Zhou Bai said, "Christina, let me check the time. If the exploration takes more than ten minutes, based on what we find inside, we can consider reversing time by ten minutes and come to explore again next time."
As he spoke, Zhou Bai glanced at the wristwatch which he had specially exchanged at the supply exchange for timing, costing him 15 points.
Christina nodded heavily, "Hmm."
He then walked through the open iron gate.
What appeared in front of him was a community hospital with only one building.
The whole hospital seemed extremely dilapidated; from the outside, most of the windows were shattered, and the large empty building entrance was pitch black and somewhat eerie.
Zhou Bai, with a "tat tat tat" sound of footsteps, walked into the main entrance of the first floor and discovered the entire building appeared to have scorch marks.
"Did a fire happen here?" Zhou Bai controlled the Lighting Stone and swept it towards the depths of the first-floor corridor only to see a pitch-dark area, unclear to the eyes.
"Dr. Zhuang left the coordinates only for this location. Where exactly did he hide the stuff?"
Unable to figure it out, Zhou Bai could only check each floor.
In doing so, he discovered that the whole hospital did indeed seem to have experienced a fire. Most things were burned beyond recognition—various beds, cabinets, medical equipment mostly damaged and charred, haphazardly thrown on the ground, leaving no clues visible.
Consequently, Zhou Bai quickly searched from the first to the fourth floor, but because of the ten-minute reverse time limit, he moved very rapidly, nearly skimming through, taking only five minutes to complete the sweep of the entire building.
"Dr. Zhuang really should have made clear where exactly the stuff is. When will I find it?"
Just as Zhou Bai thought this, he suddenly focused on a pool of dried, blackened blood on the ground, resembling ink.
"It’s blood, right? And very old," Zhou Bai observed, discovering more traces of blood nearby. Following the scattered bloodstains, he came to a room on the fourth floor. As he opened the door, a stench hit him.
Then, under the light of the Lighting Stone, piles of white bones appeared in front of Zhou Bai.
"Ah!" Christina screamed, shrinking into a ball inside her mind, shivering, "I’ll have nightmares about this for a lifetime!"
"This is..." His gaze intensified, and he said, "Relax, they’re not human bones." He crouched down and observed closely, saying, "They look like small animals, mostly rats."
He stroked his chin and analyzed, "Something here has been catching rats to eat?"
Looking at the dust-covered bones, he estimated, "And it’s been a long time. Could it be a cat?"
Christina shouted, "A cat wouldn’t eat this much and pile up the bones like this!"
At that moment, a loud bang came from the direction of the main entrance downstairs. Zhou Bai’s figure leaped up, running towards the source of the sound.
However, after running just a few steps, Zhou Bai stopped, "Wait, what if there’s danger here?"
With that thought, he quickly lay on the ground and, with rapid movements of his hands and feet, crawled toward the first floor.
Arriving at the first floor, he found that the main entrance door was unexpectedly closed; the entire lobby of the first floor was pitch black.
"Who closed the door?"
Zhou Bai tried to push the door and found it locked, but with a little more force, he pushed the door open with a bang, and it fell to the ground.
As he knocked the door down, footstep sounds "pitter-patter" came from the deeper part of the first-floor hallway. Zhou Bai’s gaze intensified as he quickly slid forward.
His ears twitched slightly, already hearing the cold laughter of someone nearby.
’Laughing outside in the middle of the night, definitely not a good sign.’
Zhou Bai’s body swiftly climbed the wall, continuing upward as his arms easily burrowed into the concrete, moving toward the direction of the sound along the ceiling.
Zhou Bai, "This position feels more convenient indoors."
Zhou Bai, "It’s just that turning my head around, being upside down, feels somewhat awkward."
Christina, "Why don’t you just twist it more than a hundred degrees? With your current control over your body, you can do it."
Zhou Bai, "Oh! This way it looks much more comfortable."
In the first-floor outpatient clinic of the hospital, Meng Hao looked left and right, finding no issues.
Meng Hao, "Why did Zhou Bai come here?"
Because Jiang Ran had been keeping an eye on Zhou Bai, the moment they saw him leave Dao School, they followed.
Initially, when Zhou Bai reached the surface, Jiang Ran wanted to make a move, thinking the two of them could capture Zhou Bai together and hand him over to the authorities.
However, Meng Hao thought about it and stopped him, choosing instead to follow Zhou Bai to this hospital.
"With Zhou Bai’s performance during the assessments, even if we teamed up, we might not necessarily beat him."
"Moreover, the higher-ups believe Zhou Bai’s exceptional talent might be related to the Primordial Spirit. Now, seeing him come to this abandoned hospital late at night, he truly must be hiding secrets. Following him wasn’t in vain."
As Meng Hao was thinking this, he frowned slightly and turned to look down the hallway behind him.
For some reason, he always felt like someone in the darkness was watching him.
Meng Hao checked and found nothing, shook his head, and continued searching for Zhou Bai, "Jiang Ran is on lookout outside. Since there’s no signal, it means Zhou Bai is still in this building. Where could he be? What could he be doing?"
While Meng Hao pondered this, a sudden loud crash echoed through the air—the sound of a door falling to the ground. Meng Hao quickly headed towards the entrance.
The next moment, a cold, mocking laugh came from the corridor outside, filled with disdain and arrogance, as if mocking Meng Hao’s actions.
Meng Hao’s eyes narrowed, and he hastened after the sound.
But as he moved, a pair of thin, long, pale arms suddenly extended from the ceiling. The arms, nearly over two meters long and eerily elongated, dangled down and reached for Meng Hao’s shoulders.
Meng Hao’s shoulder was suddenly grasped by an immense force; he looked up to see a figure completely naked, with arms over two meters in length, staring at him with a pair of blood-red eyes.
Meng Hao roared in anger, his fingers like blades, slashing at the figure’s body, only to feel a searing pain—the sensation of his shoulder nearly being crushed.
With a scream of pain, Meng Hao was thrown against a wall; as the wall collapsed, he felt as if all his bones were about to break.
’This monster is far stronger than me!’
At the brink of death, his Primordial Spirit surged, and he rolled to dodge the attack, running and shouting as he went, "Help! Help!" Since he hadn’t exposed his identity, calling for help in Donghua City when under attack was the best option, and Jiang Ran was still outside to back him up.
Thus, Meng Hao continued to shout for help as he ran toward the entrance.
Meanwhile, a creepy, rustling sound of climbing came from the ceiling.
"Meng Hao, is that you? I’m coming to save you!"
Meng Hao looked up to see a burst of light approaching; the backlit figure crawled along the ceiling, head distorted as if it had been broken.
"Damn! There’s another one!"
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Meng Hao immediately screamed in alarm and turned to run.