"Why did this happen? Most psychological disorders have a trigger. He couldn't have just developed this out of nowhere."
Plenty of people had phobias, but cases this severe were rare.
The child in the inner room seemed to have reached a point where, without medication, he couldn't break free from his fear on his own — a deeply dangerous situation.
"You're right, but I don't know how he got sick either. I'm just looking after him on someone else's behalf." The woman spoke slowly. After the boy in the inner room took his medication, his condition improved noticeably, and she relaxed as well.
"It's a psychological condition. To relieve the symptoms, we need to find the root cause." Chen Ge took a few steps toward the woman. He couldn't see anything and had to feel his way along the wall.
"I want to find the cause too, but no matter how I ask, the boy just won't talk. He seems not to know himself." The woman's voice carried a note of helplessness. "Eventually I gave up."
"Would you let me speak to him? I specialize in studying psychological disorders." Chen Ge was grateful he had met Doctor Gao. His tone and manner now closely resembled Doctor Gao's before his descent into darkness.
A psychiatrist first had to put the patient at ease before gradually entering their world, and Chen Ge — in both appearance and the impression he gave — fit that criterion perfectly.
"You're a psychiatrist? I don't think anyone in this building does that kind of work. Are you new here?"
"Something like that. I can assure you, I mean no harm." Chen Ge gave a wry smile and pointed at his own eyes. "I can't see anything at all. I have no ability to resist. If I do anything you don't like, you can throw me out at any moment."
His blindness made him the weaker party, and he was exploiting that weakness to the fullest.
"That child is fragile. Just don't say anything reckless." The woman took hold of Chen Ge's arm of her own accord. "Slowly — there's a sofa ahead. Go left…"
Chen Ge noticed something. These adult residents weren't evil like the monsters behind other doors. He couldn't exactly call them good either, but they gave him the impression of ordinary people from everyday life. "I really don't want to associate them with corpses."
Led by the woman, Chen Ge entered the inner room. The stench in the air grew heavier, and worse still, there was a new smell mixed in — the rot of decaying flesh. He hadn't noticed that scent in the middle-aged man's room.
"By the way, can you tell me what your relationship is with this child?"
"Relationship?" The woman thought for a moment, then gave an answer Chen Ge hadn't anticipated. "I suppose you could say we're friends. He had nowhere to go, so I'm looking after him for now."
The woman's answer was vague. As soon as she finished, she walked out, leaving Chen Ge and the boy alone in the inner room.
Feeling along the wall and the wardrobe, Chen Ge's leg touched the bed. He sat down slowly. "Can you hear my voice? I'm sorry, but I can't see you. If you're nearby, could you say something, or gently tap my hand?"
Chen Ge held his palm open. After waiting for a long time, he suddenly felt a trace of coolness against it — a coldness different from the icy feel of a corpse. The touch was soft, not like being touched by a person at all. It was more like a cold breeze had blown past.
"Ying Tong?"
The name slipped out instinctively, but he received no answer. A moment later, from about a meter away, a boy's voice came: "My name is Ah Mu."
This boy's voice bore a fifty or sixty percent resemblance to Ying Tong's voice in reality — very young and tender.
Chen Ge had seen the files on Ying Chen and Ying Tong. In the real world, Ying Tong was already ten years old, but the voice of the child before him sounded more like that of a four- or five-year-old.
"Ah Mu, can you tell Uncle how you met that big sister outside?" Chen Ge wanted to figure out the adult's identity first. If the woman could be trusted, he would do everything in his power to win her over to his side. Being alone in this building was far too dangerous.
"You mean Skirt Lady?" the boy asked timidly.
"Skirt Lady?" The boy's name for the woman was peculiar — it sounded like something a little boy had just made up on the spot. "Is that what you always call her?"
"Mm-hm. Skirt Lady and Wooden Man have been taking care of me. They're very nice people. They play games with me and do all sorts of things together." The boy's voice was innocent and endearing, but it sent chills down Chen Ge's spine.
In his eyes, every resident in this building — aside from Ying Tong and Ying Chen — was a corpse.
Names like Skirt Lady and Wooden Man were obviously coined by a child. A guess surfaced in his mind, but it was too cruel. He didn't dare voice it to test Ah Mu.
"Are Skirt Lady and Wooden Man married?" Chen Ge asked casually.
"No. Skirt Lady gets angry a lot. She has a terrible temper, and Wooden Man doesn't like her at all." The boy's voice was tentative. "Wooden Man and I are both a little scared of Skirt Lady."
"I heard every word of that!" The woman's voice drifted in from the living room. "Who taught you to say that?"
Her temper did seem rather bad.
"But even though Skirt Lady has a bad temper, she has a gentle side too. Every time I get sick, she always shows up to take care of me. She talks with me and tells me stories." The image the boy painted was lovely. He was probably smiling as he spoke, but sadly Chen Ge couldn't see it — he could only hear the child's voice.
"She always shows up when you get sick? Did your mom and dad ask her to look after you?" Chen Ge tried to gently pry open the boy's memories.
"Yes. My mom and dad went to a very faraway place. Before they left, they asked Skirt Lady, Wooden Man, and Miss Red to take care of me."
"Three people?" He said three people, but in his mind Chen Ge was counting three corpses.
"Ah Mu, can you tell Uncle what all three of them look like?" Chen Ge avoided asking anything that might cause the boy pain. He didn't mention the bladed-object phobia, didn't ask how the boy had developed it. Instead, he followed along with the fairy tale the boy was spinning, as though he were the most loyal listener in the world.
"Skirt Lady always wears a long skirt. The skirt is embroidered with lots of flowers, and each one feels different when you touch them. Wooden Man doesn't like to talk. His skin feels very hard, like tree bark. Miss Red is very clean — her hair is always wet. She really, really loves red. Everything around her is red." The boy wasn't introverted at all; he seemed to enjoy talking to people. Almost as if showing off, he listed the three names and their characteristics.
Chen Ge didn't pay much mind to the descriptions of Skirt Lady and Wooden Man, but the last one — Miss Red — caught his attention.
The features of Skirt Lady and Wooden Man could all be distinguished by touch. Miss Red was the exception. Her name contained the word "red," and color was something a blind person couldn't perceive.
The boy before him called himself Ah Mu. Skirt Lady had said earlier that the child's eyes were normal — he wasn't blind. Logically, he couldn't be Ying Tong.
But Chen Ge had heard the boy's voice, and it sounded very much like Ying Tong's. There was no way such a coincidence existed in this world. He believed the boy had to be connected to Ying Tong somehow — something must have gone wrong along the way.
Chen Ge asked a few more questions about the boy's parents. Through the boy's words, he could hear how deeply the child missed them.
In the boy's memories, his parents had been wonderful to him — attentive in every detail, caring for him at every moment. They had been like a pair of gentle hands, cradling him softly in their palms.