Memories had turned into fragments. Every time Chen Ge tried to recall them, his head throbbed with splitting pain. He endured it silently, his hands gripping the bedsheets so tightly that blue-green veins surfaced along the backs of his hands.
Seeing Chen Ge in such pain, Xu Wan stopped talking. She placed a hand on his arm. "I know this is hard for you. Finish eating, then get some good rest."
Xu Wan picked up the tray of food from the nightstand and fed Chen Ge spoonful by spoonful.
His taste buds could clearly register the flavor of vegetables and meat — impossibly real.
Chen Ge swallowed mechanically, his gaze distant and unfocused.
The occasional memory fragments flickering through his mind told him that everything Xu Wan had said was true. He had indeed been searching for his parents all along, and he rarely drove anywhere.
The more he thought about it, the more the idea of driving repelled him.
Xu Wan picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. "If you need anything, just call me. Get some rest — if you recover well enough, you can be moved out of the isolation ward tonight. I know you're really eager to get back to the regular ward."
"Why would I be eager to go back to the regular ward? Is there some kind of danger in the isolation ward?" The words "isolation ward" made Chen Ge uneasy. His mind carried a deep impression of those four characters.
"There's no danger here. No one is going to hurt you. The only reason you want to go back to the regular ward is so you can see the scenery beyond the hospital walls." Xu Wan picked up the bowl and chopsticks and left.
"See the scenery beyond the hospital walls?"
After Xu Wan left, the ward fell quiet again. Chen Ge lay on the bed, and when he stopped thinking about anything, the pain throughout his body eased considerably.
Sunlight fell across him, his head resting on a clean pillow as he stared out the window.
A pleasant day, with a few carefree clouds drifting across a blue sky. The only thing marring the view was the iron mesh fitted over the window.
"Is the iron mesh there to keep thieves out, or to keep patients from escaping?"
The hospital had lovely surroundings — comfortable and pleasant. But an inexplicable unease gnawed at Chen Ge, and he didn't even know what he was afraid of.
The moment his brain tried too hard to remember, searing pain shot through it. When he thought about nothing, lying on the hospital bed like a lifeless doll, the pain slowly faded.
He began to move his body, trying to control his muscles. After roughly an hour, he finally managed to sit up under his own power.
"Wrists and ankles are bruised purple from the restraint straps. Bruises on my back and shoulders. Left leg in a cast. A cut on my cheek…" Chen Ge was examining his own body, his gaze traveling slowly across himself until it froze on the back of his hand, where a small, teardrop-shaped wound sat.
"How did this wound appear?"
The instant Chen Ge began to think, it felt as though a hand seized his brain nerves and wrenched them. The piercing pain nearly drove him to the brink of collapse.
Bang!
The ward door was pushed open again. Dr. Gao walked in alone, carrying a folder of documents. When he saw that Chen Ge was already sitting up, a flicker of surprise crossed his face. "It looks like you're recovering well."
"Dr. Gao, my head hurts so badly." Chen Ge sat on the edge of the bed. His body was still terribly weak.
"It's not time for your medication yet. Here — follow my lead. Cross your hands over your chest, then take a deep breath." Dr. Gao patiently guided Chen Ge. Once he had calmed down, Dr. Gao pulled up a chair and sat beside the hospital bed. "Do you remember what happened last night?"
"Last night?"
"You had a sudden episode last night. It seems you were experiencing severe hallucinations. It took three orderlies to bring you under control." Dr. Gao took a mechanical wristwatch from his pocket, glanced at the time, and set it on the nightstand.
The watch's hands emitted a very faint sound as they ticked, following a specific rhythm.
"Go ahead and talk — just think of it as chatting with a friend. You don't need to hold anything back. Whatever comes to mind, whatever you saw, you can tell me." Dr. Gao smiled. "You just need to keep one thing in mind: don't lie, and don't say anything that goes against what you truly feel."
"I can't remember. All I know is that I entered a dark, sinister hospital last night." The memories in his mind had already fragmented into pieces. Chen Ge lowered his head, his expression full of pain.
"What was that hospital called? What did you see inside? Were there other people around you?" Accompanied by the ticking of the mechanical watch, Dr. Gao posed the next question.
"That hospital seemed to also be called Xinhai Central Hospital. I saw all kinds of writing. The person who went in with me was… Zhang Ya?" A name suddenly surfaced in Chen Ge's mind. The moment it escaped his lips, he clutched his head. Searing agony made him curl up on the bed, screams pouring from his mouth. "It hurts! My head hurts!"
Dr. Gao let out a soft sigh, unscrewed a pill bottle, and fed Chen Ge two more white tablets.
After taking the medicine, Chen Ge's symptoms eased slightly. He lay back down on the bed, his face pale enough to be frightening.
"Your condition has worsened again. Last night, you never left Xinhai Central Hospital. You didn't go anywhere. The sinister, terrifying hospital you saw — that was this place." Once Chen Ge had calmed down, Dr. Gao gestured around the room. "Do you find this place sinister and terrifying?"
Sunlight filled the ward with brightness. The room was clean and orderly, with absolutely nothing sinister or frightening about it.
"Perhaps this place during the day and this place at night are not the same." Chen Ge vaguely felt as though he had said something similar somewhere before.
"The hospital has no difference between day and night. Buildings are lifeless — what truly changes is you." Dr. Gao spoke slowly. "The you during the day, and the you at night, are completely different."
"Me?"
"The you of the day can communicate normally, but the you of the night is like a wild beast." Dr. Gao placed the folder of documents on the bed. "At first, we thought it was just post-traumatic stress disorder. Then we discovered you also suffer from severe delusional thinking. And just recently, we identified the presence of an entirely separate personality within you."
"A separate personality?" Chen Ge's mind had grown sluggish. After absorbing so much information at once, he couldn't process it all.
"Here — watch the surveillance footage from last night first." Dr. Gao produced his phone. It was pure white with a large screen.
He pressed play, and a grainy recording began to play on the screen.
Chen Ge, lying on the hospital bed, suddenly sat up. Dragging his casted leg along and bracing himself against the wall, he crept quietly to the ward door.
When midnight arrived, he pushed open the door and tried to escape the hospital. A night-shift orderly spotted him, and a confrontation erupted. On the screen, Chen Ge was like a beast — shouting words no one could understand, fighting the orderly with desperate ferocity.
Two or three minutes later, two more orderlies arrived. It took the three of them working together to restrain Chen Ge and deliver him back to the isolation ward.