Having just suppressed a chuckle, Mrs. Nan Gong immediately grew tense when her husband mentioned the knocking sounds coming from the morgue drawer, clutching her chest with a look of fear.

Mr. Nan Gong, with a grave expression, took a sip of water and continued, "I was startled at first, thinking, 'How could there be a living person in the morgue?' Could it be some sort of medical mishap? As I pondered this, I started backing away toward the exit, intending to call the administrator to investigate. But when I reached the door and reached for the handle, it suddenly thumped onto the floor. It was a spherical lock; without the handle, there was no way to open it. I became frantic, shouting, 'Is anyone there? Help!' while desperately pounding on the door. After knocking for ages, no one came to my rescue, and the knocking from inside the cold drawer actually grew louder. It sounded exactly like a living person was trapped inside, hearing my cries and frantically trying to signal me to save them."

"Thinking that saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda, I mustered my courage and slowly, slowly walked toward the cold drawer, inching closer to the source of the sound. When I stood before the fifth drawer, I quieted my mind, held my breath, and listened closely; the sound was indeed coming from within. So, I firmly gripped the drawer handle, silently counting, 'One, two, three,' and yanked the drawer open."

"What was inside? Did Old Li come back to life?" Mrs. Nan Gong, utterly engrossed, couldn't resist interrupting again.

"Not Old Li," Mr. Nan Gong shook his head. "It was a woman. She was thin as a bundle of kindling, her hair a wild mess draped over her shoulders. Her eyes were sunk deeply into their sockets, her cheeks devoid of any muscle, and her arms and legs were like dry reeds. Trapped inside that drawer, she was using her reed-like fists to beat against the metal, signaling any passerby that someone was alive in there. I don't know how long she had been knocking, but both her fists were smeared with gruesome bloodstains, and the inner sides of her arms were covered in bite marks, large and small. Each mark was encircled by a ring of purplish bruising, some darker, some lighter."

"When she saw me pull the drawer open, she immediately called out, 'Mr. Nan Gong!' I was truly shocked by her address, thinking some karmic debt from a past life had caught up with me, a vengeful spirit knocking at my door. I shivered uncontrollably, and with a shove, I pushed the drawer back into place. At that moment, the noise inside intensified; it wasn't just the thump-thump-thump knocking, but also indistinct shouts mixed in. After a long pause, I managed to discern the words, 'Mrs. Li,' amidst the terrifying sounds. I reasoned that I've always lived honorably, so I couldn't possibly encounter a demon or a ghost in broad daylight. Since she knew me and mentioned Mrs. Li, she must be someone from the neighborhood who scavenges for a living—perhaps she collapsed on the road and was mistakenly sent here as deceased. Thinking this, my fear lessened slightly. I took a deep breath and pulled the drawer open again."

"This time, she propped both her withered arms outside the drawer, preventing me from pushing it shut again. Seeing that she was indeed alive, I gathered my nerve and asked, 'Who are you? How do you know my name?' Moving her two cracked, dry lips, she replied, 'I am Mrs. Li! Your former neighbor! Don't you remember?' I shook my head; trying to connect the woman resembling a zombie before me with the once radiant Mrs. Li was simply too difficult, too hard!"