City of Li,
In an apartment building in the city center, Zhang Yun was wearing her clothes with a tired face, preparing to go downstairs.
As an intern at the Special Incident Department, Zhang Yun had just been officially promoted. The reason was the high death rate among the Executors, and even an intern like her, who hadn’t completed the probation period, was brought in to fill the gap.
Zhang Yun was well aware of this reason. She knew her abilities were far from sufficient to handle supernatural events, but the fact that she was promoted still excited her immensely.
Thus, Zhang Yun worked even harder, actively taking on numerous tasks daily, trying to lighten the load for her mentor, Zhao Gang, and hoping to hone her skills to become a qualified Executor as soon as possible.
For Zhang Yun, who was in her youth, working extra days wasn’t hard, and she shouldn’t have been so tired. However, just last week, her sister suddenly told her that her niece, Wan’er, had fallen ill and was hospitalized. Her sister was on a business trip and couldn’t take care of Wan’er, asking Zhang Yun to look after her.
Zhang Yun wanted to tell her sister that it was cruel to leave her niece alone in the hospital without care. It was extremely unkind to treat Wan’er that way. But she understood her sister’s turmoil.
The man who didn’t deserve to be called a brother-in-law had cheated and eloped with his mistress, leaving her sister with only a five-year-old child, Wan’er. Her sister was deeply hurt by this, having attempted suicide multiple times before finally coming to terms with it, deciding against taking her life.
However, facing her child who carried her husband’s blood, her sister couldn’t let go. Therefore, she treated Wan’er with indifference, sometimes to the point of being almost unrecognizable as a mother.
Zhang Yun didn’t know how to persuade her sister to resolve her inner conflicts. She had never been good with words and could only care for her unwelcome niece, Wan’er, as best she could.
Now that Wan’er was alone, ill, and in an unfamiliar hospital, she must have been so scared.
The more Zhang Yun thought about it, the more her heart ached. Even though she felt exhausted from working overtime the day before, she couldn’t care less. Taking advantage of the light workload during the day, she decided to go to the hospital where Wan’er was and take care of her defenseless niece.
Before long, Zhang Yun arrived at the nearby Renai Hospital. It wasn’t a large hospital, but it was cheap and the hospitalization costs were low, which was why her sister had chosen it. Zhang Yun’s suggestion to change hospitals was rejected; even when she offered to pay herself, her sister held onto all the documents. Without a guardian's permission, Zhang Yun couldn’t transfer her niece to another hospital.
Entering the ward, she saw a little girl with short black hair sitting on the bed, playing with a stuffed toy. The girl’s snow-white cheeks showed no expression, and her dark pupils were empty.
At first glance, Zhang Yun was struck by Wan’er’s expressionless face, and her heart filled with pity. She approached, took out various snacks and stuffed toys she had just bought, and tried to amuse Wan’er.
When Wan’er saw her aunt had come, her expression suddenly became much more lively. She picked up a stuffed toy from the bed, her smile sweet and pure like an angel.
“Thank you, Auntie!” Wan’er said, hugging the toy and looking at Zhang Yun with sparkling eyes.
“Have you been doing well lately?” Zhang Yun gently stroked Wan’er’s soft cheeks, her gaze tender.
At Zhang Yun’s question, Wan’er’s eyes flickered for a moment before she nodded, saying she was doing well, just a bit lonely.
“But now it’s okay. Auntie is here, so Wan’er won’t be lonely anymore!” Wan’er shook her head, her smile calm.
Looking at her understanding niece, Zhang Yun felt even more heartache. She had been busy with work and had only visited a few times over the past few days, yet her six-year-old niece didn’t throw a tantrum. Wan’er still clung to her affectionately.
This made Zhang Yun feel a deep sense of guilt. She should find a way to bring her niece home. Wan’er’s condition was nearly stable now. If her sister didn’t want to take care of her, she could step in.
Zhang Yun couldn’t bear to see Wan’er wear the same lonely expression as before. A child should have the demeanor of a child, playing happily with companions every day, not spending her childhood in a cold hospital that smelled of disinfectants.
“Look! Auntie! This puppet is me, and this puppet is you! We are a family!” Wan’er raised the two stuffed toys in her hands, happily playing with them.
“Hahaha! Auntie’s puppet’s head is crooked~”
Seeing this, Zhang Yun also picked up her newly bought stuffed toy, smiling brightly to match Wan’er’s play.
To make up for her niece, Zhang Yun played with Wan’er for a long time, until she received a work notification on her phone. Reluctantly, she put down the stuffed toy, comforted the disappointed Wan’er for a moment, and left the ward.
Not long after Zhang Yun left, a doctor entered the ward for rounds and brought food for Wan’er.
“Can Wan’er go home today?” The doctor, with skin as white as snow, rubbed Wan’er’s hair, smiling brightly.
“Hugging my stuffed toy, Wan’er replied expressionlessly, “I can’t go home yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Auntie hasn’t taken me home yet.”
“I see. Then let’s wait for Auntie to take you home.”
As he spoke, the doctor felt a bit itchy in his neck. He twisted his neck and accidentally turned his head 180 degrees. His smile remained bright, but the connection between his neck and head had an unsettling tear.
He stuffed the exposed cotton back in and left the ward with a smile, leaving Wan’er sitting there, eating the food on the tray—a clump of cotton dyed with some unknown red liquid.
She chewed contentedly, and as her long hair swayed, the seam around her neck revealed a resemblance to the stitches on the stuffed toy.
Zhang Yun walked out of the ward and entered the elevator. Pressing the button for the first floor, just before the elevator closed, she noticed a strangely familiar stuffed toy lying carelessly in the hallway, its button eyes facing her direction.
The elevator slowly closed, completely obscuring the toy’s appearance. It was only then that Zhang Yun came to her senses. Not knowing who had lost the toy, she soon dismissed it from her mind and left the hospital.
According to the work notification, Zhang Yun soon arrived at the Special Incident Department building in the City of Li, where she received a mission to investigate a hospital called Renai Hospital.
Recently, it had been discovered that multiple patients had mysteriously disappeared after being discharged, leaving no traces behind. The department suspected it was a supernatural event.
“Multiple patients have gone missing?” Zhang Yun looked at the name of the hospital, and an ominous feeling arose in her heart. She eagerly flipped through the materials, and sure enough, it was the hospital where Wan’er was staying.
“By the way, this is the relevant file issued by the higher-ups recently. You should read it before investigating; it might be useful. I heard it’s full of information on predicted supernatural events. With this, the death rate will surely be greatly reduced!”
“This time it’s an investigation of the hospital, so you can check if there’s any information related to it.”
A colleague, Xiao Wu, handed her a special portable detection screen. Zhang Yun absentmindedly took it and searched through the hospital files like a desperate act.
The first entry was [Puppet Hospital].
[Puppet Hospital: This is a hospital without a physical entity, suspected to exist in five-dimensional space. It can appear at any location in buildings equipped with medical functions and assimilate the buildings it occupies.
Once the assimilation is complete, all medical personnel automatically become Puppet Workers of the Puppet Hospital, retaining their original memories and self-awareness, along with the ability to move freely. However, their way of thinking shifts to one of feeding on humans, and they perceive the world as being composed of puppets.
The treatment method of Puppet medical staff involves cutting open the skin and filling the patient’s subcutaneous layer with cotton. After the skin is cut, the interior turns into a black cavity structured like a puppet, which expands as it gets filled with cotton, turning the patient into a Puppet Worker. When they enter an attack state, they can transform the humans they slice with their scalpel into puppet beings.
Additionally, Puppet Workers can replace patients who have family members during treatment, subsequently transforming all family members related by blood into Puppet Homes. This supernatural event increases with the number of transformations, becoming the Puppet Hospital.**
Zhang Yun stared intently at the information about the Puppet Hospital, feeling an inexplicable surge of fear. She wanted to tell herself not to think too much; her niece Wan’er might not have encountered the brutal treatment inside. Yet, she couldn’t help but correspond the situation at Renai Hospital with the Puppet Hospital, discovering many suspicious points she hadn’t noticed before.
For example, the medical staff who always wore smiles and the corridors where nurses seemed to pass by endlessly...
Zhang Yun’s face turned pale as she grabbed the detection screen in her hand and ran toward the garage. She had to save Wan’er!
“Wait! Zhang Yun! Where are you going? Don’t act rashly!”
Behind him, Xiao Wu saw Zhang Yun suddenly run away and looked at her back with concern. He picked up another detection screen and flipped to the same file, scrolling down. His face showed unease.
This S-grade "Doll Hospital" seemed to possess the ability to accommodate other supernatural entities. The file indicated that at its peak, the hospital had housed over two hundred other supernatural beings, transforming what was originally a not-so-dangerous Doll Hospital into a living hell on Earth.
Although he was still uncertain whether this Benevolent Hospital was the "Doll Hospital," even a slight possibility indicated the danger of this supernatural incident.
Zhang Yun wouldn’t think of going there alone, would she?
In the city center, in a two-story building, Ke Su had just finished eating. He rarely tidied himself up, but today he picked up his phone and the necessary documents, preparing to visit the hospital. He had made an online appointment with a doctor, so he could just go and get treated without taking much time.
He hoped nothing troublesome would happen like the last time he took the subway.
Thinking this way, the socially anxious Ke Su walked out of his room listlessly. His skin was pale, like a ghost from not having seen the sun for a long time. He checked the map on his phone; it was three hundred meters away, very close. He decided to walk there.
Ke Su avoided the bustling crowd and arrived at the entrance of the hospital named Benevolent Hospital. After observing for a while and confirming he hadn’t gone the wrong way, he stepped inside.
“Excuse me, where is the psychological therapy room?”
Ke Su stood in front of the ticket window, holding a ticket he had just printed from the machine, and asked.
“！！！！”
The nurse inside the window sat there in a daze, trembling all over, with cotton falling out of the poorly sewn slit in her back.
“Hmm?” Ke Su didn’t hear a response for a long time and thought the nurse was pretending not to hear, frowning.
“...It’s on the third floor, second room to the left!!!” Seeing Ke Su frown, the nurse's vacant eyes nervously rolled, and she forced an exaggerated smile that revealed her gums as she responded.
Ke Su stared at the nurse's cross-eyed gaze in silence.
“...”
This nurse must be having a breakdown.
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