"How could a hospital be entirely full of ghosts? I could buy the idea that occasionally a doctor or patient gets possessed, but saying the entire hospital is filled with ghosts is just absurd." Chen Ge didn't voice his true thoughts — he was simply following the rational part of his brain.
"True or false, we'll know once we go ask him, won't we?" Zuo Han was fearless. "The scream came from upstairs. Our ward has seven floors, so the patient's room should be on the fifth or sixth floor."
"Are you sure you want to take that risk? If the orderlies catch us wandering around at night, we'll be in trouble." Chen Ge was more cautious.
"It's not just me taking the risk — we'll be taking it together."
"We?"
"You said this morning that Zhang Jingjiu deliberately reached for your hand and even warned you verbally. Don't you find that strange?" Zuo Han stood in the doorway, tempting Chen Ge like a demon. "I've seen that patient too. He mutters to himself constantly — he'd never actively approach anyone. So you're special to him."
"But I have absolutely no impression of him." Chen Ge didn't dare casually dredge up old memories. He was afraid the pain would hit without warning.
"Bro, I'll be straight with you — the medication they feed you every day suppresses your memory. They don't want to cure you. They just want to mold you into someone they approve of." Zuo Han lowered his voice. "This world operates on its own set of rules. Those who break the rules are patients. Those who willingly obey and assimilate are the normals. It's a completely pathological system."
Seeing Chen Ge waver, Zuo Han pressed on. "You once said that whenever you try to recall your past, you get a splitting headache. Does a psychiatric condition like that really exist? I think they messed with your brain too — planted certain suggestions that prevent you from remembering."
"Why wouldn't they want me to remember?"
"Maybe your memories hold the truth behind this pathological world. At any rate, your past is definitely something the hospital fears, which is why they'd go to such lengths to stop you. The logic is straightforward." Zuo Han slowly won Chen Ge over. The two agreed to wait until the night rounds were finished before sneaking out together to investigate.
At just past one in the morning, Zuo Han and Chen Ge pushed open the ward door and stepped into the corridor.
"There's a camera at the stairwell landing, but the staff on duty won't be watching the monitors nonstop. As long as we move fast enough, they might not catch us."
"Aren't you just gambling?"
"Can't be helped. Smashing the cameras would be tantamount to telling the hospital that someone's trying to rebel. Our only option is to gamble." Zuo Han glanced at the cast on Chen Ge's leg. "When did you break your leg? How long until it heals? I don't want to be dragging around a cripple when we make our escape."
"I was in a car accident a year ago. In theory, injuries from a car crash should have healed long ago, so the fracture must have nothing to do with the accident — it probably happened after I was admitted."
"Now that's interesting. A psychiatric patient suddenly fractures his leg while hospitalized." Zuo Han looked at Chen Ge with cold eyes. "You pathetic wretch who's lost his memory — do you still think this hospital is wonderful?"
"You suspect the hospital broke my leg?"
"All beauty is a facade. Cruelty and sickness are the true themes of this world." Zuo Han's eyes were shot through with red veins. "Want to bet that your illness heals before your leg does?"
"Why would you say that?"
"You're the most dangerous patient. Once your leg heals, the hospital will get nervous — and that's when accidents will start happening to you. A string of coincidences that leave you injured all over again." Zuo Han's gaze turned dark. "I'm in the habit of thinking about the worst-case scenario, and I've never had any expectations of human nature. If my words offended you, I hope you won't take it personally. In time, you'll know who truly has your best interests at heart."
Some people stumble upon the most beautiful surprise in their deepest despair. Others glimpse the cruelest reality inside the most beautiful dream. Chen Ge didn't find Zuo Han's words harsh — on the contrary, he thought they made a lot of sense.
He had somehow formed a bond of mutual understanding with a paranoid patient.
"No matter what happens when we see Zhang Jingjiu, stay calm." Zuo Han led Chen Ge to the stairwell landing. The hospital at night was still lit, but the light offered no warmth — every beam radiated a bone-deep chill. Walking down the corridor, every hair on your body would stand on end.
"The hospital in the daytime and the hospital at night really are two different places." Chen Ge didn't know how to describe it. He just felt that the hospital from the last fragment of his memory was slowly merging with the one before his eyes, and hallucinations seemed poised to return.
Their luck held — Zuo Han and Chen Ge made it all the way to the fourth floor without being spotted by any orderlies. The entire ward was eerily quiet.
"This place doesn't feel like a psychiatric hospital. It feels more like a slaughterhouse — invisible blood flowing everywhere, and everywhere are souls with their mouths clamped shut." Zuo Han's tone had taken on a manic edge. He looked almost exactly like the deranged patients Chen Ge had seen on television — clearly in the throes of illness yet utterly unaware of it, convinced he was perfectly fine.
"Starting from this floor, every door is locked. The patients living here must be in pretty bad shape." Chen Ge and Zuo Han came from the general ward, where their doors couldn't be locked — they could come and go freely, and the doctors and nurses could enter at will. But the rooms on the fourth floor were entirely different. A padlock was fastened on the outside of each door. Patients' freedom was restricted; they needed a doctor or nurse's permission to leave.
"Good thing the doors still have windows, or else we'd have made this trip for nothing." They had barely reached the fourth floor when they heard footsteps coming from below.
"The sound is coming from the duty room — an orderly is coming!" Zuo Han had already mapped out the locations of the duty room and the nurse's station. He grabbed Chen Ge's hand and hoisted him onto his back in one motion. "Damn, you're heavy!"
"Where are we going?"
"Quiet." Zuo Han, burdened with the immobile Chen Ge, sprinted to the nurse's station at the far end of the corridor. The two of them ducked beneath the station's counter.
"Hiding in plain sight under the light? But are you sure they won't come over here?" Chen Ge thought Zuo Han's nerve was absolutely insane.
"It's past midnight — the orderlies and nurses have already changed shifts. I checked a few days ago. They like to stay in the first-floor duty room at night and rarely come up to the nurse's station." Zuo Han was the type who combined boldness with meticulousness. He never fought an unprepared battle, but he also wouldn't waste a good opportunity out of hesitation.
The footsteps drew closer and closer. The two patients fell silent in perfect unison. Their nerves were absurdly steady — even as the footsteps passed right by them, neither one's heart rate fluctuated in the slightest. As if this were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
"Remember the locations of the nurse's stations. There's one each on the first, fourth, and seventh floors. If something unexpected happens, I'll draw the orderly away, and you hide inside the station first." Zuo Han's tone was still devoid of emotion, but Chen Ge could tell he was genuinely looking out for him.
It was hard to imagine that a patient with severe paranoid delusion could be so considerate toward others. This detail made Chen Ge start rethinking everything Zuo Han had said.
Conflicting thoughts constantly warred inside Chen Ge's head. Every time he tried to reason through them, the two trains of thought collided as though threatening to tear his entire mind apart.
One side was represented by the hospital — Dr. Gao and everything she stood for. The other side was represented by the patients — himself.
One symbolized healing and hope. The other symbolized an unbearable past and despair.
Sometimes Chen Ge didn't know which to choose. The medication and the comfortable life he was living now were slowly dulling his senses, lulling him into accepting this existence. But then Zuo Han had appeared.
A fellow patient who offered Chen Ge a completely different perspective.
They left the fourth floor. Zhang Jingjiu's voice should have come from this level. Chen Ge and Zuo Han didn't know the exact location — they could only check each door one by one.