Chapter 31
Chapter 31
After Song Qingxiao heard from Zhu Xiaoke during breakfast that the keys to the gun were with Liu Yixun, she began to pay attention to Liu Yixun’s office while he was on duty.
When Nurse Zhang was busy preparing the medication for the patients, and all the other nurses were engaged, she stood by the nurses’ station, which faced the office door of Liu Yixun directly. The ward was not peaceful because the patients on the third floor were rowdy.
The door was half-open, and the curtains over the glass wall had been drawn. The room looked dimly lit from Nurse Zhang’s position, and she could barely see if anyone was inside.
“Great Father in Heaven…”
Someone began to sing loudly, and the melody rose and fell. Nurse Zhang became distracted and turned to catch a look. Several people had gathered around the door leading into patient room number nineteen.
Song Qingxiao paused for a moment. When no one paid attention to her, she took the opportunity and stealthily walked toward the doctor-on-duty’s office. The closer she was to the door, the more nervous she felt.
She tried to push the half-open door, and it opened with a creak. The office was not large, and the light inside was switched off. The curtains on both sides of the room were drawn.
There was a desk in the office, and there was a sliding curtain partition behind the chair. Liu Yixun was not in the office. The mouse on the desk was lit up, but the monitor had gone black. That showed that he must have been away for a while.
She stood by the door for a while and looked around her. A lot of ruckus came from inside patient room nineteen. The patient’s singing had resulted in the annoyance of the other patients, leading to an argument. A couple of nurses had already headed over to break up the fight. In a situation like that, there was still no movement in the office. It seemed like Liu Yixun was really not in the office.
Nurse Zhang still organized the medication for the patients, so no one paid attention to Song Qingxiao. Since she did not know where Liu Yixun had gone, she gently pushed the door further open and crept agility into the duty office. She shut the door behind her.
Click.
Once the door closed, the light of the corridor and the commotion outside was blocked out. The room descended into quiet darkness once more. Song Qingxiao stood in place for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she crept toward the desk.
In the dim environment, the office computer’s low hum was the only sound in the room. She was careful to avoid touching the chair in case it squeaked and attracted the attention of the people outside.
The CPU was located below the left side of the desk, and there was a tiny cabinet with sliding drawers under the right side of the desk. The top drawer was locked. She grabbed the cabinet handle and was about to open it when she suddenly heard a soft male voice ring out from behind her.
“What are you doing?”
Song Qingxiao nearly jumped out of her skin from the shock. She instinctively reached for her waist, where she hid her dagger, and turned around rapidly. She leaned against the table with her hands supporting her and accidentally pushed the keyboard. The keyboard moved and touched the mouse. A red light flashed a few times, and the dark monitor lit up.
Through the light, she could see that the curtain partition had been pulled open by someone. There was an examination table behind the desk, and Liu Yixun was lying down on it. His hand was on the curtain, and he looked at her with a surprised expression.
Song Qingxiao could not forget the sight of his face turning ashen gray. She knew that she was in a trial scene and that Liu Yixun—the person in front of her—was not number four whom she had killed in a tussle in the previous trial. However, she could not help but feel goosebumps all over her body when she saw his face in an environment like that.
His face was pale against the dim blue light coming from the screen. His eyes were dark, like two bottomless pits. Song Qingxiao resisted the urge inside her and slowly lowered the hand that was about to reach for the dagger.
She said in a respectful tone, “A fight has broken out in the patient room nineteen. Xiaoyu has asked if you might be able to go and have a look.”
Liu Yixun had been in the office the entire time. He must have watched her every move clearly, but he had not said a word until then. Song Qingxiao hurriedly came up with an excuse. She still wondered what she should do if Liu Yixun did not believe her.
As she racked her brain for an idea, Liu Yixun’s gaze landed on her face and calmly observed her for a long time. Song Qingxiao was sure that he would make things difficult for her when Liu Yixun got to his feet slowly.
As he got up, his white coat slipped open to reveal his regular clothes under it. He was wearing a white shirt under his doctor’s coat. A key tied to a red string peeped out through the thin fabric of his shirt’s breast pocket.
Song Qingxiao blinked and took two steps back. She did not know if that was the key to the gun. She walked to the door with a neutral expression and opened it. When she turned back, she saw that Liu Yixun was bent down as he put on his shoes. His bent position caused the key in his pocket to drop out, making a sound when it landed on the ground. He picked it up naturally and put it back into his pocket.
The patients in room number nineteen had started to fight. The singing of the patient in bed one had aroused the anger of the other patients. The situation was much worse than Song Qingxiao expected.
Even after the nurses intercepted, the patient in bed one was still being held by two men in blue striped hospital clothes. They pressed the singer’s face against the glass window, causing her face to deform under the force.
Song Qingxiao met her eyes across the glass. The singer still sang even though her hair was being pulled.
“Stop singing! Stop singing!”
The patient in bed two burned with rage. She pulled the singer’s hair and slammed her head against the glass partition.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound of knocking rang out, but the singing patient seemed to not feel pain.
The nurses struggled to control the patient in her rage. In addition to that, the surrounding patients seemed to be affected by the commotion and started to become short-tempered. Even Nurse Zhang, who was busy restocking the medication trolley, was forced to rush over to help separate the two patients.
However, the patient who was enraged seemed to have boundless energy. The nurses were not able to pull her away. A wound quickly appeared on the head of the woman who had her head repeatedly slammed while her hair was pulled. Blood poured out of the wound and splattered all over the glass, dripping down the glass.
“Ahh!”
The other patients seemed to be in a state of shock when they saw the scene as they let out terrifyingly ear-piercing screams. Some of them began to tear at their own clothes frantically. Others started to scratch their faces. It was not long before their faces were a mess of blood and flesh.
In that messy situation, the impact on the glass window continued to resound deeply. The bloodstains continued to spread, and the singer’s breathing started to fade. Several nurses took out some restraining belts.
When the patient saw that, she became more frenzied and struggled violently. In the chaos, someone was pushed, and they fell against the medicine trolley. All the drugs and medication in the trolley fell to the ground with a loud crash. The patient ward was in an absolute mess.
Liu Yixun rang the alarm bell in the panic. Song Qingxiao saw that Nurse Zhang was pinned down to the floor by a female patient. The patient was strangling her neck as she sat on her body, wearing a grim expression.
When she saw that, Song Qingxiao rushed to pull the patient off Nurse Zhang. However, the patient refused to let go and continued to tightly press against Zhang Xiaoyu’s neck. It went on until Liu Yixun came over and tugged on the patient’s collar and shouted loudly, “Anyone here who is disobedient will receive electroconvulsive therapy.”
As soon as he shouted that, the patient froze. Liu Yixun successfully managed to pull the woman off Zhang Xiaoyu, and she was finally able to breathe. Tears filled her eyes, and her neck was a mess because of the patient’s fingers. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she held her chest as she coughed non-stop. Her body trembled.
Doctor Ou rushed over with the red whip lady and several nurses behind her. Finally, the commotion was settled. The patient in bed one who sang was carried away for treatment. The rest of the patients involved in the fight were sent to the care unit for forced detention.
That tiny altercation blew up to become a colossal disaster. Even though no one died, there was a horrific bloodstain left behind on the glass window next to the patient room nineteen. The patient in bed one had been carried away. The patients in bed two and bed three were locked up for being involved in the fight. Hence, room nineteen was suddenly empty.
Two nurses took a handkerchief to wipe the dried blood on the glass. Song Qingxiao was focused on helping Zhang Xiaoyu with the wound on her neck. She was still trembling. It was clear that the incident of nearly being strangled to death had frightened her terribly.
Song Qingxiao was not great at consoling people. She disinfected Nurse Zhang’s wounds in silence. She was covered in bruises, and her nurse’s uniform was torn. Her hair was in a mess, and her nurse’s cap must have been strewn to some unknown location in the fight.
The both of them were silent. After a while, Song Qingxiao asked her, “Are you alright?”
Zhang Xiaoyu remained quiet for a long time. Just when Song Qingxiao assumed that she would not reply, she softly replied, “I’m alright.”
Her voice wavered. Song Qingxiao did not know whether she was speaking to her or if she was comforting herself when Nurse Zhang said, “They are patients. We shouldn’t take it to heart.”