Chang Gu didn't explain the reason. His voice was urgent, and after delivering that single line, he hung up the phone.
"Why would Chang Gu be in a psychiatric hospital? How did a nearly blind man make it all the way there? Could he have been taken hostage?"
Chen Ge pocketed his phone, picked up the backpack he had prepared long ago, and slowly rose to his feet.
"The Nightmare Academy mission can wait. I'll meet up with Chang Gu first and figure out a plan from there." He left the amusement park and hailed a cab to the Hanjiang Mental Health Center.
Hanjiang had three psychiatric hospitals still in operation, and by coincidence, Chen Ge had been to all three of them before.
He slipped into a quiet corner of the lobby the moment he walked in, then pulled out his comic album and summoned Qiu Mei.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
Before Chen Ge could exchange a word with Qiu Mei, a doctor spotted him. "It's too late to visit patients. Come back tomorrow."
"I'm not here to visit a patient." Chen Ge turned around slowly, his mind racing for a plan.
"Then you're here to see a doctor yourself?" When the doctor caught sight of Chen Ge's face, his expression shifted to surprise. "It's you?"
Chen Ge recognized him, too. It was this doctor he had encountered when he'd used Captain Li's name as cover to investigate Jiang Xiaohu at the psychiatric hospital.
He couldn't remember the doctor's name, but he remembered his face.
"Did Captain Li send you here again?" The doctor clearly hadn't expected to run into Chen Ge a second time.
Chen Ge nodded and said quietly, "I'd like to ask you about someone."
"Who?"
"His name is Chang Gu."
"I don't think we have a patient by that name."
"Then what about visitors—people accompanying patients? He has very poor eyesight. One of his eyes is completely white."
"Someone that distinctive—if he'd shown up, the nurse on duty would definitely remember. Hold on, I'll go check with the front desk."
When the doctor described Chang Gu's physical features at the nurses' station, the staff member recalled him immediately.
"They came in around dusk. They wanted to visit a patient in a deep coma."
"They?"
"Yes. Besides the blind man, there were two men and a woman. I'm not sure what their relationship was—the atmosphere between them felt strange, like they didn't actually know each other well." The staff member answered honestly, out of respect for the doctor.
"Where are they now?"
"After visiting the patient, they left. But here's the odd thing." The staff member paused to think before speaking. "Half an hour after the two men and the woman left, they came back and asked if I'd seen the blind man. It seemed like they'd gotten separated. I even helped them look around the hospital."
Chen Ge pieced together what had happened. Chang Gu had been found by his "family." For whatever reason, they had come to the psychiatric hospital, and after the visit, Chang Gu had seized the opportunity to slip away.
"Brother, which patient did they come to see? Can you take me there?"
"That's…" The staff member glanced at the doctor, and only after receiving a nod of approval did he agree. "All right, I'll take you."
They left the building and headed to an isolated ward behind the main psychiatric hospital.
Chen Ge had seen this kind of isolation unit before. It was typically used for patients who posed an extreme danger.
"The patient they visited is named Chang Wenyu. She's been in a persistent vegetative state for many years. As far as we know, she has no family, though someone sends payment for her care every single month." The staff member clearly had a deep impression of this patient.
"She's a vegetative patient—why would you lock her away in an isolation ward? She can't hurt anyone." Chen Ge was puzzled.
"Even though she's in a vegetative state and unconscious, strange things tend to happen whenever anyone gets too close to her." The staff member was about to say more, but the doctor beside him suddenly coughed, cutting him off.
"I've read up on the case of Chang Wenyu," the doctor explained to Chen Ge. "After examining her, her attending physician found that her brain nerves and neurological functions are completely normal. She doesn't appear to be in a coma so much as a state of dormancy—or more accurately, a deep sleep."
"What do you mean, deep sleep?"
"In simple terms, the patient is dreaming a dream from which she cannot voluntarily wake." The doctor seemed unwilling to discuss the matter further and quickened his pace. "Here we are."
The isolation ward at the Hanjiang Mental Health Center was different from the one in the Third Building. It was far more humane—no high walls or iron bars, just a warning sign on the door prohibiting unauthorized entry.
The moment Chen Ge stepped inside, he knew something was off. The building was noticeably colder and quieter than the other one. He could barely hear any ambient noise, as though they were the only living people in the entire structure.
As they walked down the corridor, Chen Ge's suspicion deepened.
Normally, the more dangerous a patient, the deeper into the building they would be placed.
Chang Wenyu was nothing more than a vegetative patient who couldn't wake up, and yet her room was at the very back of the entire building.
"Can I go inside and take a look?" The door wasn't locked. Without waiting for the doctor's permission, Chen Ge pushed it open.
The room was large, with three hospital beds, but only the one in the middle was occupied.
Chen Ge walked to the bedside, and what came into view was a face of striking, otherworldly beauty.
The patient information label on the headboard showed that the woman was nearly thirty, yet her face looked that of an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl.
Time seemed to have forgotten this woman. Maturity and sweetness intertwined within her, like a glass of exquisite, full-bodied red wine, or a cup of iced milk tea.
The only tragedy was that her left eye had been removed, leaving behind a dark, hollow socket that shattered the beauty of her entire face and gave her a sickly, utterly singular appearance.
"That's Chang Wenyu?"