The eccentric doctor never makes a misdiagnosis!

Page 150

She walked in silence, following the male servant's lead, through the deep, dark corridor, and into her room.

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I've been so exhausted from work that I look so haggard...

Starting today, I'm going to slack off at work!

Chapter Forty-Five: Old Poems from the Ghost Mansion [Ghost Mansion]

Fran entered the guest room located in room four of the side hall. The three incandescent bulbs in the four corners of the room immediately lit up.

The banquet hall and reception rooms of the Earl of Hanover's residence used old-fashioned candlelight lamps, while the bedrooms were equipped with rather modern incandescent light bulbs. This was probably done with the possibility of a fire hazard when guests were using them.

despair--

With the help of the dim, soft nightlight, the entire room's layout and arrangement came into view.

This is a very... lovely bedroom.

A life-sized teddy bear sits on the fluffy, soft plush bed, its bedsheets adorned with delicate lace trim. A crystal-carved nightlight sits on the bedside table, and a dreamcatcher made of feathers and bird bones hangs from the ceiling.

In addition, the entire room is decorated in a beautiful light pink, while the rug on the wall is a gentle khaki color.

Oh, and there's even a corner of the bedroom dedicated to dolls and plush toys. There's an exquisitely crafted model of a mansion, based on Hanover Palace, seemingly used specifically to house miniature figures.

She looks way too girlish.

Fran narrowed his amber eyes, his expression momentarily strange.

Did Count Ferdinand have some peculiar hobby... or is there something wrong with this room?

She raised her wrist and took out a brass pocket watch from her sleeve to check the time. The hour hand was now pointing exactly to twelve o'clock, which meant... the entire mansion had entered "midnight".

"While this type of bed would probably be very comfortable, it would be rather embarrassing to actually sleep on it..."

Fran pursed his lips, his gaze sweeping over the huge bear-shaped doll on the bed, before letting out a whisper.

It is obvious that this is a girl's room, and its owner is estimated to be no more than eight years old.

Given Count Ferdinand's near-collapse mental state, he probably wouldn't have the leisure to use such a guest room to play a joke on himself. In other words, the current situation is an "abnormality" at the Hanover residence.

Fran extended her slender fingers, gently rubbing them against the skin of her chin, before beginning to observe the bedroom further.

She came to the bedside and saw a small bookshelf next to the bedside table filled with fairy tales and bedtime stories.

“The Nightingale and the Rose, The Shadow… these are all classic fairy tales.”

Fran's fingertips methodically swept over the exquisitely bound fairy tale books, then precisely selected one. Its cover had no title or illustrations, but it bore the most signs of wear and tear on the entire shelf; the edges of the pages were curled.

Ok……

It wasn't hard to guess what the little girl was thinking. Clearly, the little booklet that had been secretly slipped into the bookshelf... was her diary.

Without any psychological burden, Fran opened the diary and began to read it.

The next moment, she raised her eyebrows slightly, seemingly somewhat surprised by the contents of the diary.

The first few pages of the diary, which should have contained the room owner's thoughts and observations, had all been torn out, leaving only a page of a strangely rhythmic poem.

[Deep within the splendor of this mansion, where my angel once dwelled, the palaces, magnificent—shining for her—scattered across the heavens.]

Within the dreamlike realm, her youthful appearance remains unchanged;

[Her delicate white dress and slender figure seem just like those of the past; her smile and voice remain unchanged.]

[Though filth and decay remain unseen, it lingers timidly, relentlessly pursuing.]

"It's not information about the room owner, but a 'clue' left intentionally."

After confirming that this was indeed the only valid passage in the entire diary, Fran put it back on the bookshelf untouched.

This poem... shares some similarities in format with Edgar Allan Poe's short poem "The Devil's House" from "The House of Usher in Collapse." However, the main subject of the poem has changed.

"The Ghost House" describes a palace more, while this poem seems to be a remembrance of a woman. If we judge by the most intuitive connection, then the girl mentioned in the short poem... should be the owner of this bedroom.

"Oh, it's quite rare to see a house call that tests one's literary skills... and there seems to be another surprise here."

Fran smiled slightly, seemingly showing some interest in the mansion.

She caught a faint scent of blood in the air, and felt a strange, eerie spiritual energy quietly enveloping her.

The spiritual influence is silent and invisible, and it should have begun the moment Fran stepped into this bedroom. But it is a subtle influence, working on common sense and perception, and it takes time to fully take effect.

And now, the moment has come when the impact begins to change reality...

Fran raised his hand and saw that his palm, covered with several stitches, had become much smaller than he had noticed.

She then turned her gaze to a full-length mirror on the side, and the figure reflected there was none other than Fran as a child. (Wu)

Her doctor's coat had been transformed into a silk gauze dress, with white velvet stockings covering her legs and a pair of delicate round-toed leather shoes on her feet.

The straps of Fran's little leather shoes were adorned with jasmine flowers sewn onto silk, which swayed in the breeze with Fran's every step. 4

"This is what the bedroom's owner looks like... not much different from what I imagined."

"It's fortunate that I was the one who came to this bedroom. If it had been the navigator Krull, or that priest... the situation would have been unimaginable."

Fran didn't seem to care much about this. Instead, he turned to the side in front of the standing mirror, admiring the back of his body. The clothes on his back were as clean and new as those on the front, and the skin on his neck was delicate and fair, without any scars or bloodstains.

So, what is the source of the bloody smell?

“If Sister Heda were here, she should be able to find the source very easily. After all, she's very professional in this area…”

Apart from her extraordinary pain tolerance, Fran's senses were not much different from those of a normal person. Therefore, it took her some time to find the source of the bloody smell... in the "dollhouse" in the room where the dolls were kept.

This toy house is a scaled-down version of the "Hanover House".

"Frequent contact with corpses can actually decrease one's sensitivity to the smell of blood."

Fran stepped into the exquisitely crafted toy house, then extended his index finger to pry open the tightly closed wooden doors and windows to examine the interior.

In the five rooms of the side hall, several ceramic figurines could be seen. And their faces were all very familiar... they were the five people who had come to the mansion: the male servant, the butler, and Count Ferdinand.

Besides these, there was a mass of black, humanoid sludge. Its black, sticky, oily limbs were covered with human faces, and skeletons and limb fragments floated slowly within its body.

Despite its petite size, it is still disgusting enough.

"I probably understand..."

Looking at the slowly wriggling humanoid mud, Fran had a fairly clear guess about what would happen next.

If I'm not mistaken, the interaction logic between this toy house and reality should be that "whoever the mud visits will be attacked in reality."

"Ta-ta-"

Inside the dollhouse, the humanoid figure made of black mud moved extremely slowly across the corridor and arrived at Fran's door. At the same time, she could clearly hear sticky footsteps coming from outside the door, along with a faint smell of decaying biomass.

Sure enough, this dollhouse reflects the real-time status of the entire mansion.

In some ways, it's actually quite similar to surveillance.

Fran remained silent, holding his breath in utter stillness. The mud-like humanoid slowly rubbed against the doorframe, and the rough, rustling sound of its tongue scraping against the door could even be heard.

In fact, she wouldn't mind using violence to resolve the threat outside. However, she currently lacked sufficient knowledge about the monsters within the mansion, and rashly taking action might lead to unexpected complications…

Feeling no movement from inside the door, the mud-like humanoid seemed to lose interest in the room after a while. It moved away along the corridor wall, sensing the faint sounds coming from other rooms.

Hmm... he really left.

In her cross-disciplinary medical practice, Fran always considers whether there is a "solution for ordinary people" for the current situation before resorting to violence. The depth of her thinking also has a certain impact on the completeness of her diagnosis and treatment.

If I were just an ordinary visitor who was transformed into an eight or nine-year-old girl after entering this bedroom... what actions could I take to eliminate the threat outside the door? Or should I try to hide and spread the word to others about the monster's presence?

She looked at the mansion model in front of her, her amber eyes shimmering with a quiet light.

In a moment, Fran took out one of his own handkerchiefs from his medicine box and then stuffed it into the side hallway of the mansion model.

　After completing this action, she closed the model's door.

When the door was opened again, the silk handkerchief that had originally occupied half of the corridor had been assimilated into the scale of the model and landed in front of the monster made of mud.

A muffled growl from the mud-like humanoid suddenly rang out from outside the door.

In the mansion model, this is depicted as the monster tearing the handkerchief to shreds and then chewing it with almost ecstatic relish...

Hmm... We can intervene in the outside world to a certain extent by interacting with the mansion model. Just as I envisioned.

For ordinary people, the opportunity to break the deadlock lies here. They can pass items to alert participants in other rooms to keep quiet. They can also create noise to guide the mud-like humanoid in a certain direction.

However... it's not just your own room that's experiencing abnormalities.

As things stand, I am currently in a relatively "safe" position. But others may not be in the same boat, and if they were in imminent danger, they might not be able to remain silent.

Fran tried to take his own ceramic doll out of the model, but nothing happened; it seemed to be just an ordinary little toy. The same thing happened with the others.

In other words, it's not feasible to move other people to one's own room by removing the dolls. Intervention must be carried out from the outside in.

With that in mind, she took out rubber surgical gloves from the medicine box and put them on. She could clearly feel that the gloves were much too big.

After completing the protective measures, Fran reached out and touched the slowly drifting mud-like humanoid figure in the model. Through the glove, the sticky, slippery texture came from his fingertips, like touching a piece of rotting raw meat that was constantly oozing grease.

"A strong smell of decay. It probably corresponds to the line in the poem, 'The filth and decay have never been seen, yet they linger and relentlessly pursue.'"

Fran tore off the gloves, which were stained with mud and putrid liquid, and threw them aside.

She wasn't worried that the scent would attract that guy; if it had that ability, it would have already followed the scent and rushed into her room.

The mud-like humanoid figure is currently slowly making its way to Father Ghosn's room, where something seems to be commotion.

Oh, wait a minute... it seems the manservant from the Hanover residence is also in his room.

Fran narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips slightly.

Some less-than-ideal ideas began to surface in her mind in the form of images…

The valet of the Hanover residence had been standing in the main hall in the distance, and his appearance in the priest's room happened almost instantaneously.

She thought for a moment, then opened the door to a small servant's room in the main hall. Inside was a ceramic figurine of the young male servant, exactly the same as the one in the priest's room.

...The male servant that Father Ghosn encountered must have been influenced by the atmosphere in his room.

It's just unclear what this "influence" will do to him.

"No! Don't! Don't come any closer... I didn't do anything to you! No, it wasn't me..."

As Fran pondered his next move, a near-piercing scream came from the next room. Even though the mansion was well soundproofed, the content could still be faintly heard.

Did the priest encounter a situation where the male servant turned from being the submissive to the dominant one?

The thought, which was slightly absurd, kept popping into Fran's mind. But she quickly dismissed it.

Father Ghosn's room was some distance away, making it difficult to hear him clearly even with his shouts. And the person next door... was Davis, a folklorist from the history department.

"I didn't kill you, it was you, it was yourself! I just wanted to take back what was rightfully mine..."

Davis's voice came through intermittently, revealing that he was in a hysterical, almost delirious state.

"If you hadn't stolen everything from me, how could any of this have happened? Even if you were willing to share just a little with me, even just a little... I would still respect you to the utmost..."

Listening to the folklorist's almost manic shouts, Fran involuntarily raised his hand to lightly stroke his chin, his eyes narrowing slightly.

The young man's mental state is worrying... or are all folklorists prone to this?

Davis's desperate monologue quickly attracted the attention of the mud-like creature, which immediately turned away from Father Ghosn's door and rushed excitedly toward the room from which the sound was coming from.

In the side bedroom, Davis stared at the withered, ashen-faced old man before him, his eyes bloodshot. His chest heaved violently, his heart churning with a mixture of fear and hatred.

“Professor Dusan… In these seven years, haven’t your achievements, your reputation, and your papers all come from me? Haven’t you taken enough from me?”

"Why do you still haunt me even after I'm dead...?"

The old professor, known as Dusan, simply stared at Davis, his expression as stiff as a corpse. His lips twitched for a few seconds before slowly spreading into a somber, sinister smile.

“...Davis, you still get so easily flustered.”

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Soup~

Chapter Forty-Six: The Reappearance of the Nightmare [The Ghost Mansion]

Davis's breathing was rapid and erratic, his chest heaving violently, and his face was as pale as paper.

"Phew... You can't possibly still be alive. I saw you die on the Fenrir with my own eyes!"