Ghosts in Medical School Horror Files

Chapter 22

Hu Rongrong looked up at the sky and said, "Why do I see a cow flying in the sky?"

"A cow is flying in the sky?" Luo Shimin actually looked up. "Where is the cow? I can't see it."

Hu Rongrong said, "Because your brother stopped blowing it."

Luo Shimin finally realized, "So Rongrong, you were saying my brother was bragging!"

Of all the people, only Ye Cheng understood Xia Chen's past. He said to Xia Chen, as if speaking to himself, "People can't always live in the past. The past is the past. Ah San is the past, Tang Ying is the past. We should look to the future. They don't want us to live in pain. One day, we will repay the Xia Group a hundredfold or a thousandfold for the harm they have caused us. I believe that day will come soon."

Xia Chen asked, "Do you still dream about India at night?"

Ye Cheng lowered his head without saying a word.

Chen Bao and the others grew impatient. "Do you have anything else to do? If not, I'm going back. I have a lot of things to take care of. Many villagers who have left home don't know about this good news yet. I need to call them back."

Li Xiao said, "Isn't it unnecessary to be so fast? What if the murderer reappears tonight?"

Chen Bao scratched his head. "The old lady from the Xia Group said the demon won't appear again. I don't know why, but I believe her. You've been to my house. If you need anything, come to my house." Chen Bao skipped home like a child.

Ye Cheng went to the village supermarket and bought a flashlight and cheap, sturdy clothes to prepare for drilling through the iron pipe. Xia Chen felt that it was a bit too little, so he went back and bought water, enough batteries, and food such as chocolate biscuits.

The iron pipe was not far from Chenguan Village. The six people walked for half an hour before they saw the thick and dirty pipe in the weeds.

Luo Shimin shone her flashlight inside, but couldn't see the bottom; she had no idea where the pipe led. The pipe was only wide enough for one person to crawl through, and turning around would be difficult if danger arose. What if the bloodsucking killer was really hiding inside? Luo Xie, Xia Chen, and Ye Cheng were changing clothes. She whispered, "Brother, it's too dangerous. Should we wait for the police?"

Ye Cheng laughed, "Aren't I just a policeman?"

Seeing that she couldn't stop him, Luo Shimin said to Luo Xie, "Brother, then you protect him and don't let him get hurt, okay?"

"Him?" Luo Xie rolled his eyes in anger. He had risked his life countless times, and Luo Shimin had never shown him this much concern. Was this still his own sister?

"Please, please?" Luo Shimin tugged at Luo Xie's clothes, pleading pitifully. This was her ultimate weapon, and it never failed.

"Fine, fine." Luo Xie finally gave in. "I promise you, as long as your brother is still breathing, he won't lose a single hair. Why don't you care about your brother at all?"

"You're like an unkillable cockroach, you'll definitely be fine." Luo Shimin ran off happily.

Upon reaching the cave entrance, Ye Cheng and Luo Xie started arguing again. Both wanted to go in first, but Ye Cheng wouldn't budge, insisting that as a policeman, the police should be the ones in danger. Luo Xie countered that he'd always been the eldest brother, never following anyone else around. Seeing that their argument had dragged on for half an hour without resolution, Xia Chen took out a coin and asked them to flip it to decide who went first.

Ye Cheng got hard, smiled, waved to his beloved Xiao Xiao, and dove in. Luo Xie followed closely behind, glancing at Hu Rongrong, who was gazing idly at the sky. Xia Chen was the last, slipping in without making any unnecessary movements. Luo Shimin exclaimed, "So cool! So charming!" Hu Rongrong barely managed to refrain from throwing the infatuated girl into the river. Knowing they wouldn't be out for a while, the three girls sat down by the iron pipe, chatting while keeping an eye on the activity inside.

Crawling inside an iron pipe is no fun at all; it seems being a mouse isn't easy.

At first, Ye Cheng was worried about what to do if he encountered the murderer; the pistol seemed useless against him. After climbing for about ten minutes, his worries disappeared, and he only wanted to get out as quickly as possible. After several turns, Ye Cheng was completely disoriented. The iron pipes had been abandoned for many years, emitting a pungent smell of rust. Occasionally, he would encounter the corpses of rats, some already piles of bones, others still rotting. The air was stagnant, and the heavy stench filled his nostrils, making his insides churn. Several times, the stench was almost in his mouth, but Ye Cheng swallowed it back down. Luo Xie and Xia Chen weren't in much better shape. Ye Cheng glanced back; Luo Xie's face was frighteningly pale. The young leader of the powerful Ba Tian Gang was crawling through a pipe—no one would believe it if word got out. It seemed this kid really liked Hu Rongrong; he would do anything for her. He should stay away from her in the future; Luo Xie might really kill him out of love turned to hate. Xia Chen was at the very back; this kid was a bit of a germaphobe. He shouldn't scrub his skin raw when he showered tonight.

Luo Xie urged impatiently, "Hurry up and climb! What are you doing stopping?"

Ye Cheng's buttocks were almost touching Luo Xie's head, and he quickly crawled forward using both hands and feet.

After climbing for about five more minutes, Ye Cheng saw the exit, signaled Luo Xie and Xia Chen to be careful, and quietly climbed out.

Ye Cheng did a forward roll over the iron pipe, quickly stood up, and looked around. It was a room of about thirty square meters. The suspect wasn't there, and there was no door. Luo Xie crawled out and stretched his body. Xia Chen crawled out and immediately saw a huge glass bottle in the center of the room, large enough to fit an adult.

Luo Xie touched the bottle and said, "High-polymer organic glass. If a car hits it, it will only crack. It was only developed in the last few years and it's not easy to get. Why is it here?"

Xia Chen looked down and saw a line of small print at the bottom of the bottle: "Made by Xia's Group!" This was exactly what Xia Chen expected, but his expression still changed. Xia's Group must have done something shady here again.

Luo Xie was incredibly clever; he had long ago discerned that Xia Chen harbored a deep hatred for the Xia Group. "You have a grudge against the Xia Group?"

Xia Chen walked away without saying a word.

Ye Chengrao walked around the house but found no secret passages or mechanisms. One door was sealed with cement, confirming that it was a secret room and the iron pipe was the only way out. At the other end of the room were five or six glass bottles containing human specimens. One of them contained an infant, less than a year old, with a fist-sized blood hole in its head. The brain tissue was gone, leaving only an empty shell.

A rat scurried out of the iron pipe. "Shh..." Ye Cheng gestured for everyone to be quiet; he had heard a noise coming from inside the pipe.

"We're finally here!" A girl emerged from the iron pipe; it was Ye Cheng's beloved Xiao Xiao. Then Luo Shimin and Hu Rongrong also emerged from the iron pipe.

Ye Cheng asked, "What are you doing here?"

Li Xiao said with a smile, "My dear little Ye Ye, did we miss you while we were out? We were so bored out there, so we came in."

Ye Cheng banged his head against the wall and found it hurt quite a bit, so he used his hands to cushion the blow and banged it a few more times. "I had a reason for leaving you outside. I checked, and the iron pipe is the only entrance and exit. If something happened to us, you could contact the police or someone to rescue me. Now look what's happened, you're all inside. If someone blows up the iron pipe, we'll be trapped here to die."

Luo Shimin still didn't believe it. "No way, who would blow up a broken iron pipe for no reason?"

As if to verify Ye Cheng's words, a loud bang was heard as a choking cloud of smoke billowed out of the iron pipe, which was then blown apart!

009 Locked Room

Ye Cheng wanted to cry. He had made many predictions when he was bored, but none of them had ever come true. Just now, he casually said something, and it immediately came true. Everyone was trapped in the secret room.

Hu Rongrong looked at Ye Cheng's mournful face and wanted to scold him, but seeing Luo Xie standing to the side, she held back and didn't say anything.

Li Xiao said apologetically, "It's all my fault. I asked them to come in together."

Luo Shimin maintains an optimistic attitude under any circumstances. "The iron pipe is so sturdy, maybe it didn't break. I'll climb back and take a look."

"No need," Luo Xie said, pulling her back. "With the power of the explosion just now, the iron pipe must have been blown apart."

Luo Shimin asked, "Then what do we do?"

Let's pray together.

"I pray the villagers heard the explosion and reported it to the police. My colleagues from last night saw that Li Xiao and I were gone and guessed we were inside. They're hoping to rescue us, or maybe one of Luo Xie's henchmen will do," Ye Cheng said, sitting on the ground. "Let's save our energy; we can conserve some oxygen."

Li Xiao was taken aback. "Oxygen?"

“Yes, oxygen.” Xia Chen sat down next to Ye Cheng. “The explosion created a completely sealed chamber. Hopefully, there’s enough oxygen inside for us to wait for the rescue team to arrive.”

“We can make a phone call!” Li Xiao took out his phone.

Ye Cheng said with a wry smile, "It's no use, we're underground, there won't be any signal."

There was really no signal, so Li Xiao put the phone back in its case.

Luo Shimin said, "You mean we're about to suffocate? This is a trap? Someone wants to kill us." Thank goodness, she finally understood her situation.

Xia Chen corrected Luo Shimin, "It's not that they thought about it, they already did it. Perhaps the whole thing was a conspiracy, starting from Chenguan Village."

Upon reflection, everyone realized it wasn't impossible. Ye Cheng was a policeman who enjoyed investigating strange cases. Whoever received the emergency call, Ye Cheng would definitely rush to the scene and, following the stream, find the iron pipe. When the investigation stalled, he would certainly seek Xia Chen's help, and given their personalities, they would definitely crawl into the iron pipe. By planting a remote-controlled bomb under the pipe, they could eliminate the two without anyone noticing. In that case, this whole scheme was designed for Ye Cheng and Xia Chen; someone wanted to silence them forever, and everyone else could only blame their bad luck. If this hypothesis was correct, the person who detonated the bomb was near the iron pipe. Who could it be?

Luo Xie drew a three-foot-long cleaver from his back and silently began to remove his shirt, revealing his muscular physique and a tattoo on his back: a gigantic butterfly covering his entire back, its wings adorned with terrifying skulls, some parts of which glowed faintly in the darkness, made of an unknown material. The tattoo was clearly the work of a master, and the butterfly danced gracefully with Luo Xie's movements. This gave Luo Xie an eerie aura.

Luo Shimin sat down next to Xia Chen, quietly leaning on his shoulder, and whispered, "The butterfly tattooed on my brother's back is called the Death Butterfly. When we were little, my dad took us to a fortune teller called a 'fate master.' The fortune teller said that my brother and I were reincarnations of demon butterflies; my brother was destined for killing, and I was destined for death, and that we would bring about the deaths of many people. The fortune teller also said that we both had a 'peach blossom curse' in our lives, and that we would both eventually die under the influence of peach blossoms. Not long after we returned home, my mother was in a car accident and died before she even reached the hospital. My brother locked himself in the house for three days. On the fourth day, he came out and told me that he would protect me for the rest of his life, and then he went out and killed the fortune teller, getting the Death Butterfly tattooed on his back. From then on, my brother started killing people; he killed anyone who was a threat to the Ba Tian Gang. When he killed, he liked to expose his upper body so that his opponents could see the Death Butterfly on his back. Two years later, he killed all his opponents, and no one has seen the Death Butterfly since."

Xia Chen hadn't expected Luo Xie to have such a story. He sensed that Luo Shimin was sad and didn't know how to comfort her, so he hugged her.

Luo Shimin whispered in Xia Chen's ear, "I also got a butterfly tattooed on my back, but it's different from my brother's. No one has ever seen it since it was done, not even Rongrong. Do you want to see it?"

Faced with the temptation of sex, Xia Chen reacted instinctively. He didn't know how to respond.

"Ahem..." Ye Cheng said, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation. I just wanted to know what your brother was up to?"

Luo Xie took the machete and walked to the wall, tapping it repeatedly with the back of the blade.

Luo Shimin's face turned red to her neck. "I don't know what my brother is going to do, but we know he's very angry right now. It's been many years since I've seen my brother angry."

There's a saying in the martial arts world: "When Luo Xie gets angry, the consequences are severe." You've probably heard of it.

Luo Xie stopped banging on the wall. He was sure the other side was empty, so he raised his machete and slammed it down hard. Sparks flew, leaving only a faint white mark on the wall. Luo Xie raised his hand and slashed down again.

Ye Cheng pointed at Luo Xie and said, "Your brother isn't planning to cut a road out of there, is he? I've checked. The wall is made of solid blue bricks, which are much harder than red bricks. A bullet hitting it will only leave a small dot."

Luo Shimin buried her head in Xia Chen's arms. "If you're not afraid he'll cut you, you can go and stop him."

Seeing Luo Xie wildly waving his machete, Ye Cheng abandoned the idea of stopping him. "I'll wait for the rescue team here."

I didn't sleep a wink last night, so this is a good opportunity to catch up.

"Useless things, just sitting around waiting to die." Hu Rongrong held back for a long time, but finally couldn't hold back and cursed out.

Ye Cheng glanced at her but ignored her.

“We should do something.” Li Xiao walked to the large glass bottle and examined it carefully.

Ye Cheng shifted to a more comfortable position. "I've checked the bottle, and I didn't find anything wrong with it."

Li Xiao pointed to the bottom of the bottle and said, "Did you find this small hole?"

"A small hole?" Ye Cheng sprang to the large glass bottle with a quick leap, and Xia Chen, also dissatisfied, pulled Luo Shimin along, only a step behind Ye Cheng. Sure enough, at the bottom of the large glass bottle was a round hole about the size of a thumb, easily overlooked if not carefully examined. The edges of the hole were jagged, as if it had been gnawed out by something.

Li Xiao said smugly, "I checked it. The small amount of liquid remaining in the bottle is formalin solution. The bottle is well sealed, with only a small hole at the bottom. This bottle is big enough to hold an adult."

Xia Chen asked, "How was this small hole formed? The bottle is made of high-polymer synthetic glass, which is as strong as diamond."

Li Xiao said, "I have an opinion that's a bit unbelievable. Do you want to hear it?"

Ye Cheng urged, "Speak quickly, speak quickly."

“Then I’ll say it: judging from the marks around the edge of the hole, it looks like an insect gnawed it out from the outside in.”

Ye Cheng said, half-laughing and half-crying, "This bug has pretty good teeth." How much biting force would it need to be able to chew through polymer synthetic glass? Ye Cheng couldn't calculate it with his math skills.

Xia Chen straightened up. The sealed room, the large, airtight glass bottle big enough to hold a person, the remaining formalin solution—Xia Chen had a bold idea. The vampire killer was trapped in this glass bottle, and then the iron pipe was blown up, imprisoning it here forever. But someone had released it. The only thing hard to explain was how the killer escaped through a small round hole. Did the killer not have a fixed body? A liquid person?

At this moment, Hu Rongrong also made a discovery.

She walked alone to the corner and saw something on the ground, buried in dust. She bent down and picked it up; it was a small piece of fine silk scarf, as thin as a cicada's wing. Hu Rongrong knew its value; this small piece of silk scarf was worth as much as gold. She carefully brought the scarf to her eyes, and four characters caught her eye: Duan Ganxiang Zhen! Hu Rongrong screamed and threw the scarf away. Turning around, she saw the baby specimen in a glass jar, and screamed again.

Li Xiao glanced back, making sure Hu Rongrong was alright, and continued hacking at the wall with his knife. The crowd immediately surrounded them. Hu Rongrong hugged Luo Shimin tightly, while Ye Cheng picked up the silk scarf from the ground. He said, puzzled, "It's just a silk scarf, why did it scare you like this?"

Hu Rongrong said with her eyes closed, "That's because you haven't heard the story of vampires."

I thought it was just a story, but it turns out it's true. Tian Zi, Xuan Xiaotong, and Ade are all real, and the child in the bottle is Duan Ganxuanbang.

"What do you mean, what do you mean? Explain yourself clearly!" Ye Cheng scratched his head anxiously.

Hu Rongrong gradually calmed down and began telling the vampire story again. This time, Luo Shimin listened very attentively, not missing a single word.

After the story was finished, Xia Chen asked, "How did you know this story?"

"After Qi Xiaoke died, I was in a bad mood for several days. Luo Shimin was spending all her time with you, so I went out of the school gate for a walk by myself. I met an old woman by the river and we started chatting. She said that she was also a student at this school many years ago and told me a story about vampires. I didn't expect the story to be true."

Xia Chen shook his head and said, "It's not necessarily true. There are two possibilities. What you said is only the first one, that the story is true. There is another possibility: from the moment you met the old woman, you were drawn into a huge conspiracy. The story you heard, the silk scarf in our hands, and the baby in the bottle were all carefully arranged by someone. I don't know what this person's purpose is."

Ye Cheng tilted his head and said, "There's a woman in the story named Xuan Xiaotong. The mysterious old woman from the Xia Group who just visited Chenguan Village might also be named Xuan Xiaotong. Could that be a coincidence? Also, the foreign male doctor in the story is named Sherlock Deco, right? I clearly remember that the founder of the Xia Group is named Xia De. If that's also a coincidence, it's too much of a coincidence."

Li Xiao almost shouted excitedly, "You mean the founder of our country's largest conglomerate is actually a foreigner? That's a bit of a fantasy. If he were mixed-race, you could tell from his facial features, but the Xia family doesn't look like it. However, the founder of the Xia family has always been very low-key. It's said that the old man is almost a hundred years old and still alive. He never gives interviews to reporters and never appears in public. It's very difficult for the Xia family to even see him. There's something strange about this."

Ye Cheng looked Li Xiao up and down with a strange gaze. "How do you know so much about the Xia Group?"

"Haha..." Li Xiao said with a strange laugh, "When I was young, I fantasized about marrying into a wealthy family, so I know a lot about the rich people in the country."

Luo Shimin said weakly to Xia Chen, "I feel a little dizzy."