Chapter 153: Meat in the Morgue

“… again?”

The doctor raised his head and looked at the two young men in front of the table, with a tired shadow under his pupils.

“Yes, aren’t the facial masks you sell to students of Tianhai University?”

After Song Yutang realized what was happening, she immediately explained.

Doctor Jia was stunned for a moment.

“Yeah, yes…you’re right.”

According to the doctor’s description, the nightmare that had been haunting him since a month ago was based on a strange experience ten years ago.

He survived ten years ago and thought it was all an illusion; but in the nightmare, the fear continued and evolved in the most terrifying direction, causing him to fall into an endless hell.

The dream was so clear, as if he had experienced it himself. Every time he was awakened by the throbbing, it took him a while to confirm that he was in his bed at home and not in the duty room of the morgue. He gradually began to lose the distinction between dreams and reality.

His sleep and mental state naturally became worse and worse, and his family and colleagues were very worried about him. He is a doctor himself and knows that if he continues like this, his body and mind will collapse sooner or later.

“I don’t know whether that dream was some kind of ominous omen, or it was simply using my memory as material to torture me constantly…”

Doctor Jia stared at the ceramic cup in front of him. The traces of coffee left on the wall of the cup were like circles. He stared at the traces like a possessed man, with a dark look in his pupils.

A look of fear still occasionally appeared on the man’s face. Every time this happened, he would subconsciously look around, spying on the faces of everyone around him with a look mixed with suspicion and fear. His shoulders shrank and his arms trembled uncontrollably; it was as if he had suffered a sudden illness, such as… epilepsy.

It can be seen that he was really tortured.

“Have you…seen a doctor?”

“Yes, I have. I have visited the psychiatric department of our hospital and asked an acquaintance to find a reliable psychologist, but they were unable to solve the problem.”

Dr. Jia replied with a wry smile.

“Then you’re left to figure out a solution on your own.”

Cen Dongsheng said.

“That’s right… At the end of that nightmare, I always saw the same boy’s face. I didn’t know him, but I always felt a subtle sense of familiarity. Later I found out that it was the face of a dead person I accidentally saw one day.”

He was about to get off work. When passing through the corridor, he saw several nurses pushing an operating cart hurriedly passing by. The white cloth covering the face of the corpse was accidentally lifted up, revealing a young, pale face.

Unlike most of the dead people he had seen, the dead boy had a smile frozen on his face – it was the kind of smile that was kind and friendly, as if trying to please the person in front of him, and it was very impressive.

In fact, it was just a quick glimpse, but for some reason, the boy’s smiling face began to appear repeatedly in his mind, and eventually became a nightmare that haunted him.

“I suspect I’m haunted by a ghost…” The doctor scratched his messy hair vigorously, “But this doesn’t make sense. I’ve never seen him before. Even until now, I only know a name, which I found in the file!”

“Ghosts are haunting and unreasonable.”

Cen Dongsheng took a sip of coffee slowly.

“……Too.”

Dr. Jia let go of his hand and sighed dejectedly.

“Anyway, I found out that the deceased was named Ke Junchen, and that he was a student at Tianhai University. But what’s the point of just knowing a name? Then I thought, why don’t I just go find him and ask him for clarification?”

“…Looking for a dead person?”

“In that nightmare, wasn’t I in the duty room of the morgue? So I was wondering…is this person calling me over?”

Dr. Jia grinned, seeming very pleased with himself for having guessed this.

But in the eyes of the young man and woman opposite, this man’s condition was not far from madness.

“The result was as expected.”

“Did you look for it in the morgue?”

“Yes. I’m a doctor, so it’s convenient. And the moment I opened the charnel house, I knew I was in the right place.”

Doctor Jia’s attitude was mysterious. After mentioning the name “Ke Junchen”, his mental state somehow improved and he became more interested in the conversation. His pair of dark pupils, embedded in his thin and pale face tortured by nightmares, radiated a warm light.

“As expected, the body inside was nowhere to be found. I asked around and they all said that none of his relatives had been there.”

The inexplicable disappearance of the body transported to the morgue was undoubtedly an abnormal event; but Dr. Jia had experienced nightmares for too long. For a person who could not distinguish between nightmares and reality, when he watched his terrible delusions become reality, he did not feel afraid, but instead felt a sense of relief as if a huge stone had been lifted from his heart.

“I never told anyone about this. It was my secret. That night, I had the dream again. This time, the ending of the dream was indeed different.”

Once again, he returned to ten years ago and once again heard the commotion coming from the morgue… Dr. Jia suddenly found that he didn’t seem to be so scared anymore.

He waited quietly in the duty room, waiting for the lights in the room to go out, waiting for the boy’s smiling face to appear behind the glass window.

Everything developed just as he expected.

At the end of every nightmare, he would see the dead person’s face in his dream, and wake up with a throbbing heart after being overly frightened. But this time, the doctor, who had already prepared himself mentally, felt a sense of anticipation of witnessing the truth.

He heard the sound.

The boy was talking to him through the window.

Although there was only a layer of glass between us, the sound became very vague, as if it came from a very far away place; it was also like the old communication equipment was suffering from signal interference and was mostly drowned out by the noisy background sound.

The doctor listened hard and finally caught a few words.

“…Uncle…Uncle…Uncle…”

——The other person is calling out, he wants to communicate with me.

Once I realized this, the noisy sound echoing in my ears suddenly became extremely clear.

“Uncle, uncle, that’s great…”

That pale smile was like a mask firmly glued to the boy’s face, and the ghost outside the window stared at him unblinkingly.

“This time, you finally didn’t run away.”

The doctor knew he was dreaming, but he couldn’t help swallowing.

“W-who are you?”

“My name is Ke Junchen, uncle knows it.”

“what do you want?”

“I hope uncle can do me a favor.”

“…What can I do for you?”

The ghost became visibly happier. The corners of his mouth stretched into an exaggerated arc. That cheerful smile almost occupied half of his face. His black teeth and black oral cavity were vaguely visible in his mouth.

……

“——So, what you mean is that the reason you sold this strange mask to female college students was because of the ghost in the nightmare?”

“I know you won’t believe this, but that’s what I said at the beginning.”

After saying all this, Dr. Jia seemed to have unloaded a heavy burden from his shoulders. He let out a long sigh and “slid” down on the chair.

“That’s… all.”

Cen Dongsheng remained calm, he smiled and knocked on the table.

“I’m hungry, so I’m going to buy some food to fill my stomach. Doctor Jia, do you need anything?”

“No, don’t worry about me.”

“Okay.” He stood up and patted the girl’s shoulder. “Let’s go see what delicious food there is in the store.”

……

The master and the apprentice walked to the counter, casually ordered a cup of coffee and a cake, and while waiting for the baking time, they turned around and leaned against the wall, looking at Dr. Jia who was staring at the fireplace in a daze not far away.

“Master, is this man really haunted by a ghost?”

Song Yutang asked in a low voice. “I feel like it could be ‘paranoia’. I feel like since he linked his experience ten years ago with his current nightmare, he has been forcing himself to think in a weird direction. After getting the haunted result that suits his wishes, he was relieved… This person’s thoughts are really weird.”

“The line between ghosts and nightmares is always blurry.”

Cen Dongsheng was not surprised.

“Cases involving supernatural factors are difficult to handle. If you want to pry information out of the parties involved, you have to endure the topsy-turvy words, fragmented logic, and all kinds of incomprehensible and bizarre ways of thinking. You have to learn to get used to it.”

Song Yutang nodded, not quite understanding.

“Then, let’s go on…”

“The questioning is not over yet.”

The waiter behind him was greeting them, and Cen Dongsheng turned around and spoke to the person who took the order.

“Please pack the bag.”

……

Carrying the bag, he returned to Dr. Jia, raised his head and looked at the two of them dimly.

“Is the interrogation over? Can I go home now?”

“Aren’t you curious about who we are?”

“…It doesn’t matter who it is.” The doctor’s attitude was cold. “Anyway, I’ve said everything I need to say.”

“Wait, there is a very important question that you haven’t answered yet.”

“what?”

Cen Dongsheng took out the box of facial mask again and unscrewed the lid.

In the spell-binding master’s spiritual perception, this unpackaged, seemingly ordinary facial mask actually exudes a grave-like smell. A wisp of faint black smoke rises in the air. If one is more sensitive, one can even see tiny, howling and distorted human facial patterns in the smoke.

“Where did this come from?”

“…I made it. Ke Junchen told me how to make it and asked me to distribute it to people in the university.”

“Where are the raw materials? Can ghosts still give you things in dreams?”

Cen Dongsheng’s eyes were bright and sharp, looking down at him sitting in his seat.

Dr. Jia was silent for a moment. Faced with the rude questioning, he gave up his last struggle.

“I collected the raw materials myself.” He panted with some difficulty, “In the hospital… That’s enough, let me go…”

“Don’t be impatient. You are willing to listen to ghosts, so why not people?”

Cen Dongsheng laughed.

“Take us to the hospital. I want to see with my own eyes how you made this thing.”

“……What did you say?”

Doctor Jia’s words almost came out from between his teeth, but the next second, Cen Dongsheng’s palm had already pressed down on his shoulder neither lightly nor heavily, and the terrifying force pressed down from top to bottom. He, a mere ordinary man, could not move at all.

“This is my final request,” he said. “I think now that it has come to this, doctor, you won’t let us down, will you?”

*
“Doctor Jia, why haven’t you finished get off work yet so late?”

The people in the duty room greeted Dr. Jia enthusiastically when they saw him passing through the corridor in a white coat.

“Yeah, I just came back from making rounds in the inpatient building.”

“These two are…”

The security guard’s eyes fell on the young man and woman behind him.

“My student.”

Doctor Jia replied indifferently.

“Oh~”

The other party nodded in sudden realization.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

……

It was late at night, and the morgue was located underground. The closer you got to the bottom floor, the fewer people there were; in the end, there was no one to be seen, whether it was a patient or a medical staff, and in the silent and deep corridor, only the footsteps of three people could be heard.

The doctor did not go through the main entrance, but through the underground parking lot, and then went around a long way and came out from the fire escape. If it were not for the hospital staff, they would definitely get lost.

I saw Dr. Jia take out the key and open the door leading to the basement with ease.

“Just go in like that? Aren’t you afraid of being caught by the surveillance cameras?”

“One of the cameras here was broken, and I deliberately didn’t report it. Usually, few people walk by this side, so no one would notice it.”

Open this door and you will see the morgue.

Dr. Jia introduced the hospital to them as he walked in.

“This is the body refrigerator and freezer room, and this is the autopsy room and cleaning room…”

“The cleaning room?”

“Yes. Before the bodies are sent to the freezer, they are disinfected and wiped, but there is still sewage and dirt. Sometimes, no relatives come to claim the bodies after they are sent in, and they are left there for one day, two days, a week? Two weeks…”

He took the two to the preparation room, put on sterilized gloves, and asked them to change their clothes.

“You know what? Hospitals used to do funeral work. At that time, bodies were often kept for a longer time… It’s a pity that they are not allowed to do that now.”

Dr. Jia explained.

“Because the morgue is the source of corpses, this directly affects the operation of the crematorium; and the funeral services provided by the morgue overlap with those provided by the funeral home, so the two are in hidden competition with each other.”

“What are we here for?”

Song Yutang couldn’t help but ask.

“Don’t you want to see my ‘workflow’?”

Dr. Jia glanced at them and gave them a strange smile.

“I’ll show you what I’m working on every night…”

The tone of his murmurs sounded like he was talking in a sleep.

“Speaking of which, it’s time to collect ‘that thing’…”

……

They soon saw the ‘thing’ that Dr. Jia had mentioned.

Donning gloves and picking up a scalpel and lab equipment, Dr. Jia led them to a small room with a refrigerator in the middle.

After opening the cabinet door, what came into view was a huge and ugly mass of rotten meat. It grew in the corner, occupying most of the space. The surface was covered with sticky liquid and exuded a faint fishy smell.

What was even more disgusting was that this mass of rotten flesh was breathing, and its surface was trembling slightly, clearly still in a state of “being alive”…

“W-What on earth is this?!”

The girl following behind Cen Dongsheng couldn’t help but cover her mouth.

“Meat.”

The doctor replied with a smile.

(End of this chapter)