Tales of Aegiceras: Cave in

7. The Night Watchman (7)

Translator: Superbomb

Aug 15th, 1998

It was already past 11 in the morning when I got up. From the noise outside, I could tell there were a lot of patients in the hospital.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!” Someone was knocking on the door.
“Mao, are you up? Come here! There’s something wrong with the elevator!” the head nurse shouted.
“Zhang, get up!” I tried to wake Zhang up from the neighboring bed.
However, to my surprise, he was not in bed. The white quilt was folded neatly and the unfinished noodles in beef soup were still on its side.
He had already gotten up! But why didn’t he wake me up?
When I walked out of the watchroom in a daze, a strong smell of disinfectant rushed into my nostrils instantly. I frowned, and suddenly felt pain in my eyes.
I stroked my eyelids. It seemed they were swollen!
“Gosh! Mao, what’s wrong with you?” A young nurse who was passing by cried out as soon as she saw me.
“Huh?”
“Your eyes are badly swollen! Let me help you!” With that, she took out a piece of soaked gauze and applied it to my eyes.
As I was in a hurry to check the elevator, I thanked her and left with the gauze in my hand.
When I reached the 4th floor, I saw a large group of people surrounding the elevator. In addition to the head nurse, there were several male care workers and electric workers standing there.
“Hey, Mao!” The head nurse called out, “OMG! What happened to your eyes?”
“Huh? I’m fine. What’s wrong with the elevator?”
“Did you find any problems with the elevator when you locked it last night? Feng (the guard on the day shift) unlocked the elevator in the morning. But when the patients reached the 4th floor, the doors did not slide open. People inside and outside the elevator were all waiting anxiously… ” “What?” I was startled. “But last night…”
What Zhang had said the night before suddenly popped into my mind…
“Thankfully, Feng came up with a way to open the doors… Otherwise…” the head nurse chimed in. Then those people around us started discussing in a low voice.
“Oh, it’s done. That’s good,” I sighed with relief.
When I walked closer to the elevator, I saw its doors part slowly and then Feng walk out of it in sweat. He was stunned at the sight of me, but next, he laughed loudly. “Hey, Mao! You must have seen something terrible! How come your eyes are so puffy? It feels as if they are covered with a piece of black cloth. Ha-ha!”
Black cloth?
I felt like a cold chill was running up my spine. When I saw my face in the reflection of the elevator wall, I froze on the spot.
The skin, from my eyebrows to my cheekbones, had turned livid and even a little black, which was indescribable strange!
It was just like a piece of black cloth that could be used as a blindfold!
I really wished that I hadn’t seen anything terrible.
“Hey, guys! Look what I pulled out!” Feng shouted from behind again.
“Wow! I can’t believe that something like that can jam an elevator! How strange!”
“It’s incredible! I said there must be something wrong! The elevator was stuck by it! But how could this small mess of thing jam such a huge elevator?!”
While the others were discussing, I turned around and saw Feng holding something in his hand covered with paint and dirt.
It was something black.
And it felt like a tangled mass of fibers.
I walked over, picked it up, and looked at it carefully.
It was a greasy, grimy mess of hair, each strand as thin as silk!
I immediately threw it away. I rubbed my hands hard, but still felt something dirty sticking to them.
“Where’s Zhang?” I turned around and asked loudly.
“Zhang?” The head revealed a confused look.
“Yes! Where did Zhang go in the early morning?” I asked even louder.
The head nurse answered, “I didn’t see him last night! He was on duty, but I didn’t see him patrol.”
“How could it be? He…?” I grew tense in an instant. “When did you sleep last night?”
“The doctors in the emergency room rested before 2:00 in the morning, but we didn’t go to bed until about 3:00!”
“How strange! Zhang said that everywhere on the first floor was dark!”
“Nonsense! The lights were all on!” the head nurse shouted.
I quickly ran back to the watchroom on the 5th floor, but still, there was no sign of Zhang.

Aug 16th, 1999

Note: Mao Chonggui left Aegiceras Hospital in October 1999.
Zhang Bing never appeared since then.

After closing the notebook, Lu Xia turned to Sun Zheng. “Do you understand?”
“Huh?” Sun Zheng was puzzled. “Actually, I still don’t understand what it means.”
“I remember you were quite smart!” Lu Xia said half in jest. “These two records of dark occurrences were written by those staff members who were on duty or had the same experience. They were asked to record as much detail as possible, so it wasn’t a big deal even if they recorded these things as bizarre tales. Just like writing novels, everything can be written as long as it can reflect the point of the event.” With that, he patted the notebooks with red covers triumphantly, as if he had accomplished something great.
“The tales can also be taken as true records of events?” Sun Zheng said with a smile. “Then why can’t I see the point you mentioned?”
Lu Xia revealed a gentle smile as well. He took out a card from his trouser pocket and handed it to Sun Zheng solemnly. It was obvious that the card was from a book.
“I got it from a book. It’s about the research of Mr. Kato, a Japanese expert on folklore.”
“In every city, there are sins and curses that can never be eliminated, and the cavern is where they cluster.”
“Do you know the top ten haunted places in Japan? This is what he found after studying those places for 10 years,” Lu Xia said. “My conclusion is that there’s no way that those who break into the cavern can put an end to what’s happening in there. Escaping is the only option.”