Chapter 441: Investigation Reaches the Hospital

Jiang Hai City First Hospital, outpatient building, third floor.

The corridor is filled with the smell of disinfectant, the plastic chairs in the waiting area are packed with people, and coughs, children's cries, and the electronic female voice of the call system intertwine into the hospital's characteristic noisy white noise.

Below the sign of the cardiac surgery examination room is a display screen.

"Attending doctor: Chu Che."

Inside the examination room, Chu Che is wearing a Doctor's Lab Coat, a work badge hanging on his chest, and opposite him sits an anxious middle‑aged woman. She clutches a stack of examination reports, and the bulging blue veins on the back of her hand betray her nervousness.

"Dr. Chu, is this sinus arrhythmia serious?"

Chu Che takes the report, his slender fingers flip to the electrocardiogram page. He scans it twice, puts the report down, removes his gold‑thread glasses and wipes them with a cleaning cloth.

"Auntie, please don't be anxious yet."

He puts his glasses back on, his voice gentle as if soothing, "Sinus arrhythmia is very common at your age; judging solely from this report, it is functional and requires no special treatment."

The middle‑aged woman's shoulders relax a notch.

"But," Chu Che's tone pauses, his fingertip tapping a line of data on the report, "your low‑density lipoprotein is elevated, and you mentioned frequent chest tightness earlier; I recommend a coronary CTA to rule it out."

He pulls open a drawer, takes out an Examination Request Form, scribbles a few lines, and hands it over.

"The appointment slip is ready; come fasting on Tuesday morning next week, and remember to stop coffee for two days."

"Okay, okay, thank you, Dr. Chu." The woman takes the slip, the worry on her face eases considerably, and as she leaves she turns back to add, "Dr. Chu, you're really kind; the last time I saw a doctor, three words and they chased me out."

Chu Che smiles and watches her out the door.

His smile contracts the instant the door closes.

It doesn't vanish—it's precisely reclaimed.

He lowers his head and continues tapping the keyboard, editing the medical record in the computer.

But his attention has long since left this examination room.

Jiang Hai City First Hospital, total building area 120,000 square meters, eighteen above‑ground floors and three underground floors. Seven thousand four hundred twenty load‑bearing columns, sixteen thousand partition walls, countless pipes, cable trays, and ventilation shafts.

Within this reinforced‑concrete skeleton flows Chu Che's perception.

It's not a metaphor; it's literal.

What he buried in this hospital with anomalous power has already seeped into every crevice of the building materials. Like mycelium. Like roots. Like a pair of opened, omnipresent eyes.

At this moment, those eyes are fixed on the two people in the equipment corridor on the first underground level.

Blue workwear, a badge on the chest reading "Ding An Medical Equipment Service". On the handcart are two neatly packaged monitoring equipment spare parts. Their gait is steady, expression relaxed, and when passing the Nurse Station they nod a greeting to the on‑duty nurse.

Very professional.

Professional enough that any security guard would think nothing of it.

But Chu Che notices three details.

First, the person on the left keeps his weight on the front foot while walking, knees slightly bent, ready to change direction or accelerate at any moment. This habitual posture belongs only to those trained in systematic combat.

Second, as they push the cart through each department, their gaze briefly scans the signboards. It's not a casual glance at a sign, but information gathering. The scan frequency is constant, the coverage angle precise; the training imprint is heavy.

Third, the person on the right has a badge on his chest printed with the two characters "Ding An".

"Ding An."

One of the joint investors of Qiu Ce Yuan. The hidden capital line Su Ming traced while investigating the Zhao Clan extermination case. The white gloves Chen Shao uses to parasitize the Federation's economic lifeline.

People from Eden Garden have entered the hospital.

Chu Che does not look up.

He finishes the medical record, unscrews the thermal cup and drinks a sip of warm water.

His movements are relaxed and unhurried, indistinguishable from any attending physician in the building who has finished the morning clinic and is preparing for lunch break.

But beyond the perception range of those two—

Chu Che's consciousness has already latched on.

Not physical contact. Not even needing sight.

His perception transmits via the building's own "texture", silently reaching the outer skull region of the person on the left.

Shallow mental layer.

The outermost circle of human consciousness, like an onion skin, a thin layer. It stores short‑term memories, current task commands, recent high‑frequency information fragments. It does not involve deep personality structures, nor trigger mental defense mechanisms.

Like flipping through a person's documents spread on a table.

Only the top few pages are examined.

Chu Che flips.

Information pours in like water.

— "Level-1 Command, target area: Jiang Hai City."

— "Investigate all medical system personnel from three years ago to the present who have temporal‑spatial intersections with Sequence 001 'Cavity Person', Sequence 002 'Ghost Wall', and the symbiotic entity 'Lin Fan-Ling Xinyu'."

— "Focus on individuals with organ‑transplant related backgrounds whose activity traces were abnormal during the initial anomalous phase."

— "Current shortlist: thirteen people."

Thirteen names.

Chu Che looks over them one by one.

The fourth is "Liu Guodong"—the chief surgeon killed in the Cavity Person incident, now deceased, marked as "excluded".

The eleventh.

Chu Che. Male, attending physician of cardiac surgery at Jiang Hai City First Hospital. One week before the first victim Liu Guodong died in the Cavity Person case, he had contact with the Cavity Person Zhou Xiaosheng and Liu Guodong (surveillance records retained).

The remarks column contains a line in red: "Temporal‑spatial correlation moderate‑high, recommend further deep digging."

Chu Che withdraws his consciousness.

The list of thirteen people. He is ranked eleventh.

Not near the front, but not safe either.

Eden Garden's intelligence network has already reached the edge; if we trace back along the clue "who has motive to create weirdness". The Cavity Person's first target is Liu Guodong, and the organ transplant surgery records Liu Guodong handled while alive are all in the hospital system.

Following this line downward, we can locate the heart that was intercepted.

Finding the heart leads to finding his mother.

Finding his mother leads to finding him.

When Chu Che dealt with the traces back then, he did it very cleanly. What needed deleting was deleted, what needed altering was altered, and the monitoring at key nodes was either damaged or overwritten. The police and the Investigation Bureau uncovered no direct evidence.

But that was the police and the Investigation Bureau.

Chen Shao is different.

The Federation's investigations are constrained by legal procedures, approval processes, and inter‑departmental games, like a hound chained up; no matter how keen its nose, it cannot run fast.

Eden Garden has no chains.

They can bribe the file room's gatekeeper, kidnap the relatives of key witnesses to force confessions, and use Black Market channels to obtain any decommissioned communication base‑station data. As soon as Chen Shao issues a Level-1 Command, this web will turn Jiang Hai City upside down.

Even the cleanest trace, when faced with enough manpower and a long enough timeline, will eventually show its flaws.

For example—on that early morning when Zhou Xiaosheng's vengeful spirit was extracted, does he have an alibi?

For example—each weirdness Chu Che has created over the years, does the deployment time versus his work schedule show a statistical correlation that cannot be explained by coincidence?

Taken individually, none of them is fatal.

But if they are all linked—

Chu Che lifted his Thermal Cup and took another sip. The temperature was just right, neither hot nor cold.

That is the crux of the matter.

A list of thirteen people. As the investigation deepens, those who don't meet the criteria will be eliminated one by one. In the end, only two or three may remain.

And he, Chu Che, is most likely to be one of them.

He will also be the most probable one.

If Eden Garden uncovers the fact that he was once suspected and investigated by the Project Team… then it becomes even more certain.

But why does Eden Garden suddenly start looking for him as the "Behind-the-Scenes Mastermind"?

A paging device sounded outside the Examination Room. The next patient is arriving soon.

Chu Che pulled a phone from his pocket and glanced at the time on the screen.

11:47.

It will be about twenty minutes until the two Eden Garden agents finish today's intelligence‑gathering mission.

It will be roughly thirty‑six to forty hours before Chen Shao receives the first batch of screening results.

From the moment I'm locked as the prime suspect—

Chu Che slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Time is ample.

He has no intention of destroying evidence. He also has no intention of leaving.

Because those actions themselves are evidence.

Why would an innocent cardiologist destroy evidence? Why would he leave? He doesn't need to leave—his current power doesn't require his departure. What he needs is to sit in this Examination Room, continue writing his case notes, and keep explaining to the aunties what sinus arrhythmia is.

Without decisive incriminating evidence, Eden Garden has no reason to act against him.

But sitting and waiting is not a solution.

The process of elimination is a knife that sharpens faster with each grind. Eliminate two people today, three tomorrow; someday the blade will rest on the right neck.

Eden Garden's power does not threaten his safety, but he does not want his "godhood" forced onto the stage.

Chu Che closed his medical record book, stacked it neatly, and pushed it to the edge of the table.

Then he lifted his hand and gently nudged the nose pad of his Gold Thread Glasses with his index and middle fingers.

The lenses reflected a flash of light.

Since Eden Garden is looking for a "Behind-the-Scenes Mastermind"—

Then let them find one.

Among the list of thirteen, several have been marked as "eliminated" dead people. Some are peripheral figures with insufficient spatiotemporal correlation.

There is still one.

That person's motive is stronger than Chu Che's. That person's spatiotemporal link is tighter than Chu Che's. That person's character flaw and behavior pattern can be precisely exploited.

All that is needed is to place the right piece at the right place at the right time.

Let Eden Garden's puzzle complete itself—except the picture formed is the one he has drawn.

A scapegoat.

This is the first line.

There is also a second line.

Eden Garden's investigation of the old Jiang Hai City case will inevitably involve massive historical data and on‑site personnel.

This investigative chain itself is a conduit; he only needs to gently place a probe at some node of the conduit.

No need for something complicated. One person. One who will be at the right moment, in the right place, and encounter the right information.

Insert them into Eden Garden's intelligence network.

A quiet, unnoticed eye position.

Two lines run in parallel.

One line feeds the hunter a false target. The other installs a tracker on the hunter.

He wants to know why Eden Garden suddenly started investigating him, and why it could lock onto Jiang Hai City immediately.

Chu Che stood up and straightened the hem of his Doctor's Lab Coat.

A knock came from outside the door. The next patient has arrived.

Please, come in.

The door swung open, and a young mother cradling a child walked in, her face full of the anxiety of first-time motherhood.

"Dr. Chu, my baby has been sweating a lot lately, and at night the back is completely soaked…"

Chu Che sat back in his chair, and the reassuring gentle curve returned to the corner of his mouth.

"Here, place the baby here first; I'll listen to the heartbeat."

He extended his long, well‑defined hands, took the Stethoscope, and gently pressed it against the infant's chest.

At the other end of the Corridor, two people in blue workwear pushed a handcart into the elevator.

The elevator doors closed.

Chu Che's gaze passed over the young mother's shoulder, through the Examination Room wall, "watching" the two disappear toward the -1 level.

Then he withdrew his eyes, lowered his head, and looked at the pinkish baby in his arms.

The little thing was biting its own fist, grinning at him.

Chu Che also smiled.

"Don't worry, the baby doesn't have any serious issues."