Capítulo 76: Chapter 76: A Ghost Nearby
The double-occupancy hospital room housed only one person. She was dressed in a white patient gown and stood motionless on the bed.
That's right, she was standing on the bed with her toes pointed and her hands reaching toward the ceiling.
"What is she doing?"
The door to this hospital room was unusual; it could only be opened from the outside. After ensuring no one was around, I slipped my jacket into the door gap and pushed it open to step inside.
Typically, a double room with only one occupant might feel empty and lonely. However, upon entering, the first sensation that hit me was an overwhelming sense of oppression.
This deep, suffocating pressure seemed to come from the ceiling. When I glanced up instinctively, my pupils constricted sharply.
The ceiling, which should have been clean and white, was instead covered with grotesque and bloody drawings alongside vicious, hateful curses.
"Kill him! Kill him!"
"I'll peel off his skin!"
"Revenge! Give me the knife, give it back to me!"
"Look, his blood is everywhere."
Most of the scarlet writing appeared to be done with lipstick. Some parts were drawn with red medicine, and a smaller portion was made with actual blood.
Seeing the dense curses and fragmented human shapes on the ceiling, I gasped sharply. For a moment, stepping through that door made me feel like I was back in a live mission from the Hell Show.
"Severe psychological trauma. Could it be a lingering effect of the car accident?"
I slowly approached the patient's bed. All ten of her fingers were heavily wrapped in bandages, but fresh blood still seeped through the tips.
I didn't speak. Instead, I folded my arms and observed quietly.
The woman was standing on her tiptoes, using her left hand to draw on the ceiling while her right hand was stuffed into her mouth.
After a few strokes, when the blood from her left hand dried up, she removed the right hand from her mouth. Fresh blood dripped from her fingers, and she seemed delighted by it.
Her ten fingers, bitten and bleeding profusely, didn't seem to cause her any pain. She strained to stand on her tiptoes and continued creating her gory artwork on the ceiling.
"What is she trying to express through these drawings? Anger? Hatred?"
I wasn't skilled at interpreting art, but from the frantic curses scrawled on the ceiling, I could at least discern a basic narrative.
This meant the woman wasn't completely deranged; communication between us was still possible.
"Jiang Shihan."
Hearing her name, the woman stopped what she was doing and tilted her head to look at me standing beside the bed.
In the confined room, being stared at by such a strange and eerie woman would unsettle most people. But I was used to this sort of thing.
"Do you know Huang Guanxing?"
As soon as I uttered the name, Jiang Shihan's mouth fell open, her expression rapidly transforming as terror spread across her face like a drop of ink in clear tea.
Her previously delicate and charming features turned pale and twisted. She pressed herself tightly against the wall, as if I were a ghost from the underworld.
"Such an intense reaction? What exactly happened that night?"
She didn't answer but grabbed the blanket and pulled it over her head, leaving only the lower half of her body exposed. Her waist and legs trembled incessantly from fear.
"Was it the Hell Show that came after you?"
I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. This girl was only implicated because of Huang Guanxing; she bore no fault of her own.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I took out my phone and started taking pictures of the blood-soaked drawings and curses on the ceiling, intending to study them later.
But as I snapped photos, I suddenly stopped. "These drawings are interconnected."
The earliest drawings, crudely done with lipstick, depicted two small figures surrounded by chaotic, monstrous shapes.
The two figures endured various tortures. Eventually, one was dismembered, while the other was released by the chaotic figures.
The subsequent drawings, painted with red medicine, showed the released figure hiding inside a large box. Based on my interpretation, the box probably symbolized a house.
Outside the box lingered several grotesque and distorted shapes. Jiang Shihan's abstract style made them resemble humans but also distinctly monstrous.
The later drawings became even more surreal. The figure opened a wardrobe to find strange people inside. Opening the refrigerator, there were more bizarre people. Even a cooking pot contained one of these figures.
These images occupied most of the ceiling. Then I focused on the scene Jiang Shihan had been painting earlier.
A small figure stood on a bed. Beneath a thin mattress was one of those strange shapes!
The bloody drawings carried an eerie realism, as if they exuded the metallic scent of blood. I stared at them for a long time before recalling how Jiang Shihan had been standing on the bed earlier, painting the ceiling.
"The small figure in her drawings is herself!"
I turned to look at her. At some point, Jiang Shihan had poked her head out from under the blanket. Her mouth was open, but she said nothing, only extending her tongue to lick the mattress.
"Is she saying that the thing is hiding under the bed right now?" I quickly understood her meaning. "But I checked when I arrived—other than her and me, there's no one else in this room."
"Could it be?"
I pulled out the Hell Show phone and turned on the camera function. Staring at the screen, I slid it under the bed.
The screen showed the scene beneath the bed: a pair of slippers and a spittoon. The lighting was dim, but nothing seemed out of place.
"No, wait!" I adjusted the angle, moving the camera upward. My eyes widened in shock.
In the corner of the bed frame, a skeletal infant was crouched there! "A Thai spirit baby!"
The creature hadn't realized it had been discovered. Its toothless mouth stretched wide in a grotesque grin as it appeared to feed on Jiang Shihan's vitality.
"There really is a ghost under the bed. If that's the case…" I glanced up at the blood-red drawings on the ceiling and felt a chill run down my spine. "The distorted, monstrous shapes in all those drawings are ghosts!"
No wonder Jiang Shihan had been driven to madness. What she had endured these past days was beyond harrowing.
"So, this is how the Hell Show takes lives?" Then I shook my head. "But Huang Guanxing had no enmity with the Hell Show. If the death of the gatekeeper, Old Huang, was due to his intention to expose the Hell Show, then Huang Guanxing had done nothing to violate its rules."
This raised a lingering logical question about the deaths of the Hell Show's viewers.
Were they nearing death, which enabled them to see the Hell Show, or did watching the Hell Show lead to their demise?
I hadn't figured out the causality yet.
"Jiang Shihan is the key to solving this mystery. She must not be harmed further." I called Secretary Zhang in the middle of the night, hoping he could arrange for Jiang Shihan to be discharged and temporarily relocated to the headquarters of Qianding Pharmaceuticals.
Though surprised by my request, Secretary Zhang, ever professional, assured me he would head to the hospital immediately to handle the paperwork.
Jiang Shihan hid herself under the blanket again while I kept watch on the spirit baby's movements through my phone.
"At Jiang Chen's wedding, I saw a similar spirit baby. Both Jiangjin Real Estate and Qianding Pharmaceuticals are major players in Jiangcheng, and Secretary Zhang's list of suspects also included the Jiang family."
"Could it be that the Jiang family, not the Hell Show, killed Huang Guanxing?"
I recalled an old news report. In recent years, real estate had been booming, and Qianding Pharmaceuticals, flush with cash, had announced plans to enter the market. Due to their longstanding reputation, they had already secured several major projects in Jiangcheng.
"A strong motive for murder. As for the means…"
I had seen the Jiang family's spirit baby with my own eyes. Jiang Chen had even hired a witch doctor to deal with me. It seemed the Jiang family was adept at using such dark methods to eliminate threats.
"If that's the case, Jiangjin Real Estate becomes the prime suspect in this case."
Frowning deeply, I pondered the implications. If this theory proved true, the power dynamics in Jiangcheng would shift dramatically.
A conflict between two major conglomerates would affect everyone in Jiangcheng.
"Without concrete evidence, I can't reveal this to anyone. Otherwise, I'll be in even greater danger."
Watching the eerie grin of the spirit baby on my phone screen, I fell into thought.
Forty minutes later, Secretary Zhang arrived. Upon entering the room, he was visibly shaken. The blood-red artwork on the ceiling would be overwhelming for anyone.
He made calls to the relevant authorities, but due to the involvement of multiple departments, the discharge paperwork couldn't be processed until morning.
"Mr. Gao, one night shouldn't make a difference, right?" Secretary Zhang looked troubled, understandably so given my unusual request.
"That's not necessarily the case." Leaning against the doorframe, I glanced at the nurse in the duty room.
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