, as Zhou Xiangrong rarely took the initiative to chat with doctors or nurses.

"Do you have children?" Zhou Xiangrong stared directly at Dr. Huang.

"Ah, I have a daughter!" Dr. Huang replied with a smile.

“Then…” Zhou Xiangrong turned around and faced the wall, slowly saying, “When she grows up, don’t let her take the college entrance exam!”

"Huh? Why?" Dr. Huang was stunned. **University is a well-known university in this province and even the whole country. Besides, isn't Zhou Xiangrong a graduate student at that university? Why would she tell her this? Her child had just been born, so why would Zhou Xiangrong give her this strange advice? Zhou Xiangrong didn't answer Dr. Huang's question. From that day on, she stopped saying a word and hasn't said a word since.

**************

"You mean she hasn't said another word?" I looked at the middle-aged man with glasses in front of me. I never expected that such a refined man would have Huang Juan, or Juanzi, such a lively and cheerful daughter. Of course, it was precisely because of this that Fang Lei and I had the privilege of asking him about Zhou Xiangrong.

"Yes!" Dr. Huang sighed helplessly, "I was initially against Juanzi applying to ** University, and I thought her grades wouldn't be good enough. But alas! By some strange twist of fate, that girl performed exceptionally well and got in!" Although he hadn't paid much attention to Zhou Xiangrong's strange advice back then, somehow, as he grew older, he began to find her suggestion odd, and the stranger it seemed, the less he wanted his daughter to get in. But unexpectedly, things didn't go as planned, and his daughter Juanzi still entered the university with the passing score.

"So, how is Zhou Xiangrong doing now? Can we go see her?" I asked.

"To see her?" Dr. Huang stroked his chin before reluctantly saying, "You can see her, but only outside the door. Because recently she seems to have become very aggressive, and she has injured doctors and nurses several times."

"Besides being aggressive, is there anything else unusual about her?" Fang Lei asked.

"This..." Dr. Huang thought for a moment and said, "She probably feels a lot of pain in her body, because she keeps touching her body and her expression seems to indicate that she is in pain. But she doesn't say anything, so we have no idea whether she is in pain or not!"

"Oh, I see! Can we see her now?" I stood up and politely asked Dr. Huang. Dr. Huang smiled and led us into a white corridor.

Walking down that corridor, I could hear the screams and cries of patients having seizures from time to time. The whole world seemed to have gone mad, filled with the last vestiges of humanity. Through the glass doors of the wards, I saw a bizarre and surreal world, seemingly far removed from our own. It was a world devoid of human dignity and freedom, a world that normal people could never understand.

Perhaps because few outsiders visit, as Fang Lei and I walked down the corridor, the patients in those rooms stared intently at us through the glass doors with strange looks. As I slowly examined them, even observing them with a detached gaze, I couldn't help but wonder: at that moment, was I observing them, or were they observing me?

Slowly walking to the end of the corridor, Dr. Huang pointed to the last door and said softly, "This is the one."

Fang Lei and I stepped forward. Through the small pane of glass in the door, I saw a disheveled woman sitting on the edge of the bed. Years of self-torture with her diet had left her severely malnourished; she was practically skin and bones. Her exposed arms were like the wiry reeds of a laborer. Her face was completely distorted, nothing more than a skeleton still wrapped in human skin. Her long hair was dry and yellow like straw, bearing no resemblance to the delicate features Dr. Huang had described. Her deeply sunken eyes were surrounded by panda-like dark circles, and her gaze was dull and lifeless.

I sighed, feeling a pang of pity. What could possibly drive someone to torment themselves like this? Such a existence is worse than death.

"She seems very quiet," Fang Lei said, turning to Dr. Huang.

"Don't disturb her!" Dr. Huang waved to us, signaling us to speak as quietly as possible.

Ming nodded in understanding. Fang Lei and I observed her for a while and found that she didn't even glance in our direction; she was just sitting there in a daze. It seemed there was nothing more to investigate. Fang Lei and I exchanged a slightly regretful look, and Fang Lei turned around and smiled gratefully at Dr. Huang.

I glanced down at my watch, ready to turn and leave. But in that instant, my eyes caught a glimpse of the reflection in the glass, and that one glance froze me in place.

In the room where Zhou Xiangrong was supposed to be alone, two figures were reflected in the glass! One was Zhou Xiangrong, and the other was the figure of a man with a deathly pale face and blood-stained, bluish-black lips. This man was tightly embracing Zhou Xiangrong from behind, his blood-stained lips biting down hard on her shoulder!

What was that? I looked nervously into the room, but this time I saw nothing. I only saw a look of pain on Zhou Xiangrong's face, and then she raised her hand to touch her shoulder, as if she felt pain!

Pain? Shoulder? My nerves immediately jumped. Was that ghostly figure real? I took a step back, not looking into the room, but carefully examining the glass in the door.

That ghostly figure! It appeared before me in an instant, then turned and stared intently at me. I was stunned. The ghostly figure opened its mouth wide, as if to swallow me whole. The mouth was so wide that it filled the entire ghostly face. In my eyes, all I saw was a ghostly face with only a huge mouth.

"What's wrong?" Fang Lei noticed my pale face and asked with concern.

I didn't say anything, but instead pulled Fang Lei to my side and gestured for her to look at the glass in the door.

"How could this be?" Fang Lei frowned when she saw the ghostly figure. Just as Fang Lei and I were wondering what to do next, Zhou Xiangrong, who had been silent, suddenly looked in our direction and glared at us fiercely.

Then, she suddenly jumped up from the edge of the bed and rushed straight towards us. When she reached the door, she didn't stop and actually rammed her head into the door!

"Bang!" The loud noise was something I never expected; I never imagined that the body of an Afghan refugee could possess such explosive power. The closed door trembled violently.

"What's going on?" Dr. Huang rushed to the door and saw Zhou Xiangrong repeatedly ramming against it with her body. The creaking sound made me wonder if it was the door or her bones rubbing together. I felt a sharp pain in my ears.

"Someone come quick!" Dr. Huang shouted to the terrified nurse behind him, while using his body to block the door.

"It's no use!" Fang Lei shook her head. Because of the refraction of the glass, the ghostly figure was also crashing into the door behind Zhou Xiangrong. After each violent impact, the ghostly figure's eyes could be seen to become more and more blood red, as if it were a ferocious beast that had smelled blood.

"I'll do it!" Fang Lei pushed Dr. Huang aside, pressed her hands against the door that was about to be smashed open, and muttered incantations. Ripples began to appear in the air where her hands were pressing against the door, and the vibrations from the impact were being absorbed by these strange ripples, making the vibrations from the impact less and less. Although the force of Zhou Xiangrong and Ghost Shadow's impact did not decrease, the door remained completely still.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Huang looked at Fang Lei in confusion and stepped forward to stop her. I quickly grabbed Dr. Huang's arm, preventing him from taking another step forward.

"What are you doing? Let go of me!" Dr. Huang yelled at me angrily.

"She's stopping him!" I looked at Fang Lei; fine beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead.

"Stop?" Dr. Huang was about to say something when suddenly, Zhou Xiangrong stopped banging on the door and stood quietly in the doorway, separated from us by only one door. Then, both Zhou Xiangrong and the ghostly figure behind her simultaneously revealed a strange smile, which sent chills down our spines.

And then...

Suddenly, Zhou Xiangrong stretched out her hands, which were as thin as chicken claws, and before we could understand what she meant, she suddenly put her right hand into her mouth...

They started gnawing on it!

creak...

creak...

creak...

Even with a door blocking the way, the sound of her biting her fingers still came clearly from the other side of the door. Suddenly, the only sound in the air was the eerie sound of her chewing her fingers. The sound seemed to be slowly invading my brain. I felt a sharp piercing sensation in my ears and mind.

Her face was contorted with pleasure, a look of blissful excitement as if she were savoring the most delicious food in the world. Blood was flowing from her mouth, instantly covering her hands. As she chewed, her mouth opening and closing, I could clearly see the flesh of her bitten fingers being torn and ground between her teeth and mouth, the pinkish bone already showing at the fingertips.

"Ah~~~!" Dr. Huang was the first to cry out. With a strength she didn't know she had, she pushed aside Fang Lei, who was also in a daze, and with a forceful push, she actually opened the door.

"No!" Unfortunately, Fang Lei and I didn't even have time to stop her. Dr. Huang, acting on his duty as a doctor, rushed in to try and stop Zhou Xiangrong's crazy actions.

"Ah!" It was Dr. Huang's cry again, but this time it was a scream of agony, because Zhou Xiangrong had reached out to grab Dr. Huang with her right hand, which she had been gnawing on and had exposed finger bones.

"Dr. Huang!" I quickly helped Dr. Huang up, who almost fell to the ground. I saw that there were five bloody scratches on his face. This time, it was truly the Nine Yin White Bone Claw!

"Watch out!" I saw Zhou Xiangrong's claws already reaching for Fang Lei's face. This was bad! I couldn't let this crazy woman ruin my future wife's image. Thinking of this, I rushed between Fang Lei and Zhou Xiangrong. I only saw a flash of blood before my eyes, and my shoulder was burning with pain.

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei's worried cry distracted me, and the ghostly figure behind Zhou Xiangrong was already flying towards me.

"Retreat!" Fang Lei shouted from behind, and a yellow talisman flew out and struck the ghost's face.

The ghostly figure retreated, and as soon as I saw it was some distance from Zhou Xiangrong, I pounced on her. Amidst the screams of Dr. Huang, Fang Lei, and the doctors and nurses who rushed in, I executed a grappling move, pinning Zhou Xiangrong to the ground! Fang Lei, meanwhile, kept a close eye on the ghostly figure that had retreated to the wall, preventing it from advancing. Perhaps sensing the danger, the ghostly figure vanished in the blink of an eye. When I looked back, all that remained was a white wall.

What followed was a chaotic flurry of activity. After getting the still-frenzied Zhou Xiangrong to the infirmary for emergency treatment and other errands, I was drenched in sweat. It felt more thrilling and exhausting than running a 2,000-meter race. At that moment, I began to truly admire the doctors at the mental hospital.

"I'm so sorry!" Dr. Huang seemed to think it was his negligence that led to this situation, and he kept apologizing to us. We could only politely shake our heads, not daring to tell him that it was actually a ghost causing the trouble.

Before leaving, Fang Lei asked, "Excuse me, who has paid for her medical expenses all these years, and has anyone visited her?"

"Her medical expenses have always been paid to our hospital by her mother through remittances. Moreover, her mother only visited her once when she was first admitted, and no one has visited her since," Dr. Huang replied.

"Well..." Fang Lei asked a little shyly, "Do you know her mother's address?"

"This?" Dr. Huang shook his head and said, "Our hospital cannot disclose patients' family information to others casually. I'm sorry!"

"Oh, is that so? No problem!" Fang Lei seemed to have expected this answer, so she nodded politely.

After exchanging pleasantries for a while, Fang Lei and I got up to say goodbye. Just as we turned to leave, Fang Lei said to Dr. Huang, "This is a gift!" With that, she took out a small green jade pendant and handed it to Dr. Huang.

"How can this be?" Dr. Huang hurriedly shook his head.

"This isn't worth much; it's just been blessed by a master who said it can improve health!" Fang Lei insisted on shoving the item into Dr. Huang's hand, adding, "Of course, it can also ward off evil spirits!"

"Well..." Dr. Huang squeezed the object in his hand, still unwilling to accept it.

"Consider this a thank you gift to Juanzi!" I interjected. "Juanzi has helped us a lot!"

"Really?" Dr. Huang smiled as soon as he talked about his daughter and said, "Then I'll accept her."

"It's only effective if you carry it with you at all times. Goodbye!" Seeing that he had accepted the items, Fang Lei and I didn't say anything more and turned to leave Dr. Huang's office.

Along the way, Fang Lei told me that the jade pendant had the power to ward off evil spirits. Although it couldn't subdue the ghost, it could at least ensure that Dr. Huang would be safe.

What puzzled me was, where did the ghost go? Fang Lei and I couldn't sense its presence at all; it was as if it had just been a nightmare.

As I walked out of the West City Mental Hospital, the sun had already set. In the blood-red sunset, the hospital building looked like a wild beast lurking in the darkness, waiting for night to fall.

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 21: Photographs

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 21: Photographs

"What's wrong with you?" Fang Lei and I were already in a taxi on our way back to school. I remained silent the whole way, glancing absentmindedly at the darkening sky outside the car window.

"It's nothing, I just feel a little tired!" I gave Fang Lei a reassuring smile and gently placed my hand on the back of her hand.

"Your injury isn't fully healed, I really shouldn't have let you come with me." Fang Lei squeezed my hand tenderly.