Xiao Yu cracked the door open just a sliver, peering inside. All he could make out was a dark, tangled mass standing near the entrance. Looking deeper, he couldn't discern any human shape. So, he gently pushed the door wider. That mass, resembling an upturned mop handle, seemed to shift slightly, but peering past it revealed nothing but flies and tiny gnats.

Watching Xiao Yu hesitate, Xiao Shu simply gave the door a hard kick. With a loud clang, it slammed against the wall, kicking up a gust of air thick with dust, which sent the tangled mess atop the "mop handle" flying. Illuminated by the light from outside, the two finally got a clear look at the "mop handle" and scrambled back three steps, retreating out the doorway in fright.

It turned out that what stood there wasn't a mop handle at all, but a desiccated corpse, long buried in dust. Its hair, like a chaotic snarl, spread around its head, completely obscuring its face. Those flies, nine times out of ten, had been drawn by this very thing.

The sudden appearance of the mummy startled both of them. After regaining their composure, they stepped back into the basement, only to find absolutely nothing else inside. The Wenshu they expected to find wasn't even a shadow.

With no other recourse, the two began to examine the corpse. It was strange; the body wasn't leaning against the beam or supported by the wall; it stood upright merely balanced on two tiny feet, resembling lotus blossoms. Xiao Yu gently brushed the dust off the mummy’s clothes. As he did, the corpse’s head tilted, and with a thud, it dropped to the floor, rolling several times before settling. Looking at the remaining torso, stripped of its clothes, it was nothing more than a skeletal frame covered in skin—no wonder it looked like a mop handle through the crack in the door.

“How long do you think it’s been dead?” Xiao Yu scratched his head, asking Xiao Shu.

“Judging by the style of the clothes, probably over a century,” Xiao Shu replied, using his foot to lift the trousers slightly. Sure enough, beneath them, he saw a pair of tiny cloth shoes, the three-inch golden lotuses. Calculating backward from the present time, they indeed dated back at least a hundred years.

“Impossible! This hospital hasn't been built that long, maybe eight or nine years at most,” Xiao Yu frowned, analyzing the situation.

“Which makes it strange. Try taking its shoes off to see; I doubt it could stand here on its own. There must be something securing its feet to maintain that posture,” Xiao Shu suggested.

“Huh?” Xiao Yu stuck out his tongue at him and asked, “How am I supposed to take them off? Ask it to lift its leg?”

“Forget it, let’s use force!” Saying this, Xiao Shu shoved the skeleton with his elbow. The mummy collapsed in a heap, breaking into several pieces that fell to the floor, leaving the two legs standing stiffly like wooden posts.

“Now we can examine it, right?” Xiao Shu held up his two injured hands, gesturing to Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu shook his head, reluctantly and carefully pulling down the corpse’s trousers, all the way to the calves. He discovered two gleaming, black spikes thrusting out diagonally from the center of the leg bones. He froze; these familiar spikes were piercing through the center of the soles of those three-inch golden lotus feet, making it seem as if they were growing out of the ground.

“What is this?” Xiao Shu squatted down to examine the strange objects alongside Xiao Yu.

“This is the same kind of spike that once impaled you from your rear to your neck in Miao Village, pinning you to a rock,” Xiao Yu said faintly, a trace of terror flickering in his eyes. “If the Sea of Lost Souls hadn’t appeared then, you’d probably be nailed to a stone like this, waiting for archaeologists to unearth you.”

Although Xiao Yu’s words held a thread of humor, Xiao Shu didn’t find it amusing; instead, he started trembling involuntarily. After everything they had been through together, this was the first time they had felt true, profound fear.