I don't know what happened to me that I agreed to such a ridiculous offer, and even after a long time, when I think back on that past, I still feel ashamed of what I did.

It's been hard for me to talk about this experience, but it's always been imprinted in the depths of my soul, not because I don't want to cover it, but because I don't dare, I can't.

In the dead of night, I often dig out this past, savoring every detail, everything I have done, just to prevent myself from becoming crazy and paranoid. In every low point of life I have experienced since then, every ups and downs, whenever I seem to be cornered, I will ask myself like this, ask myself if I will do whatever it takes to achieve the goal, become crazy, paranoid, cold and numb to carry out every cruel order, just for the seemingly easy advantages and success.

Sometimes I ask myself what I was doing to agree to their proposals, and I think maybe I've been locked up in my own world for so long that I'm driving myself crazy, and I think I'm already crazy.

We drank a lot that day, we all drank too much, I don't remember when they left, I don't remember how I got out of bed, I just remember waking up the next morning with a splitting headache.

A few days later, I went to the hospital and worked as a cleaner in the intensive care unit, and my colleagues at work didn't seem to have much reaction to my arrival, neither enthusiastic nor repulsive, I think it might be because Zhang Hui and Xiaoshuai had already taken care of it.

My job is mainly to clean the ward and dump the garbage at a specific time, which is very similar to Aunt Liu's work when I used to be in the Internet café, and I can do it quite easily. Speaking of which, I hate the hospital, I hate the smell of disinfectant here, I hate the seemingly clean corridors that seem to be shrouded in a faint black fog forever, and I hate the death that can come at any time and anywhere.

Even though I'm here to study souls, and studying souls is the same as studying death, I still hate death. The time I spent working in the hospital was the period when I saw the most deaths, and it can be said that death here can happen at any time, at any time.

It was a morning, the morning of my first day of work here, and I had my first death here. It was an old man, who was said to have terminal cancer, and he was asleep when I cleaned his ward, but when I finished cleaning and was about to leave, the old man left first, and his family members hurriedly surrounded him, calling urgently, and some people hurriedly called for nurses, and the nurses took a look and gently turned off all the instruments.

It was the first death I experienced here, and I stood outside the door and watched his family busy wiping him, changing his clothes, and crying. I felt as if I had gone back to when I was sixteen, when I said my final goodbye to my parents by myself.

I shook my head and walked away silently, forgetting for a moment what I had come here for, and for a moment forgetting to track down the souls that might exist.

I have seen a lot of death here, except for the first time, many people have gone through the last journey of life in pain and fear, watching them panic and make the last struggle in vain, their hearts will also be full of sorrow, watching the light in their eyes slowly dim, and it will also make people sigh that life is so fleeting. But even so, I have not forgotten the purpose of my trip, I have come to verify the soul, I have come to examine death, although this is despicable even to me.

Soul, although I have seen a lot of death, I still have no clue about souls. Souls, this hospital is also the same as other hospitals, there are many supernatural stories, nurses often whisper in private, but I have not encountered even once, such as the most widely circulated among nurses "Silent Corridor", legend has it that there is a corridor in this hospital, no matter how noisy it is outside, there is no sound at all, legend has it that there is a cleaner who went there to smoke and saw the legendary ghost, I have never seen the cleaner, I heard them say that I am here to take his place. I've been to that corridor, too, but I haven't seen any wraiths, and though it's quieter than outside, it's not as quiet as the legend says, so quiet that you can't hear a sound.

There is also a legend here, that there is a room where the exhaust fan is turned on, and there is often a small child's ethereal and strange voice, the legend is that the voice is the voice of a child who died suddenly many years ago, and the legend says that the voice always calls softly with a little temptation and a little anxiety, "Come on!" Let's play! ”

I've been to that room, but I haven't heard it. Many times I sat quietly on my hospital bed, listening carefully to the sound of the exhaust fan, but there was nothing but the rustling of the exhaust fan.

Soul, perhaps no soul at all.

The hospital is always a depressing place, I don't like it, I don't know how long I can endure it, I think I'm almost at the tipping point, I think it's time to give up, give up looking for that ethereal soul, leave this place that makes me feel uncomfortable.

But many times things turned out unexpectedly, and just when I decided to give up, an old man plunged me deeper into the abyss.

It was an old lady, also in the intensive care unit, but she seemed very energetic, not at all depressed like other patients, the old man liked to sit in the afternoon window and bask in the sun, with a faint smile, that smile often reminded me of Lu Xue.

Is she waiting for something? Or are you expecting something? I do not know.

Once, while I was cleaning her room, she stopped me.

"Come and talk to me, young man." She said, smiling all the time.

"Well," I thought for a moment, "you're not well, you still need to rest." ”

"It's fine." She shook her head, "It's not time yet." ”

"Time? What time. ”

The old man didn't answer me, just smiled and shook his head.

"My children are very busy, and it's rare to have someone to talk to." The old man looked out the window again and said to himself.

"Life is rushed." I replied.

"Hehe, yes, life is in a hurry, who is not, I was in a hurry, but now I am not busy, now I only have to wait."

"Wait?" I shook my head, "You should still get more rest." ”

"It's okay, the time hasn't come yet, it looks like I'll have to keep my old man waiting a little longer, I think it's going to be too long."

I looked at the old lady and didn't know what to say for a moment.

"I'm dying." After a while, the old lady spoke again, her tone still flat, still with a faint smile.

"I already feel death coming in, and the old man is coming to pick me up."

"There will be no soul." I shook my head gently and whispered.

The old lady was still looking out the window, and the winter afternoon sun poured in, shining on the old lady's smiling face, making her look very peaceful, and the sun looked very warm. She's lonely, I thought.

What kind of loneliness is this, you can only wait silently for death to come, what kind of loneliness is this, you can only count the rest of your time in the afternoon sun.

"Hey!" I sighed softly.

"Hehe, it's nothing, young man, I've been through too much to live to this age, just look away, just look away." The old lady sighed lightly all her life.

Look away? I guess the old man still can't put it down, right? It's easy to say, it's just talking.

"Do you believe in souls?" The old lady was still looking out the window and whispered, as if asking me and strengthening her confidence.

I shook my head slightly.

"Soulful." The old man seemed to answer me, and it seemed to answer herself. "Life goes round and round, comes and goes, and it's just a matter of being born in an invisible closet."

"Closet?"

The old lady looked at me and nodded, "Closet." People don't want to believe, and they don't dare to believe, opening the closet is the real world. ”

I frowned and thought for a moment and asked, "How do I open the closet?" ”

"I'm opening." The old man looked at me and smiled.

"You're very, looking forward to it." I hesitated, but asked.

The old man nodded, "I'm looking forward to it, what if I don't look forward to it." ”

Are old people looking forward to death? I don't know, but I think it must be a hard thing to be alone in the sun counting the rest of the time.

After that conversation, the old man's condition deteriorated very quickly, after several chemotherapy treatments, the old man's spirit became worse and worse, he was in a coma for most of the day, and occasionally woke up, and could only lie in bed, she had not sat in front of the window in the sun for a long time, and everyone knew that her time was really running out.

The old man's children seem to be really busy, and every time they come in a hurry, and then they leave in a hurry, and the care of the old man is all left to the nurses.

The old man would smile and nod with me every time he saw me, and occasionally he would vaguely say something to me when he was in good spirits.

The old man finished chemotherapy again, fell into a coma again, this time the symptoms seemed to be very serious, I watched the doctors and nurses outside the door hurriedly put drip and ventilator on the old man, the nurse was also busy sweating profusely, and finally the old man's condition was stable, and the nurses and nurses were relieved.

The nurses looked at me at the door as they left, and I thought they didn't object to me going in and cleaning. When the nurse saw me come in, he smiled at me, said he was going to smoke a cigarette, and hurried away.

I put down the tools in my hand and looked at the old man on the bed, her face was very pale, she was on a ventilator, her breath was low, it seemed that she might die at any time, and she could follow her old man to see the real world in her mind at any time.

The real world, the closet?

I stood in front of the old man's hospital bed with a frown, if there was a soul, it should have happened in the moment of death, it was just a moment.

I looked at the old man, she was very lonely and miserable, and she longed for the world in her mind. Should I help her? Helping her is also helping myself, maybe I can really get the answer this time.

I don't know why I had the idea at the time, but as soon as it came to me, it spread uncontrollably.

I didn't really know what I was thinking, I just saw my hand slowly reaching for the old man's ventilator.