Hospital 444

"Sister..."

Jin Yunran looked at her sister’s feet, which were clad in a pair of relatively light slippers.

Since the funeral, her sister had indeed lost a great deal of weight.

Perhaps for these two reasons, she moved without making a sound... right?

"Here, drink the milk," Yun Lan approached, passing the milk to Jin Yunran.

Jin Yunran reluctantly took the cup of milk.

"Drink up, I just warmed it in the microwave."

"Sister, I..." Jin Yunran had wanted to say she had already mentioned not wanting to drink milk, but since her sister had gone through the trouble of warming it, she couldn’t just let her throw it away.

Thus, she swallowed the half-spoken words.

At that moment... she suddenly remembered the contents of her brother-in-law’s diary.

On the early morning of September 12th, about seven days before her brother-in-law’s death, he woke up and did not see his wife.

That day they were staying in the second-floor bedroom, and his wife later explained that she might have half-awake, half-asleep run up to the third-floor bathroom, then returned and fell back asleep on the second floor.

Sipping the milk slowly, Jin Yunran always felt something was off.

Why would someone who wakes up in the middle of the night, seeking a bathroom, ignore the one on the second floor and go all the way up to the third floor instead?

To know, the second-floor bathroom was very close to the bedroom she shared with her husband, but going up to the third floor first involved walking to the staircase, then after ascending, walking some more...

After such a long walk, and then going back to sleep, how could she not clearly remember if it was a dream or reality afterward?

When she first skimmed through it yesterday, her mind was in chaos, and she hadn’t thought it through. But today, upon careful consideration, it seemed more and more wrong.

So, if her sister wasn’t going upstairs to find the bathroom... what was she doing on the third floor at that time?

"Alright, come downstairs with me," said Yun Lan.

Jin Yunran observed her sister, uncertain whether it was an illusion, but she always felt... her sister seemed very reluctant to let her get close to this attic.

But now, she couldn’t confront her sister about it.

Doing so would expose the fact that she had peeked at her brother-in-law’s diary. Moreover, to confront her sister would be like interrogating a criminal. The police must have considered more than she had, and they would certainly have asked her sister about any doubts regarding this matter.

As Jin Yunran and her sister left, she frequently looked back at the attic cover on the ceiling.

Jin Yunran had always scorned the idea of "women’s intuition" as ridiculous, seeing it as nothing more than a silly psychological suggestion.

But now, she was beginning to waver.

Just now, she had simply mentioned to her sister that there was an attic above, didn’t she?

In normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have gone up.

Yet her sister had preemptively said that the attic had not been cleaned for a long time and had advised her not to go up.

Maybe she was just overthinking it, but Jin Yunran still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not quite right.

"Sister, I’m going to take a nap," she said.

When they reached the second floor, Jin Yunran suddenly felt tired again.

Yun Lan nodded and responded, "All right, by all means, go rest."

"Okay, sister."

Jin Yunran watched as her sister walked downstairs.

She noticed something.

Her sister walking didn’t necessarily mean there was no sound.

Just now, her sister had come so close to her, yet she hadn’t heard a thing.

She could only assume that when her sister approached, she had either intentionally slowed her steps or was walking on tiptoes.

Jin Yunran returned to her room, shut the door, and then... locked it.

She drew the curtains closed, went back to bed, and covered herself tightly with the blanket.

Earlier, upon waking, she had felt quite energetic. But now, she suddenly felt very sleepy.

Or was it that...

She just wanted to retreat to a space of her own to rest?

As Jin Yunran lay in bed, she glanced at the bedside table drawer, where the diary was.

She stared at it for a while and then closed her eyes.

It didn’t take long before she slipped back into sleep.

This time, she didn’t sleep long.

Upon waking, she looked at the time; it had only been about fifteen minutes.

She propped her head on the pillow and started checking the status of her orders in her phone.

She had ordered a gift for Yun Yi, a LEGO set.

Logistics estimated the goods would arrive the day after tomorrow.

"It’s actually been pushed back by another day from yesterday’s estimate."

Complaining was futile at the moment.

Yun Yi would surely be very happy once the LEGO set arrived.

He probably wouldn’t be pondering over whether heaven exists for a while.

Suddenly, the ringtone of the cell phone sounded, and an unfamiliar number came through.

Who?

Telemarketing?

She answered the call, thinking that if the other person mentioned anything about promoting a shop or offering loans, she’d immediately hang up and then block the number.

"Miss Jin Yunran, hello."

"Hello... Who is this?"

Jin Yunran wasn’t about to let her guard down just because the other person knew her name; scammers these days were endlessly cunning and varied in their tricks, acquiring your personal information and finding myriad ways to swindle you.

"My name is Dai Lin, and I must warn you..."

Jin Yunran twirled her hair, already on high alert against this name, which she didn’t recognize at all.

"I know what I’m about to say might sound exactly like a scammer, but I have to warn you, you’re in great danger right now."

Jin Yunran had already started to scoff. What new scam was this?

Was it going to be about providing her with a so-called ’safe account’ next?

She didn’t hang up, deciding to listen and see what kind of trick the caller was trying to play.

"I don’t know how to explain this to you, but you must..."

But then, the other end of the phone went silent.

What happened?

Jin Yunran looked at her phone, and it still showed that the call was connected.

However, when she put it back to her ear, she found only static noise.

She listened for a while before she could make out a few words.

"Curse... escape..."

And then...

The call was disconnected.

What was going on?

Jin Yunran held the phone in a daze, beginning to feel that something was strange.

She was sure she had heard the words "curse" and "escape."

You see, scammers are quite clever nowadays.

A smart lie is often more logical than the truth. Sometimes, real events seem utterly nonsensical, whereas a lie is constructed to gain credibility and seem entirely plausible.

Could it be a fortune-teller?

Have scammers become so competitive nowadays?

She couldn’t be bothered to think more about it and simply blocked the number.

"Wasn’t he going to tell me next that I have some impending blood disaster, that great misfortune is upon me, and unless I pay him money to perform a ritual to remove my bad luck, something terrible would happen... right?"

But on the other hand...

A scammer introducing themselves at the start was indeed rare. Dai Lin, it must be a fake name.

"I haven’t filled out any survey forms offering free giveaways, have I? Although it’s hard to say, I hear that these days even banks leak customer personal information."

Past midnight, she walked out of the bedroom and saw Aunty Lan mopping the floor nearby.

"Aunty Lan, where’s my sister?"

"The madam is downstairs reading. She’s been reading books whenever she has time lately."

"Mm, I see."

Going downstairs, she saw her sister sitting on the couch, holding a copy of Stendhal’s "The Red and the Black."

Aunty Lan had mentioned to her before that her sister had been reading these kinds of world-famous works with particularly difficult content.

And these were books that her brother-in-law used to like to read, which she thought were too hard to understand, so she rarely read them.

She slowly walked over and sat down beside her sister.

"Yun Ran, did you rest well? Wait a moment, and I’ll have Aunty Lan prepare lunch for you."

"Mm."

After a while, Jin Yunran thought for a moment and suddenly asked, "Sister... have you ever heard of someone named Dai Lin?"