Before the internship began, they had to attend training. The doctor bought a new alarm clock to ensure he arrived at his position early every day.

Though he had been mentally prepared for the hardships of this job, the intense workload was still difficult to accept. The supervising director often wore an expression of frustrated disappointment, occasionally shouting and scolding, making everyone work harder just to earn a single word of recognition.

Of course, this was difficult for rookies. However, anyone who truly loved this profession would never let go once they got involved.

Personally saving lives and healing the wounded, witnessing critically ill patients either recover or pass away, experiencing the process of wrestling patients from Death’s grasp, accepting both gratitude and grief from families—fulfillment and helplessness intertwined. Every patient was like a new challenge from which there was no retreat.

There was both competition and mutual assistance among the interns. The doctor and Chun Ge still lived in the dormitory, supervising each other’s wake-up calls with the new alarm clock each day, then taking the bus to work at the hospital. Actually, they spent over two hours daily commuting. The doctor planned to follow the seniors’ advice and rent a place near the provincial hospital.

However, since interns worked rotating shifts with no concept of weekends, they hadn’t had time to look for housing. That morning, the doctor shared his thoughts with Chun Ge: “Finding a place would be good. I’ve been thinking about it too. I’ve got stamps from almost all departments for graduation—won’t need to go to school after next week.” After getting off the bus, they walked quickly toward the hospital entrance. Hearing the doctor’s plan, Chun Ge nodded in agreement: “But I’ll probably just live at home, so I won’t be sharing rent with you!”

“Alright, then I’ll find a smaller place by myself.” With his plan to split rent costs ruined, the doctor had to abandon that idea. But he knew Chun Ge had been staying in the dormitory to keep him company—his home was only twenty minutes from the provincial hospital.

There was still time before the hospital opened. Only the 24-hour emergency room near the main entrance had people. As the doctor passed the emergency room, he felt something and glanced back, seeing a man in black Tang-style clothing standing in the corner. The dark fabric was faintly embroidered with a crimson dragon, but due to the distance, he couldn’t make out the man’s face clearly.

“What are you daydreaming about?” Chun Ge noticed the doctor hadn’t followed and turned to ask.

“Tsk, there’s someone standing there wearing very strange clothes. Probably some club cosplayer?” The doctor turned back, making a mocking comment.

“Where? There’s no one there!” Chun Ge looked repeatedly in the direction the doctor had indicated, puzzled.

“…Don’t scare me.” The doctor got goosebumps for no reason, but when he looked back again, the corner was indeed empty. He laughed dryly: “Hehe, maybe I was seeing things.”

“Seriously, are you telling ghost stories?” Chun Ge thought the doctor was joking with him, getting revenge for not sharing rent. After all, this guy had quite a record—back when they first started anatomy class, the ghost stories he told were terrifying, practically giving him psychological trauma!

The doctor didn’t explain further. Maybe he had indeed seen wrong. There was no time to dwell on it afterward. Once they changed into their white coats, intern hell began again—being ordered around by the director, running up and down floors, only able to catch their breath while waiting for elevators.

After retrieving the films the director wanted from the ultrasound department, the doctor took out his phone to check the news while waiting for the elevator. But after scrolling through three pages and the elevator still hadn’t come, he realized he’d been waiting too long. The elevator area had filled with many patients and family members, all complaining that the hospital elevators were useless—neither of the two elevators was coming down. Some people grew impatient and went to another, more distant elevator bank, while more people continued waiting here. Thinking of the director’s eyes that were sharper than surgical scalpels, the doctor decided to take the stairs. He pushed open the stairwell door and looked up at the seemingly endless staircase. Thinking he had to climb to the eighth floor made his legs feel weak!

But having chosen this path, he had to complete it even through tears. The doctor began climbing while taking out the films from his folder, imagining what questions the director might ask him.

With elevators available, few people took the stairs. So when footsteps coming down from above reached his ears, the doctor looked up in surprise. A young man in black Tang-style clothing was walking down step by step. His eye-catching black Tang suit had a dark red dragon embroidered on the right sleeve, winding and spiraling up along his sleeve. The dragon’s fierce mouth faced the collar, and at first glance, the several deep red buttons on the front looked like drops of blood in the night. This eerie yet lifelike embroidery was impossible to look away from, even causing one to overlook the person’s appearance.

The two passed each other, one going up and one going down. When the doctor came to his senses, he could only look down at the top of the other’s head, watching him descend until he could no longer be seen. The doctor stood there listening to the fading footsteps, thinking there really was such a person! So he hadn’t been seeing things that morning. He wondered what ailment had brought the man to the hospital—probably also couldn’t wait for the elevator and took the stairs instead.

This was just a minor incident that would be forgotten upon turning around. The doctor vaguely seemed to hear a muffled sound from downstairs but didn’t pay much attention. When he finally reached the eighth floor, panting heavily, he received a call from Chun Ge.

“Where am I? I’m on the eighth floor! The elevator was too slow, so I didn’t wait and climbed the stairs directly. Is the director getting impatient waiting for the films? I’ll deliver them right away.” The doctor thought Chun Ge was calling to rush him and quickly explained. But what Chun Ge said anxiously on the phone shocked the doctor: “What? You’re saying the elevator just crashed? The one in the east wing that we usually use?”

The investigation results of the elevator incident came out quickly. It was due to elevator aging and carrying passengers near the weight limit, causing the crash. Fortunately, the floors weren’t too high. Most passengers suffered spinal injuries or broken legs, but being in a hospital, rescue was timely and there were no life-threatening injuries. The doctor felt a wave of fear—if he hadn’t taken the stairs, he would definitely have been on that elevator.

Chun Ge also thought the doctor was incredibly lucky. This incident caused panic within the hospital. After all, they worked in the hospital and rode elevators at least several times daily—how could they take elevators in the future? Even after they finished work and returned to the dormitory that evening, the hospital’s QQ group was still discussing this matter.

The doctor decided to order good takeout tonight to calm his nerves, but considering rent issues, he decided to just order pizza without pasta. Just after hanging up the phone, he saw Chun Ge at the computer looking rather pale.

“What’s wrong? I was the one who almost broke his leg today, not you! At worst, we’ll both take the stairs tomorrow!” the doctor suggested, then said with a bitter face, “But that means we need to leave ten minutes earlier.”

“Didn’t you say that elevator wasn’t coming down for a long time today, so you chose to take the stairs?”

“Yes, I was afraid the director would scold me for making him wait! But thanks to the director’s strictness, otherwise I would have definitely waited for the elevator!”

“You should probably thank someone else.”

“Huh?”

“According to people in the monitoring room, that elevator didn’t come down for so long today because someone upstairs was holding the elevator button for quite a while, not letting it go down.”

“Um… that’s not really strange, is it? Maybe he was waiting for a friend?”

“It was one person, and after pressing the elevator switch for several minutes, he didn’t get on the elevator but took the stairs down instead.”

The doctor suddenly thought of the young man in the stairwell who had passed by him. He looked at Chun Ge for confirmation: “It wasn’t… that man in black Tang clothing, was it?”

“It was him! You actually encountered him!” Chun Ge broke down. “Could he be some kind of fortune-telling master?! Did he know the elevator would have an accident, so he didn’t take it? Or is he a ghost who died in the hospital, lingering and cursing the elevator?!”

Hospitals never lacked ghost stories and legends. Chun Ge was already going crazy from the seniors’ imagination in the QQ group: “Tell me! Did you see his face?! What did he look like?!”

“Uh… I don’t think I really noticed what he looked like.” The doctor scratched his head embarrassedly—his attention had been entirely on the man’s clothing. Now Chun Ge couldn’t sit still, pacing around the dormitory like a caged beast, muttering about whether they should switch hospitals for their internship. The doctor didn’t take it seriously—knowing Chun Ge as he did, though the guy was scared, it wouldn’t affect his work. Otherwise, with such poor psychological resilience, he would have dropped out of medical school long ago.

“Ah! This revolving lantern has changed to another picture! It hadn’t changed when I looked this morning!” Chun Ge, who was pacing, suddenly discovered something new. Ever since he became suspicious of this revolving lantern, he’d been paying attention to it.

The doctor looked over and found that the paper picture on the revolving lantern was much more detailed this time, with more characters and even scenery. He could clearly see it depicted the village conducting military conscription, with Sai Weng’s son escaping disaster because of his broken leg.

“If that master hadn’t held the elevator, you might have broken your leg today too.” Chun Ge muttered his speculation: “Could this revolving lantern really be predicting whether what’s coming will be fortune or misfortune?”

“You’re overthinking it…” the doctor said, though not very confidently. “But the story of ‘The Old Man at the Frontier Lost His Horse’ ends here, doesn’t it? That means good things will definitely happen to me in the end!”

“But this revolving lantern has six sides…” Chun Ge said ominously.

“…” The doctor was suddenly speechless.

Since interns worked rotating shifts, on the doctor’s day off, Chun Ge wasn’t resting, so the doctor had to look for housing alone.

Standing at the hospital entrance, looking around blankly, he momentarily didn’t know where to find a real estate agency. By some strange impulse, he suddenly thought of Chun Ge’s previous joke. According to Chun Ge’s speculation, based on the story of “The Old Man at the Frontier Lost His Horse,” the result of one event becomes the cause of the next. The lost horse brought back a wild good horse, and because of the wild good horse, Sai Weng’s son broke his leg, and because of the lame leg, he escaped military service.

Following this logic, the events he’d recently experienced were: missing the city hospital position due to being late for the interview, thereby getting accepted to the provincial hospital, and because he entered the provincial hospital, he encountered the elevator accident. If not for that mysterious man in Tang clothing holding the elevator, he would definitely have broken his leg now.

The doctor continued thinking—if he considered the scenario where he had broken his leg, the patients injured in the elevator accident were all in casts now, with minor injuries. Even if injured, given the director’s iron-blooded personality, he wouldn’t be allowed to rest casually. So now, sitting in a wheelchair, he definitely wouldn’t choose a distant real estate agency to look for housing.

The doctor asked the security guard at the hospital entrance about the nearest real estate agency. Indeed, there was one in an alley just around the corner from the hospital’s main entrance. Standing across from the agency, the doctor looked at the wall of property listings pasted on the glass storefront, feeling dazzled. Seeking help from his previous theory again, if he were sitting in a wheelchair, he definitely couldn’t see the listings at the top—he should look at the bottom ones. The doctor crouched down and scanned the property listings within his line of sight, indeed finding a cheap and affordable rental in a corner.

Indeed! Good fortune meant saving money! The doctor rubbed his hands together, convinced that such a good property was overlooked because the real estate agent had placed it in a corner. At this price, instead of paying six months’ rent as originally planned, he could rent it for a full year! He immediately rushed into the store, specifically asking to view this property. The real estate agent seemed hesitant to speak, but seeing his insistence, finally found the keys from the back of a drawer and took him to view the property.

The house was great—just one street away from the hospital, less than a ten-minute walk. It had all furniture and appliances, one bedroom and one living room, both the bedroom and living room faced south, and the living room was already partitioned with a bed—essentially another bedroom, actually making it two rooms. He could find someone to share rent later, saving even more money. The doctor’s calculations were clicking away. After viewing, he was satisfied and planned to sign an agreement with the agency.

This was definitely a steal! Otherwise he’d be restless! The real estate agent, seeing the doctor really wanted to rent, hesitated for a long time before determinedly saying, “Customer, aren’t you curious why this house is so cheap?”

“Ah? Is there a problem?” The doctor immediately stopped smiling and pressed: “Too much overdue utilities? Leaking toilet? Or difficult neighbors playing loud rock music?”

“Much more serious than that.” The real estate agent shrank back, looking left and right before lowering his voice as if afraid of being overheard: “This is a haunted house where someone died—an unnatural death… Several previous tenants have rented it but moved out shortly after…”

“Oh, that’s nothing!” The doctor thought the agent would mention some unsolvable problem and sighed with relief. As someone studying medicine, he’d seen plenty—would he really be afraid of this?

The real estate agent tried to dissuade him repeatedly, but seeing the doctor didn’t mind at all, stopped saying anything. After all, he’d done his duty and said what needed to be said. Though the commission for renting this house was small, even a mosquito was still meat!

The two happily returned to the real estate agency to sign the contract. The doctor paid the money and got the keys. The entire process from viewing to signing took less than an hour—it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Since there wasn’t much stuff in the dormitory, and it was a rare day off, if he didn’t hurry and move now, he probably wouldn’t be able to live in the new house until next week. The doctor simply returned to the dormitory to pack, bringing essential items for now, planning to borrow Chun Ge’s family car tomorrow when he was free to move everything else. After washing, cleaning, tidying up, and buying daily necessities, it was about done by the time Chun Ge finished work.