In the second-floor consultation room, the curtains were drawn tight. Three figures hid inside, cautiously observing the outside through a gap in the fabric.
"Dr. Wu... Dr. Wu, it’s quiet out there, and my phone has no signal. Do you think... we’ve been transported, just like in those news reports?"
"Still no good. The phone has no signal. We’re done for. Have we really been transported, like in the novels? Dr. Wu, do you think we can ever go back?"
Wu Shanqi forced a stiff smile. "I don’t know either..."
Through the light of a bonfire burning on the balcony of a building ahead, the outlines of other structures were faintly visible.
He couldn’t be sure of much, but he was certain of one thing: the building across the way was definitely not the Women’s and Children’s Health Hospital that was supposed to be across the street.
Besides, the surroundings were pitch-black. Not even a total solar eclipse would make it get this dark so quickly.
He thought about the recent news reports and what his superiors had mentioned in meetings. A bizarre theory began to form in his mind.
’Could it be? Has this building... been chosen, just like all those missing buildings in the news?!’
At this thought, Wu Shanqi started to panic.
’No! My wife is about to give birth! Is my child going to be born without a father?’
The patient and his wife continued to chatter incessantly in his ear.
"Dr. Wu, I really think we’ve been transported."
"What are we going to do? Can we ever go back?"
"This is all your fault! You just had to see the doctor today. Great. Now we can’t go back, and our child is still at school with no one to pick them up."
"You’re blaming me? If it weren’t for you..." "Quiet!!" A sudden, nameless rage flared up inside Wu Shanqi.
"Did you just yell at me?" The female patient was taken aback. The male patient adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. "Dr. Wu, that kind of attitude will get you a complaint."
Wu Shanqi’s face turned ashen. ’Are these two people crazy?’
’Then again, if they weren’t sick, they wouldn’t be at a hospital.’
"AHHH!!!" A sharp shriek came from downstairs.
It was immediately followed by panicked cries.
The sound of frantic running echoed from the adjacent hallway.
Wu Shanqi’s expression changed slightly as he pulled open the door to the consultation room.
In the corridor, rows of emergency lights on the ceiling had flickered on. Their weak, ghastly light cast distorted shadows down the long, narrow hallway.
The door to the nearby stairwell was pushed open, and two young nurses in pink uniforms ran in, looking around in a panic.
"What happened?" Wu Shanqi asked quickly.
"There are monsters downstairs!"
"Run! It’s coming up!"
"Help! Get out of the way!"
The stairwell door, which had just closed, was pushed open again. Several more people scrambled in and slammed it shut behind them.
"BANG! BANG! BANG!"
The door had barely closed when violent pounding erupted from the other side.
"Open the door!" a roar came from behind the door.
A moment later, the roar turned into a bloodcurdling scream.
Then came the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
Wu Shanqi’s face went pale. He ran back into the room, grabbed his phone from the desk, then opened a drawer and took out a flashlight.
’This stairwell is a no-go. I have to find another way.’ He turned to look in the other direction. ’I don’t know what’s out there, but staying on the lower floors is too dangerous. I have to get to higher ground.’
Just as he ran out of the consultation room, the door to the stairwell was suddenly pushed open by a large, blood-stained hand. A venomous curse came from behind it. "It’s all your fault for closing the door! We’ll all die together!"
As the door opened, a section of a dark-red body surged through the gap.
By the weak emergency light at the stairwell entrance, Wu Shanqi saw it clearly: it was a giant centipede, thicker than a grown man’s thigh!
Its dark-red carapace and jet-black, Curved Blade-like legs made his scalp crawl.
The large hand that pushed the door open fell limp. The stairwell door began to swing shut automatically, but the centipede’s body blocked it. Its legs writhed like a dense mass of fingers, and then, two long antennae poked through the gap.
Wu Shanqi’s pupils contracted.
It was a giant centipede with a scarlet carapace. The countless legs on its sides writhed madly, forcing its body through the opening.
After this one squeezed in, the centipede still wedged in the doorway continued to writhe. In the eerie green glow of the emergency exit sign, countless more dark shapes were visible behind it.
Wu Shanqi held his breath. ’There’s more than one of these things?!’
’Run!’
It was the only thought in his mind.
But he felt his legs go soft. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t move.
Ever since he was a child, he’d been terrified of arthropods with lots of legs, especially centipedes and house centipedes.
Seeing this massive swarm of mutated, giant insects that looked like they were on steroids, Wu Shanqi nearly collapsed to his knees.
"Run!" The couple from his consultation room saw him frozen in a daze and yanked his arm.
Pulled along by the force, Wu Shanqi stumbled a few steps, almost falling to the ground.
Behind them came a rhythmic tapping sound, like countless fingers drumming on the PVC floor.
"SLAM!"
They slammed the stairwell door shut behind them. Wu Shanqi switched on his flashlight, its beam illuminating the stairs ahead. The faces of all three of them went white.
Thick, sticky blood was trickling down from the upper flight, step by step.
Slowly, he moved the flashlight beam. Above the landing, half an arm dangled limply.
"CRUNCH, CRUNCH..."
A hair-raising chewing sound was clearly audible in the blood-scented corridor.
The beam of the flashlight startled it.
The sound stopped abruptly.
Two long antennae poked out.
At that moment, a strange, morbid joke inexplicably popped into Wu Shanqi’s head.
’When you see two long antennae in the dark, what do you guess it is?’
’A. A superhero. B. A mythical warrior. C. A cockroach.’
’Now I guess I should pick D. It could also be a four-meter-long centipede.’
"Run!"
Wu Shanqi’s face was grim. They couldn’t go up; their only option was to find a way down.
The three of them had barely taken two steps when a large centipede came charging up from the landing below.
They were instantly frozen with fear, caught between a rock and a hard place.
’We’re done for!’
But strangely, the centipede ran right past the three of them. It didn’t attack, just brushed past them.
Before they could even process this bizarre scene, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from downstairs.
A lithe, slender figure vaulted over the railing with one hand. A flash of silver light slashed out from his other hand.
The centipede was sliced clean in two.
Wu Shanqi’s jaw dropped, watching the scene in shock. ’What was that?’
’And what is he holding in his hand?’
"New here? Don’t just stand there gawking. Go wait downstairs." Cao Biansheng glanced at the three of them and waved his hand dismissively.
One person from Cao Biansheng’s team broke off and led Wu Shanqi and the other two downstairs.
When they reached the first-floor lobby, he noticed things were different. For instance, the lobby floor was littered with centipede corpses.
At a glance, there were at least several dozen of them.
In the center of the lobby, a dozen or so people holding torches were searching the area.
A familiar yet distant voice called out from the crowd. "Old Wu?"
...
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