Resurgence of the Unknown

Chapter 1: Ghost Stories on the Forum

"The old man strokes his beard and says—I bet you're lying in bed right now, reading a novel on your side, with your phone charging."

Yang Jian, a high school senior, was indeed lying in bed, bored, scrolling through his phone. He randomly clicked on a forum post with plenty of comments below.

"Wow, the OP (original poster) nailed it!"

"Should I confess that I'm actually on the toilet? And yeah, my legs are numb."

"Get a tattoo of that guy's name, and you'll never be a corporate slave again."

"Respect, respect."

Yang Jian closed that post and opened another popular one. It began with:

"I'm a doctor at a hospital in a certain province, and I want to share something terrifying that recently happened here. I'm so freaked out that I haven't dared to go back to work—I'm taking some time off at home right now."

"Spare me the sales pitch; I'm not buying shoes or adding you on WeChat."

"Did the patients attack the poster? If not, I'll eat my words."

"Here we go again with the guy on the third floor scamming for attention."

Finding the comments a bit boring, Yang Jian clicked to view only the original poster's messages.

Instantly, the thread cleaned up, leaving only the posts from the self-proclaimed doctor. The doctor's username was "Thunder King."

The post continued: "Here's what happened. Last week, I was on the night shift. Around midnight, an ambulance brought in an old man. The paramedics said he had fallen from the fifth floor. At the time, my colleague had to step out, so I was the only one available to assess him. I can confirm with absolute certainty that the old man showed no signs of life—he was dead.

Moreover, based on the condition of his body and the temperature of his chest, I concluded that there was no way this old man had just died from the fall that night.

Anyone with a basic understanding of medicine knows that after death, the body temperature drops gradually. But this old man's body was at least ten degrees colder than the room temperature, if not more, and it was 22 degrees Celsius that night.

I concluded that the old man had been dead for more than a day."

Immediately, there were comments from users below:

"OP's 'basic knowledge' is terrifying—major respect."

"Check the shoes! If they're still on, there's hope!"

"This is seriously creepy. Keep going, I'm already under the covers."

Yang Jian continued reading:

The Thunder King wrote: "From watching over 300 episodes of detective anime back in middle school, I could immediately tell this wasn't an accidental fall. The old man must have been murdered, and his body had likely been stored in a freezer. So, I reported it to the police.

But that's not the main story I'm here to tell. What happened afterward is what I want to talk about."

The post paused here, with an update two hours later.

"Sorry, someone just knocked on my door asking about that incident. They weren't police or journalists, but they had official IDs, claiming to be from the criminal investigation department. Anyway, that's beside the point.

The next morning, I hadn't gone to work yet, but my colleagues told me that the old man's body had mysteriously disappeared from the morgue. The police were investigating thoroughly, suspecting the murderer had stolen it. It caused quite a stir—they checked all the hospital's surveillance footage but couldn't find the body or the suspect.