Chapter 689 — Not Dead Yet

"Oh, so let her give you the shot, then!" The tough old woman flung down the work in her hands and swept out of the treatment room. That leering look on Kang Zhaoming's face had soured her mood completely. Had the man come to the hospital to be treated, or to gawk at pretty girls? What a piece of work. And he had the nerve to make someone else stick him? Get yourself jabbed to death, why don't you!

Seeing that the tough old nurse had agreed, Kang Zhaoming was suddenly overjoyed. He turned to the pretty young nurse and said, "So — you give me the shot, all right?"

"I... this is my first day here as an intern. I can't..." The pretty young nurse waved her hands again and again. But catching the pleading look in his eyes, she said, "How about I give it a try? If I can't get the needle in, I can always stick you a few more times..."

"Gah?" Kang Zhaoming had been dead set on having the pretty nurse stick him, but the moment he heard her words, his heart turned to ice. First day as an intern? Give it a try? What kind of sick joke was this? He was no lab rat — what if she jabbed him to death?

"What's wrong?" The pretty young nurse looked at him rather oddly.

"N... nothing. I'll just find that Nurse Wang from before!" For all his lechery, Kang Zhaoming was certainly not about to gamble with his life for the sake of a bit of flirting.

"But Nurse Wang has gone up to the inpatient wing. She won't be back for a while..." The pretty young nurse looked at him helplessly. "So how about I give it a try? All right? I'm really very good at it — I used to practice on corpses!"

"N... no need..." Kang Zhaoming was appalled. To hell with you — practiced on corpses? You stick me once and I might just turn into one!

The pretty young nurse looked dewy and lovely, all big eyes and big chest, but she was an absolute brute — not the least bit afraid of jabbing somebody to death. Since when did giving an injection come with a trial run?

Kang Zhaoming had no wish to be her victim. He scrambled to his feet and forced a smile. "Ha — no need. Say, is there another treatment room around here?"

"Oh, yes. Go out the door, turn left, take the elevator, and it's on the second basement level." The pretty young nurse thought it over. "It's a bit far, though. And judging by the way you look, you're about to keel over — so let me just give you the shot, hm?"

"No need. I'm perfectly clear-headed. I won't be fainting anytime soon!" Kang Zhaoming waved a hand, and with Wang Shubin and Zhu Xiaozhang at his side, he left the nurses' treatment room and made for the elevator. He cursed the whole way down. What kind of godforsaken hospital was this? Intern nurses had no ethics at all — using patients as guinea pigs without a second thought?

"Young Master Ming, can you make it? Should we rest a while?" Seeing how badly Kang Zhaoming was reeling, Wang Shubin asked at once.

"I'm fine. Let's just hurry up and get the shot." Kang Zhaoming said. "If I'd known, I'd have let that tough old woman stick me in the first place. What rotten luck!" He had always felt that disaster followed him wherever Xiaofen went, and now, sure enough, it was true.

The three of them stepped into the elevator. The old woman operating it glanced them over and asked, "Which floor? This one's going down!"

"We're going down too — second basement level!" Wang Shubin told her. Privately, though, he was thinking: what kind of planning is this hospital? The treatment rooms aren't even in the same place; one here, one there, and this one's stuck down in the basement.

The old woman gave the three of them a rather strange look, but pressed the button for the second basement level.

When the elevator reached the first floor, everyone else got off, leaving only Kang Zhaoming and his two companions.

Kang Zhaoming found it odd — how was it that not one of them had been going down to the basement?

When the elevator reached the second basement level and the doors slid open, Wang Shubin and Zhu Xiaozhang helped Kang Zhaoming out — and a chill, dank air rushed into their faces, making all three of them shiver.

With it came the smell of rot and disinfectant, and the lights in the corridor were very dim.

"What the hell — what kind of goddamn place is this? Why isn't there a single soul around?" Kang Zhaoming could not help but curse.

Wang Shubin thought it strange too. But then he looked up and got such a fright that he instinctively fell back two steps. He was still holding Kang Zhaoming, and the sudden retreat sent the man stumbling. "What are you doing? Trying to kill me with a fall?" Kang Zhaoming snapped.

"Young Master Ming, this... this..." Zhu Xiaozhang had looked up too, and seen that something was wrong. Only Kang Zhaoming was too woozy to lift his head.

"What is it? Spit it out, if you've got something to say!" Kang Zhaoming said impatiently. "Just find somewhere we can get this shot—"

"Young Master Ming, you can't get a shot here!" Zhu Xiaozhang said.

"Can't get a shot?" Kang Zhaoming blinked. "What do you mean?"

"This is where they give shots to the dead..." Zhu Xiaozhang pointed ahead, not far off, panic in his voice. "Young Master Ming, this is the morgue!"

"What?" Kang Zhaoming was startled. He looked up — and sure enough, there it was, the word MORTUARY in three big characters, looming under the dim corridor light, all the more ghastly and terrifying for it.

"Creeeak..."

Just as the three of them stood there, rigid with panic, a sound came from the morgue door.

"Run!" In that instant Kang Zhaoming forgot he was a patient. Strength came to him from somewhere; he whirled around and charged madly for the elevator, jabbing the button over and over. But the elevator had already climbed a dozen floors or more, and it would be a while yet before it came back down.

Wang Shubin and Zhu Xiaozhang were tense beyond words. They kept telling themselves it was broad daylight — where would a ghost come from? — but the atmosphere was genuinely eerie, and their hearts raced for no reason at all.

The morgue door slowly opened, and a gurney slid slowly out through the small doorway.

Hearing the noise, Kang Zhaoming turned his head — and with a strangled "gah!" he fainted dead away from fright. His body was already weak beyond bearing; add terror to that, and how could he have held up?

Wang Shubin and Zhu Xiaozhang, though frightened, breathed a sigh of relief once they made out what was behind the gurney. A little old man was pushing it, trundling it toward the elevator. The light had been so dim, and the old man so short, and he had appeared only after the gurney — small wonder anyone would take it for a gurney moving on its own...

The old man saw Wang Shubin and Zhu Xiaozhang too. But when he caught sight of Kang Zhaoming on the floor, he asked at once, "Dead too? Why'd you bring him down yourselves? Where's the doctor?"

"No... he's not dead. Not dead yet. We just took a wrong turn, that's all..." Wang Shubin hurried to explain, afraid the old man would wheel Kang Zhaoming straight into the cold storage.

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