I'm Actually Panicking Because My Heart Doesn't Beat (GL) - Chapter 2

It’s over, it’s over. I thought I had died and come back to life, but now I realize I’m still dead.

Guan Xiaoxuan saw nothing but darkness. Her legs went weak, and she fell to the ground. One of the corpses behind her jumped over her head and crashed into a cabinet.

The morgue was unusually chaotic right now. More than ten body bags had been ripped open. Besides the first corpse that jumped down, three or four others climbed out too, and their target was very clear — Guan Xiaoxuan, who was different from all of them!

“Help! Help! Save me!!!”

Guan Xiaoxuan felt her head spin. At this moment, if someone could come to save her, she’d be willing to give anything!

Even though she was dizzy, her hands and feet were still quick, dodging the corpses’ attacks.

Their “attacks” were mostly just grabbing at her legs, pouncing on her back, or trying to bite her. These corpses were still human at their core. Since they had just “woken up,” their movements were a little stiff, which helped Guan Xiaoxuan dodge several times.

This can’t go on. If these corpses get fully active, I’ll definitely be the one who dies!

Guan Xiaoxuan glanced around the morgue and spotted a red fire extinguisher in the corner by the stainless steel double doors.

In the next second, she dodged a corpse trying to grab her ankle, but instead of attacking back, she rushed to the extinguisher, pulled the safety pin, aimed at the charging corpse, and pressed the valve.

A cloud of white powder sprayed onto the corpses. Guan Xiaoxuan didn’t know if the dry powder extinguisher would work on them, but the “monsters” were clearly scared and scattered away.

Some who didn’t dodge in time covered their heads, struggling painfully on the ground.

It worked!

Guan Xiaoxuan’s eyes lit up. She sprayed the powder on another corpse coming around, covering it in white powder, then carefully stepped backward toward the double steel doors.

She leaned on the door, keeping pressure on the extinguisher, pushing her body slightly back, silently praying the door wasn’t locked.

Please, please don’t be locked!!!

Click—

With a crisp sound, the double doors cracked open slightly. Guan Xiaoxuan’s eyes brightened.

It’s not locked!!!

Heaven won’t let me die!!!

She didn’t forget the danger just because of the relief. She kept spraying the extinguisher, watching carefully, then noticed a U-shaped lock on the nearby table.

A plan flashed through her mind. Seeing the extinguisher’s powder running low, and the corpses slowly getting used to the shock, she stopped spraying and raised the extinguisher like a hammer, swinging at a corpse rushing toward her.

Bang—

After dropping the extinguisher, Guan Xiaoxuan stepped forward, grabbed the U-lock, then bent down to pick up a file folder that had fallen earlier. She quickly opened the iron door and rushed out.

Once outside, she threw the file folder aside and quickly shut the door, locking it with the U-shaped lock.

The next second, she heard a loud banging on the door, strong enough to make it tremble.

Luckily, the lock and door were sturdy.

The sound of bodies hitting the door made Guan Xiaoxuan’s eyes widen in fear. She backed away several steps before finally relaxing.

She bent down, picked up the file folder from the ground, and dusted off the powder on it.

Making such a big ruckus in the morgue would definitely attract attention. She hadn’t even figured out who she really was yet, and the “Guan Xiaoxuan” who was already dead but suddenly came back to life couldn’t be seen by anyone.

Not to mention, she didn’t have a heartbeat.

Guan Xiaoxuan touched the heart area on the back of her white coat—sure enough, no heartbeat. But aside from that, she felt nothing wrong.

Maybe she just woke up and hadn’t yet felt any discomfort after everything that happened.

She heard noisy voices nearby and frowned. Morgues were usually on the basement floor. Besides the corpses inside, the noise could only come from hospital staff.

I have to get out of here fast.

Guan Xiaoxuan decisively opened the emergency exit next to her and climbed the stairs to the first floor.

When she came out of the emergency exit, she saw many medical staff rushing around. Near the elevator, a few people in white coats were gathered, but none of them noticed her coming out.

Barefoot, Guan Xiaoxuan glanced at the hospital hallway and quickly slipped out through a small side door. If someone saw her like this, it would be hard to explain.

She walked out of the hospital building and looked up at the dark sky. She couldn’t tell the exact time, but judging by the dim neighborhood and empty streets, it had to be after 11 PM. There wasn’t a single person on the road.

Holding the file folder, Guan Xiaoxuan walked around the hospital twice before finding a low wall. She stepped on some nearby bricks and climbed over, then wandered aimlessly along the empty street.

The streetlights were very bright, making her feel like she had stepped back into the real world from an apocalypse.

She found a bus stop and sat on the bench. Since she wasn’t sure what time it was, she opened the folder under the streetlight’s glow…

Xinglin City Third People’s Hospital, underground morgue.

The doctor in charge of the morgue rushed over after hearing the noise. At first, the banging inside scared the staff half to death, but the sounds grew quieter over time and finally stopped after half an hour.

The staff didn’t open the locked door recklessly. Instead, they called the police and reported the situation.

In this world, anything unusual could be deadly and needed professionals to handle it.

Soon, a team dressed in black trench coats arrived at the hospital. There were three of them, led by a woman with delicate features.

She wore thin black-rimmed glasses and had jet-black hair like the night—thick and wild.

The other two team members checked the locked morgue door and listened to the staff’s statements.

Xing Tianqing approached the steel door, placed a slender hand on it, and slowly closed her deep eyes. Her long eyelashes fell on her pale face like black feathers.

Her high nose bridge held the thin glasses, which were actually plain glass without prescription.

After sensing something, Xing Tianqing opened her eyes, her expression serious. She said to those nearby, “This is the Special Incident Investigation Bureau’s case. Except for the morgue supervisor, no one else is allowed near here.”

Turning to her team behind, she ordered, “Prepare confidentiality agreements for all involved staff to sign.”

Her teammate Xiao An nodded, then skillfully guided the staff away. Soon more people in black coats arrived, cooperating with the police to cordon off the morgue area, preventing anyone from entering.

After a night of investigation, the team began reporting to Xing Tianqing, the regional head of Xinglin City.

“Team Leader Xing, after investigation, the 27 corpses in the morgue suddenly showed signs of awakening. The scattered dry powder on the floor proves there was a fierce struggle here. The morgue door was likely locked by the intruder when they left.”

Xiao An, holding a small notebook, reported, “We counted: besides 11 corpses inside the drawers, the other 16 had broken free from their body bags. One corpse and one file folder are missing.”

Xing Tianqing frowned, “Did you check the hospital’s surveillance?”

A black-coated investigator replied, “We checked, but there’s no camera inside the morgue—only in the hallways. The equipment is old, and the footage isn’t clear. We’ve enhanced the images as best as we could. Here is the clearest still—”

He showed a blurry photo on a tablet, with a zoomed-in face in the corner.

“Is this even recognizable?” someone asked.

The technician shrugged, “This is the best we could get.”

Xing Tianqing didn’t comment but told the technician, “Find the morgue supervisor and get all the corpses’ photos from his memory. Record them carefully to identify which corpse is missing.”

In this world, some people have special abilities. Their eyes work like a video recorder, capturing everything they see. Even if they forget, these “memory artists” can recall the images and reproduce them with drawings.

This power, often called “hypnosis,” is even more amazing than that.

The Special Incident Investigation Bureau calls them “Memory Artists.”

Luckily, there’s one such artist in Xinglin.

“Team Leader Xing, one more thing,” the technician said. “The person in the white coat who came out of the morgue is not an intruder. She might be the missing corpse.”

A missing corpse?

The whole bureau frowned. They knew well that such death-and-resurrection supernatural events often meant the birth of an “weirdness.”

An “weirdness” is a ghost or creature with strange powers. Many have no intelligence, only the instinct to devour humans, causing paranormal incidents, stealing human bodies and souls.

The Special Incident Investigation Bureau gathers people with special abilities to eliminate these threats.

In the community, the bureau is also called the “Weird Bureau.”