I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 139 - 139 138. Wash hands frequently ventilate more and

Chapter 139: 138. Wash hands frequently, ventilate more, and avoid crowded places_1 Chapter 139: 138. Wash hands frequently, ventilate more, and avoid crowded places_1 [Task begins]

[Task requirement: Enter Nanhua Private Renji Hospital, survive until daybreak]

[Remaining time: 13:06:54]

[Task requirement: Find Du Danping’s Melody Fragment 0/1]

“Six o’clock in the morning, huh?”

Just like the previous experience at the Jiangcheng Grand Theater, surviving until daybreak meant he had to live until six o’clock the next day.

As Lu Ban walked into the hospital lobby, he saw a black box tied to the central column.

Upon closer observation, he realized it was explosives.

Lu Ban had previously suggested to Song Yunyan the idea of having a demolition team install explosives; it seemed they had already prepared them in advance.

The hospital was in disarray, with some uncollected forms, posters, broken chairs, and shattered equipment littering the floor. Normally, such items would be cleared before demolition or simply discarded with the ruins, neglected by everyone.

Lu Ban knelt down, picked up a poster that was promoting health knowledge, and carefully affixed it to the wall.

“Frequent hand washing, good ventilation, avoid crowded places,”

Lu Ban read the words on it aloud.

He took the flashlight and walked toward the elevator.

According to the description, elevators were often trouble spots.

This elevator was very old, with closed doors and no power; perhaps the cables had snapped too. Lu Ban tried pushing the door and felt some give.

He picked up the crowbar and used both hands to pry, relying on his nimble and exquisite crowbar skills to slowly open the elevator doors.

Creak——

Amidst the grating sound of metal friction, the tightly shut elevator door finally opened.

Lu Ban looked inside and saw a person standing there.

It was Lu Ban himself.

“Is this the mirror inside the elevator?”

He didn’t step into the elevator, but instead stood outside, carefully inspecting his reflection.

Unlike the rundown appearance of the rest of the hospital, this mirror was very clean, as though it were being maintained and cleaned daily.

Lu Ban could see a serious expression on his own reflection; his skin looked somewhat pale due to the lighting, as he stood at the entrance of the elevator, unmoving.

He observed carefully and thought he saw something flash by his feet in the mirror.

Looking down, there was nothing.

“Rather than being a kind of bizarre entity, could this mirror serve as protection against the bizarre?”

He muttered to himself.

Normally, Chinese people don’t place mirrors opposite their front doors, as opening the door to see oneself reflected is considered to bring bad luck; mirrors are more commonly used to ward off evil facing the outside of the door.

Furthermore, the mirror in this elevator was placed facing the elevator entrance, which meant normal people would only see it upon entering the elevator, just like Lu Ban was doing right now; that is to say, as long as one steps into the elevator, one can inspect oneself through the mirror.

“Can this mirror reflect supernatural entities?”

[He said that the mirror in the elevator could reveal the true and the false, those malicious and fierce creatures, all without shadows]

Lu Ban remembered this line from the task description.

“He said, is that a pseudonym, for the person who set up this mirror? Was it Du Danping?”

“Those without shadows are malicious and fierce creatures? But if the shadow of a little girl appears in the mirror, does that mean the girl is a good person?”

“At least it can prove that I’m a good person.”

In the end, Lu Ban asserted with satisfaction.

He looked around and stepped into the elevator.

This action was actually very dangerous, as the elevator is usually not on the lowest floor, and there’s also a basement level; the current elevator car was essentially hanging, and any collision could have made it fall.

Creak——

The elevator emitted a frightening sound, and as Lu Ban stood in front of the mirror, he saw something that seemed to have swept past behind him.

Turning around, he saw a face on the ground.

“…”

It was a poster, featuring a photo of a child, also a health promotion poster.

Screech—

As Lu Ban shifted his gaze away from the poster, he heard a metallic friction sound by his ear.

It was as if, the elevator had started moving.

He saw the elevator doors on both sides seemingly about to close, and Lu Ban immediately dashed out.

Looking back, the elevator doors slowly closed, and at the last moment, Lu Ban saw his own reflection in the mirror, smiling back at him.

“Playing ghost tricks.”

Having seen much, Lu Ban was well-seasoned and hardly felt any fear towards such things.

He arrived at the nurse station on the first floor.

This was the place where memos were written; Lu Ban could see the bed inside the duty room. Nurses took short rests here, waiting for their shifts to change.

Walking into the nurse station, Lu Ban saw that the files here had been moved out, and the desk where the computer once sat was in disarray.

He sat down, closing his eyes, imagining himself as a nurse.

The night was deep, and the corridors pitch-black, nothing visible, only the light from the nurse station illuminating the surrounding area.

The nurse sitting here would pick up a flashlight every day, patrol from the fifth floor to the first, two nurses alternating, twice each night.

In the quiet of the night, a person holding a flashlight, moving slowly through the corridors filled with the scent of disinfectant. Then, at the end of the corridor, a door to a room suddenly opens, light spilling out. The nurse wants to check it out, she walks to the door, and inside the room…

Lu Ban opened his eyes, not because he couldn’t imagine what was inside the room at the end of the corridor, but because he thought of something.

“Why have the nurses patrol during the night? The doctor’s rounds should have concluded it; nurses at the nurse station should stay put in case patients call for help in the middle of the night. If it’s about security, the security guards should take care of it.”

This was a private hospital for the wealthy; they surely could afford security guards.

“Or is there some special reason that necessitated the nurses doing this?”

Lu Ban pondered, looking under the desk at the nurse station.

It was dim there, but it seemed there was something.

He bent down and saw that in the space between the desk and its underside was a notebook.

It was an old, worn-out notebook with a red cover.

“Strange?”

Lu Ban picked up the notebook while lifting his head.

Then, he saw himself staring into a pair of eyes.

It was an old man, seemingly over fifty, but still vigorous with a kind smile.

It was a poster on the wall, mostly publicity for the chief physicians, and this one in front of the nurse station featured the previous headmaster named Zhao Gongping. According to the description, after studying medicine abroad, he was recruited to be the headmaster and was also a highly skilled surgeon.

This poster was directly opposite the nurse station, as if the old man monitored the people here through this photograph.

But Lu Ban knew that Zhao Gongping had already died at home of a heart attack prior to the hospital’s closure; his wife found him cold to the touch when she tried to wake him up the next morning.

“What is written in this notebook?”

Lu Ban lowered his head and opened the red-covered notebook.

It contained some brief records, similar to a nurse’s duty diary.

However, some pages were dirty, as if stained with tea or ink, and without any text, the dates also sporadic, ranging from 2002 all the way to just before the closure.

Typical duty records wouldn’t be like this, missing days here and there; they were supposed to be continuous.

Lu Ban felt puzzled; he sensed the darkness deepening around him as the setting sun caused the light streaming into the hospital to dim further.

At that moment, Lu Ban saw that on the page he had just opened, the blank paper suddenly seemed as if someone had scribbled on it with a pen, revealing handwriting.

He stepped back slightly, watching the tangled, messy traces form into barely recognizable words.

It read:

Recorder: Xu Xiao

*

Asking for recommendation and monthly tickets!