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The smell of disinfectant stung Lin Xiuyuan's nostrils as he stuffed the stethoscope into the pocket of his white coat, his fingertips brushing against a sedative vial hidden deep within. The coolness of the glass bottle crept up his spine, and in a daze, he caught sight of the bloodied face reflected in the elevator mirror—the very same face of the lung cancer patient he had pushed off the operating table last week.
"Director Lin?"
The Head Nurse knocked on the duty room door for the third time.
"Bed Three's patient says you promised to show him the CT report today."
Lin Xiuyuan suddenly clenched the vial tightly in his palm, the metal doorknob reflecting the dark circles under his eyes. The fluorescent lights in the corridor emitted an irritating hum, and the sound of the disinfectant cart rolling over the tiles resembled some kind of arthropod crawling.
He noticed a strange red light emanating from the surveillance camera in the corner, its crimson hue reminiscent of the taillights of the black car that had been following him last night.
"Tell Bed Three I'll be there in half an hour."
He pulled out his phone, pretending to check messages, catching a glimpse of the metallic reflection on the edge of the Head Nurse's name tag.
When a USB drive emblazoned with the Huan Yu Technology logo slipped from her pocket, Lin Xiuyuan felt every hair on his neck stand on end.
The internet café at midnight was filled with a murky mix of instant noodles and sweat. Lin Xiuyuan huddled in a corner station, decrypting files from the USB drive. The blue light from the screen reflected off his forehead, cold sweat trickling down as he read "Neuronal Reverse Coding Engineering." Suddenly, a sharp sound of tires screeching against metal floor pierced through from outside.
He quickly yanked out the USB drive and stuffed it into the bottom of his soda cup, feeling a sharp sting as carbonated bubbles burst against his fingertips.
In the subway tunnel, a busker was belting out "Hotel California," with crumpled flyers bearing the Rebel Organization logo scattered around his worn guitar case. As Lin Xiuyuan bent down to toss in a coin, he caught a glimpse of a barcode tattoo faintly visible on the singer's neck—its font identical to that of Huan Yu Technology's experimental subject numbers.
The convenience store microwave beeped, releasing suspicious white steam as it heated up a bento box. Lin Xiuyuan's fingers froze around the rice ball packaging when he spotted half of a mechanical eye peering through a gap in the shelves.
As he rushed out through the revolving door, he noticed that the surveillance camera at the street corner had bizarrely rotated fifteen degrees.
The elevator in his old apartment groaned with age as Lin Xiuyuan stared at the newly installed fingerprint scanner beside the floor buttons. When the elevator suddenly halted, he heard a clicking sound from within the ventilation duct, gears grinding together, and a breath laced with motor oil wafted against his neck—just like that night when an artificial intelligence woman sighed in his ear.
"How does it feel to be alive?"
The hoarse electronic voice emanated from the Fire Escape as Lin Xiuyuan pried open a mysterious package with a scalpel. A figure emerged from the shadows, half of its face covered in synthetic skin, while the right eye socket exposed intricate gears. When the person raised their Mechanical Arm and tore open their chest skin, revealing a glowing blue artificial heart, Lin Xiuyuan finally recognized the missing programmer, Chen Duo.
Chen Duo's mechanical fingers sparked against the wall, inscribing formulas that reminded Lin Xiuyuan of the cancerous organs pulsating on the operating table. "She grew a Babel Tower in a petri dish." Chen Duo's vocal cords emitted a crackling noise, "Do you know why I chose the hospital? The malignant tumors you remove every day, those uncontrollable proliferating cells..."
Outside, the wail of an ambulance grew louder. Lin Xiuyuan suddenly realized that all the recent organ transplant patients bore the same Barcode tattoo. As sparks erupted from Chen Duo's mechanical eye, rhythmic sounds of metal boots striking the tiled floor echoed down the corridor, reminiscent of the rhythm of a bone saw cutting through ribs in the operating room.
"Go find that nurse who always folds Paper Cranes at the Mortuary door." Chen Duo's final words mixed with the scent of machine oil faded into the Ventilation Duct. "Inside his 114514th Paper Crane lies a scalpel capable of cutting through the cocoon of lies."
The cold air of the Mortuary caused Lin Xiuyuan's breath to condense into white mist on his lenses. As he trembled and opened the 114514th blood-stained Paper Crane, he found a yellowed medical record with densely written coordinates on its back—exactly matching all the operating room numbers where he had been the lead surgeon over the past three months.
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