Rhodes Island does not exist.

The metal door didn't open as quickly as a normal door. It seemed to be stuck, as if something was blocking it, and the two doors could only slowly move backward to the left and right.

But at this moment, the doctor only wanted to thank the shell beast's crawling speed for giving him time to prepare mentally.

"Tsk."

As the door slowly opened, a strong musty smell rushed out through the gap, delivering a fierce uppercut to the doctor's unsuspecting nostrils, causing him to frown.

However, even a musty smell is better than a fishy smell.

Especially those grotesque creatures that resemble rotten mud, which have an innate, putrid, fishy smell.

If this is the smell that comes out when the door is opened, then the doctor will have to reconsider his next battle strategy.

"Crack crack crack... Boom."

After a series of mechanical, noisy sounds, the opening of the door came to an end, and the room marked as number three revealed its entrance without reservation.

The dust that had accumulated on the door fell to the ground with the vibration of opening it.

It's probably been a long time since anyone opened this place.

Thinking about this, the doctor couldn't help but wonder how he had managed to get supplies from the sixth floor on previous occasions.

If I had ever been here before, this place shouldn't look so deserted.

If he had never been here before, how did he get to the sixth floor?

There are two guesses.

Firstly, there was another route leading to the sixth floor, but I took the other route.

Secondly, it has been a long time since I last came here.

Looks like I'll have to ask Specter about the time span next time I go back to my room. If it's a question of that level, she'll probably be able to answer it herself, right?

"But before that... she has to tell the truth first."

The doctor shook his head with a wry smile.

The issues concerning Originium and the name restriction had made him somewhat suspicious of Specter, and he began to wonder if he should be more wary of her.

However, the thought that his death would ultimately return him to the embrace of the Specter made him conflicted again.

Does taking a bribe make you feel obligated to eat? It doesn't seem so.

To the Doctor, the Specter is now more like a hitching post with a chain around his neck, so that no matter how far he goes, he can be pulled back.

Admittedly, in this environment filled with mystery and darkness, such a chain can prevent you from getting lost in the darkness. But from another perspective, it also restricts your ability to leave the darkness.

You won't die, but you can't escape either.

Wait a minute, doesn't this sound a bit like the hells described in Indian Buddhist teachings? Beings kill each other while being burned, are then hacked and stabbed by hell guards, and are reborn through karma after death, experiencing countless births and deaths in an instant.

No, I think I should just forget about it. Terra doesn't have Buddhism, and the Doctor wouldn't be thinking about these things.

"There was no sound coming out, and no shadow at the door."

After monitoring room number three for about a minute, the doctor drew a preliminary conclusion.

There may be no danger inside the room.

After all, the corridor lights only illuminate a portion of the area near the entrance, and the doctor's field of vision is roughly the same, so it's best to be cautious.

However, there are limits to caution.

Unrestrained and unplanned caution becomes cowardice.

So the doctor came out carrying a pickaxe and stood in front of the door of room number three.

"It's a bit dark."

The light in the corridor was even weaker than the doctor had expected, to the point that the deeper parts of the room were completely dark, making it impossible to see anything.

In the visible area, there was only a lead-gray floor, and in the slightly dim area, there was no furniture or decorations. It was a rather empty room.

"There should be a switch to turn the light on."

With this in mind, the doctor stepped into the room and turned his gaze to the walls on either side of the door.

Two small, conspicuous white buttons immediately come into view, with a lamp icon drawn next to them.

This is clearly a button for controlling the lighting.

Now that the switch has been found, the only thing left to confirm is whether the doctor is ready to turn on the lights. After all, no one knows what lurks in the darkness.

However, this is clearly a foolish question for a PhD student.

Only creatures that depend on darkness are afraid of turning on the light; what is there for those born in the light to fear?

"Snapped."

The doctor lightly touched and pressed one of the buttons with his index finger.

Bright white light shone down as the ring of light bulbs around the ceiling lit up simultaneously, instantly filling the entire room.

Then, the doctor pressed the second button, turning on the central light in the room, making room number three the brightest place on the entire third floor.

The darkness vanished, and the room was now completely exposed.

And the doctor finally understood what room number three was for.

"I see……"

In the room, which contained neither strange creatures nor any living beings, only rows of cold, indifferent cabinets stood silently in place.

Each row of cabinets is like a grid of drawers, with rectangular drawers drawn on them, waiting for someone to pull them open one by one and see what they contain.

But for the PhD student, even without explanation, he understood exactly what those cabinets were.

Those cabinets are refrigerated containers for corpses, while this place is undoubtedly a morgue.

"People used to say this place was like a hospital, and now they even have a morgue. It seems it really is a hospital."

As his gaze swept over the rows of refrigerated cabinets, the doctor couldn't help but mutter to himself.

However, upon closer inspection, the doctor noticed that the layout of the morgue was somewhat similar to the collector's room on the tenth floor.

After all, these two rooms share some common functions.

So, should we open the refrigerator door and take a look?

-

-

It's perfectly normal and reasonable to add extra chapters on the first day of release, right?

The following is the customary thank-you section.

Thank you for the monthly pass and the razor blade.

Thanks to that lazy employee for the sudden suggestion, thank you~

Chapter 57, Section 56: The Dialectical Unity of Incompleteness and Completeness

Because of the different subjects of observation, the manifestations of things often produce different objective phenomena.

-

The doctor is now facing a cognitive crisis.

"What on earth is this...?"

Just now, he opened a cabinet door in the cold storage room.

To be honest, he had already mentally prepared himself. Whether what he saw after pulling it open was nothingness or something bizarre, he would be able to react appropriately in a timely manner.

But things did not go as he had expected.

It was a corpse that had been preserved in a freezer for a long time, its surface already covered with frost.

It seems that the common sense he had always believed in had once again deceived him.

The doctor always felt that those strange things came from the transformation of the dead, so he never seriously considered the origin of those strange things.

However, the corpse that appeared before him now told him a fact—his assumptions might be wrong.

Incidentally, the body was not intact; it was tattered and mangled, like a piece of leftover grilled pork chop.

However, this description is probably somewhat inaccurate.

Because if you look closely, you'll find that the wounds that caused the varying degrees of loss on this body are all quite smooth and regular.

It looks like it was cut off with a knife.

"Let's observe for a while."

The doctor placed the pickaxe at his feet and then pulled out the remaining drawer with both hands.

A severely mutilated male corpse lay quietly in the cold cubicle, eyes closed, face serene.

"The missing parts are from the right chest to the waist, then the forearm of the right arm, and then... uh, was the brain also removed?"

The doctor picked up the pickaxe, used the wooden handle to poke at the corpse in the cubicle, and examined the areas he wanted to investigate.

“It’s definitely not an attack by a monster or anything else.” He nodded, drawing a preliminary conclusion. “Because if it were a bite wound, the cut wouldn’t be so clean, and most importantly… the victim’s right lung and right kidney were removed, but the organs on the left side were completely untouched, and even the heart was fine. If the murderer didn’t do this with a strong purpose, the body couldn’t be in this state.”

"In other words."

He pondered for a moment, then said, "The murderer only needed some of the victim's organs; he had no need for the victim himself or any other part of his body. So after taking what he wanted, he simply stuffed him into the freezer."

The motivation behind this behavior seemed utterly incomprehensible to the doctor.

What are people thinking when they do something like this to make their goals so incredibly obvious?

Moreover, this place should logically belong to the local morgue, right? So, anyone qualified to use the freezers here must have the corresponding authority.

That is to say...

"So, Rhodes Island is definitely not a good place at all." The Doctor nodded to himself, pleased with his conclusion. "It seems this really is the abandoned ruins of some shady hospital."

But this conclusion did not answer his question at all.

Why did the murderer only want parts of the victim's organs, ignoring the rest of his body?

If it's for organ trafficking, then taking all of them would be normal, right?

If not, then why do it?

Or are you planning to take a portion first and then come back for the rest later if needed? Don't be ridiculous, this is a freezer, not a hibernation chamber.

Ah, speaking of hibernation pods.

The doctor suddenly remembered the collector's room on the tenth floor.

"Could those organs in the collector's room be related to the missing parts of this corpse?"

No, no, no, it shouldn’t be like that.

Because the collector's diary clearly states that everything in those biological tanks is a product of his own experiments, extracted from the strange creatures roaming Rhodes Island, so it probably has little to do with the poor man lying here now.

"It seems this is yet another mystery."

The doctor sighed softly and pushed the freezer containing the mangled corpse back into the cold storage.

Then, after pushing that compartment back, he casually opened another freezer compartment.

"Shh-"

Another corpse.

Although it doesn't look as bad as the previous unfortunate one, it does share the commonality of missing some organs.

"It seems all the freezers in this room are like this." The doctor shook his head and pushed the shelf in front of him back.

The doctor's gaze swept over rows of cold metal cabinet doors, finally returning to the pickaxe in his hand.

Admittedly, there are countless choices waiting for him to explore, but if those choices all lead to the same problem, then it's just meaningless repetitive work.

"Alright, this is room number three, a room with only questions and no answers."

He secretly memorized this place in his mind, just as he memorized all the other questions.

Well then, it's time to head out.

The doctor picked up his pickaxe, walked out of the door of room number three, and returned to the control room, back to the nine buttons.

"First, we need to close the door to room number three."