He slept all the way till a little after six. The sky was barely bright when Wen Yan woke up again.
He'd slept too much and couldn't fall back asleep.
He picked up his phone to check, then looked around him. No more hallucinations, nothing felt off. He got up, stretched, and got ready to head out and buy some breakfast.
In the corridor, some early-rising family members were already fetching hot water, others had returned with breakfast. As he passed the nurses' station, he saw three nurses in white uniforms bustling about inside.
Wen Yan returned the charger, thanked them, and asked in passing,
"Did Nurse Wang Xin get off early?"
"Huh…" The young nurse sitting behind the desk froze for a moment, then shook her head. "We don't have anyone named Wang Xin in our department."
However, the older nurse at the back, a few years senior, turned to look at Wen Yan when she heard the name. She gripped what she was holding tightly, an unmistakable look of fear plastered on her face.
She said nothing, but Wen Yan sensed something was wrong.
Shit, what if one of those hallucinations turned out to be real?
Could that cavity-toothed young nurse he met last night really not have been human?
No wonder the details on her face had been so distinct and real—totally on a different level from Cai Qidong's technicolor neon-lit mug.
Thinking it over, Wen Yan wanted to ask more, but the nurse with the deathly white face had already briskly walked into the operating room.
At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Wen Yan saw He Jian enter with a group of people from the stairwell.
Two faces looked familiar—Wen Yan had seen them twice before, both temp workers collecting bodies. The other two, he'd never seen.
The group walked over to the nurses' station. He Jian waved Wen Yan over.
"How are you? Any better?"
"Much better. Didn't have any hallucinations when I woke up today." Wen Yan watched as the group didn't linger but kept moving deeper inside, so he asked, "Director, who are these people?"
He Jian didn't answer right away. He just led Wen Yan to the end of the corridor, watching as the two temp workers entered a ward and expertly began preparing by the hospital bed. The person on the bed already had their face covered with a white cloth.
The other two new faces pulled out some unknown instruments and started searching around inside the ward.
The director watched quietly, then turned and asked Wen Yan,
"Did you notice anything strange last night?"
Wen Yan hesitated only briefly before recounting what happened after he woke up hungry in the middle of the night.
"…That's basically it. Then I just went back to sleep. That intern nurse—she's already…"
"Yeah, she's been gone a year. We handled her after-death arrangements here."
Wen Yan fell silent. So did He Jian. The two simply watched as the body was wrapped up and carried off; nothing particularly odd happened.
Wen Yan more or less understood—if the director came in person, something must have had the potential to go wrong.
Once everyone else had left, Wen Yan finished his checkup, confirmed there was nothing serious, finished his IV drip and caught a cab back to the funeral home.
At the office building in the front courtyard, Wen Yan couldn't help but knock on the director's office door.
"Director…"
"The Scorching Sun Department will handle this—they've been tracking it a long time." He Jian got straight to the point.
"So what exactly is going on? Can you tell me?"
"Sit down. This is a long story."
He Jian held his teacup, recalling the past.
"Decades ago, odd things began to happen off and on. Not just those apparitions—some people even started showing peculiar abilities, and things from those ancient texts started to have a bit of effect, too.
On top of that, there were some strange, hard-to-explain phenomena; following the old customs, we lumped them together under the term 'demons and spirits.' All that began to give off warning signs.
And certain places started having unusual changes, giving rise to unique domains.
'Domain'—that's what the Scorching Sun Department calls them, but some might use different names.
Take the hospital you visited last night—didn't you feel anything was off?"
"Other than that young nurse, it was like the last time I was hospitalized…" Wen Yan thought about it, then added, "Now that I think of it, it was too quiet. Didn't even hear anyone snoring."
"That's a domain. Normally, you can't touch it or see it. Only certain special people are prone to enter."
He Jian paused, looking at Wen Yan.
"Like you—if one of those strange domains appears and you're inside its boundaries, you'll end up inside too."
"…." Wen Yan looked at the director, at a loss. So you knew there was something wrong with that hospital?
The director glanced sideways at Wen Yan, as if he knew what Wen Yan wanted to say.
"Don't look at me. I didn't know that hospital was weird, either.
A year ago, the domain appeared for three days. The Scorching Sun Department had just gotten a lead, and then it vanished.
During those three days, there were hundreds of patients in the hospital; only one, a terminal cancer case, was suspected to have had their soul taken by something inside the domain.
That person was dying anyway, surviving only on painkillers. Whether he died naturally or was harmed by something else is impossible to determine.
The young nurse you met last night also died during those two days, but it was ruled accidental at the time.
The domain only lasted three days and disappeared soon after. The Scorching Sun Department determined it to be a mildly ruled, low-danger domain.
Maybe because so many people were dying in the hospital, and when someone passed, some local force created a brief domain.
Domains like that fade quickly—very common. The records were just archived after that.
But at midnight last night, the local Scorching Sun Department picked up on warning signs. All marks matched the domain from last year—the one that vanished had returned, and stuck around until sunrise. That's why I came to check on things."
Now Wen Yan understood—it wasn't the body pickup that needed the director's personal attention. The director knew Wen Yan's constitution was problematic and that he'd definitely get pulled into the domain. At first light, he hurried over to check if Wen Yan was still alive.
"What I saw is what I just told you—nothing else felt all that unusual."
"Looks like the rules of this domain aren't too crazy. Let the Scorching Sun Department handle it. Normally, we just help clean up or store uncertain cases here."
Wen Yan wanted to ask something else, but someone else arrived—Cai Qidong knocked on the door. Wen Yan could only greet his stern face, then make his way out.
Patting his belly, he left work, got on the workplace bike, and set off to grab something to eat.
After a few minutes, he suddenly saw a shadow speeding toward him up ahead. He looked up—on a big royal palm by the road, a massive leaf was falling.
His face changed; he jumped off the bike, diving into the dirt beside the road.
Next second—bang! The bike was smashed. Fragments peppered his cheek, stinging all over.
Wen Yan scrambled up. The fallen leaf had to be three meters long—the bike's main frame was bent from the impact.
He looked up; no more leaves seemed poised to fall. Walking over, he tried to lift it. That leaf had to weigh at least thirty or forty pounds.
Dragging the barely-rideable bike, he turned around to head back.
Almost got killed—and still thinking about food?
An accident?
Accident my ass. Just last night, he met that cavity-toothed young nurse who was "accidentally" killed. No way he'd believe this was a mere accident now.
After thinking it over, he decided he ought to mention it. He grabbed his phone and called the director.
"Director, I was almost killed by a falling leaf just now." Wen Yan quickly recounted what happened.
The director sounded surprised, and was silent for a while.
"Today's the young nurse's death anniversary. Her golden pagoda is in the Hall of Repose. You can go take a look. Remember, rules are the most important thing. Call me if anything comes up—just do what you have to do."
Before Wen Yan could say anything else, the director hung up.
Wen Yan chewed over the director's words. What did he mean—predicting the future?
Inside the office, Cai Qidong chuckled.
"What? You trust that kid to get involved?"
"What good is not trusting him? From the first day he stepped into the yard, I could tell—he's not the kind to sidestep trouble.
These days, nobody's assigned him to anything. Letting him make his own choices, he still hasn't thought about leaving; just now, he sought me out on his own.
He must know it too—being able to enter the Old Ice Warehouse, he's naturally special. Even if he doesn't look for trouble, trouble will find him.
No way to dodge it.
Plus, the young nurse in that domain—her words and actions were clearly warning him about the rules, saving him.
She must have broken a domain rule on a late-night shift last year and died for it, now trapped and unable to move on.
Even an old guy like me can figure it out. With how quickly young people adapt these days, think he can't see it?
Besides, he just nearly got killed by a falling leaf. No way he'll just let it go, and no way he'll believe it ends here."
Cai Qidong nodded.
"Right. He's special. When he first got here, something tried to break into the main morgue—we still haven't figured out how it slipped in. There'll definitely be more trouble ahead. As for this domain, it doesn't seem especially dangerous yet—maybe it's a good chance for him to try things out.
I came to see you for another, even more important reason—the Soul Devouring Beast. You have clearance for that, right?
We just finished checking: in the nearby three states, lots of cooks have the same symptoms—especially in Wei State.
Some have forgotten steps in preparing certain dishes, some left out crucial ingredients.
But none of them, nor anyone around them, think anything's wrong.
No similar incidents elsewhere so far.
If our previous theories are correct, we can pretty much confirm that the Soul Devouring Beast has arrived, and it's right here in these three states.
Now, I need to borrow something from you."