You don't cast spells by the rules at all, do you?

"Of course, among all the hospitals in Holkodu, ours is the most expensive." Quill smiled chattily, "This used to be a park. From a medical point of view, beautiful scenery helps patients recover. Our dean paid a lot of money to buy it. It's no exaggeration to say that he spent a huge amount of money. He almost emptied his family's savings."

"These buildings and their interior decoration and equipment are all built to the highest standards, including the patients' meals, which are all shipped directly from farms and prepared by specialized nutritionists. Sometimes, the food they eat is better than what we doctors eat."

Sean was surprised: "Are you so willing to do this?"

"A doctor's heart is full of compassion." Quill laughed, "As long as we can help patients, it's worth it."

He led Sean around the main building and walked towards the building in the corner, and introduced: "Your friend is over there. For patients like Chris who are more difficult to treat, we manage them in a centralized manner, which will be more convenient."

Sean followed Quill and as soon as he entered the building, he felt a gust of cold air blowing in his face, as if the air conditioner was turned too low, mixed with a strong smell of disinfectant vapor. The interior of the hospital building was much quieter than Sean had imagined, it could be said to be deserted. Apart from the two staff members who looked like nurses guarding the door, no one else was seen.

"Isn't there a nurse here?" Sean asked.

"They haven't come yet. They don't officially start work until nine in the morning." Quill folded up his umbrella and said, "But even if they start work, they usually won't run over here. You know, girls are more timid, they are afraid."

Sean was puzzled: "Who will take care of the patients then?"

Quill seemed not to have heard him. He took his umbrella and his own and handed them to the front desk staff for safekeeping. He then instructed, "This gentleman is Chris's friend. I brought him in. Please help me call the patient center and have him complete the paperwork and go through the necessary procedures."

"Okay." The nurse agreed.

Quill led Sean to the stairs: "Come on, your friend is on the third floor."

The floor is not high, so there is no need to take the elevator. Probably to take care of patients with limited mobility, the height of each staircase is only about 12 cm, and the step surface is also wide, more than 30 cm, making it very easy to walk.

But the higher he went, the colder Sean felt.

It's not just the physical cold, it's also visual and psychological.

When they reached the third floor, the corridors on both sides were pitch black, like two bottomless tunnels. As their footsteps approached, the lights on the ceiling lit up from near to far, emitting a cold white light, illuminating the floor and walls that were so clean that they were uncomfortably clean.

The smell of disinfectant also became more pungent.

"Don't you think the temperature is too low?" Sean asked with a frown.

Something is wrong.

It's autumn now and it's raining today, so there's no need to turn the air conditioner on so low.

"It's a bit cold." Quill nodded in agreement and explained, "But some things must be kept at low temperatures."

"Some smells can only be covered up with more disinfectant."

"Here we are, Mr. Sean."

Quill stopped in front of dormitory number 307.

The white light shone on his face, making the lenses on his nose appear white. He lowered his head slightly, raised a strange arc at the corner of his mouth, gently pushed open the door of the dormitory, and shouted:

"Mr. Chris, your friend is here to see you."

In the dormitory was a steel dissection bed that glowed with a cold light, with a corpse covered with a white cloth quietly laid on it.

This is the morgue.

……

Chapter 3 Flame Crow

Chris is dead.

Only five hours had passed since he was taken away by the police, and a living person turned into a cold corpse.

It was the first time that Sean saw a living dead person, and the dead person was his friend. The white cloth only covered Chris's body, not his head. When he saw that the stiff face with a pale face and purple lips was Chris, his pupils suddenly contracted, his heart jumped to his throat, and he almost suffocated.

Only then did he understand why Quill said it would be difficult for Chris to recover.

Why is it that Chris is emotionally stable and cannot communicate normally.

Because Chris is dead.

Quill still had a warm smile on his face, which looked particularly bright under the pale light, so bright that it even had a hint of evil, which was out of tune with the cold atmosphere of the morgue. His tone was gentle as usual, but Sean could hear a chilling chill in it.

"Mr. Sean, do you have any questions?"

"If you can't communicate with him normally, I can answer for him."

At this moment, a strong sense of crisis surged in Sean's heart. He tried hard to suppress his pounding heart, put his right hand in his pocket, and said in a voice as deep as a stone falling into the sea: "Kill him."

Not a question.

He is stating facts.

Chris's injuries from hitting the wall were not serious. He didn't see much blood, and it was definitely not fatal. Even if the hospital deliberately gave up treatment, Chris shouldn't have died so soon. The only explanation was that he was killed by someone.

Because the witch hunts are real, and Chris is a wizard.

Flores Hospital is what Chris calls “them”!

Quill noticed Sean's actions and his eyes became playful, as if he had encountered something interesting.

"You got a gun?" he asked.

Sean didn't answer, but asked knowingly: "Why kill him?"

"If I say that I didn't kill him, but he used magic to control my scalpel to kill me, but he failed to operate it and accidentally killed himself, would you believe it?" Quill spread his hands innocently.

Sean stared at Quill, anger rising in his eyes.

"Oh, sorry, did I say the word 'magic' just now?" Quill seemed to have just realized it and patted his head. "Look at me, I must have talked too much with your friend and was influenced by him. In fact, there are no wizards in this world. They are just the naive fantasies of the patients."

"It's you, Mr. Sean."

"Although our country allows individuals to own firearms, people generally don't carry them with them. You came to the hospital to visit a friend, so why did you bring a gun?"

"I guess you believed what Chris said, and thought that there is a so-called truth in the world we live in, and a mysterious organization that specifically hunts down people like you who know the truth. You suspect that our Flores Hospital is such an organization. You felt dangerous, so you brought a gun, right?"

"You seemed to be sizing up the garden, but you were actually planning an escape route."

"I have to say, you are very cautious, Mr. Sean."

"But unfortunately, you think too much. The truth of this matter is that you are also sick." Although he was expressing regret, Quill's expression revealed a morbid excitement. His eyes under the lenses were sharp and greedy, like a hawk that had found its prey. "Based on your performance just now, I can preliminarily judge that you also suffer from the same hallucination as Chris, and it has seriously affected your cognition, so my suggestion is..."

"Stay, Mr. Sean."

"I have already introduced the situation at Flores Hospital to you. The conditions here are very good. You have seen it all along the way. We will never let Mr. Sean suffer any grievances."

"We are a private hospital, so the fees are indeed more expensive, but Mr. Sean is a well-known novelist, and his monthly royalties are more than the annual salary of workers like us. Mr. Sean should be able to afford this amount of money."

"Please rest assured, Mr. Sean, recuperation here will not affect your work. On the contrary, I can help Mr. Sean improve his work efficiency. I can customize a small dark room for you. You are not allowed to eat unless you write enough words every day. What do you think?"

In the end, Quill changed his address to Sean from "you" to "you", and he really regarded Sean as his client. He also knew Sean's profession - he knew from the beginning that his polite appearance at the door was all his performance and disguise. Quill's real purpose was to keep Sean in the hospital!

His originally extremely gentle face had now become distorted in Sean's eyes. The polite smile that should have made people feel good was reflected pale by the light, revealing an indescribable weirdness.

Sean's finger was already on the trigger, his nerves were tense, and the barrel of the gun pushed a small tent out of his wide pocket. His voice was a little stiff from the cold air: "So the Flores Hospital can arrest people without restraint?"

"No, no, no, I didn't arrest you." Quill corrected with a smile, "You came to our hospital on your own initiative. It was Mr. Sean who asked Dr. Quill to see him. Dr. Quill diagnosed his illness. Mr. Sean stayed here to cooperate with our treatment in order to recover soon."

"The admission procedures are already being processed and it should be delivered soon."

Quill smiled warmly, "Mr. Sean will sign it, right?"

The procedures he had just instructed the staff downstairs to go through were not to make it convenient for Sean to go out later, but to prevent Sean from going out.

"What if I don't cooperate?"

"You will cooperate."

Quill looked at his raised pockets and smiled, "Believe me, Mr. Sean, shooting is definitely not a rational behavior. It will attract our professional security guards and add another symptom to your medical record."

"Besides, you are just a weak writer. With your shooting skills, you may not be able to kill me."

Quill took out an exquisite scalpel from his arms, and smiled conceitedly and evilly, "We are within seven steps."

The thin scalpel blade shone coldly. Sean could feel its sharpness and even imagine how it had easily cut open Chris's belly.

Quill held the scalpel and approached Sean step by step. Every step he took seemed to be stepping on Sean's heart. The cold air around him seemed to surge in from all directions like a tide. Sean had never felt such a strong sense of oppression - even when he went to the bank and encountered robbers before, he had never felt so suffocated when facing the black muzzle of the criminals' gun.

But he didn't back down.

Sean looked Quill straight in the eyes and raised the loaded pistol to his forehead.

"One more step forward and we'll die together."

Quill didn't expect that Sean could remain calm under his deliberate pressure. He saw a determination in Sean's eyes - he would really shoot, even if it meant trading one for one with himself.

"It seems that Mr. Sean is very confident in himself?" Quill licked his lips, his smile becoming more and more crazy. "How about this, I'll count to three, you shoot, and I'll use the knife, let's see who is faster."

"three."

"two."

"one……"

The air was extremely oppressive at this moment.

But just as Quill finished his last digit, an angry middle-aged male voice suddenly came from the stairs.

"Quil, Sean? What are you two doing here!?"

This voice seemed to have some kind of magical power, instantly dissolving the tense life-and-death atmosphere between the two people.

Quill looked past Sean and looked at the man who suddenly appeared in surprise: "Vice Dean?"

"Why are you here?"

The man called "Vice Dean" ignored him and said to Sean in an unquestionable tone: "Sean, come here."

Sean glanced at Quill, turned without a word, and walked towards the man.

He was so calm that Quill thought for a moment that he knew the vice-president and had known that the vice-president would come.

But in fact, the gun in Sean's hand was not put away and was still loaded.

He didn't know who the vice president was, nor did he know why the other party suddenly appeared. He only knew that at this moment, everyone in Flores Hospital was his enemy. Judging from his position, this man was more dangerous than Quill.

But there is one upside.

The vice president has a "noble" status and he shouldn't be talking to someone in the morgue.

Quill's surprised expression also proved this point. The vice-president usually doesn't come here.

As long as he gets out of this building, his chances of escaping will be greater.

Even if the vice president really talked to him at the stairs to save trouble, he would be closer to the exit.

As Sean expected, the vice president took him downstairs.

Quill didn't stop him and didn't say anything more. He just gave Sean a meaningful look when Sean looked back at him.

Sean understood his lip movements: "Don't be too happy too soon, you can't escape."

It has stopped raining outside and the sky is gradually clearing up.

After coming out of the morgue, Sean was still highly alert.

But to his surprise, the vice president did not make things difficult for him, nor did he say anything. He remained silent from beginning to end and led him around the main building, out of the hospital through the main gate they came in, and turned into an alley.

The moment he stepped out of the hospital, Sean's tense nerves finally relaxed a little, and he realized that his back was very cold - his back had already been wet with sweat, and the shirt he was wearing under his coat was stuck to his back.

"Weren't you so brave just now and wanted to die with Quill? I thought you wouldn't be afraid." The man noticed something was wrong with Sean and mocked him, but his voice was completely different from the previous male voice. It was a strange, crisp and ethereal girl's voice.

Sean was stunned, watching in amazement as the face of the "Vice Dean" twisted and changed right before his eyes, and his body "shrunk" from a man in his fifties in a suit and tie to a beautiful girl in a bright red dress.

Sean: “???”

“You, you…”

"Witch potion, haven't you heard of it?"

The girl folded her hands over her chest, looked at him and said, "I remember you wrote it in your book."

It is indeed written.

This is an alchemical potion that can temporarily change a person's gender. If the quality is high enough, it can also significantly change the body shape and appearance of the user. The commonly used physical identification method is the tail feathers of a fantasy creature called "Sniffing Crow", which can detect whether the target has taken the potion.

Speaking of feathers, Sean suddenly realized: "Are you the Flame Crow from last night?"

The girl's pretty eyes were slightly surprised, "You're quite smart."

It's so quick to guess that they met last night.

"He's not bad looking." She looked at Sean. She didn't expect that this otaku writer would look surprisingly good after dressing up a little before going out. It was not a waste to save him.

Sean: "..."