Hospital 444

Dai Ming and Pan Yizhen, with the help of a nurse, returned to that crossroad.

At this moment, both of their hearts were incredibly heavy.

The events that just occurred felt like an unrealistic dream.

The only reality was the CT scan report in their hands.

Dai Ming looked at Pan Yizhen, whose soul seemed to have left her body, and could tell that her current mood was quite anxious.

"Miss Pan," Dai Ming did not feel comfortable letting Pan Yizhen go back alone and said, "Let me take you back to the hotel."

"I don’t want to just go back to the hotel." Pan Yizhen suddenly looked at Dai Ming and said, "That female ghost... she’s probably not some fictional existence in a painting! Do you understand what I mean?"

"Hmm? What, what do you mean, Miss Pan?"

"Come with me."

After that... Pan Yizhen led Dai Ming into a nearby internet café.

She took out those sketches from her bag and opened a forum.

It was a forum called "Sinister Night Talks," and from the name alone, one could tell what kind of posts were published there.

Pointing at the forum, Pan Yizhen said, "I’m already level six on this forum. I plan to post our pictures on this forum!"

"What?"

Only then did Dai Ming understand Pan Yizhen’s intent.

"If this female ghost truly exists... if there are other people like us who can only draw this female ghost, then maybe someone will see the post!"

"That makes sense... I’ll help you edit the post too."

...

Afterward, Pan Yizhen and Dai Ming used their alternate accounts to "repost" their own post on other forums, hoping to increase the post’s influence and praying it wouldn’t get taken down with a 404 error.

After they were done, the two of them walked out of the internet café as the sky gradually darkened. Winter nights approached far too quickly.

Under the cover of night, Dai Ming and Pan Yizhen both felt an intense sense of helplessness.

"Shall I... take you, Miss Pan?"

Pan Yizhen looked at Dai Ming beside her and said, "I’ve thought about a lot. If I die..."

"Don’t talk like that! We’re just drawing, how could anyone die!" Dai Ming still wanted to comfort Pan Yizhen: "Don’t scare yourself like this!"

"Life is just full of things that can’t go the way we want."

Pan Yizhen raised her head, gazing into the boundless dark sky.

"When I was little, my parents took me to an amusement park for a whole day, and then, they took me to a children’s restaurant and seriously told me, ’Yizhen, from now on, mom and dad won’t live together like before, but besides that, nothing else has changed. Yizhen, do you want to live with dad or with mom?’"

Although Dai Ming had never had such an experience, merely listening to Pan Yizhen speak with such a calm tone about it made him feel a pang of heartache.

"Isn’t it strange? Why would my parents ask me such a question, forcing me to make such a cruel choice? I’d never seen them argue, let alone mention domestic violence. And no, there was no cheating, no mistresses, no melodramatic scenes of catching an affair. The two just fell out of love, removed of affection, and they asked me to choose just one of them to live with after playing with me all day..."

As Pan Yizhen reached this part, tears were already streaming down her face.

Dai Ming was suddenly a bit embarrassed, but despite searching his whole body, he couldn’t find a pack of tissues. Passersby on the street glanced over from time to time, probably mistaking Dai Ming for a scumbag.

"You see..." Pan Yizhen spread her hands and said to Dai Ming, "Life is like that, that cruel. At that time... crying, I clung to their clothes, begging them not to divorce, not wanting that term I only saw on TV shows to happen to me. I begged them while crying so sorrowfully... To this day, I still can’t understand why they absolutely had to divorce."

"These kinds of things... maybe only the people involved really understand..."

"That day, they bought me a lot of ice cream, so much... very sweet. And then... from that day on, until now, I’ve never eaten ice cream again. Not even once."

Dai Ming thought of that saying: Happy people use their childhood to heal their lifetime, unhappy people use a lifetime to heal their childhood.

"I might not get married in the future. I don’t want to get married and have children hastily, and then one day when the love is gone, to tell my child: ’Child, you have to choose between me and your father...’"

"Both my parents have remarried and had a second child, so... if I died... if..."

"That’s not going to happen!" Dai Ming shook his head desperately: "Even if your parents are divorced, they still love you! My parents have been worried sick about me! They’ve always been worried that my drawing these kinds of pictures means I have serious mental health issues, so they’ve always been taking me to doctors. My mom held me and said... she doesn’t care if I can become a great painter; she’d rather have a healthy me..."

Pan Yizhen fell silent.

"You must have a very happy family."

"I... I didn’t mean it like that..." Realizing he might have said the wrong thing, Dai Ming suddenly felt at a loss for what to do.

Pan Yizhen looked at the CT scan appointment slip in front of her.

"Hey, Dai Ming."

"Hm?" Dai Ming didn’t even realize someone had called out his full name at first.

"I want to go see my dad. I haven’t seen him for many years. If something really is going to happen to me... I’d like to see him one more time. He lives in W City... After the divorce from my mom, it took him one year before he and a few friends came to W City to start a business, and then, he settled down here and never returned."

Dai Ming faintly speculated that maybe the real reason for Pan Yizhen’s parents’ divorce was a matter of incompatible values.

"You want to see him, but you’ve been too scared to go, haven’t you?"

"I don’t know..." Pan Yizhen was obviously very conflicted, "Anyway, not today. Let’s wait for the report. Maybe the doctor made a mistake in the diagnosis, and there’s nothing wrong at all."

After Dai Ming escorted Pan Yizhen to the hotel entrance, she turned back to look at Dai Ming.

"Then, I’ll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

...

On the way home, Dai Ming had Xie Chengjun’s stern face and Pan Yizhen’s tearful appearance flooding his mind.

Dai Ming grabbed his phone and couldn’t help but start searching "what to do if cursed by a Resentful Spirit..."

Things like spreading salt, believing in Buddhism, conducting rituals for deliverance... As Dai Ming kept reading, he truly didn’t think any of the methods sounded effective.

"Pan Yizhen..."

Dai Ming silently repeated the name.

"I hope we can all live well..."

At this moment, he was sitting on the subway heading home.

There were about three subway trains away from his house.

His home was at the terminal station of the subway, so there were only a few people left on it at this point.

He felt a bit sleepy.

Theoretically, there were three more stations, and he could just endure it till he arrived, but his eyelids were getting heavier and would fight to close.

Forget it, just sleep. After all, once he reached the terminal station, the station staff would naturally wake him up.

Afterward, Dai Ming fell into a deep sleep.

Not knowing how long he had slept, when he awoke, Dai Ming discovered that he was the only person left in the carriage.

The subway broadcast announced that the station was approaching.

Dai Ming picked up his phone and just as he unlocked it...

An image appeared in front of him.

It was a drawing app on his phone, which Dai Ming could not remember when he had installed.

At that moment, the app was open, displaying a sketch.

That drawing... was unmistakably his own style.

Could it be... he had drawn it?

The thought alone made Dai Ming’s hair stand on end, and he inhaled a cold breath of air.

In the drawing... was the very subway carriage he was in!

Inside the drawing, there was himself!

And on the seat opposite him...

...sat that female ghost!

Dai Ming put down his phone, widened his eyes, and looked at the seat across.

The row of seats before him was utterly empty... not a single person in sight!

Dai Ming’s face turned deathly pale, and he trembled as if he were sifting chaff.

The subway arrived at the station.

Scared out of his wits, as soon as the subway doors opened, Dai Ming bolted out like a madman, running frantically toward the turnstile area. After swiping his transit card, he charged towards the subway exit, constantly looking over his shoulder!

"Don’t... you... don’t... don’t come looking for me!"