Chapter 40

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Time continued to pass second by second. The nurses around her looked extremely uneasy. Compared to them, Song Qingxiao appeared incomparably calm.

She knew that Liu Yixun and the others had already gone up to the fourth floor. Hence, they should have discovered the utter chaos along with the several dead bodies there.

The prompt in her consciousness did not show any credit deductions. It appeared as though number six, who hid somewhere in the dark, would not strike in front of a crowd like that.

She let out a small sigh of relief and lowered her head. The numbers in her vision had dropped to 85: 47: 29. There was not much time left, and she would have to fight several more tough battles up ahead.

Her eyes looked a little defeated. The complete depletion of her psychic energy caused her to shiver non-stop. Sleepiness crept up in waves over her. In that quiet corridor, the ‘ding’ indicator sound of the elevator could be heard.

Song Qingxiao, who was drowsy and about to fall asleep, jolted awake in an instant. She clenched her injured hand, and the sharp twinge of pain immediately made her feel more awake.

“Doctor Liu and the others are back.”

The nurse who spoke seemed extremely relieved as she said that. A succession of people had died in the hospital, casting a dark shadow on all the people in the hospital. Hence, it was hard to avoid emotional upheavals.

Everyone in the ward was a psychiatric patient. After they had all taken their sedatives, the hospital was so eerily quiet that everyone felt a little frightened. A couple of the nurses sat together. As soon as they heard that Doctor Liu and the others were back, they all stood up.

Liu Yixun wore a solemn expression. Before the nurses could speak, he spoke first, “Something bad has happened on the fourth floor.”

His words caused the expressions on the nurse’s faces to change. Song Qingxiao hung her head low as she listened to Liu Yixun.

“Old Zhao—the security guard—has been killed. Two patients in the level one patient rooms have died as well. One of them was the man who arrived yesterday and killed Doctor Zhou.”

The people who had gone up to the fourth floor turned on the electricity and cleaned up the area. Out of the three duty nurses upstairs, two of them were still unconscious. The other nurse had sustained injuries from being crushed along with the security guard. They were not severely injured, but they remained unconscious until then.

A total of five people had died in one night, including number four, who was discovered in the emergency stairwell. As soon as the nurses heard that, they paled and trembled in fear.

Song Qingxiao noticed that Liu Yixun did not mention the disappearance of number six. He noted that three people died on the fourth floor, which meant that he did a headcount on the people upstairs. He knew the number of patients who died, the number of security guards on the floor, and he even checked on the unconscious nurses. Hence, he must have checked on the patients.

Since Liu Yixun did not make any special mention of number six, who was in the intensive care unit, it indicated that number six was not ‘missing’. However, number six was not present when Song Qingxiao inspected the patient rooms on the fourth floor.

It could only mean that after Song Qingxiao killed number four, number six, who had been hiding in the darkness, would have taken the opportunity to return to her ‘patient room’. Once she was there, she could continue to put up an act to trick Liu Yixun and the others.

She subconsciously raised her head. She had planned to search Liu Yixun’s face for any clues, but right at that moment, she noticed that his eyes were also upon her. Perhaps, it was because too many people have died tonight. The hospital seemed to be a little sinister.

Under that ghastly white light, Liu Yixun’s familiar face, a face that Song Qingxiao would not be able to forget even in her dreams, seemed to appear faintly green. It gave her an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

“Who among you has been up to the fourth floor tonight?”

Liu Yixun spoke in a chilling tone. His familiar action of stuffing his hand into his pocket reminded Song Qingxiao of the doctor in the previous trial, making her emotions more tense.

“Tonight, I’m working the night shift along with Xiaoyun and Xiaohua. The three of us have been administering medication to the patients on the third floor. Qingxiao and Xiaochun were on the second floor.”

Zhang Xiaoyu spoke up softly. She had organized that night’s work schedule. She leaned closely against Song Qingxiao. She paused for a brief moment as soon as she spoke up to that point.

“Tonight, the patient in bed 15 caused a huge commotion, so everyone had rushed over and was busy trying to subdue her.”

“When the disaster happened upstairs and when Doctor Ou was harmed, is there anyone around all of you who can attest to the fact that you were all here?”

Liu Yixun’s words seemed like the calm before the storm. The security guards and Doctor Hu’s eyes were fixed on the nurses on duty before them. It looked like they tried to find out the murderer from amongst them.

“The road leading up to the mountain has been destroyed. For this to have happened in the middle of the night in the hospital, it means that the murderer is among us.”

Liu Yixun was exactly like he was in her memory—explaining the situation in a calm manner.

“At the moment, there is no way to report this to the police, and there’s also no way to get help. If the murderer stays hidden, there is a great chance that they will act again. We need to uncover this person to prevent more people from getting hurt. Who is going to speak up first?”

As soon as Song Qingxiao heard that, her palms began to sweat. Her palms were injured, and she had not had the chance to deal with it. Since she was sweating, her wound started to itch and burn with pain. It felt as though countless ants were burrowing into her flesh. However, she felt helpless to do anything about it.

“Qingxiao and I were delivering the medication on the second floor. Once we were done, we went up to the third floor.”

Xiaochun rushed to explain after her name had been mentioned by Zhang Xiaoyu.

“Once we got upstairs, it was about 8:30pm. I went to look for Xiaohua and the others once I’ve washed my hands.”

As soon as Xiaochun finished speaking, another nurse nodded her head. She added, “Xioachun helped us to give out the medication to the patients all the way until we reached bed 15. The patient there refused to cooperate.”

The hospital was short-staffed. Since the nurses got on well with each other, it was normal for them to help each other.

“The patient was enraged and started to hurt people. Soon after, the patient in bed 16 refused to take their medication as well. After that, the patients started to fight. The three of us were stuck in the patient room.”

As soon as the incident of being stuck in the patient room was brought up, the three nurses wore scared expressions.

When the patients in the psychiatric hospital did not suffer a psychotic episode, things were pretty good. However, once they experienced a psychotic episode, they would be highly aggressive, especially since the patients in the hospital were mainly ones who had severe conditions. There have been incidences in the past where doctors and nurses have been chased and beaten up.

It was a terribly dangerous situation to be stuck in the patient room like that!

All the nurses had wounds on their faces. As soon as Tu Xiaoyun mentioned this, she still looked a little fearful. She continued by saying, “At least we were all there together.”

As soon as Liu Yixun heard that, he frowned. He looked at Song Qingxiao suspiciously.

“What about you?”

Song Qingxiao felt her throat close up. Her heartbeat began to speed up. Of course, there would be no one who would testify that she was present. No one would attest that she did not kill the patient, security guard, and Doctor Ou.

Song Qingxiao was a newcomer. Since something terrible had happened in the hospital, the easiest person to suspect would be the new person. She racked her brains to try to come up with a countermove, hoping to get past that tight spot before she thought about anything else. However, she did not manage to come up with anything when Zhang Xiaoyu spoke up slowly.

“Qingxiao was with me.”

Song Qingxiao turned to look at Zhang Xiaoyu, and her eyes flashed. Zhang Xiaoyu squeezed her arm comfortingly as though she was silently cheering her on.

“After Qingxiao came up from the second floor, she followed me because she wanted to familiarize herself with the hospital jobs as quickly as possible.”

Song Qingxiao never imagined that Zhang Xiaoyu would help her cross that bridge at such a critical point. Since Zhang Xiaoyu had spoken, Liu Yixun and the others would naturally not suspect Song Qingxiao any longer.

At that moment, the sound of rushing footsteps could be heard from the emergency stairwell. It sounded like someone was coming up from the second floor.

As soon as everyone had heard that sound, their faces paled as they subconsciously turned to look at the door leading to the emergency staircase. Zhang Xiaoyu instinctively hugged Song Qingxiao even more tightly. Several of the nurses wore expressions of terror.

Creak.

The sound of the emergency exit door opening rang out. The bespectacled guy appeared at the door, huffing and puffing with a bright red face because he had been running.

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