According to Dean Qin, early this morning, the hospital mobilized all staff to search for the missing corpse. Unexpectedly, instead of finding the body, they accidentally discovered another deceased person in a locked office.
The deceased was a doctor surnamed Zhao. Strangely, when found, there were no injuries on his body. Although the hospital officially attributed the cause to sudden death from overwork, the extreme terror and pain on the victim's face sparked rampant rumors within the hospital.
Rumors even spread of "hauntings."
"We're a hospital, and we doctors are all atheists. Now such rumors are circulating—isn't that absurd?"
As he spoke, Dean Qin angrily slammed the table.
"Faced with this situation, we had no choice but to call the police. I believe the investigation results will come out soon. Reporter Chen, we'll have to rely on you to explain this to the public."
After saying this, Dean Qin exchanged a few more polite pleasantries with an earnest look.
Having gathered enough information, Chen Mo glanced at the time and, while expressing gratitude for Dean Qin's support, stood up to take his leave.
By the time he returned to the office, it was already afternoon.
Perhaps because it was the weekend, there weren't many pedestrians passing by the building. The sign for Jiangcheng Times glowed faintly in the sunset's afterglow. Chen Mo walked into the empty office, poured himself a glass of water, and turned on his computer.
For some reason, work was going terribly today. Countless fragments seemed to drift through his mind, making it hard to concentrate. After writing for less than ten minutes, an inexplicable drowsiness kept swirling in his thoughts.
Chen Mo instinctively felt something was off, but the fatigue was so irresistible that, still seated at the computer, he unknowingly closed his eyes.
It felt like only ten minutes, or maybe just one—a very short time—when Chen Mo jolted awake, startled that he had suddenly fallen asleep.
Wait.
Soon, Chen Mo's expression changed. He realized something: although he was still sitting at the computer desk, the surroundings were unfamiliar.
A white coat hung on the wall, stacks of documents on the table, and the familiar smell of disinfectant filling his nostrils.
Suppressing his shock, Chen Mo slowly stood up from the chair and looked around. He found himself in an office of about ten square meters. On the desk in front of him were a computer, some files, and a photo frame. Nearby stood a filing cabinet, and on the other side, a coat rack held a white coat.
This scene didn't resemble an ordinary office building but rather a hospital.
No way!
Had he been pulled into another strange place?
Taking a deep breath, Chen Mo forced himself to calm down. Though this was sudden and eerie, after last night's events, his first instinct told him that panicking was the last thing he should do.
Looking down at himself, he was also wearing a white coat with a work badge on his chest. Chen Mo picked it up and saw a photo of a mild-mannered middle-aged man, with the name Zhao Heping and the title of Chief Physician beneath it.
Zhao Heping? Why did that name sound so familiar? After repeating it, Chen Mo suddenly remembered.
Zhao Heping, Dr. Zhao.
This time, the world he entered was connected to the day's events, and the identity he was given was that of a real-life deceased person.
No, more accurately...
The supernatural world he entered had rewound time to dozens of hours earlier, specifically yesterday morning.
The day before Dr. Zhao's death.
At the same time, right before Chen Mo's eyes, black "tadpoles" began to appear on a blank sheet of paper. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but soon, these black lines twisted and combined in his vision, forming lines of text.
"Welcome to the world of horror stories. A new chapter has begun."
"This time, you will play the role of a doctor. The hospital where you work has experienced a bizarre corpse disappearance."
"This story offers two choices for participants. First, the story will automatically end at 1 a.m. the next day, and participants will be teleported out of the supernatural world. Second, uncover the truth of the incident and resolve it to end this story early."
"The story has begun. Good luck."
A few seconds later, the text twisted back into black "tadpoles" and vanished without a trace.
So it was another supernatural incident...
Standing in the room, Chen Mo looked helplessly at everything around him. Even without submitting that WeChat friend request, he couldn't escape these eerie events.
In that brief moment, other thoughts crossed his mind, like immediately leaving this strange hospital.
But those thoughts were fleeting.
The surroundings seemed normal, but Chen Mo believed he was already under the influence of supernatural forces.
In the previous story, the supernatural power could alter the environment at will. This time, it likely had countless ways to seal off the hospital.
Even if he could leave, the consequences of deliberately defying the plot were probably unbearable.
Looking around, the sunlight outside the window was bright, but it brought no warmth to Chen Mo.
Just then, a commotion erupted outside the window.
Walking to the window, he gently parted the blinds and saw a crowd gathered at the hospital's main entrance. Among them, an elderly couple supporting each other stood out, their faces etched with heart-wrenching pain.
The people around them held up white banners, with the words "Alive, we want to see the person; dead, we want to see the body" written in stark, shocking characters.
Two words instantly popped into Chen Mo's mind.
Medical dispute.
It wasn't hard to guess that the elderly couple were the deceased's parents. Losing a child in old age was a tragedy, and now with no body to be found, it was indeed an impossible situation to explain.
But Chen Mo didn't feel much sympathy at the moment. Not because he was cold-hearted, but because he hadn't forgotten that he was in a perilous supernatural world.
Taking a deep breath, he was about to organize his thoughts when suddenly—knock, knock, knock, knock, knock—a knock came at the office door.