Chapter 39

Nurse Zhang Wanqiu didn’t appear again all afternoon. No one knew where she had gone. Jiang Shan guessed that given how she had left, wherever it was wouldn’t be pleasant.
Jiang Shan half lay on her bed, radio in hand. She had noticed long ago: this room, and the corridor outside, were too clean—abnormally clean.
Corners, bedside, floor—not a speck of dust.
No human world was that clean. Even the air she breathed was impure.
Hospitals had stricter hygiene than most—but this ward was not a normal space. No more normal than the barren mountain.
All that cleanliness seemed to be hiding something.
…
Outside the monitors, things were less orderly. In the observation room Zhao Qisheng stared at the screen. “Is there anyone else in Ward Three now?”
Ward Three was Jiang Shan’s ward—the third floor. The hospital was divided into seven wards; she was in the third. They had tried to keep Ward Three absolutely clean. And yet there had been a slip.
“No.” The young assistant shook his head nervously. “Ward Three was cleared long ago.”
It had been cleared the night Jiang Shan arrived.
“The erosion is speeding up again…”
Zhao Qisheng went pale and sank into his chair. Director Geng had already been helped away to rest—heart trouble. Zhao Qisheng kept staring at the screen. It flickered with static a few times—like a bad signal.
He didn’t react. He just watched. On the monitor Jiang Shan lay motionless, staring at the ceiling. Her pupils were dark—even in close-up you couldn’t see any emotion.
The assistant pointed at the screen. “Don’t you feel like… she doesn’t seem to be doing anything, but she’s taking everything in?”
A quiet person, observing all the time.
That gaze—even through the screen it felt as if she were staring at you. It gave him chills.
Zhao Qisheng started. The screen flickered again, then one of the monitors went dead.
He was silent for a moment, then only sighed. “… It’s getting faster. That one didn’t last two days.”
The assistant said: “I’ll have someone replace it right away.”
Zhao Qisheng’s look was complicated. “How is Zhang Wanqiu?”
“She’s in the decontamination room for a full ‘cleaning.’ But… we don’t know if it’s in time.”
Zhao Qisheng said nothing. They were so careful every day. They had checked again and again, kept the whole ward sealed. And yet those things still found a way in.
“Should we send someone else to interact with her?” The assistant looked at Jiang Shan on the monitor.
Zhao Qisheng stared at the screen. After a long moment he said: “No need. She can’t go anywhere anyway.”
…
Jiang Shan didn’t go anywhere. All afternoon without Zhang Wanqiu she lay in bed with the radio—even more docile than when she was watched. She noticed her vision seemed better. As she listened to the radio and looked at the ceiling she saw that one corner seemed a different shade.
It was all white—easy to miss. But white and white were not the same.