Chapter 61: Car Accident, Out-of-Body Experience

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Clatter, clatter, clatter—the stretcher was hurriedly pushed across the hospital’s smooth floor; the doctors and nurses of the emergency trauma department didn’t even have time to change into surgical scrubs.

“A car accident occurred on the street outside Duyi Community. Drunk driving, rear-ended a taxi parked by the roadside. His name is Li Lan, twenty years old. We performed chest compressions for twenty-three minutes on the way here…”

“This isn’t good, his head is still bleeding. We need a CT scan first.”

“The CT room is occupied right now. He has an open fracture in his left leg, and his arm is dislocated…”

“Everyone, stay calm. Go urge Operating Room 6. If the CT becomes available first, take him there. Call neurosurgery and orthopedics—quick, hurry!”

His mind was buzzing, a constant ringing drowning out everything except a faint, persistent hum.

Li Lan was not entirely unconscious; his eyes were half open, half shut. He could still see a middle-aged female doctor in front of him, saying something as she waved a slender flashlight back and forth.

“Li Lan, can you hear me? Can you try to follow the light with your eyes?”

He could see her lips moving, but the words did not reach him. He stared blankly at the ceiling, watching it race past above, his thoughts empty and silent as he murmured inwardly:

“So cold. I can’t feel my limbs anymore… all I feel is… cold.”

Everything before his eyes grew increasingly blurred, and an irresistible drowsiness swept over him. Slowly, ever so slowly, his heavy eyelids closed, plunging him into darkness and haze.

Li Ruoke sat on a bench in the hospital’s family waiting area, still trembling uncontrollably.

A young resident poured her a cup of hot water, and she clung to his hand, her voice choked and desperate. “How is he? What’s happening now? My brother—he’s been in there for four hours… I’ve watched the clock, to be exact, it’s been four hours and seven minutes. How is he!?”

“Miss, please calm down, calm down… um… your brother’s condition is complicated. His head suffered severe trauma, and his left calf is… In short, the attending doctors from neurosurgery, orthopedics, and trauma surgery are all inside. The operation is expected to take a very long time, but I promise, I’ll come tell you the moment there’s any news, not a minute’s delay, all right? You must try to calm down…”

“Calm… down?” Li Ruoke echoed blankly, then shook off the doctor’s hand. She rubbed her temples, then opened her eyes again a second later, not even knowing where to put her hands.

Her breaths came fast and shallow, as if she were suffocating, her words tumbling out almost without pause. “No… I can’t… I can’t calm down. I know I should, but I just can’t. He’s not even twenty.”

His twentieth birthday is at the end of this month. The new semester is about to start, he’s about to go back to school… Let me tell you, our parents died in a damned car accident when he was just a child. I was already in high school then, and I thought my world had collapsed, but we made it through, we survived. But now! Now it really feels like the sky is falling for real—I just can’t calm down…”

Few people would ever want to linger in a hospital emergency room. The place was simply too frightening. No matter how strong the scent of disinfectant, it could never fully mask the faint, iron tang of blood that seeped into the air, nor could it overcome the anxious, chaotic voices of patients and medical staff.

Only those who have truly brushed against death can understand the terror of hovering at the border between life and death—unable to flee, unable to surrender, a wall dividing the living from the wounded, a wall that grows ever thicker and more impenetrable in your vision…

When Li Lan’s consciousness “awoke,” he felt no pain at all. In fact, there was barely any sensation in his limbs, but his vision and hearing were suddenly far clearer than before.

His body felt weightless, as if he were floating on water—a wondrous, almost intoxicating sensation.

He looked around. This seemed to be a hospital ward, equipped with all sorts of medical apparatus.

On the bed lay someone whose head was tightly wrapped in white gauze, his face swollen and purplish-red.

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Beep. Beep. Beep.

It was the steady, rhythmic sound of a heart monitor.

It took several minutes for Li Lan’s scattered thoughts to coalesce. At last, he was no longer so dazed.

He recognized the person lying in the hospital bed, deeply unconscious. It was… himself?

“My god, what’s going on?” Li Lan muttered, noticing that his own voice carried a faint echo.

He looked down at himself. He was completely naked, not a stitch of clothing on, his skin so pale it almost glowed.

“This… can’t be. Am I dead? I’m standing here, so how am I seeing another me lying in that bed?!”

No one could answer him. He tried moving his feet and found his body was as light as air. He seemed to glide forward with just the slightest lean, as if walking underwater, not even needing to lift his legs.

He could hear every sound around him, yet it was all muffled, as if filtered through a barrier.

Suddenly, he saw a female doctor enter and approach the “himself” lying in the bed.

He vaguely remembered this was the doctor who’d waved the flashlight in front of his eyes earlier.

He went over—slid over, really—and stood behind her, asking, “Excuse me, what’s happening now?”

He tried for a while, but she completely ignored him, didn’t even turn her head, treating him as if he were nothing but air.

When she left the room, he hurried after her.

The corridor outside was crowded, filled with more people.

So many unfamiliar faces—some sad, some anxious, some dozing on chairs.

But whenever he tried to speak to any of them, no one responded.

It was as if he occupied the same place, but not the same world. Even the light in his field of vision seemed to ripple and distort, like water.

He looked out the window, but beyond the sill, there was nothing—just a boundless expanse of pure, undiluted white light.

Once again, Li Lan lapsed into a daze. Someone even passed right through his body without him noticing, without the faintest sensation. Everything felt so close, yet so far away, indescribably unreal.

He couldn’t recall what had happened to him—the accident, the dizziness, how he arrived at the hospital… All memory was gone.

But his mind itself was perfectly clear.

As he struggled to remember, a familiar face appeared at the end of the corridor. Seeing him, Li Lan hurried over, calling out.

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“Brother Qi Yan? Qi Yan, can you hear me?”

It was Qi Yan. He had just come out of the restroom, having composed himself, ready to go home at last after a sleepless night. He was exhausted beyond words.

Qi Yan walked past Li Lan, then suddenly frowned and looked back.

A strange feeling tugged at him. Just now… did someone call my name?

But when he looked closely, there seemed to be no one he recognized. He shook his head in resignation. Maybe exhaustion and grief had left his mind muddled.

He kept walking, heading straight for the hospital’s main entrance.

Li Lan’s heart leaped when he saw Qi Yan turn around; he was sure Qi Yan could sense him—perhaps not see him, but at least sense him. That was better than being invisible to everyone else here.

He hurried after him, gliding and calling, “Qi Yan! Wait!”

He was almost upon him when, out of nowhere, a terrifying figure appeared, blocking the space between them.

A wave of primal terror froze Li Lan in place, paralyzed by a crushing sense of danger.

The figure before him was a long-haired woman, her body wrapped in strips of cloth, cradling a child in her arms.

Li Lan recognized her instantly. He had witnessed the manifestation of Qi Yan’s ghost token before, but this time the effect was far more intense.

Perhaps it was because, before, he’d always been shielded by his physical body. Now, as a disembodied soul, the oppressive force radiating from “Mother” was more overwhelming than ever.

What a dreadful aura! And it was only the aura…

Panicked, Li Lan retreated several meters, raising his translucent arms and stammering, “No, no… I’m not his enemy—I would never harm him!”

He couldn’t make out the face hidden behind that tangle of black hair and strips of cloth, but those two scarlet eyes were like daggers, issuing a dire warning.

He could only watch helplessly as the one person who could sense his presence—Qi Yan—walked away. Only then did “Mother’s” form gradually turn transparent and fade from sight.

Now, Li Lan truly dared not give chase. He had no doubt that, in this ghostly form, if he so much as tried to approach Qi Yan again, he would be annihilated in an instant by the spirit guardian’s icy glare.

(Recommended reading: “Portraits of a Hundred Spirits,” in which the protagonist enters various horror films and uses his family’s heirloom to capture ghosts—especially hilarious…)