134: Chapter 134 The Moonlit Emergency Room

The emergency corridor of Linhai Second Hospital had not been empty since dusk.

The first to be brought in was Chen Li. Following him were the security guard from the basement level of the shopping mall, two night-shift cleaners, a ride-hailing driver from the port area, and several people who had simply received strange phone calls before suddenly starting to cough up saltwater.

They did not have typical fluid in their lungs, yet their blood oxygen levels were dropping severely; some were shivering while wrapped in three layers of blankets, while others were completely dry, yet water kept dripping from the soles of their shoes. More troublesome was that whenever someone called their names, they would briefly lose focus, as if they were listening to a roll call from another place.

Jiaoyue had been standing behind the triage desk for four consecutive hours.

She was the night-shift emergency doctor, her lab coat sleeves stained with povidone-iodine, and her hair a mess from the mask's straps. At first, she did not believe in any of the elevator, Black Sea, or return ticket nonsense, dismissing it as mass hysteria or an unknown poisoning. But after Chen Li stopped breathing for the third time in front of her, only to sit up on his own when the sound of tides echoed, she knew that standard procedures could not save everyone.

"Put those who came into contact with the elevator on the left, those who heard the broadcast on the right, and isolate those who received tickets or calls separately." She said while writing, "Don't let family members call their names repeatedly. Anyone recording video, escort them out immediately."

A nurse paused, stunned: "Dr. Jiaoyue, why can't we call their names?"

"Because every time you call, their heart rate drops," Jiaoyue looked up. "If you have a better explanation, say it now."

No one spoke.

Xu Minglan connected with her via the Safe House's encrypted call. Xu Minglan on the screen had already changed clothes, and beside her was a row of packaged purification patches and several silver syringes.

"It's not water," Xu Minglan said. "It's a kind of afterimage dragging people to another location. Do not give them heavy sedation yet; sedation will make it harder for them to maintain their sense of self."

Jiaoyue frowned: "You make it sound like they are going to be called away."

"They are already being called."

A transport vehicle was sent from Qinghe to the hospital entrance. There were no heavy weapons in the vehicle, only two boxes of Tempering Needles, a small Guardian Lamp, and Lin Zhao.

Lin Zhao's expression was calmer than before when he got out of the vehicle. The Mark of the Torch on the inside of his right wrist lit up, and a copper lamp the size of a fist landed in his palm. It was a Guardian Lamp seed he had just exchanged for after completing a series of peripheral tasks in Jiangbei; it was not meant for killing things, but to make a place less easily dragged away.

"Where should I put the lamp?" he asked.

Jiaoyue pointed to the innermost part of the emergency room: "There."

The copper lamp hit the floor; there was no ordinary flame in the wick, only a ball of quiet, grayish-white light. Lin Zhao pressed his hand onto the lamp base, and the firelight spread outward, pulling out a circle of translucent curtain along the cracks of the floor tiles.

The sound of the tides outside instantly diminished.

It did not disappear, but it was as if it were separated by a very thick door.

A patient who had just been walking toward the end of the corridor stopped, looking blankly at his soaked pant legs: "Why am I here?"

Jiaoyue had no time to be surprised. She took the Tempering Needle sent by Xu Minglan and carefully read the instructions. The liquid in the syringe was colorless, but after being injected into the vein, it left a faint line of fire under the skin.

"It will hurt," Xu Minglan warned on the screen.

"There are no patients in the emergency room who are afraid of pain," Jiaoyue said.

When the first needle was injected into Chen Li's arm, he arched his back violently, a sound like choking on water coming from his throat. The line of fire burned from the inside of his wrist all the way to his collarbone, stopping at his chest. The mist in Chen Li's eyes was burned away for a moment, and he saw his daughter standing outside the Guardian Lamp curtain, staring for a long time.

"You've grown so big," he said.

The girl covered her mouth and began to cry.

Chen Li's consciousness only returned for a dozen seconds. Soon, he began looking toward the elevator direction again. But these dozen seconds were enough for Jiaoyue to confirm: people were not completely taken away, just partially held by some place.

"We can drag it out," she said. "Drag it out until you close that side."

This sentence made Xu Minglan breathe a sigh of relief.

The hospital elevator suddenly "dinged."

The freight elevator at the very back had been out of service for years, with a seal pasted on the door. At this moment, the seal slowly split from the middle, and a drop of water slid out from the gap in the door, crawling upward against gravity.

After the door opened, there was no one inside.

Only an old navigation light suspended in mid-air.

The lamp shade was covered in salt frost, but the wick was lit. The light fell on the emergency corridor, and all the patients looked up at the same time.

The sound of the tides returned.

This time, it was as if someone were standing in the elevator, holding a register and flipping through it page by page.

Jiaoyue grabbed the railing of the nearest hospital bed, her voice very low: "Lin Zhao, how much longer can the lamp hold?"

Lin Zhao looked at the rapidly shortening wick in the copper lamp: "Not enough for a night."

The navigation light in the elevator suddenly swayed gently.

It shone toward the outside of the emergency room, illuminating a wet, glistening path.

After the Guardian Lamp curtain lit up, for the first time in the emergency room, someone truly sat down. A middle-aged man who had been clutching his ticket just a moment ago placed it on his knees, looked down at the needle prick on the back of his hand, and suddenly asked Jiaoyue: "Doctor, if I can't hold on and really go down, can I still come back?"

Jiaoyue was pressing an oxygen mask for another patient, her hands not stopping upon hearing this.

"I don't know," she said. "But as long as you are sitting here now, I can treat you as a living person."

The man nodded, and after a while, handed the ticket to the nurse.

Xu Minglan saw this scene on the other side of the screen and suddenly said to Lin Zhao: "The Guardian Lamp isn't about making people unafraid. It's about having a place to sit down even when they are afraid."

Lin Zhao did not speak. The copper lamp under his palm was getting hotter and hotter, and the edges of the lamp curtain were constantly being rippled by the sound of the tides. He used to feel that he only belonged on the periphery, and all he could do was run errands, move people, and guard doors. But now, with dozens of people in the emergency room living behind this lamp, he realized for the first time that standing one's ground was no small matter.

Jiaoyue gave Chen Li another injection. There were only three Tempering Needles left; she did not use them immediately, instead having the nurse write down the contact time, names, and family contact information of all patients on the whiteboard. Some thought she was doing something unnecessary, but she only replied: "Don't let them be crossed off by someone else again."

The navigation light in the elevator swayed more violently. When the light swept over the hospital bed, Chen Li suddenly grabbed his daughter's wrist.

"Don't wait for me," he said hoarsely.

This time, he was looking at his daughter.

The next second, the freight elevator door slammed shut. The wet path outside did not disappear but extended from the emergency room entrance all the way to the corridor behind the hospital.

That led to the underground parking lot.

When Jiaoyue put the registration slips into the storage bag, the back of her hand kept trembling. She was not afraid of the paper, but afraid that the next time she saw the patient, a name would suddenly be missing from the medical record.

She took a red pen and wrote at the very top of the whiteboard:

Everyone, write down tomorrow first.

A patient looked at that line of words and slowly wrote, "Go to the parent-teacher meeting for my grandson." Another wrote, "Open the shop." By the end, Chen Li's daughter also wrote a sentence in the corner of the whiteboard.

Wait for Dad to wake up, take him to see the current home.

The fire of the Guardian Lamp brightened slightly.