Chapter 171 Last Words

The second basement level houses the morgue of the sanatorium.

The temperature here remains below 10 degrees Celsius year-round, and the air is filled with the pungent smell of a mixture of formaldehyde and Freon refrigerant.

Several rows of stainless steel refrigerated cabinets stood against the wall, and on the metal dissection table in the center, lay a lifeless female corpse.

Alex, now wearing a white plastic overcoat, was bending over, holding a UV scanner and a tape measure, skillfully checking the routine physical characteristics of the corpse before it was bagged.

"Wristband ID: 90442. Name: Sarah. Cause of death: End-stage cardiopulmonary failure due to cystic fibrosis."

After checking the plastic tag on his wrist, Alex reached out and pinched the body's jaw and neck muscles.

"Rigoletto has begun to spread. There are no obvious external injuries, and no red flags indicating infectious hepatitis or HIV."

He was checking the data while reciting it aloud.

Standing to the side, Irina was expressionless, holding a cardboard clipboard in her hand, and rapidly ticking off the forms with her ballpoint pen.

She also needs to issue a three-part receipt confirming the body has been safely received, which should be left on the desk in the morgue as proof of the nursing home's expense settlement.

Alex's gaze swept over the female corpse.

As a seriously ill patient who had been bedridden for many years, the condition of this corpse was extremely poor.

The deceased appeared to be no more than thirty years old, but due to long-term illness, the fat on both sides of her cheeks had been completely lost, her cheekbones were high and protruding, and her eye sockets were sunken.

The most obvious thing was her limbs outside her hospital gown.

Due to years of lack of exercise, she suffered severe muscle atrophy in her arms and legs. Her arms were so thin they looked like they would break at any moment, and her skin was loose and stuck to her bones.

The veins on the back of the hand and wrist are densely covered with bluish-purple bruises and hardened puncture sites left by long-term intravenous drips and indwelling needles.

"This illness is quite torturous," Alex shook his head.

"Recording complete, ready to be bagged."

Irina signed her employee number at the bottom of the form, sighed, and put the pen back in her pocket.

Alex pulled over the thick, heavy black body bag next to him, wrapped it around the body, and was about to zip it up.

"Bang!"

The heavy metal double doors of the morgue were suddenly pushed open roughly from the outside, slamming heavily against the wall with a loud bang.

"Stop, stop, stop! Wait a minute!"

Lyon rushed in, walking and running.

Holy crap!

Startled by the sudden loud noise, Alex flinched, and the zipper slipped from his hand, slamming against the stainless steel tabletop with a "thud."

He turned around abruptly, looked at Leon who was rushing in panting, and complained, still shaken:

"What's the rush?! Is a dog chasing you?! I was just zipping up my jacket, I almost had a heart attack!"

Leon ignored his complaints, strode to the metal platform, and looked past Alex, his gaze landing directly on the face of the female corpse who was half-stuffed in a body bag.

Skin and bones, with ashen skin.

"The person I'm looking for is her," Leon said in a low voice, pointing to the corpse on the platform and taking a breath.

"what?"

Alex's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He looked at Leon, then at the corpse beneath his hands, his face filled with disbelief.

"Holy crap, are you kidding me? She's the patient you're visiting?"

"Brother, you're too late! This person is dead!"

Alex slapped his thigh in frustration: "And I've already scanned the barcode on her wrist into our Ren'ai Biotechnology Company's inventory system!"

"The form is already half filled out! And now you're telling me you want to see her?"

Leon ignored the hassle of whether or not the system would be entered into the database. He walked to the other side of the metal platform, bent down, and opened the body bag to take a closer look.

Fortunately.

He was still wearing his hospital gown, and apart from being extremely thin, there were no signs of dissection or damage to the body.

"Not bad, at least he has a whole body." Leon breathed a sigh of relief, his tense nerves relaxing a little.

Alex leaned closer, looking troubled.

"No, buddy. You just said you were asked to come and see the patient. Now the patient is dead, and the body is right here."

"So what's next? Contact her family? Have them come and pay these bills, and decide whether we'll take the body away or they'll find a funeral home themselves?"

"Contact the family?"

Leon glanced at Alex and couldn't help but curse inwardly, "Contact him my ass."

Her only family member died a day before her. Should she call the underworld and let the siblings reunite there?

Lyon sighed, a rare hint of melancholy in his eyes.

He had taken $120,000 Monero from someone else and also obtained clues about the middleman. He had promised to handle the aftermath for his sister. He couldn't just watch Alex put her in a refrigerated truck, take her to an underground lab, slice her up, and sell her.

"There's no need to contact the family."

Leon withdrew his gaze, his tone returning to calm: "I'll take over this."

"We haven't had time to clean her room, number 304, yet. I'm going upstairs to collect her belongings. Please don't touch her yet; we'll talk about the rest when I come down."

After saying that, Leon didn't linger. He turned around and quickly walked out of the morgue, heading back the way he came to press the elevator button.

The morgue returned to its quiet state, with only the refrigeration unit humming softly.

Alex and Irina stood on opposite sides of the metal platform, staring at each other with wide eyes.

"well……"

Irina looked at the signed disclaimer in her hand and, unsurprisingly, sighed again.

"Alright, looks like this deal is off."

Alex rubbed his temples in exasperation, then turned to Irina and began arranging the cleanup:

"Irina, drive the refrigerated truck back to the company first. Park it in the underground garage and turn off the refrigeration."

"What about the inventory records in the system?" Irina asked blankly, holding up the form in her hand.

"Just report an unexpected situation and cancel the order."

The reason given in the remarks was: "Due to a dispute over guardianship among the family members on the eve of the handover, and the attending physician's suspicion of potential medical malpractice, the donation agreement has been temporarily suspended, and the body needs to remain in the hospital for internal forensic pathology re-examination."

"Our company is most afraid of this kind of mess involving medical accidents. As soon as they see this, the logistics guys who are just sitting around drinking tea will cancel the order without saying a word, and they won't even bother to investigate the transportation expenses."

"Alright."

Irina nodded; she was now quite adept at this process of lying and manipulating accounts.

She tore off the three-part form from the whiteboard, crumpled it into a ball, stuffed it into her pocket, packed up her toolbox, picked up her things, and turned to leave the morgue.

Watching Irina leave, Alex also took off his white plastic protective jacket and threw it into the yellow trash can next to him.

"What kind of mess is this?"

He muttered something, reopened the body bag, straightened the deceased's hospital gown, and then followed closely behind Leon out of the morgue and headed towards the elevator.

……

Third floor, room 304.

Lyon pushed open the door and walked into Sarah's hospital room.

The room was small, and the air was filled with a faint smell of medical disinfectant, mixed with a lingering, oppressive atmosphere typical of someone who has been bedridden for a long time.

A single hospital bed was placed by the window. The bed had been half-rumpled by the nurses, and the white sheets still bore the wrinkles from lying down for so long.

An oxygen concentrator that had stopped working stood at the head of the bed, its transparent oxygen delivery hose dangling over the edge.

There were a few simple personal items on the bedside table.

A thermos, several old novels with curled edges, a gray teddy bear with its fur matted, which looks like a childhood toy that has always been with me, and a smartphone with its charging cable plugged in, placed next to my pillow.

Cystic fibrosis, a hereditary disease, is essentially a terminal illness that slowly drowns you in your own bodily fluids.

In the late stages, the patient's lungs and digestive tract will be completely blocked by abnormally thick mucus, making breathing extremely difficult. Each breath feels like swallowing razor blades, and lung infections may also occur.

They can only lie in bed all day, clinging to life with the help of oxygen concentrators and endless sputum expectoration physical therapy.

The body will become thin like a skeleton, but this disease only torments the internal organs and respiratory system. It does not affect the brain's cognition, nor does it directly cause people to fall into a long-term coma.

So even if patients are too weak to get out of bed, they still have the strength to occasionally pick up their phones for a few minutes.

For Sarah, who was confined to her hospital bed, this cell phone was her only window to the outside world and to communicate with her brother.

Lyon walked over, unplugged the charging cable, picked up the phone, and pressed the power button.

He promised the ghost he would handle the aftermath of his sister's case, and that he would have to dig out any information he found.

The screen lights up, and since no lock screen password has been set, it can be unlocked simply by swiping up.

There were very few apps on the desktop. Leon quickly browsed through the contacts and photo album, and finally opened the Notes app.

It contained hundreds of records, and judging from the date range, it was at least two or three years old.

Lyon casually clicked on a few, his eyes quickly scanning the screen.

The words in the memo were extremely calm, so calm that it was suffocating, with a faint sense of deathly stillness.

January 27th. I coughed up blood again today. The nurse was very gentle when changing the sheets, but I know she disliked the smell. I want to go out and get some sun.

March 12. My brother came to see me in the afternoon. He looked very tired, had another bruise on the back of his hand, and smelled of gunpowder.

He said he found a great international security job, and his medical insurance fully covered everything. But would a security consultant carry this kind of injury?

July 4th. The nurse looked at me with pity today. I checked on my phone, and it would cost at least $7 a year in a nursing home for someone in my situation.

I stared at the zero on the screen for a long time. I felt my brother was lying to me; there was no medical insurance coverage. How did he earn this money?

Leon frowned and continued scrolling down.

[October 15th. I know very well that this disease is incurable. The mucus in my lungs is getting thicker and thicker, and I feel like a slowly rotting corpse.]

I don't know what the point is of me lying here every day staring at the white ceiling.

I'm a burden. Every time he visits, he pretends to be relaxed, buying me the most expensive gifts, but I know he has no time to rest. When I ask him about medical expenses, he always smiles and tells me not to worry about it.

I've actually wanted to unplug that oxygen concentrator for a long time. It's too tiring; living is really exhausting.

Upon seeing this, Leon's breathing became slightly heavier.

He slid to the latter half of the memo, which contained information from the past few months.

[November 2nd. I told him I wanted to give up treatment, that I didn't want to continue.]

[This was the first time he'd ever gotten angry at me. After he finished, he grabbed my hand and cried.]

He told me about our time in foster care. Back then, my foster father would get drunk and beat people with a belt. He'd shove me into the closet and stand outside the door to take the beating. He told me that we only had each other left.

He said if I died, he would truly have no relatives left in this world.

I can't let him be sad. If I die, he'll go crazy. So I have to keep breathing. Even if it's just to let him feel like he still has a home, I have to keep the treatment.

As Leon looked at the text, he felt as if a handful of dry grass was stuffed into his throat, something he couldn't swallow or spit out.

He continued scrolling down, his finger stopping at the latest memo.

The time stamp shows it was late the night before last, the same night the gunfight occurred at the unfinished building.

My chest hurts terribly today, like there's cement filling my lungs. It hurts more than usual, and the oxygen concentrator is so noisy.

I texted my brother, but he hasn't replied. I can't get through on the phone either; it just goes to voicemail, so his phone is probably off.

Is he away on another business trip to a faraway place? I wonder when he'll see the news. I hope he's safe.

The diary ends here.

Sarah passed away last night. There were no new records between the night before last and last night, so she probably didn't have the strength left.

Leon stared intently at the screen, his lips pressed tightly together, the muscles in his eyes twitching slightly.

He exited the memo app, suppressed his emotions, opened the instant messaging app on his phone, and found the pinned chat box labeled "Brother".

The last message was sent late the night before last.

It was an ordinary, everyday message:

I feel a bit tightness in my chest today. Remember to eat on time while you're on your business trip, and don't keep eating fast food.

Below this text is a very ordinary cartoon emoji.

It was a chubby cartoon white rabbit with drooping ears and a tear hanging from the corner of its eye, accompanied by the caption "Looking wronged".

Normally, this would be the most typical meme of a sick younger sister asking her older brother for comfort.

But at this moment, in this empty hospital room.

Looking at this emoji that never gets a reply, the huge sense of disappointment is chilling and makes it hard to breathe.

"Hold."

A hint of bloodshot appeared in Lyon's eyes.

He gritted his teeth and uttered a curse in the quiet hospital room.

"Squeak—"

Just then, the wooden door to room 304 was pushed open from the outside.

Alex walked in wearing that gray windbreaker.

As soon as he entered the room, he saw Leon standing by the bedside table, staring intently at a mobile phone.

"What's wrong?"

Alex walked over and glanced at Leon's tense profile: "What's going on now? Aren't you going to pack up his belongings?"