My Strange Tale Love Strategy Simulator

Zhang Ying took the phone away from his ear, stared at the three words "Teacher Zhou" for a few seconds, and then dialed back.

busy tone.

I dialed again, but it was still busy.

He placed his phone on the desk, his brow furrowed.

Why is Teacher Zhou's phone in that man's hands?

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the crack in the ceiling that stretched from the light fixture to the corner of the wall, going over several possibilities in his mind.

The man holding Zhou Ping's phone could not be a doctor, nor a family member, and the police couldn't explain it either. So who could he be?

No matter who the other party is, I have to go.

Tuesday, November 24.

The outpatient building of the Second Central Hospital of Okura City was already packed with people by 9 a.m. There was a long, crooked queue in front of the registration window, a group of elderly people who didn't know how to operate the self-service ticket machine, and three family members were asking the nurses at the information desk for directions at the same time.

Zhang Ying went straight to the front desk of the inpatient department. The nurse on duty looked up from behind the computer screen, her gaze drawn to his physique, but quickly looked away.

"Hello, I'd like to check Zhou Ping's ward number. I'm her student, here to visit my teacher," Zhang Ying said.

The nurse tapped a few times on the keyboard and clicked on a spreadsheet. "Zhou Ping, let me check the hospital number... This person is listed. Are you her student? Do you have identification? I need to notify the patient's family first; even students need family consent to visit."

Zhang Ying reached into his coat pocket, preparing to take out his student ID. The nurse's hand was already on the landline receiver, about to dial.

A hand reached over from the side and gently pressed the hang-up button on the landline.

Her fingers were long and slender, her nails were neatly trimmed, and there were a few very faint old scars on the back of her hands.

"No need to notify anyone. I'll take this boy." The nurse looked up, glanced at the person who arrived, her expression unchanged. She simply removed her hand from the stethoscope, nodded, as if she had heard a perfectly normal request.

She sat back down at the computer and began processing the next medical record, as if the conversation had never happened.

Zhang Ying turned to look at the person who had come.

A man wearing a black overcoat, black shirt, and black leather shoes stood next to him. The man's hair was cut very short, revealing the outline of his entire forehead.

The man was of average appearance; you wouldn't give him a second glance if you threw him into a subway car. He was probably between thirty-five and forty years old, and fine lines were already starting to appear around his eyes.

He looked at Zhang Ying, and the corners of his mouth curved upwards. The smile was no different from a normal social smile, but after being swept over by that smile, a strange thought suddenly flashed through Zhang Ying's mind.

He felt like he'd seen that face somewhere before.

Not recently, but a long, long time ago, so long that he couldn't remember the exact time and place, but the feeling was certain, like an old photo that had been buried at the bottom of a box was suddenly dug out, and the face in the photo was superimposed on the man in front of him.

"Come with me." The man's voice was completely different from the one he had heard on the phone last night.

The voice on the phone was polite, restrained, but devoid of any warmth.

The voice now sounds more like greeting someone you've known for years, eliminating all unnecessary formalities.

He followed the man through the long corridor on the first floor of the inpatient department, turned two corners, passed the pharmacy and the hot water room, and then the man pushed open a door.

Zhang Ying looked up and saw a sign on the door that read "Public Restroom". He stood at the door, glanced at the man's back, then at the door, and before any thought could form in his mind, he had already stepped inside.

The bathroom was small, with three stalls, two urinals, and a nearly empty bottle of hand sanitizer on the sink.

The man stood in front of the sink, took out a small notebook and a ballpoint pen from the inside pocket of his coat, turned to a blank page, and touched the paper with the pen tip, as if he were doing a routine questionnaire.

"Let's start with a few basic questions. Name?"

"Zhang Ying," Zhang Ying answered instinctively, without any concealment.

"age?"

"eighteen."

"Family situation?"

"Both my parents are alive. My dad works on a ship and is away from home most of the year. My mom works at a flower shop and was recently promoted to shop manager."

The man quickly jotted down a few strokes in the notebook, his handwriting extremely messy.

He looked up, his gaze lingered on Zhang Ying's face for a moment, then he lowered his head and continued writing, his tone casual.

"Nothing unusual about his identity. Now comes the most important part—"

He touched the paper with the tip of his pen, raised his eyes, and the familiarity in those eyes turned into scrutiny.

"Have you encountered anything strange lately? Anything, person, or event that seems off to you. For example, things that shouldn't exist in reality, or things that make you feel uneasy."

Zhang Ying opened his mouth. At that moment, his tongue and lips seemed to be wound up, his jaw pressed down on its own, and his vocal cords were about to vibrate.

Li Ziqing, Shouting Ghost, Spiritual Exchange Meeting, and so on, including dating simulators.

All the information was neatly arranged on his tongue, just waiting for him to open his mouth and pour it out.

He could even feel his Adam's apple sinking down, and air being pushed upwards from his lungs.

Just then, he felt a sudden chill on his right arm.

His chin stopped at a half-open arc, and his upper and lower teeth snapped shut.

He answered the unfinished question in a calm tone that didn't sound like he was lying at all: "Strange things? I haven't encountered anything. Lately, besides studying for exams, I've just been eating and sleeping at home."

The man stopped writing.

The pen tip pressed a small dot on the paper, and his brow furrowed slightly.

The man tapped the pen cap twice unconsciously with his fingers, then removed the pen from the paper and slowly closed the notebook.

He raised his head, his furrowed brows relaxed, and he returned to his previous casual, somewhat lazy expression.

"Nothing else to ask. Goodbye."

He put the notebook and pen back into the inside pocket of his coat, patted his clothes, turned around, pushed open the bathroom door, and walked out.

Zhang Ying waited for three seconds, then pushed the door open and went out.

The corridor was deserted.

He glanced down at his right hand; the chill that had pulled him out of the hypnotic state had completely dissipated.

Who was that person just now?

People from the spiritual exchange meeting?

wrong.

If it's a spiritual exchange meeting, why would he ask for such basic information that can be easily obtained through investigation?

But if he's not a member of the Spiritual Exchange Association, then who is he?

Why did the hospital nurses have no objection to what he said?

Why did I answer his question so naturally just now?

The feeling was completely different from the gravity reversal of the inverted ghost. There was no pain, no feeling of oppression, just a natural feeling that I should answer him.

Zhang Ying shifted his gaze from his right hand, activated his Evil Eye, and walked out of the bathroom.

The hospital in his gray-white view was completely different from what he had imagined.

He thought there might be a few lingering traces of yin energy in the hospital.

Intensive care units, morgues, and emergency rooms are places where the lingering souls of those who have just left the body always wander.

But what he saw was not just a few strands.

The entire hospital was shrouded in a very faint black mist.

The concentration of this black mist was far from reaching the level of the eerie, but its range was abnormally large, as if the entire hospital was breathing the same extremely thin yin energy.

There wasn't a single formed spirit in the eye's field of vision, no resentment, no death wish, not even a basic semi-transparent remnant soul.

There was only black fog, an overwhelming, endless black fog with no source.

His eerie eyes remained open, scanning the cracks in every hospital room door, the edges of every window, and every corner.

There was no trace of that man anywhere.

There was no evidence to prove that a man in a black coat had actually been standing in front of him.

Regardless of who that person is, the wisest thing to do now is to leave as soon as possible, or at least not to reveal more information to them when you have no idea what they are really like.

Zhang Ying turned around and quickened his pace to leave the hospital.

Right after he left, the man in black stared at the direction Zhang Ying had gone for a long time in the crowd at the hospital entrance.

After Zhang Ying had completely left, the man in black took out a walkie-talkie from his coat. With a crackling sound of electricity, he whispered, "1 o'clock, 1 o'clock, it's 3 o'clock here. The target has left the hospital."

"Received, this is 1 o'clock. Any abnormalities at the target?" A hoarse male voice came through the walkie-talkie.

"Yes, and it's very obvious. I recommend direct contact."