In 2009, I graduated from Xzhou Medical College in Shandong Province. As everyone should know, for some indescribable reasons, it is very difficult for students who graduate from an obscure medical college in a small place like this, if they have no connections or money, to enter a formal hospital to work.

But a month before I graduated, I suddenly had a stroke of luck! A local Class A tertiary hospital where the medical college was located approached me, recruited me into the hospital, and I became an obstetrics and gynecology nurse.

Only three of our classmates entered that Class A tertiary hospital. One girl’s father worked in the tobacco bureau; in an exchange of interests, he got his daughter into the hospital to work in administration. Another boy named Su Yang was my boyfriend. The reason Su Yang got into the hospital was quite funny. He didn’t want to be separated from me. After I was admitted, he pestered the hospital leadership several times.

The hospital leadership got annoyed with him and asked him if he wanted a job in the mortuary. Surprisingly, this fool, overwhelmed by "love," gritted his teeth and agreed!

For this, I was touched for a long time. As soon as our jobs were confirmed, we went back to Su Yang's hometown once.

At that time, my dad, who was coaxed around by him, still comforted him, saying that it wasn’t important to find a good job right away and that he had faith in Su Yang, who wouldn’t be stuck in the mortuary forever.

My mom was even funnier. She specifically rented a car to go to a Taoist temple thirty miles away in a neighboring town, asking for a yellow vest with talismans drawn on it, so that her future son-in-law could wear it inside his work uniform. (Petrified…)

However, things were not that simple.

The day before going to the hospital to report, after having already rented a house near the hospital with Su Yang, I received a call.

The call was from my college classmate Qin Sitian, who had made an international call.

Qin Sitian's mother, surname Feng, worked at that Class A tertiary hospital. As a hospital employee’s child, she could have entered the hospital directly.

But she wanted to improve herself, and before she graduated, she went to Canada for further education at her own expense.

Qin Sitian’s family was very wealthy, living in a villa, and there was no need for her to start working early.

During medical college, she was very aloof, with her ponytail always tied high, looking down her nose at people, as if no one could meet her standards. However, she was the only one who had a good relationship with silly, harmless me.

"Tongtong, I heard you agreed to go to Xzhou Central Hospital?"

"Yes, only three of our classmates went. I don’t know why I was so fortunate!"

"Fortunate? Didn’t they tell you? They looked for several people in our school, and no one wanted to go to the obstetrics and gynecology department there? You haven't heard it's haunted? Otherwise, why would my mom have insisted on transferring out of obstetrics and gynecology a few years ago..."

Before Qin Sitian could finish her sentence, the call started buzzing with static, possibly due to signal issues.

When I tried to call back, I found I couldn’t get through no matter how hard I tried.

At that time, I was young and headstrong. I didn’t take this matter to heart, thinking, how could there be ghosts in this world? Besides, could ghosts be scarier than being unemployed, penniless, and homeless?

I had liked children since I was young. The thought of being able to handle new lives every day made me forget about this matter.

So, I went to the obstetrics and gynecology department to report, and Su Yang went to the outsourced mortuary.

We even joked and encouraged each other. As a couple, one welcoming life and one handling death, we could balance yin and yang.

For the first month of working at the hospital, we were fine.

However, in the second month, strange things started happening one after another.

Only then did I realize that the new lives I met every day with a smile might not all be little angels...

Modern medicine is very advanced, and city-dwelling pregnant women undergo several prenatal check-ups, so the probability of giving birth to a disabled or stillborn baby is much lower than before.

But lower doesn’t mean zero.

That day, I went to work as usual. After following two surgeries, having delivered a boy and twin girls to the care room, it was almost time for lunch break.

Just at this time, the obese pregnant woman who had come in the morning suddenly sat on the hospital bed and yelled that her stomach hurt.

The pregnant woman was from the countryside, usually just smiling foolishly at people, clearly intellectually challenged.

I called in Dr. Chen, who was about to get off work. Seeing her lifting her skirt, we saw that the cervix was already dilated by four fingers, and the amniotic fluid had also broken.

And the obese pregnant woman, who had reportedly already given birth three times, was still munching on a boiled corn her husband had bought at the hospital gate.

We quickly removed the corn from her hand and, in a flurry of activity, pushed her to the delivery room with many hands.

In less than ten minutes, the child was born safely.

But, unlike usual, there was no cry from the newborn.

I saw clearly that the experienced Dr. Chen slapped the purple eggplant-like baby a few times, called for suction, and performed chest compressions. But the baby, like a rag doll, didn’t make any sound or react at all.

We used almost all the resuscitation methods with Dr. Chen, but we couldn’t save the baby.

That day, I was the one who informed the family at the delivery room door.

To my shock, the first reaction of the dark-skinned migrant worker husband upon hearing that the baby was stillborn wasn’t sadness but raising his head to ask me, "Boy or girl?"

"Boy!”

"Phew~~ That's good... already have three sons... luckily..."

Before he finished his sentence, his mother pushed him, swallowing the rest of the words. I knew he meant, luckily, it died!

Even more unacceptable was that while the mother was still lying in bed, her mother-in-law was shouting to be discharged. The wheat in the field hadn’t been harvested yet, and if they waited too long, the harvester would head north, and the wheat would rot in the field if it rained.

She was talking nonsense; it was already autumn, the wheat had long been harvested, and the planted corn was already tasseling!

As for the stillborn baby, they chose to leave it at the hospital for disposal.

They ran away with the mother from the obstetrics department without even settling the bill.

A seven to eight-pound, almost forty-centimeter-long stillborn baby was wrapped tightly in a blanket and left in the obstetrics department.

Dr. Chen smiled wryly, pointed to the stillborn baby on the hospital bed, and said to me, "Sun Tongtong, you've been at the hospital for over a month now. Though still in the probation period, you’re considered a veteran. Some procedures you eventually have to go through, so you can take him to the back building."

"The back building?"

Though new, I had heard from other nurses that the old building, known internally, still housed some departments, including the mortuary where Su Yang worked, though officially it was said to be disused.

The obstetric department used to send stillborns to the first floor of the back building for disposal.

Previously, I had asked Su Yang if the obstetrics stillborn babies were sent to their place, but he shook his head, saying he had never seen one.

Temporary mortuary storage was only for named patients, eventually sent to the crematorium.

The deceased varied in age, but he had never seen an unnamed newborn.

"Who am I supposed to see?"

I felt uneasy, not understanding Dr. Chen’s intention.

"Who else to see? Go find Old Gu, first-floor hallway, room 117, boiler room! Hurry up and take it away!!!" answered nurse Zhou Qin.

She was in her thirties and seemed experienced. She kept cleaning the bloodstains on her hand while speaking to me, her tone full of pleading. She dared not look at the stillborn baby, seemingly wishing it would disappear the next second.

Strangely, though the weather wasn’t cold, Zhou Qin always had a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck.

Dr. Chen was stern, leaving me no room to question. Though scared, I had to put on a brave face, tightly covering the stillborn, placing him in a baby cart, taking the dedicated elevator downstairs, through a few hundred meters of the corridor, to room 117 in the back building to give it to Old Gu for disposal.

Old Gu's room was 117, while Su Yang's mortuary was on the basement floor.

Entering the dimly lit hallway gave me goosebumps, it was so eerie.

Several sound-activated lights were malfunctioning, flickering on and off.

The entire floor was almost abandoned; the worn yellow-painted wooden doors were mostly closed, with only the signage showing which department it once was. The walls were moldy, a musty smell filling the hallway.

I dared not look down at the baby cart and kept moving forward, singing the national anthem to steady my nerves.

“Creak, creak.”

The strange noise from the baby cart made my heart pound. I wanted to call Su Yang to give me courage, but I had left my phone at the nurse station.

Fortunately, the door of room 117 at the end of the hallway was open, and the LED light inside contrasted with the dim incandescent headlamp, appearing less eerie.

Breathing heavily, I pushed the baby cart, but I slipped, and the cart slipped from my hand, rolling down an inclined corridor, finally collapsing.

The stillborn baby was thrown out, the blanket and white sheet covering the corpse scattering everywhere.

The purple eggplant-like stillborn was tossed from the blanket, the purplish-red umbilical cord twisting and sticking to the terrazzo floor, leaving a black bloodstain.

"Anything goes, anything goes!"

I muttered, regretting not wearing Su Yang's yellow vest to the hospital that morning.

But since it was an assigned task from management, I had to grit my teeth, stand up, and slowly shuffle towards the stillborn baby.

The lights above flickered as I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth, grabbing the sheet, fumbling along the wall, roughly guessing my way to the stillborn's position, and wrapping him up in one go.

I dared not look at the stillborn’s face.

In a few swift moves, I wrapped the small corpse into a bundle, not caring about the baby cart, and, breathing heavily, sprinted towards the lit room 117 at the end of the hallway.

Whether it was a hallucination or not, right before reaching room 117, I distinctly felt a small, cold hand grip my pinky finger under the sheet.

“Ah~~”

I screamed, reflexively throwing the stillborn into someone’s arms.

“Stop wailing! Can’t you see I’m eating? You scared me, I might get hiccups!!”

An old voice grumbled.

Still shaken, I focused to see an elderly man in his fifties or sixties, with gray hair, sitting at a desk eating a lunchbox. He wore a blue robe-like uniform, embroidered with "Xzhou Central Hospital".

The hem of his blue uniform was covered with grease and bloodstains, making him look like a butcher at a meat market!

With small eyes and gray pupils, his sparse, long mustache, resembling a big rat’s whiskers, he glanced at the stillborn child, kicked it away with a shudder, and muttered, "Bad luck!"

"I-I'm sorry!"

Though his appearance was creepy, at least he was human, calming me slightly.

"You’re Sun Tongtong, right? Dr. Chen said you were bringing this."

I nodded.

"I’m Gu, you can call me Old Gu. Don’t blame you. You’re new. You’ll get used to it. These things happen often. Not just the hospital’s stillborns, abandoned infants, frozen, drowned, sick ones, those without family found by police all end up here! Nameless, unidentified ones aren’t accepted at crematoriums!" He ate another mouthful of food. "Still interning? Congratulations, Dr. Chen having you come here likely means you’ve passed, and you’re sure to stay in the hospital!"

Saying this, he finished eating, stood up, and casually bundled the stillborn and sheet in one hand, heading out.

The stillborn's feet, stained with blood, were only as big as my thumb!

Seeing this, I didn’t want to stay there any longer and said, "Dr. Gu, could I… leave first?"

"Leave, where? You brought him; you must send him off properly, or he’ll follow you forever!”

My mind buzzed, understanding that Old Gu’s words didn’t bode well.

"Also, I’m no doctor; doctors save lives. I only deal with the dead! You guys call me the janitor, right? So call me Old Gu!"

Speaking, Old Gu left room 117, crossed to the boiler room’s iron door.

I had no choice but to follow him closely.

The iron door creaked open, a pungent smell like burning chicken feathers hit me.

Seeing the boiler room looking eerier than outside, I stepped back, standing at the door.

Luckily, Old Gu ignored me, used a black iron hook to open the boiler door, and threw the bundled corpse inside as he would firewood, then poured gasoline from an oil can, muttering complaints about the outdated oil furnace and forgotten promises of upgrading while pouring petrol.

Speaking, he threw the iron boiler door shut and locked it like he feared something might escape.

"Come on, go ahead, you brought him, send him off, I never touch it personally!"

Old Gu pointed to the red button on the oil boiler control panel, indicating for me to start the fire.

"I…”

"What ‘I’!!”

Old Gu reprimanded, then recited a creepy chant: “Birth, old age, sickness, death, always inevitable, water, fire, knives, inexorable death, crossing the Naihe Bridge, with a bowl of yellow soup… any grudge in this life is none of my business, sending you off, I owe you nothing!”

To be honest, I was so scared I wet myself. Thankfully, I had a pad for my period, so it wasn’t too obvious.

Finishing his chant, seeing me still motionless, wide-eyed in shock, he stepped forward, grabbed my hand, and pressed it on the switch with a slap.

With a whoosh, the gasoline-soaked furnace ignited fiercely.

"Don’t worry, I recited the rebirth chant, letting him know you and I are just passersby sending him off. His death isn’t our fault! After all, he was dead in the womb!"

Left shivering on the ground, I trembled uncontrollably.

"Alright, go!"

Old Gu glanced disdainfully, coldly stating.

Feeling like being pardoned, I rushed out of the boiler room, sprinting towards the lighted end of the hallway.

"Waa~~~ Waa!"

However, just a few steps out, I heard a piercing wail from the boiler room.

Clear as day, it was a child’s cry!

Electric shocks ran through my body!

"Oh no, damn!”

I shouted and sprinted back to the boiler room.

"The child, he's alive, save… save him!!”

I lunged forward to open the burning boiler to save him.

But Old Gu, face ashen, wrapped his wiry arms around me, holding me firmly!

Being experienced with life and death, he now looked terrified, his eyes bulging, nearly trembling, yelling softly at me: “Sun Tongtong, that crying isn’t from the baby you just brought!! It's something else!!! I haven't encountered this in ten years!! Let’s go, please, leave!!!