I Run Away with the Earth to Save the World [Unlimited Flow] - Chapter 128

As eight o’clock approached, everyone felt a bit tense.

The March Hare had been worried about being taken to court by the police, but after hearing from Jing Qizhen’s conversation that the police had disappeared, it instantly breathed a sigh of relief. The big rabbit was probably the most relaxed of them all right now.

The March Hare took out his golden pocket watch and glanced at the time. “Ah, it’s—”

Jing Qizhen curiously asked, “March Hare, don’t you experience jet lag?”

The March Hare was taken aback. “Jet lag?”

Jing Qizhen nodded. “I remember your pocket watch should be synced with Massachusetts, where the villa is located. You traveled from the erosion area in the Western Hemisphere to the one in the Eastern Hemisphere, doesn’t the time difference change?”

The March Hare: “…”

That was a bit complicated; after all, it was just an innocent Sir Rabbit!

The Earth casually remarked in Jing Qizhen’s mind, “Only humans experience jet lag!”

Jing Qizhen thought about it and agreed. As a planet, the Earth has its own way of marking time and human-defined time zones don’t affect it at all. As for the March Hare, since it came from an erosion area where time and space were already chaotic, the concept of jet lag didn’t really matter to him.

With that in mind, Jing Qizhen dropped the subject.

However, the March Hare still clutched his pocket watch, sneaking glances at it several times.

Suddenly, Manman whispered, “It’s eight o’clock.”

The March Hare glanced at its watch and the time matched! Relaxed now, it put away its pocket watch, its rabbit ears no longer drooping.

Lu Lingxi, standing by the equipment room door, listened carefully and whispered, “There’s no sound outside at all…”

Jing Qizhen checked the surveillance footage on his phone and also shook his head. “Nothing’s happening.”

The group exchanged confused looks.

Wang Feizhou hesitated and asked, “Could it be that the Second Municipal Hospital had a later shift change time in the past? Not exactly at eight in the morning, but maybe at nine?”

Grandma Fang shook her head, dismissing the idea. “Shift changes were delayed in big cities due to morning traffic congestion and high pedestrian flow. Back in the 90s, urbanization wasn’t as developed, so shift times would have been earlier, not later.”

Si Jiayang sighed helplessly, “So we waited until eight in the morning just for nothing…”

Manman nudged him with her elbow and Si Jiayang immediately shut up.

Jing Qizhen: “Let’s wait a bit longer. If nothing changes, we’ll check the old hospital building again. After that, we can look for those survivors.”

Wilcox hesitated. “To be honest, blocking people in the restroom feels kind of weird…”

Jing Qizhen: “…”

Actually, everyone felt it was strange, but they kept it to themselves.

The Earth took the initiative and said, “I’ll go take a look and see if there’s any new discovery from Gu Leshan and Yan Hong.”

Jing Qizhen was in a good mood recently, mainly because the ball had been particularly proactive lately. As a result, Jing Qizhen didn’t argue and instead smiled warmly, saying, “Thanks for your hard work, Babyball!”

The Earth sighed with a sense of grievance and sincerely lamented, “Behind every successful Long Ao Tian’s team, there’s a ball that’s about to be exhausted. You humans should learn to be grateful—”

Jing Qizhen’s expression instantly turned blank as he interrupted the Earth’s self-praise, “Grateful for your beauty, cuteness, and hard work that attracted countless parallel universe planets to invade you?”

The Earth, which had been smug just a moment ago, immediately snapped when Jing Qizhen brought up those annoying balls.

The Earth: “Jing Qizhen, you bastard! #%*）#@￥! Can’t you respect me just a little?”

The ball swore in some unknown country’s slang and curse words, not looking back as it went off to the real world to find clues.

Jing Qizhen shook his head and smiled.

Time passed quickly. However, even after waiting until 8:15, the old hospital building remained quiet, with no sign of humans and not even the ghost figures from last night.

Everyone was still standing in the same equipment room, exchanging puzzled glances.

Jing Qizhen took a deep breath. “Let’s go, let’s check outside!”

“To think that the hospital would be empty during the day…” Manman frowned as she left the equipment room.

Old Xiao: “Based on the current situation, it seems that the old hospital building only has ghost doctors and nurses appearing at night, while it’s deserted during the day.”

Jing Qizhen: “The fact that the hospital is so empty during the day is a problem in itself.”

Thinking of this, Jing Qizhen simply took out the red-stamped document he had brought earlier from his backpack.

When Wang Feizhou saw it, he was stunned. Even though he was just an intern at the hospital, he knew how much extra work health bureau inspections brought, something that countless medical staff detested.

Wang Feizhou stammered, “H-health bureau!? Why is the health bureau here!?”

Jing Qizhen joked, “If the March Hare can call the police station, why can’t there be a health bureau here?”

Wang Feizhou: “…”

The March Hare, feeling wrongly accused, quickly defended itself, “No, I didn’t! I just called ‘120’ for the emergency center, hoping they’d come to rescue the nurse!”

Jin Guijuan leaned against the wall, speaking softly, “I find those survivors a bit odd. They seem really afraid of the ghost doctors and nurses, but even though the hospital is empty during the day, they don’t come to check it out.”

After a pause, Jin Guijuan said with some confusion, “Also, when faced with danger, not reporting it or escaping isn’t normal thinking, right?”

Manman remained calm, “It takes courage to resist. To be honest, those survivors don’t seem to be in a good mental state.”

Jin Guijuan paused, her emotions mixed with a trace of sadness, and she shook her head with a bitter smile. “True…”

Among everyone present, only Wang Feizhou was a medical intern, while the others had no real connection to the hospital. Their understanding of hospitals mostly came from occasional visits when they were sick or undergoing checkups, as well as the brief research they did before entering the erosion area.

Jing Qizhen took out a blank red-stamped document and hesitated before starting to write. After a long deliberation, he recalled a similar notice he had seen online and wrote a holiday notice.

Lu Lingxi, standing next to him, leaned over to take a look. “A temporary holiday notice?”

Jing Qizhen nodded. “Yeah.”

Yun Shuanghua asked curiously, “A holiday notice? What are you going to do with it?”

Jing Qizhen: “Nothing much, just testing if posting this document will make the ghosts take the night off.”

Everyone: “…”

Even though they knew Jing Qizhen had brought blank red-stamped documents beforehand, they hadn’t expected them to be used this way.

Wang Feizhou muttered absentmindedly, “That would be great…”

After finishing, Jing Qizhen put away his pen and suddenly said, “Ah, I didn’t bring a glue stick… Where’s the hospital’s bulletin board? First floor or somewhere else?”

Grandma Fang calmly replied, “Isn’t there flour in the cafeteria? Mix it with water to make a paste; that can work as glue.” Back in their day, glue sticks weren’t common, but homemade paste for sewing was.

Si Jiayang: “I didn’t notice any flour earlier, just noodles. But we can use a few grains of rice or noodles to stick it since they’re essentially starch.”

After a pause, Wang Feizhou hesitantly said, “Usually, there’s a glue stick in the hospital office to paste inspection reports or fee slips… In a hospital from the 90s without electronic records, there would be even more need for pasting.”

Jing Qizhen nodded and went to the office opposite the equipment room, where he quickly found a half-used bottle of transparent glue on the doctor’s desk. He took the glue downstairs and pasted the fake holiday notice on the bulletin board, even taking a close-up photo to save on his phone.

Lu Lingxi watched Jing Qizhen’s actions and suddenly realized, “You plan to show the photo to those survivors?”

Jing Qizhen nodded. “They seem like key characters.”

After a brief pause, Jing Qizhen’s expression remained neutral, but he voiced a somewhat concerning possibility, “That is, if those survivors didn’t disappear with the ghosts at 8 AM.”

Lu Lingxi imagined the possibility and felt a headache. “…That shouldn’t be the case! It’s understandable for ghosts to fear sunlight, but human survivors shouldn’t vanish too.”

Jing Qizhen: “Let’s hope so!”

Since the old hospital building was completely empty of people and ghosts, it made it easier for the group to continue their search. The surroundings were relatively safe for now, so they decided to split up and keep in touch through wireless communication.

Manman was taking pictures with her phone while speaking into the wireless communicator, “Jiayang and I found some files in the director’s office on the third floor. The dates seem normal. I’ve taken pictures, but they don’t seem useful, just regular hospital documents.”

Si Jiayang agreed. “Yeah, that’s right.”

On the other side, Lu Lingxi spoke up, “I found some used IV bottles in this department. The production dates are all before 1994 and the drugs are mainly gentamicin injection and penicillin, both common antibiotics.”

While listening to everyone exchange information, Jing Qizhen kept searching without stopping. He stood behind the doctor’s desk and tried to open a drawer, but it was stuck. He muttered to himself, “Is it locked?”

Jing Qizhen’s gaze swept over the desk, looking for the drawer key.

Yun Shuanghua blinked and suddenly approached. “Let me help.”

Just as Jing Qizhen reached for a bunch of small keys hanging from a pen holder, he instinctively responded, “Huh?”

Yun Shuanghua had already reached out, using his slender, beautiful fingers to grip the bottom edge of the drawer. With a seemingly gentle tug, he pulled it off and the entire locked front panel came off.

Jing Qizhen: “…Thanks.”

He understood that sometimes brute force really worked! Plus, it saved the hassle of trying each key…

Yun Shuanghua smiled. “You’re welcome.”

The March Hare, standing at the office door as if keeping watch, took out his golden pocket watch, mumbling to himself, “Even His Highness has to work for others… Oh, after leaving the Fairy Tale Kingdom, the poor Prince doesn’t even have a maid anymore.”

Jing Qizhen, holding the removed drawer as he was sifting through medical records and notes, joked without looking up, “Isn’t he still with you?”

The March Hare almost choked, lamenting, “The noble Sir Rabbit has no maids either.”

Jing Qizhen: “…”

This big rabbit probably needs a dose of socialist barbecue! But considering it can call the police, he decided to let it go…

Just then, Jing Qizhen found a piece of thin, patched-together paper among the contents of the drawer.

The paper looked like it had been torn from a medical record and then glued back together. The earlier pages were missing and it appeared to be the final part, with some scribbled, barely legible characters. After squinting at it for a while, Jing Qizhen guessed it might say ‘hydrochloride’ at the beginning, but he wasn’t sure.

Remembering that Yun Shuanghua might be able to read it, he handed the piece of paper to him. “Can you recognize this?”

Yun Shuanghua looked at the barely decipherable characters and fell silent.

Seeing his reaction, Jing Qizhen understood and casually comforted him, “It’s normal not to recognize it.” Hopefully, the intern Wang Feizhou had mastered the art of reading doctors’ handwriting.

Yun Shuanghua: “…”

Then, Jing Qizhen took out the entire stack of medical records from the drawer.

After searching through the whole pile, he still didn’t find any record with missing pages.