Eldritch Horror Theatre

The two of them might even be classmates.

He had guessed her identity when she first appeared, and now it was confirmed.

In Fu Qian’s view, if the boy was fourteen, this girl definitely wouldn’t be much older.

Moreover, searching everywhere for a lost companion was perfectly normal, but wasn’t this location a bit too morbid?

”Looking for someone? You came to this place?”

Evidently, Tina felt the same way. She asked the question in sheer disbelief.

From the moment this teenager appeared, the shocks just kept coming.

”Why don’t you ask him why he came to this place?”

Unfortunately, the girl’s tone remained distinctly unfriendly. She gestured at Fu Qian and shot back a stiff retort.

”He came here to find a corpse, which I think is quite fitting.”Tina wasn’t about to stoop to bickering with a child. She merely frowned slightly and offered a genuine explanation.

”Because a corpse went missing, right?”

Unfortunately, this only earned another sneer. The girl’s tone dripped with disdain for the hospital’s management.

”So you really have been to the prison Underground.”

Seeing Tina struggle to handle the girl, Fu Qian finally joined the conversation, showing great interest in her remark.

Although corpses had been mentioned while chatting with Tina just now, they hadn’t gone into too much detail.

This girl, who had been hiding in the cabinet the entire time, couldn’t have gleaned that information just from eavesdropping.

”Of course I’ve been there, and so has Dennis.”

The girl admitted it very readily, and her face turned a few degrees colder at the mention of the latter name.

”But it’s too big down there. I suddenly couldn’t find him... Instead, after wandering around, I found something else.”

...

Needless to say, this other thing referred to the body bags.

Never underestimate the imagination of the youth. It was obvious that after seeing such things, the girl had successfully linked them to the hospital.

”Going to such a dark place, didn’t you hold hands and walk together properly?”

While taking the teenager at her word, Fu Qian was curious about why the two of them had separated in the first place.

”...We had an argument. Dennis didn’t like that place, and he kept thinking I would be cold.”

Although it was slightly off-topic, she seemed subdued by Fu Qian’s demeanor. Unlike her reaction to Brother Peeker, she didn’t tell Fu Qian to ”scram.”

Instead, she looked away and casually recalled the memory.

”I told him to leave if he didn’t like it, so I could be alone for a bit. But he still followed me, and even took off his jacket for me... Then I just walked away.”

So this was the origin of the clothes on the ground? It played out pretty much exactly as he had imagined.

Fu Qian nodded slightly, naturally thinking of the new jacket he had picked up twice.

No matter which world they were in, that place couldn’t be considered warm. There had to be a reason for such a piece of clothing to be discarded on the ground.

In fact, upon seeing her thin clothing, he could almost vividly picture the scene of Dennis taking off his jacket.

”And then you still went back?”

As he pondered, Fu Qian continued with his blunt questioning.

It might have sounded harsh, but he knew that playing nice with rebellious teenagers was largely pointless. A tit-for-tat approach was often far more effective.

”Yes... After all, going to that place was my idea.

”I was also the one who found the hole behind the painting. Even if I wanted to leave by myself, I had to bring him out first.”

As expected, despite her displeasure, the girl didn’t clam up. Instead, she frankly admitted her sense of responsibility without hesitation.

”Reasonable. But you didn’t find him, only a corpse?”

Fu Qian quite approved of this principled nature.

He firmly believed in the need to keep distinct matters separate. Cleaning up one’s own mess was an awareness many adults completely lacked.

”A frozen corpse.”

The girl even added extra emphasis, while gesturing with her gaze in a certain direction—it was exactly the morgue that Tina had previously warned him not to enter without permission.

”Dennis wasn’t there. I looked in many places and he wasn’t there... Then I thought he might have encountered some accident, so I came looking for him.”

The explanation was brief and efficient. The girl quickly laid out the cause and effect of her presence here.

”Why would you come here to look if something happened to him?”

However, this line of reasoning seemed a bit difficult for Tina to grasp.

”Don’t you get it yet? She thinks your hospital is engaging in some sinister, secret activities.”

Unsurprisingly, the girl merely glanced at Tina, looking like she couldn’t be bothered to say another word. In the end, it was Fu Qian who helped lay out the deduction process.

...

”Is there any connection between all this? The hospital lost a corpse, shouldn’t we be the victims too?”

Unfortunately, as the saying goes, if you don’t understand, you just don’t understand. For Tina, who had long passed her rebellious phase, this leap in logic was clearly too much. She couldn’t help but widen her eyes.

Heh...

Judging from the girl’s reaction, however, Fu Qian’s answer was perfectly spot on.

”Not necessarily. Could it be that the hospital colluded with the people controlling that Underground passage to capture lost strangers and engage in some sinister research or something? And the reason her companion named Dennis went missing is that he was accidentally discovered and failed to escape.”

Seeing that Tina still couldn’t grasp the hint, Fu Qian shook his head and sighed softly, spoon-feeding the answer directly to her.

”...Isn’t that too much of a conspiracy theory? There are many possibilities. Does it have to be such a bizarre situation?”

Now Tina obviously understood, but she was still far from accepting it, retorting almost subconsciously.

”So can you deny such a bizarre situation?”

This time, Fu Qian didn’t even need to explain again. The girl seemed to finally run out of patience with Tina’s stubbornly incorrigible attitude and shot back directly.

It had to be said, she really couldn’t deny it.

After all, for Tina, why the person in charge was absent was still an unsolved mystery.

”So did you find Dennis here?”

But while she was silent, Fu Qian changed the subject and cut straight to the core of the matter.

...

Obviously, she hadn’t.

Fu Qian’s casual remark instantly forced the girl into silence as well, her momentum plummeting.

Such a drastic shift in reaction practically spoke for itself.

”No. I got here very early, but there was no one around... Then you guys came, so I hid for the time being.”

Shaking her head, the girl finally admitted that the situation wasn’t ideal, effectively confirming the issue of the person in charge’s truancy.

”That shouldn’t be...”

Tina’s frown deepened.

Although she didn’t believe the claims of sinister activities, this sort of anomaly still felt somewhat off—

”Dennis isn’t inside either. I’ve already checked everywhere.”

Amidst her racing thoughts, she heard the girl coldly add one last sentence.