Hospital No. 444.

Chapter 678 The Owner of Eden Hotel

When Gao Menghua regained consciousness, she found herself in the lobby of Eden Hotel.

She didn't even remember when she came here. The only other residents who came with her were Xia Li and Zi Ye.

The damp musty smell mixed with some kind of rotten disgusting smell hit Gao Menghua's face, and her toes trembled slightly. She subconsciously clenched her hands, and her knuckles turned white from the force.

"Are you sure it's here?" Ying Ziye's voice came from behind him, with a hint of barely perceptible tension.

Gao Menghua did not answer immediately.

Her eyes swept across the cobweb-covered front desk and fell on the crystal chandelier that was still lit - after fourteen years, the lamp was still working.

The dark red stains on the wallpaper looked like dried blood or some kind of fungus. She remembered that she and He Yan had once been in the sofa area on the right side of the lobby...

Close...

He Yan? Who is He Yan?

"It's right here." She finally spoke, her voice steadier than expected, "Hotel Eden, a cursed place where divination is 100% effective."

Xia Li took out a bronze compass, and after the needle spun wildly for a few circles, it pointed directly in the direction of the elevator.

This is the cursed object that Yin Wuque gave him before he died.

Ying Ziye checked whether the talisman on the scalpel was intact. The silver-white blade glowed coldly in the dim light.

Gao Menghua walked towards the front desk. The hem of her white coat swept the floor, raising tiny clouds of dust. With each step, childhood memories flashed back in her mind like reels from an old movie - her mother crouching to straighten the wrinkles of her skirt, the rustling of her father's pen across paper as he signed at the front desk, and the electronically garbled voice of the boss who never showed up through the speaker of the phone. At the time, the boss's rule was that he would only show up for divination.

A winding crack appeared on the marble countertop at the front desk, and Gao Menghua's fingers touched the dusty register. What horrified her was that three familiar names were written on the latest page of the register - the signatures of other apartment residents who accompanied her, and the date was yesterday.

"Impossible..." She slammed the registration book shut, but the next second she heard the elevator ding.

The three of them turned around at the same time. The elevator door slowly opened, and inside stood a doorman in a scarlet uniform, with a strangely pale face.

Gao Menghua's blood froze instantly. This doorman - she knew him. Fourteen years ago, it was this doorman who took her parents to the divination room, and they never came back.

"Are you a human or a ghost?" Ying Ziye took a step forward, turning the scalpel between his fingers, "Take us to see the hotel owner."

The doorman's pale face didn't change at all, as if his facial muscles were frozen in that arc.

Xia Li's compass suddenly made a shrill beeping sound, and the needle swung violently as if being manipulated by an invisible hand.

"He's a ghost... the harmless kind."

Gao Menghua suddenly noticed a dark mark on the collar of the doorman's uniform - it was a stitching line. This realization made her stomach twitch.

"Follow me." The doorman turned and walked into the elevator, his posture stiff and unnatural. "The boss doesn't like to wait."

Ying Ziye looked at Gao Menghua with a questioning look. She took a deep breath and nodded. The three of them walked into the elevator, and the doorman pressed the button for the top floor. The moment the elevator door closed, Gao Menghua clearly saw two blurry figures sitting on the sofa in the lobby - one wearing her mother's favorite lavender dress, and the other with her father's signature slicked back hair.

Before she could even scream in horror, the elevator door closed.

The elevator began to rise, making a creaking sound as it was overwhelmed. Xia Li stared at the floor number that kept jumping and suddenly frowned: "This building has twelve floors? From the outside, it looks like there are only six floors at most."

Gao Menghua then realized something was wrong. She lived here as a child, and the hotel only had six floors. But the buttons in the elevator went all the way to "19", and now they were passing the "8th" floor.

"Space is distorted." Ying Ziye whispered, "This place is no longer completely in our dimension. I'm afraid it's caused by Sargeni's demonic curse back then."

The elevator stopped at the 19th floor, and the door opened to a corridor covered with crimson carpets and numerous mirrors on the walls on both sides. Gao Menghua glanced at the nearest mirror and was shocked to find that the person in the mirror was not following her real movements, but staring at her with a smile slowly spreading across his lips.

"Don't look in the mirrors," she hastily warned her companions. "They're not reflections."

The doorman led them to a black door at the end of the corridor. On the door was a pattern of an open eye painted in gold. "The boss has been waiting inside for a long time." The doorman bowed so that his head almost touched his knees. "I wish you all a happy divination."

After saying this, he turned and left, his footsteps making no sound on the carpet.

Gao Menghua turned around and looked again, but the doorman was no longer there.

Gao Menghua put her hand on the door handle. The cold touch of the metal reminded her of the morgue in Hospital No. 444.

"My parents disappeared after entering this door," she said softly.

The horrific memories of that year are still vivid in her mind. If it weren’t for Dr. Jiang from Hospital No. 444, she would not be alive today.

Ying Ziye had already prepared three syringes filled with transparent liquid.

Yin Wuque had already given them all his best treasures.

"This is the Karma Ghost Spinal Fluid which is also extremely rare in the hospital. It is also effective against evil spirits. If there is any unusual movement, inject it first and then ask questions."

This is usually done during surgery, when the karmic ghost part is removed, it can be extracted from the body visualized in three-dimensional space. It is a very rare thing, and only the vice president Yin Wuque can give it to them.

Gao Menghua pushed open the door.

The dome of the circular room in the Divination Room is painted with a starry sky pattern, but the arrangement of the constellations does not belong to any known astronomical system.

There was a crystal round table in the middle of the room, surrounded by three high-backed chairs. The weirdest thing was that there were three steaming cups of tea on the table, as if the owner had known that there would be three visitors.

"Please take a seat." A voice came from the shadows. Gao Menghua shuddered all over - it was the same electronic synthesized voice as he remembered, with that uncomfortable mechanical feeling.

A figure slipped out from the darkness, it was more like floating than walking.

The boss had an extremely old face, an obvious octogenarian. "Ms. Gao, long time no see." He turned in the direction of Gao Menghua.

Gao Menghua's medical kit almost fell to the ground. "You...you...you are...Vice Dean Fang???"

"I am just the descendant of Sargeni Medel, the owner of the Eden Hotel." The boss made an inviting gesture, "Comparatively, the director of the Curse Department of Hospital No. 444 is only a part-time job. Next, I will perform divination for the three of you."

The three of them took their seats cautiously.

No matter what, I would have thought that the owner of Eden Hotel would be Fang Shen, the deputy dean of Curse Affairs!

Gao Menghua stared at the cup of tea. What was reflected in the water was not her face, but the image of a little girl - her childhood self.

"We are not here for divination." Ying Ziye repeated, but his voice was not as firm as before. Gao Menghua noticed that her pupils were slightly dilated, which was a sign that she was affected by her brain marrow spiritual curse.

Fang Shen let out a laugh that sounded like an electronic malfunction.

"All guests entering the Eden Hotel must undergo divination. This is the rule. Several apartment residents also cooperated very well - although the divination results made them unhappy."

Xia Li stood up suddenly: "Where are they? And where is the devil curse from that year..."

"Patience, doctor. See what fate has in store for you, and then we can talk..."

Gray mist began to swirl in Fang Shen's eyes. Gao Menghua felt dizzy. She knew she should refuse, but some power beyond her will made her unable to look away. An image gradually emerged from the mist -

What Ying Ziye saw was himself standing in the hospital corridor with the scalpel in his hand stuck in a nurse's chest.

Xia Li's image showed him kneeling in the ruins, with the cries of children echoing around him.

The scene Gao Menghua saw almost made her scream - she was standing in the hotel lobby, holding Ying Ziye's scalpel in her hand, with blood dripping from the tip of the knife. The corpse lying on the ground was wearing a white coat, but the face was...

A woman with white hair.

"The divination is 100% accurate." Fang Shen's voice seemed to come from far away. "These are your future, or possible future. These things will be evaluated as your own spiritual healing points and connected to your soul structure..."

The image in front of me suddenly distorted and turned into three residents of the apartment. Their eyes were sealed with stitches, but their mouths were opened at impossible angles, emitting silent screams.

"Ah, the people you're looking for." Their images shattered into millions of pieces. "They can no longer leave the Eden Hotel. Just like your parents."

Gao Menghua suddenly found that his hand was reaching out to the cup of tea uncontrollably. The same happened to Ying Ziye and Xia Li, whose eyes began to blur.

"Drink it, and we can continue our discussion." Fang Shen's voice now carried a hypnotic rhythm, "Especially you, Miss Gao. Don't you want to know where your parents ended up? They've been waiting for you."

Just as Gao Menghua's lips were about to touch the edge of the cup, an intense pain made her suddenly wake up - the curse in her body was burning her skin.

"No!" She knocked over the teacup, and the dark liquid spilled onto the crystal table, corroding several small holes. Ying Ziye and Xia Li also woke up from their dreams and quickly pushed away their cups.

Fang Shen leaned slightly, showing a false disappointment. "What a pity. But it doesn't matter, the divination has been completed, and the prophecy will come true. Now..." He suddenly clapped his hands, and the lights in the room suddenly went out, "The bloody mission officially begins. Whether you can get the devil's curse depends on your ability."

The darkness came like a tide. Gao Menghua felt dizzy, and when she could see again, she found herself standing alone in the hotel corridor. The doors on both sides were marked with dates instead of numbers - she recognized the date of her parents' disappearance.

"Doctor Ying? Doctor Xia?" Her call echoed in the corridor, but there was no response. There was only a sound like nails scratching a wooden door in the distance, and... a faint sobbing sound? That sound sounded a lot like her mother.

Gao Menghua forced herself to calm down and took out the compass from the medical kit. The needle swung wildly and pointed to the door marked with the date her parents disappeared. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The room was not the expected hotel room, but a child's bedroom - her old bedroom, even the stickers on the wall were exactly the same. Two figures sat on the bed, their backs to the door.

"Dad? Mom?" Gao Menghua's voice was trembling so much that it was almost out of tune.

The two figures slowly turned around. They were indeed her parents' faces, but their eyes were completely black, without any whites, and their mouths had a stiff smile that was exactly the same as Fang Shen's.

"You're finally here, Menghua." Mother's voice seemed to come from underwater, "We've been waiting for so long, why did you just come?"

My father stood up, his movements as uncoordinated as a puppet. "You ran away and left us here. Now it's your turn to stay."

Gao Menghua took a step back and bumped into the door that suddenly closed. The figures of his parents began to twist and stretch, and something was wriggling under their skin.

"The divination says you will come back to complete the ritual." The mother's head turned 180 degrees, "We all need a new 'container'..."

Gao Menghua's medical kit suddenly sounded an alarm, and the compass began to explode. She suddenly realized that the person in front of her was not her parents, but something that occupied their image. She quickly took out a syringe filled with colorless liquid and injected the karma ghost cerebrospinal fluid into the other's neck at the moment when her "father" rushed over.

The moment the entity came into contact, a piercing chill came through the needle. The injected "father" let out an inhuman scream, and his body deflated like a deflated balloon, leaving only a set of clothes floating in the air, slowly falling to the ground.

The "mother" roared angrily and rushed towards Gao Menghua. She dodged sideways, and a gun appeared in her hand, the gun that killed Yin Wuque. The bullet penetrated the "mother" and a dazzling white light burst out instantly. The figure of the "mother" dissolved in the white light, leaving only ashes on the ground.

The room began to collapse, and the walls twisted like melted wax. Gao Menghua rushed to the door, but found that the handle was too hot to touch. Just when he was desperate, the door was knocked open from the outside, and Ying Ziye and Xia Li stood at the door, their faces pale.

"Hurry up!" Ying Ziye grabbed her arm, "The whole floor is changing!"

The three of them ran wildly along the corridor, and the space behind them folded up like a piece of paper crumpled by an invisible hand. They rushed into the elevator, and Xia Li pressed the door-closing button frantically. At the moment when the door was about to close, Gao Menghua saw the doorman in scarlet uniform standing at the end of the corridor. His head slowly slid down his neck, but he was still smiling.

The elevator began to descend, but the numbers on the display screen kept jumping backwards, and then suddenly jumped to 14.

"This is not the elevator we came in by." Ying Ziye's voice was tense, "It's taking us to another floor."

Gao Menghua held her nurse badge tightly and suddenly understood something. "14 is the number of years my parents disappeared. This hotel is creating space based on our memories and fears!"