“Oh my! Well done! You quietly went and rented a place!” Chun Ge received the news and came to check, carrying housewarming food and drinks. “There’s even another bed! Does this mean if I work late, I can sleep directly at your place?”

“Sure! I’m not gonna rip you off—the rent is the cost of one breakfast per night!” the doctor joked. Getting such a cheap rental put him in a great mood. But he decided not to tell Chun Ge this was a haunted house—this guy was too timid and would definitely lose sleep if he knew.

“Huh? Didn’t you say you’d move tomorrow? Why did you bring this revolving lantern over today?” Chun Ge noticed the familiar revolving lantern on the kitchen counter. Taking a closer look, he gasped: “I knew it! Your ability to rent this place so quickly was good fortune. Look, the revolving lantern has changed to the next paper picture!”

“I planned to use it as a night light.” The doctor was startled—he’d been busy organizing and hadn’t noticed. But he was quite curious about what the fifth picture of “The Old Man at the Frontier Lost His Horse” depicted, since the traditional fable only went to the fourth picture. The paper picture on the revolving lantern was clearly visible under the warm yellow light, its content immediately apparent. Sai Weng’s son, having avoided military service, remained in his hometown, but war ravaged the area. With all able-bodied men conscripted, farmlands lay untended, nine out of ten houses stood empty, and corpses littered the ground. Both Sai Weng and his son were starving, barely clinging to life.

The doctor and Chun Ge exchanged glances. The former forced a smile: “This… maybe it’s predicting that I’ll be broke from paying rent and won’t have money for food? But I still have you to lend me money!”

“If only it were that simple…” Chun Ge had an ominous feeling.

The next day, Chun Ge borrowed his family’s car and went to the dormitory to help the doctor move everything. Since they were both guys without many possessions, seeing the car still had space, Chun Ge also packed up his things to take along. And while helping the doctor move to his new place, he “accidentally” moved some of his own items there too.

The doctor didn’t mind seeing this—if this guy wanted to stay at his place, he welcomed it with open arms! This way someone would handle his breakfast!

Ever since Chun Ge found out how much the doctor paid for rent, he felt the doctor had gotten a great deal. He kept asking whether anything unusual had happened during his first night there. The doctor said there were no problems, just that the neighbors seemed a bit noisy at midnight. Modern houses had poor soundproofing anyway, and being close to a commercial street, you could hear cars roaring by late at night, but it didn’t affect sleep.

Chun Ge wandered around the room suspiciously, scrutinizing the house with a fault-finding eye, even moving bookcases and furniture to check thoroughly.

“Huh? There’s a red wire on this wall—a phone line?” Chun Ge moved a single sofa and saw a red wire.

“Probably. But I have a mobile phone now, so I don’t need to set up a landline.” The doctor mopped the floor: “Let’s move this sofa to a different spot! Put it there! There!”

Chun Ge followed directions, but felt that protruding red wire on the wall was strange. For someone with OCD, he really wanted to pull it out. After looking around several times, he finally found a small coffee table to place in front and block it.

Later, Chun Ge found a box of dusty books in a cabinet. To his surprise, these books were all medical-related, many in foreign languages with notes and annotations throughout. The handwriting was elegant, and the name written on the title pages was “Li Hua.”

“Must be a senior student.” The doctor thought the book owner was a girl, since guys like them rarely took such careful notes. Although this rental had later been renovated with changed layout and furniture, some decorative details still showed great care and a girlish touch.

“A top student senior.” Chun Ge flipped through the books. Though they were somewhat dated, you could tell these were cutting-edge medical materials at the time. At least they couldn’t understand them at their current level. Since they’d just gather dust anyway, might as well put them to use. After cleaning the books, they arranged them neatly on the bookshelf.

After settling in, the doctor hurried back to the hospital to continue work—he’d only taken half a day off, which he’d begged the director to grant. If he returned even a minute late, he’d probably get skinned alive.

Chun Ge was given a spare set of keys by the doctor and wasn’t in a hurry to leave. He pulled a couple books from the shelf and sat down to read. But after flipping just two pages, he felt the room was incredibly quiet.

It was an indescribable silence. He hadn’t noticed when the doctor was there, but once alone, the silence became unbearable. Like falling into thick liquid, he could hear nothing but his own breathing. Whether it was psychological, Chun Ge felt a chill down his back, making him shudder all over. But this place was clearly near a commercial street! How could you hear nothing! Not even car sounds!

The more Chun Ge thought about it, the more frightened he became. He immediately stood up, not bothering with the books, grabbed the keys and locked up to leave. He didn’t plan to tell the doctor—after all, this seemed more like scaring himself, and he’d be too embarrassed to mention it!

The day after the doctor moved, the director announced congratulations on barely passing the evaluation period and officially entering the internship. The interns groaned upon hearing this—all that suffering was just the evaluation period? They’d barely adapted, only to be told things would get harder?

But perhaps having grown accustomed to being tormented, the doctor gritted his teeth and persevered no matter how hard or tiring it got. Fortunately, he’d moved to the new place in time—coming home early and waking up late meant gaining two extra hours of sleep daily. So even with increased burdens at the hospital, the doctor felt much better than before.

What puzzled him was that although Chun Ge’s home was farther away, he never once suggested staying overnight at the doctor’s place. After several invitations went unanswered, the doctor stopped mentioning it. But he’d already planned that whenever Chun Ge stayed over, he’d ask him to treat them to that incredibly upscale-looking Han Family Private Kitchen on the commercial street!

Every time he passed that antique-style entrance on his way to work, the doctor would imagine how delicious the food inside must be, always drooling. But imagination was full while reality was stark—within days, the doctor discovered that restaurant was covered with green curtains. While eating steamed buns next door, he heard neighbors gossiping that it had changed ownership, no longer operating as a restaurant but becoming an antique shop.

What was this boss thinking? Opening an antique shop on a commercial street full of food and entertainment? Shouldn’t it be on antique street?!

The doctor’s dream of fine dining was shattered, leaving him in low spirits all day. This particular day was especially busy—a multi-car pileup on the highway had them working in the emergency room until after 11 PM before being rotated out for rest. With no buses at this hour, the doctor again invited Chun Ge to sleep at his place. After hesitating, Chun Ge was truly exhausted, and thinking about having to get up early tomorrow, he agreed.

The doctor went home, washed hastily, and fell asleep immediately, sleeping dreamlessly.

It felt like he’d just lain down for minutes when someone shook him awake. The doctor struggled to open his eyes and saw someone sitting by his bed. Outside the window, dawn was just breaking, with weak light filtering through the curtains he’d forgotten to close last night. Backlit, he couldn’t see the person’s face clearly, making the scene even more eerie and terrifying.

“What are you doing?!” The doctor shivered, his imagination running wild as he fully awakened. Looking closely, he saw it was Chun Ge with a deathly pale face. Only then did he remember inviting Chun Ge to sleep in the living room last night. “There’s… there’s something… in the room…” Chun Ge’s voice trembled as he spoke.

“What thing?” The doctor picked up the luminous alarm clock by his bed—it was far from his set time, so he planned to pull the covers over his head for more sleep.

Chun Ge wouldn’t let him have his way, grabbing him and beginning to complain.

According to him, he hadn’t slept all night, constantly feeling like someone was watching him whenever he closed his eyes. He kept experiencing cutting pains all over his body. He struggled to get up and ran to the doctor’s room, but couldn’t wake him no matter what. He even tried to leave but couldn’t open the door, and his phone had no signal when he tried to call police.

“You wouldn’t wake up—I was about to have a breakdown!” Chun Ge said frantically.

Actually, looking at him now, he already seemed to have broken down.

The doctor internally grumbled while comforting him: “You’re overthinking it. Uncomfortable sensations on your body? Did you not air out your bedding in time? I told you not to be lazy—now you probably have fleas! As for not being able to get out and phones having no signal, that was probably all hallucination. You haven’t been resting well lately, so you had sleep paralysis! Hey, though it has the scary name ‘ghost pressing bed,’ medically this is sleep paralysis syndrome symptoms. You’re studying medicine! You can’t believe in idealism!”

Seeing the doctor wouldn’t believe him no matter what, Chun Ge got angry, put on his coat and shoes, and left. Hearing the door close outside, the doctor lay back down for more sleep, muttering to himself: “See, he could open the door and get out just fine. Really…”

When daylight fully broke and the alarm rang, the doctor reluctantly got up. Carefully recalling the morning’s events, he decided to mock Chun Ge at work. Hadn’t they agreed he’d treat for breakfast today?! Using such a trick to escape treating was really too low!

The doctor had a bellyful of words ready, but arriving at the hospital, he found Chun Ge hadn’t come to work at all. No response to messages, no answer to calls—the doctor began worrying. By noon, he couldn’t hold back and ran to the director’s office to inquire.

“Chun Ge? He took leave, coming to work tomorrow.” Contrary to his usual stern seriousness, the director smiled exceptionally kindly. The doctor shuddered and pressed on: “Director, how did you approve his leave? And why are you so happy?” Shouldn’t such leave requests be severely criticized?

“Do I look like someone so unreasonable?” The director snorted coldly. “Everyone encounters emergencies. Even doctors can’t be immune to all illnesses—isn’t taking leave normal? Besides, if you force yourself not to take leave when you’re worried about something or feeling unwell, that makes you easily distracted and prone to mistakes. When we make mistakes, that could cost lives! Understand? You can take leave when necessary!”

The doctor hadn’t expected a simple question to result in another long lecture, hastily agreeing submissively.

“But if someone takes leave too often, trying to slack off, and attendance becomes an issue, I’ll have to handle it with dismissal.” After alternating between encouragement and warning, the director finally let the doctor go. Head hanging, the doctor thought: if Chun Ge doesn’t come, so be it, but colleagues knew they were close friends, so Chun Ge’s work got dumped on him too. Working as two people all day, he felt like he’d lost two pounds from exhaustion. Chun Ge definitely owed him a big meal for this!

When the doctor saw Chun Ge again the next day, he didn’t get a chance to make this demand before being pulled into a corner. Chun Ge mysteriously handed him a palm-sized wooden box.

“What’s this?” Looking down, the doctor saw a dull wooden box with some paint peeling off, looking quite worn.

“This is a good thing! I specially went home to get this blessed for you at a temple! Put it on the floor at home to suppress evil things!” Chun Ge patted his chest in guarantee.

The doctor found this absurd. What good thing? Had he been scammed by some monk? Just as he was about to open it to see what was inside, Chun Ge immediately pressed down on his hand.

“No, you can’t look, and you can’t touch it carelessly!” Chun Ge hesitated, then gritted his teeth: “Forget it, I’ll personally go to your place after work!” He snatched the wooden box from the doctor’s arms, afraid he’d open it randomly. The doctor found this amusing but didn’t take it seriously.

After work, Chun Ge indeed came to the doctor’s house carrying that wooden box, mysteriously finding a spot to place it in the corner by the wall with the phone line. Chun Ge seemed unable to stay even a moment longer and immediately headed home. Before leaving, he specifically looked at the revolving lantern, finding it still showed the same paper picture, meaning the misfortune hadn’t passed, and warned the doctor to be extra careful.

The doctor didn’t take it seriously, instead staring at the wooden box in the corner for a long time. He thought about it while eating, while bathing, while brushing teeth, and even while lying in bed. Now he really couldn’t sleep without opening it to look!

Finding himself the excuse of needing to check everything in the house, the doctor threw off his covers and got up, walking to that wall in the living room. After hesitating for a while, he still opened the wooden box. Inside lay what looked like a weight-shaped metal object.

The doctor curiously picked it up and found it was a bronze tiger sculpture with some patina and rust spots. The tiger stood on a mountain stone, head raised in a roar—quite lifelike.

But no matter how he looked at it, it seemed like a scam.

The doctor put the bronze tiger back, thinking the wooden box wasn’t in the way here anyway, so he left it unmoved.

As he stood up to walk toward the bedroom, he nearly tripped. Looking down, he saw the red phone line protruding from the wall.

Strange, maybe when Chun Ge moved the coffee table today, he accidentally pulled this phone line out. Thinking he should remember to cut this phone line or fold it up and store it properly, the doctor yawned and walked back to the bedroom, completely missing how that red line moved on its own and suddenly “whooshed” into the wooden box with its loose lid…

The doctor fell asleep the moment he lay on the bed, but in a half-dreaming state, he found his body couldn’t move! In his consciousness, he could clearly determine that he was experiencing what he’d told Chun Ge about—sleep paralysis syndrome, commonly called “ghost pressing bed.” But as time passed, he inexplicably began to panic.

His body really began hurting bit by bit as Chun Ge had described, like someone was cutting off pieces of flesh with a knife.

The doctor wanted to get up but felt weak in all limbs, unable to sit up. He wanted to shout but couldn’t make a sound.

He rolled his eyes, hoping to start with moving his eye muscles to break free from this sleep paralysis syndrome, but when he turned toward a corner of the room, he saw a red shadow flash by.

If he wasn’t mistaken, that was a… red dragon?