Ghosts in Medical School Horror Files

Chapter 6

1 a.m., police station detention room.

Dr. Wei turned over in his sleep, his mind wandering to his happy life after he was released.

Drip! What is the sound of liquid dripping?

The detention cell suddenly became rather cold. Dr. Wei woke up from the cold, sat up, and curled up to protect himself from the chill. He couldn't help but curse, "This damn police station, it's so cold even in summer. Is it under the roof of the underworld or is it haunted?" Dr. Wei shivered. He was frightened by his own words. Would his tragically deceased colleague come back to haunt him?

Tick-tock!

The image of Dr. Wu, who died in the dark corner, seemed to be beckoning to him.

Tick-tock!

Dr. Wei felt a fear from the deepest part of his soul. The dripping sound was coming from beside him, and he was certain that there were no pipes or anything like that in the room.

Tick-tock! Tick-tock!

The dripping sound grew faster and faster. Dr. Wei shouted, "Is anyone there? Help!"

Tick-tock...

The police officers who came to work the next day discovered that Dr. Wei was dead!

010 Bloodstained Desert

"What? Dead?" Xia Chen's shout attracted the attention of the whole class, and the teacher glared at him angrily.

This was a classroom. Just a minute ago, Xia Chen was listening attentively to the lecture when his phone vibrated. He took it out and saw that it was Ye Cheng calling. He guessed it was something urgent, so he secretly answered the call, which led to the scene described earlier.

Luo Shimin tugged at Xia Chen's sleeve, and he finally realized he was still in class. He put away his phone and gave the classmate next to him an apologetic smile.

The teacher gave Xia Chen a look that said, "Kid, you better watch out." Then he turned back to continue writing on the blackboard.

Luo Shimin covered her face with a book, turned her head and asked Xia Chen, "Who died? Why are you so agitated?"

"Dr. Wei is dead. He hanged himself in the police station's detention cell."

"What? Dead!" Luo Shimin's shout was no quieter than Xia Chen's. The two of them once again attracted the attention of the whole class. Because of Luo Shimin's special status, the teacher dared not speak out and coughed twice to let it go.

Luo Shimin playfully stuck out her tongue, and seeing that no one was looking at her anymore, she asked in a low voice, "What happened? Dr. Wei has a wife and children, why would he commit suicide?"

Xia Chen covered his mouth with a book. "I don't know either. Ye said he went to see Dr. Wei before he got off work. He was perfectly normal. He ate two bowls of rice, three dishes, and a bowl of soup for dinner. He also chatted with the person who brought him the food. They were laughing and talking. He didn't seem like someone who wanted to commit suicide at all. But he hung himself on the railing at night when the supervision was lax. He used his own belt."

“I still don’t believe Dr. Wei would commit suicide.” Luo Shimin’s imagination was exceptionally rich. “Could it be that a hitman sneaked into the police station at night, killed Dr. Wei, and then staged the scene as a suicide?”

Xia Chen praised Luo Shimin, "What you said isn't impossible." Then he added seriously, "But that's in novels. Even after working hours, there are still plenty of police officers on duty at the police station."

Even the most audacious criminal wouldn't dare kill someone in a police station; that would be seen as a blatant provocation against the police and contempt for the law—a form of suicide. Unless the killer is confident no one will see him and he won't leave any trace, do you think such a person exists? Unless he's a ghost.” Xia Chen grew increasingly angry. “Now it's a dead end. All five medical staff are dead, and the truth will vanish with their deaths.”

“Not all of them died,” Luo Shimin thought of a survivor, her good friend Hu Rongrong. She immediately tensed up, “Will Rongrong be in danger?”

Xia Chen wasn't sure either, and in the end, the two concluded that the class was pointless, and it would be better to go to the hospital to protect Rongrong. Skipping class was as easy as eating for Luo Shimin; she could count the number of classes she attended in a week on her fingers, without even needing to use her toes. If Xia Chen hadn't been around, who knows if she would have come to class today.

Led by the experienced Luo Shimin, the two slipped out of the classroom through the back door. The teacher saw them but pretended not to, eager for them to leave.

The two had just run out of the classroom when Xia Chen's phone rang again in the corridor. It was Ye Cheng calling again. "Major discovery, major discovery! When the forensic doctor examined Dr. Wei's body, he found bloodstains on his right index finger and wood chips under his fingernail. Based on this, we found two blood-written words under the wooden bed in the detention cell. Dr. Wei scratched them out with his fingernails before he died."

Xia Chen interrupted Ye Cheng's lengthy explanation, "Stop wasting your breath, just tell me what the character is."

"The word 'desert' is just the word 'desert'. We haven't figured out what it means yet. It should be some kind of hint, a code name for some operation, or even the killer's nickname. Once we crack it, the truth will be within our grasp."

"Send me photos of the scene." Xia Chen hung up the phone, muttering to himself, "Desert, desert, what does that mean?" His phone chimed with a multimedia message. Ye Cheng sent a close-up photo of the words "desert" on the bed frame.

Luo Shimin peered over; the two characters were crooked and illegible, as if written by a child. Next to them was a barely visible dot. Dr. Wei had been interrupted while carving these characters, and then he died. The bloodstains on the characters reminded her of sawdust embedded in her fingernails. She shuddered, afraid to think any further. It must have been incredibly painful. She knew of a form of torture where bamboo skewers were driven into fingernails—a pain that could drive someone mad. What had Dr. Wei encountered that would drive him to carve the words "desert" into the bed frame despite the pain?

"Desert, desert... what does that mean?" Xia Chen quickly went through all the things related to the desert in his mind, but to no avail.

Luo Shimin nudged Xia Chen, her expression clearly conveying one meaning: I know, you're asking me, just ask and I'll tell you.

"Do you know what 'desert' means? And what it means in relation to the infirmary?" Xia Chen asked, still somewhat doubtful.

“I really know. It was probably a few months ago. Not long after Dr. Wei arrived, the college organized a trip for them to the Gobi Desert in northern China. They really liked the desert there and planned to go again.”

Xia Chen frowned again. "How did you know?"

“On the first day they came back, I was taken to the infirmary by Rongrong because I had a cold and fever. While I was getting an IV drip, I heard them excitedly talking about their desert trip. It seemed that they had encountered something in the desert. Because Rongrong and I were there, they deliberately avoided certain words and used 'it' to replace them. I couldn't understand them, so I stopped listening.”

Are you telling the truth?

Luo Shimin was a little angry. "Why would I lie to you? Rongrong heard it too, she can testify." But then she thought of Rongrong still lying in the hospital, and her anger subsided. She grabbed Xia Chen and said, "I've told you everything I know. Let's go to the hospital to see Rongrong. I miss her. I really can't get used to not having her."

"Go see Rongrong. I need to tell Ye Cheng what you said. You provided crucial clues for solving the case." Xia Chen ran off without looking back.

"Xia Chen, Xia Chen..." Luo Shimin didn't stop him, and angrily stomped her feet on the ground twice. "Damn Xia Chen, broken Xia Chen, rotten Xia Chen, you always go to Ye Cheng whether you have something to do or not. What does the police solving cases have to do with you? You really think you're Sherlock Holmes."

Thinking of Ye Cheng, she started swooning again. Officer Ye is so handsome, the two of them together… A wicked thought popped into her head: Are Ye Cheng and Xia Chen playing a brokeback mountain game? Ye Cheng, who was reviewing files at the police station, sneezed four or five times in a row. "Who's cursing me in their mind?"

Two policewomen in the same office jostled to get Ye Cheng tissues. Ye Cheng took the first one and wiped his nose, smiling brightly, "Thank you." The policewoman was so happy she almost fainted, while the other policewoman was annoyed that she couldn't have reacted any faster.

When Xia Chen found Ye Cheng, he was shouting at his computer. Xia Chen patted him on the shoulder, "What did you find out?"

Ye Cheng didn't reply, but glanced behind Xia Chen. He wasn't looking for the person he wanted to see and was a little disappointed. Xia Chen knew what he was looking at. "No need to look anymore. She didn't come with me. She went to the hospital to see her friend."

Ye Cheng responded with an "oh," somewhat disappointed.

"You don't actually like her, do you? Do you even know who her father is?"

"Luo Sannu is the leader of the Batian Gang, and Luo Xie is her brother."

Xia Chen was somewhat surprised. "Looks like you've done your homework. You really like her? I don't think she's pretty. Or are you just asking for trouble and want to mess with the Ba Tian Gang?"

“You don’t understand.” Ye Cheng sighed. “Women are like tea; they need to be savored. Luo Shimin is a good woman; you just haven’t discovered it yet.”

Xia Chen didn't want to continue the conversation about women. "What did you notice when I came in? I rarely see you making such a fuss."

“Take a look at this.” Ye Cheng pulled Xia Chen in front of the computer screen. “I was bored and pulled up the files of the infirmary staff. I was shocked when I saw them. Dr. Zuo, who died in the infirmary, may have been only in his early thirties, but he had master’s degrees in both clinical medicine and biological genetics. Dr. Wu, who died in the sewer darkroom, worked at the Human Gene Research Institute before coming to Yishi Academy and was a top researcher. Even the two seemingly unremarkable nurses, one has a doctorate in virology and the other is an authority on biological evolution, having published papers in international research journals multiple times. The one with the lowest academic qualifications is our Dr. Wei, a poor medical school graduate. The reason he can’t communicate with his colleagues may not be because of age, but because of their different levels. Don’t you think it’s a bit of a waste of talent for Yishi Academy to have such a group of people as doctors?”

Xia Chen recalled the small bottle he had found in the underground secret room. "I had suspected before that the Xia Group was conducting some kind of medical research, and after reading their files, I am even more certain. The infirmary is just a cover for them to avoid attracting people's attention."

"What were they researching?" Ye Cheng listed the four people's majors one by one, "Clinical medicine, biological genetics, human genetics, virology, evolutionary biology. What kind of research would use so many disciplines? If they were killed because of some research, why was Dr. Wei killed?"

"Didn't you say Dr. Wei committed suicide? How did it become that he was murdered?" Xia Chen's eyes widened.

"Dr. Wei must have remembered something before he was killed. Your previous speculation has been confirmed. This series of murders is definitely related to the Xia Group. There's something I almost forgot to tell you. On the afternoon Dr. Wei was killed, Zheng Tianyu, the head lawyer from Tianyu Law Firm, came to see Dr. Wei. He was sent by the Xia Group. They talked for two hours, but he refused to reveal the specific content of the conversation to us."

"These bastards, they're all in cahoots!" Xia Chen slammed his fist on the table in anger.

"Don't smash my table. There's something even worse, and I'm only telling you this because we're such good friends. You have to keep it a secret."

"Speak quickly if you have something to say." Xia Chen was getting a little impatient.

"The latest autopsy report is out. By analyzing certain components in the blood, it was determined that Dr. Wei died before being hung from the railing. This information is being kept strictly confidential."

"Murder to cover it up! It must be related to the desert!"

"Desert?" Ye Cheng was taken aback, then immediately exclaimed with delight, "You've deciphered the meaning of 'desert'?"

“The desert doesn’t have any particular meaning. Luo Shimin said that the five people from the medical room went to the Gobi Desert in northern China a few months ago and they were very interested in the desert there.”

Ye Cheng, accompanied by two policewomen, rushed into the evidence room, shouting, "Immediately launch an investigation into all the deceased's photo albums, diaries, blogs, etc., and find everything related to the desert—photos, written records, anything with the word 'desert' in it."

Xia Chen was alone in the room. With nothing to do, he opened Internet Explorer and typed "Northern Desert" into the search engine. Tens of thousands of results appeared, mostly tourist information, local customs, and ecological issues. At the very last pop-up, the words "Northern Desert Sandworm" caught his eye, and he immediately clicked to open the webpage.

The Mongolian sand worm, known by many names among the Mongols, is called "Death Worm" or "Intestinal Worm" because eyewitness accounts describe this monster appearing in the Noyang region of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It grows up to 2 meters long, as thick as a human arm, and resembles intestines in appearance. It is dark red in color, and some eyewitnesses report spots on its body.

The sand worm has a very short tail, making it difficult to distinguish its head from its tail, as no one has ever seen where its eyes, nose, and mouth are located. Its locomotion is also unique; it either rolls forward or wriggles to one side.

The Mongolian name for the sandworm is Allghoikhorkhoi. According to legend, this insect lurks in the desert and sprays acidic substances at its prey from its head.

Some believe it to be some unknown species of annelid, a species that miraculously adapted to the changes of time and land, stubbornly remaining in the Gobi Desert that has now been formed by the drying up of the ancient Tethys Ocean. It evolved and specialized beyond recognition, slowly developing an independent way of survival, only to be buried by the harsh environment and complex history.

Many people vehemently assert that they have indeed seen the "Gobi sand worm," a gigantic "insect" capable of attacking from a distance by shooting deadly venom from its mouthparts or emitting a powerful electric current from its tail. For a long time, many believed that the "sand worm" belonged to Mongolian folklore, and that the legendary "insect" originated from terrifying tales of the ancient Mongolian nomadic tribe, the Hongjila (Genghis Khan's tribe). Meanwhile, a recent expedition in the southern Gobi Desert region of northern Mongolia claimed that its initiators had indeed discovered the existence of this strange creature.

In fact, apart from some institutions in the former Soviet Union that have conducted scientific research on this topic in the past, the isolated location of the Mongolian Gobi Desert and the policies of the Mongolian government have made it almost impossible for foreign zoologists to reach the area, which is why we know so little about this animal.

However, in 1962, American paleontologist Roy, through personal connections and a stroke of luck, explored and recorded the only scientific research document on sandworms at the time.

The "sand worm" is believed to live hidden underground in the desert, but will unexpectedly emerge from a large hole it has made on the ground when there is any movement that interests it. In the fables passed down orally among Mongolian herders, the appearance of the sand worm is also an omen of death and disaster; because the only reason it emerges from the ground is that it begins to forage for food.

Local legends about this animal have been passed down for centuries, and even today, people occasionally claim to have witnessed sandworms attacking camels and horses.

The sandworm's unusualness also lies in its appearance. Although the eyewitness accounts are quite consistent and accurate, no one has provided detailed descriptions, such as the sandworm's mouth or eyes...

Four years ago, someone spent a lot of money to hire a high-performance aircraft capable of flying at extremely low altitudes to film this boundless and hopeless desert, but this large-scale operation did not bring him any evidence of the existence of sandworms.

According to locals, sand worms are about 2 meters long and resemble fresh intestines. They are typically scarlet or dark red in color and have prominent ridges on both sides of their bodies. Sand worms can spray venom and release high-voltage electricity, making them highly dangerous and earning them the nickname "death worm" among those in the know.

Xia Chen was engrossed in watching, unaware that Ye Cheng had walked up behind him. He shouted, "What are you looking at?"

Xia Chen was startled and asked without turning his head, "Ye Cheng, what did you find?"

How did you know it was me?

"What an idiotic question. Do I know anyone else at the police station besides you and your dad? Would your dad joke with me?"

"Oh, I thought you had eyes in the back of your head too. Look at this." Ye Cheng handed a photo to Xia Chen. "My detailed investigation revealed that apart from Dr. Wei, no one else left any record of their trip to the northern desert. This photo was found in Dr. Wei's album; it's the only group photo of the five of them."

Apart from Dr. Wei, everyone in the photo is carrying a huge backpack. They don't look like tourists at all; they look more like scientists on a scientific expedition!

011 Hu Rongrong woke up

Ye Cheng looked at Xia Chen with a blank expression. "Investigation? Investigate what? I've never been to the Gobi Desert, but I've heard of it. All I see there are endless yellow sands and crumbling cliffs. The plants are nothing more than poplars and thatch grass, and the animals are just camels and sand lizards. What would a bunch of biological researchers travel thousands of miles to investigate there?"

“Investigate this.” Xia Chen tapped the computer screen lightly with his finger.

Ye Cheng leaned closer, glanced at the monster, and exclaimed, "You don't really believe these kinds of monsters exist, do you? If intestinal worms really exist, then aliens, Godzilla, Predators, and Terminators would also exist."

Xia Chen did not refute, "The world is full of wonders. Just because you haven't seen them with your own eyes doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe the desert sandworms really exist, and it just so happens that Dr. Wei and others were lucky enough to step in dog poop when they went out."

Ye Cheng: "Even if they did encounter them, let's assume what you said is true. But what about the motive? We didn't encounter a psychopathic killer who kills without a reason. Let me take another step back: even if it were a psychopathic killer, it's unlikely that they would specifically target a few people in the Yishi Academy's infirmary."

Could it be that the research went wrong and the Xia Group killed them to cover it up?

"Have you forgotten how we met?" Xia Chen touched upon the past he least wanted to recall. "As long as the Xia Group is involved, things become illogical."

Xia Chen's words instantly transported Ye Cheng back to that afternoon many years ago. He and many other children like him were crammed into a stuffy truck by people from the Xia Group. Their guards were ruthless and didn't treat them like children. No one knew where the truck was headed, nor what fate awaited them. Fear permeated the truck, and all the children trembled with terror. Only two children were exceptions; they stared wide-eyed at their surroundings. These two children were Xia Chen and Ye Cheng. Their eyes met, and they became friends. Suddenly, an innocent, smiling face appeared before him, and Ye Cheng felt like crying.

"Thinking about Ah San again?" Xia Chen comforted his only friend. "It's my fault. I reminded you of your painful past. Ah San has been gone for a long time. You should forget about her."

Ye Cheng said "No" four or five times in a row, "No, I will never forget Ah San. I will destroy the Xia Group, I will catch the mastermind behind it all and avenge Ah San. I will arrest everyone related to the Xia Group and make them spend the rest of their lives in prison. I will..."