# Chapter 249: The Other Children in the Hospital
"Additionally, I also found some medical staff who worked at the hospital back then. Like you, they were recruited by someone claiming to be a secretary, but within just three or four years, they were all fired. They still remember the Seventeenth Hospital, but any written records they kept—like letters or text messages—anything mentioning the Seventeenth Hospital has been completely erased."
"In short, aside from people's memories, no place has retained any information about the Seventeenth Hospital."
Professor Lin's expression turned grave after hearing this. He raised his hand and said, "Wait a moment."
With that, he walked into the inner room and soon came out carrying a dusty box. He patted off the dust before opening it, pulling out a blue notebook. "I have a habit of keeping records when I work. This one was written during my time at the Seventeenth Hospital... Let me find it..."
Just two pages in, Professor Lin's face changed. "How strange—where did it go?"
He pointed at several blank spots on the page. "I remember very clearly, this was written on my first day of work. It says the name 'Seventeenth Hospital.'"
To prove his memory wasn't faulty, he flipped through other notebooks. "See, right here. I always wrote it when I started a new job."
Xu Huo looked through the notebook. In the one about the Seventeenth Hospital, every mention of the hospital's name had become blank.
"Ink fading wouldn't only affect these few lines..." Professor Lin looked shaken, rummaging through the box again until he pulled out an old photograph. "It's gone—the hospital in the photo is gone..."
Xu Huo took the photo. It was a group picture of Professor Lin and other staff members, presumably taken on the steps in front of the entrance.
"It was taken right at the hospital entrance," Professor Lin said, pointing to where the background had turned into greenery. "This is where the hospital gate was. Behind it were the words 'Seventeenth Hospital.' Look, all the staff are here."
"Who is this?" Xu Huo pointed to the far left side of the front row.
"There's no one there," Professor Lin said. "At the time, there were only six doctors at the hospital. Did you see another doctor?"
Six doctors—four men and two women. Their faces had all appeared in his memories, but the person in his dream wasn't one of these six. The female doctor on the far left had an odd posture, with her outer arm slightly bent, as if she were holding someone else's arm, though it wasn't very obvious.
Someone was missing from the photo.
"Could I have this photo?" Xu Huo looked up.
"Take it." Professor Lin patted his head, thinking for a long moment before muttering, "Maybe I should take some medicine too..."
Xu Huo paused. "Director, I'm perfectly normal. I'm not sick."
Professor Lin let out a dry laugh and nodded. "Right, right. You were discharged long ago."
"Tell me about the other sick children," Xu Huo said. "How much do you remember?"
"It's been too long. I can only recall the general details," Professor Lin said vaguely. "They were all like you—very intelligent. I wonder how they're doing now."
"They're all dead," Xu Huo said. He also remembered several children appearing in the hospital, but out of self-preservation, he hadn't actively approached them.
"They were discharged early, just like me. About ten years ago, those four children went missing or died one after another. Two went missing during outdoor expeditions—their bodies were never found. Two died in car accidents, burned beyond recognition."
Professor Lin stared at him in shock, mouth agape for a long moment before saying, "And their families..."
"Except for Chang Bei, the families of the other three all died in various accidents within ten years. In one case, over twenty relatives suffered mass food poisoning during a New Year's Eve dinner—adults and children alike, none survived." Xu Huo pushed the water cup toward the professor. "Drink some water. Calm down."
Professor Lin picked up the cup with trembling hands. "It's him... that child..."
"When I resigned, I mentioned to the other doctors that that child shouldn't have been discharged. The older he got, the better he became at hiding himself."
Xu Huo said nothing, waiting quietly for him to continue.
Professor Lin no longer intended to hold anything back. He recalled as he spoke: "Besides you, there was another child with high-functioning antisocial personality disorder. Compared to you, his symptoms were much more obvious—completely lacking in sympathy or empathy, occasionally even showing sadistic tendencies. But he had a very high IQ, learned everything quickly, and after being in the hospital for a while, became very skilled at controlling his emotions. Five incidents of medical staff accidentally taking the wrong medication were linked to him, though no one ever caught evidence."
"The family of over twenty who died from food poisoning—that was him, wasn't it?"
Xu Huo nodded. Not only that, but his family had also suffered the most brutal deaths among the three families. His father was crushed from the waist down and crawled on the road for over ten minutes before dying. His mother was dismembered by a serial killer active at the time. His sister was turned into a doll by that same killer.
Professor Lin let out a long sigh. "That was partly why I resigned from the hospital."
"Chang Bei—that was the child with hyperthymesia. You've probably heard of it—the ability to remember every detail of one's life without any mnemonic techniques. That child was too young to handle it, so he often lost emotional control and hurt people."
"He and you—neither of you were brought in by your families. The doctors from the Seventeenth Hospital came to get you."
"The medication poisoning incidents were told to me by him. He said the other child was collecting pills to poison me, saying that if the hospital had no director, they could all be discharged."
"He never told me exactly which child was doing the poisoning, but after years as a doctor, I could sense it. During that period, I felt restless at the hospital. Combined with some family issues, I simply resigned."
"Before I left, I warned the other doctors, but the hospital's surveillance hadn't caught anything, and the medication mix-ups seemed like coincidences, so they didn't take it seriously. Later, I asked other hospital doctors—there were no more medication incidents, though a nurse with mental issues was locked away. As family matters piled up, I gradually let it go."
"I never thought... are they really dead?"
"I want to know too." Xu Huo looked into his clouded eyes.
Tears began to form in Professor Lin's eyes. "I'm partly to blame for this. I should have taken it seriously back then..."
So many tragedies couldn't simply be dismissed as coincidences. But what was even more frightening was the possibility that those children hadn't truly died. After so many years, what had they become?
"Maybe it's not as bad as you think," Xu Huo said. "At least I turned out relatively normal."