Hell’s Handbook - Chapter 324
Chapter 324 Congratulations
The woman ran out of the ward like she had gone insane. Su Jin didn’t want her to leave now. She knew a lot about this hospital of horrors, so if he could get more details from her, his chances of surviving would increase.
He dashed out after her, but the moment he set foot outside the room, he felt a terrible pain in the back of his neck, as though something had stabbed into him. He didn’t even have the strength to turn back and simply collapsed onto the floor.
In his groggy state, Su Jin felt like he was being dragged along before losing consciousness completely. By the time he woke up, the sky was already bright. He was still on his own bed and the man in bandages next to him was eating. The man greeted Su Jin when he saw Su Jin wake up.
Su Jin sat up and turned to his right. The woman was gone. Had she successfully escaped the night before? He had left the ward at almost the same time as her, so she might have been the one who knocked him out. Of course, it could also be that the monster doctor discovered him.
“What’s wrong?” asked the man in bandages when he noticed that Su Jin looked a little out of sorts.
Su Jin shook his head and asked the man, “Do you know where the person who was here has gone?”
“Oh, it seems she’s fully recovered and her family came to pick her up this morning,” said the man in bandages as he stuffed a bun into his mouth.
Su Jin frowned. Did that mean that the hospital had actually captured her? If so, then perhaps both of them had been knocked out by the monster doctor, but because she had been here long enough, she was taken away earlier. He had come in one day later, so he was allowed to stay in the ward. But of course, Su Jin still felt that it was more probable that the woman was the one who knocked him out.
“I’m only left with one day, huh.” Su Jin frowned even harder. He turned to his left and asked, “Do you remember what happened last night?”
“Last night? I slept very early last night. Did something happen?” The man in bandages looked puzzled.
Su Jin looked him over. According to what he saw the night before, this guy was left with nothing but bare bones under his bandages, yet he looked just like any normal human being. That didn’t make sense.
“Do you mind letting me look at your wounds?” asked Su Jin.
The man in bandages was surprised by the question and looked like he was going to refuse, but he merely paused for a moment and nodded with a smile. “Sure, you can take a look! They’re almost all healed up anyway.”
Su Jin was quite surprised, because he thought that the man wouldn’t let him take a look. But since he was fine with it, Su Jin immediately went over to take a look.
The man undid the bandage around his arm and Su Jin was stunned at what he saw. Under those bandages weren’t bones. It was a fresh layer of skin, and it looked especially smooth and supple.
“How is this happening?” Su Jin was a little confused now. He went through what happened the night before and was sure of what he had seen. And if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, it meant that the problem lay with the man himself.
“Perhaps… perhaps that’s the case?” Su Jin started making some conjectures. The man in bandages would lose his senses every night and the flesh on his body would disappear. The injection that the monster doctor gave him wasn’t just ordinary tranquilizer. Perhaps it was something that could help the man to have normal flesh in the day, and that thing could possibly be… the vitality of a human.
The female patient on his right told him the night before that the hospital was keeping human prisoners and sucking their vitality out of their bodies. If vitality could be removed from a body, then it could be given to another person, right? That might be why people continued to send their sick and wounded to this hospital.
No matter how severe an illness was, it would get significantly better once the body’s vitality levels were boosted. Ordinary people would only notice the tremendous improvement but did not know what lay behind this effect. Once they saw the effect of the treatment given by this hospital, they would recommend it to others, and the hospital would have more patients and therefore more sources of vitality coming in all the time.
Su Jin shook his head. This wasn’t what he ought to be thinking about right now. It was more important for him to think about how to leave the hospital. The rest had nothing to do with him.
With that thought, he got up and walked out of the ward. The corridor was still extremely crowded and all the doctors and nurses looked very busy. But Su Jin could now see a tinge of impatience and fake kindness in their busyness.
They were like farmers breeding animals for sale. The animals were their money makers, but the farmer would never look at the business from the point of view of the animals, and they wouldn’t be overly concerned for the animals either.
He hadn’t walked far when he spotted the doctor he saw the day before. This doctor was wearing a pair of gold rimmed glasses, which reminded him of the monster doctor with several syringes stuck into him. Who would have thought that monster doctor would be a well respected human doctor by day?
“Why did you come out here again? Sir, please don’t make things difficult for us,” said the doctor as he shook his head and approached Su Jin to bring him back to the ward.
An idea hit Su Jin and he cried out, “Doctor, when something like that happens, it makes us all very fearful!”
The doctor was a little taken aback and looked slightly displeased. He said to Su Jin, “Don’t worry, the nurse was not careful when she made her rounds last night and died from falling down and hitting her head. It’s not as terrifying as the rumors you’ve heard. Go back to your bed and rest.”
Su Jin’s lips curled into a smile as he nodded. “I knew it couldn’t be that scary!”
“Of course, of course. Our hospital is definitely a safe place. You should go back to your bed.” The doctor escorted Su Jin back to his ward.
“Doctor, I can be discharged soon, right?” The man in bandages looked especially excited to see the doctor.
The doctor smiled and nodded. “You’re recovering well, so you can be discharged today.”
Su Jin glanced at the doctor. The doctor’s smile was super fake, and he also had a look of anticipation in his eyes, as though the man in bandages were a fat hog on the weighing scales that was ready for sale. The doctor was probably thinking about how much he could sell this hog for.
After the doctor left, Su Jin sat silently on his own bed. He was merely trying his luck just now, and he didn’t expect to get something useful out of the doctor. The monster nurse had died at the hands of the man guarding the cafeteria, and the doctor confirmed that a nurse had indeed died. That was good news to Su Jin, because that meant this Challenge wasn’t a supernatural one.
Right from the start, this hospital of horrors seemed like the supernatural sort, but the monsters here could be injured and killed. And as long as the monsters could be killed, then it made the Challenge a little easier to deal with.
Su Jin checked his pockets where he had kept the things he took from the cafeteria, including a few knives and a lighter. He had to get out of here, so he would inevitably face a few battles along the way. These were the things he was going to rely on.
“I’m so used to having a strong body, it’s so hard to get used to being an ordinary person.” Su Jin smiled sadly as he shook his head. But he was still in a better position than an ordinary person. After facing dangers as someone formidable for a long time, Su Jin’s mental resilience had increased significantly. So, even when he was pushed into a corner, Su Jin’s first reaction was still to find a way out. He did not resign himself to his fate like many ordinary people would have.
That didn’t sound like much, but Handbook owners often found themselves in desperate situations, and being determined to survive could help one turn the situation around. It also helped Su Jin to think more calmly.
The man in bandages was still excitedly getting ready to be discharged. Su Jin smiled as he suddenly said to him, “My friend, since you gave me some food yesterday, I think I ought to warn you… you’re about to face dangers.”
The man in bandages froze for a moment, then smiled and asked, “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Think about it carefully. Ever since you were admitted, how much do you remember of what happens at night?” Su Jin gave the man a cunning smile. He didn’t think he could possibly convince the man to believe the real situation he was in, but he wanted to sow the seeds of suspicion in the man’s head so that when the monsters tried to imprison him and noticed something amiss, he might try to fight back.
His struggles might not save Su Jin, but he would introduce more chaos. The man might even turn out to be a pleasant surprise.
The man in bandages paused to think for a while, then said, “I have to take my meds every day, and I would be pretty drowsy after that, so it’s not surprising that I don’t remember much.”
“Is that so?” Su Jin smiled and said quietly, “It’s good that you don’t remember. Not being able to remember might be… a blessing.”
Su Jin’s smile was so creepy, the man felt all his hair stand on end. He sat down on his own bed, then approached Su Jin again a few minutes later. “Friend, what exactly do you mean?”
Su Jin continued to smile without saying anything. Just then, a few nurses entered the ward. They were full of smiles as they said to the man in bandages, “Sir, you can be discharged.”
The man was puzzled as he looked behind the nurses, but failed to see any of his family members. When a patient was discharged, wasn’t it usual practice for family members to come to the hospital to pick them up?
“Hoho! Congratulations! You can finally be discharged!” Su Jin reached out to shake the man’s hand, and took the chance to hand him a knife as well. “Stay safe out there!”
Su Jin then withdrew his hand and patted the man on his shoulder. The man’s eyes were slightly narrowed as he hesitated for a moment, then hid the knife he received from Su Jin in his sleeve before leaving with the nurses.
After the man left with the nurses, Su Jin lay back down on his bed, got into a comfortable position and closed his eyes. He was going to take a nap to recover some strength. It was now daytime, and the best time for him to make his escape.
