Chapter 121: Intentions
Chapter 121: Intentions
“From your description, it sounds quite bad… But I can’t really help much with this kind of thing. You should either leave the hospital room tonight, or go get Toriumi Arisu. Having her here would at least be better than me, an amateur…”
“I can’t! Arisu-kun won’t be able to come anytime soon!”
His way of referring to his own daughter was a bit odd. No, come to think of it, was Toriumi Arisu really related to this middle-aged man?
“Then you should find somewhere else to sleep tonight. That curse might not be a problem as long as you leave the hospital room.”
“The problem is, there’s another person in the room.”
“Tell them the actual situation and have them move out too?”
“The issue is how to say it. No one can confirm whether it’s true or not. Besides, even if we take the initiative to explain the situation, would anyone believe us?”
Thinking it over carefully, Toriumi Kotaro had a point.
The current situation was something he had only heard about through inquiries, and the people who had died one after another were mostly patients who already had health problems.
Moreover, this was a hospital, so patients dying under normal circumstances was common.
What the nurse Kotono said couldn’t be treated as testimony either; she had only seen a “drawing” made by a child. They couldn’t conclude that this situation was related to abnormal phenomena like “Strange Phenomenon” based solely on a child’s drawing.
Fang Jing and Toriumi Kotaro had indeed experienced unusual events, but in the eyes of everyone else in this world, the world they lived in was peaceful and orderly. No one took talk of ghosts and monsters very seriously.
“In that case, there’s nothing I can do!”
Fang Jing sighed. “I don’t have the ability to solve this kind of problem. You should call and have Toriumi Arisu come here.”
“That young lady isn’t even in the country right now. There’s no way to reach her at all.”
Toriumi Kotaro had to tell the truth.
“Currently, I really have no way of contacting her.”
“So I said, leave Room 507 and don’t bother with this matter.”
Toriumi Kotaro could only give a bitter smile. “But there are other people in Room 507. You can’t expect me to stand by and do nothing, can you?”
“The key issue is… we can’t do anything against ‘Strange Phenomenon.’ We don’t have the power to fight them.”
Fang Jing also had to admit his own powerlessness.
“Of course I understand that.”
The middle-aged man sighed deeply. “But, but Nishizuka, don’t you feel unwilling? Don’t you feel tormented? I used to be a police officer, but then I realized that as long as I was in that position, I couldn’t do anything against vicious criminals… But now I’ve become a detective, and I find the situation is still the same. In the world I’m in, I’m just so powerless. Yet I still can’t accept it—why don’t we even have the strength to fight back?”
Hearing Toriumi Kotaro’s shoulders slump as he spoke these words, Fang Jing’s heart also rippled.
His words resonated with the thoughts deep inside Fang Jing’s own heart. At the very least, a terrible anger ignited within him, burning fiercely.
Fortunately, he was able to maintain a calm expression and spoke coldly to Toriumi Kotaro.
“Coming to me for this kind of thing is useless. However, I do know one person who might be able to figure out what’s really happening here.”
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“Just because of some boring rumor, you specifically called me over…”
After thinking it over seriously, he called over the man with the Spirit Medium Constitution.
“Isn’t Senior someone with no club and no friends, just a person with free time?”
“I am a third-year student, after all. I have to think about my future path after graduation. Also, my attendance rate isn’t great, and I have to do extra lessons every day, so I’m actually quite busy!”
Although he said that, he didn’t seem truly angry.
“Speak! What’s the matter this time?”
He asked in a displeased tone. Toriumi Kotaro and Fang Jing exchanged a look and explained everything that had happened.
After listening, Karasawa Meisuke rested his chin on his hand. His eyes showed a thoughtful expression as he said quietly, “I haven’t heard any related rumors. Are you sure the hearsay about this hospital is genuine?”
“That’s what old man Sakayanagi said, but other people in the hospital haven’t heard anything similar.”
The detective uncle explained the information he had gathered in detail.
“I also used my own information network to investigate, but I didn’t find any special rumors about this hospital’s past. The hospital’s mortality rate over the past few years has been quite normal.”
The idea that if someone finds a hair in their food at the cafeteria, five people will be “taken” that year, probably isn’t true either… Besides that Mr. Sakayanagi, very few people have heard of this ‘Ghost Stories’.”
“Then, what about that nurse named Kotono? Did you learn anything from her?”
“Miss Kotono doesn’t know about the rumor Mr. Sakayanagi mentioned. She just felt scared and worried about the drawings made by the little girl Eriko in Room 401…”
“To be honest, I don’t think these several matters can be completely linked together. It’s possible that Nurse Kotono just complicated the situation. In a hospital, this kind of condition isn’t particularly abnormal.”
Even though Karasawa had a Spirit Medium Constitution, he was also a very rational and calm person.
“The frequency of Strange Phenomenon incidents isn’t high. A patient dying normally in a hospital is mostly unrelated to ‘Strange Phenomenon.’ Instead, there tend to be many topics causing unnecessary fear.”
“So, you don’t think this is a paranormal event.”
“Correct, because since I entered this hospital, I haven’t felt anything out of the ordinary.”
Karasawa Meisuke said lightly, “On the contrary, I think this hospital’s environment is very good. It doesn’t have that lingering atmosphere of death. Frankly, I really dislike places like many hospitals and cemeteries. You have to understand, my special constitution is very sensitive…”
As a Spirit Channeler himself, Karasawa hated places like hospitals and cemeteries the most in his life, because every time he went to such places, he had uncomfortable sensations.
The Medium’s constitution had its advantages and disadvantages for ordinary people. But this time, Karasawa Meisuke was also puzzled to find that everything had been completely normal since he entered the hospital.
This was different from his past experiences. He remembered other hospitals he had visited, where cold, miasma-like energies condensed in the corridors and stairwells.
Those were like remnants formed from the attachments of the deceased, invisible and intangible to ordinary people. They worked and walked normally in such polluted environments, completely unafraid.
When he was little, every time he went to a hospital, he would vomit for half the day.
Even after growing up, he avoided them whenever possible and firmly refused to enter a hospital voluntarily.
But this hospital was a bit different…
Could this be a result of feng shui issues? Or perhaps fewer people had died in this hospital, making it a cleaner place.
One thought after another rose in his heart, but he couldn’t be sure about any of them.
“Whatever… Uncle, you keep asking that nurse for more information. Next, we’ll find a chance to go see that little girl Eriko.”
Karasawa Meisuke made a decision. “Nishizuka, come with me for a moment.”
“Okay!”
Fang Jing didn’t think too much about it. If Karasawa wanted him to act together, he definitely had his own intentions.
…
Karasawa Meisuke quickly went with him to the top floor of this ward building. On the rooftop, there was a discarded incinerator, originally used specifically for burning garbage, but it had been completely decommissioned later because it was considered a fire hazard and caused pollution.
For safety reasons, the rooftop had wire protective nets installed on all four sides. This was the hospital’s ward building. Next to it were three other buildings; some were wards, others were office floors for different medical uses, including the outpatient building, internal medicine complex, and medical staff rest area—outside these four main buildings, there were also scattered smaller structures, forming the entire hospital’s layout.
“It seems the hospital’s design really considered feng shui aspects. This should be Building 3, the ward building, connected via sky bridges to Building 1 and Building 2 on the left and right. Across is Building 4…”
After observing the internal construction style of the hospital, the puzzled expression on Karasawa Meisuke’s face grew even stronger.
He didn’t continue gazing at the nearby scenery but instead lowered his head, searching for something across the entire rooftop.
“Senior, what are you looking for?”
“Don’t ask useless questions. Carefully search for a corner spot. We might find something interesting.”
The two of them lowered their heads and searched all around the rooftop. As a result, they actually found something strange behind the water storage tank.
“Is this a stone?”
“I’m not sure about the material either. It’s entirely black. It might even be something like obsidian. And there’s a piece of paper pressed under it.”
The white paper had blurred writing on it, making it impossible to read clearly.
Nevertheless, this proved Karasawa’s suspicion.
“This hospital indeed has some unusual aspects…”