1. Return to zero
Luocheng, autumn.
In the empty office, under the pale incandescent light, the middle-aged doctor pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
"Hello, Chen Ji. I need to ask you some questions. After you answer, I will use my judgment to rate your symptoms on a five-point scale: 'None', 'Very Mild', 'Moderate', 'Severe', and 'Very Severe'. Is that okay?"
"Can."
"Do you want to end your life?"
“…Whose life will be ended?”
"Your own."
"No."
The middle-aged doctor hesitated for a moment: "Do you hold grudges? Do you find it difficult to forgive those who have hurt you?"
"I don't hold grudges."
"Do you often forget things? What memories do you have of being twelve?"
Across from the doctor, eighteen-year-old Chen Ji's gaze drifted out the window into the darkness. "Twelve? That summer, my deskmate Ma Kai secretly took an eraser from me. I really liked that eraser because it had a picture of Uchiha Itachi on it."
The doctor's gaze returned to the previous question about holding a grudge, and he crossed out "1 point, none" and re-wrote "5 points, very serious."
He looked at the boy opposite him carefully. The eighteen-year-old Chen Ji had a pretty handsome appearance. It seemed that because he had not been out for a long time, his skin was clean and his eyes were clear and sincere.
"Next question, can you stand being alone?"
This time, Chen Ji finally stopped to think about the problem seriously. After a long while, he replied, "Yes."
…
…
The interrogation lasted half an hour. When the hands of the quartz clock on the wall jumped to ten o'clock at night, the doctor said, "One last question. Do you feel that someone wants to harm you?"
Chen Ji: "No, my family treats me very well."
The doctor's eyelids twitched slightly, and he quickly wrote down in the notebook: 168 points of positive symptoms, 67 positive items, factor score 3.8. After the patient's parents died in a car accident, he suffered from severe "post-traumatic stress disorder" and had violent tendencies.
"Student Chen Ji, the diagnosis shows that you have severe post-traumatic stress disorder and need to be hospitalized for observation. The nurse will take you to the ward on the sixth floor later. You need to give me your phone. External information will interfere with you and affect the effectiveness of your treatment."
"Oh," Chen Ji didn't seem surprised.
"Please sit here for a while. I have to inform your family of the result," the doctor stood up with the diagnosis.
"Wait!" Chen Ji called out to him.
"What's wrong?" the doctor turned around and asked.
"I haven't given you the phone yet," Chen Ji took out a phone from his pocket and handed it to the doctor.
"I'm just keeping the phone for you temporarily," the doctor put the phone in his pocket, turned around and went out, closing the door tightly behind him before leaving.
In the empty and dark corridor outside the door, there was only a middle-aged couple, both of whom looked nervous.
The man went forward and said, "Old Liu, is everything going well? Did he...find anything?"
"No, he thinks you're all good," Doctor Liu nodded. "Here's the diagnosis. You can go to court and apply to have him designated as 'incompetent'."
The middle-aged woman smiled awkwardly: "Thanks, Lao Liu, I'll treat you to dinner later."
Doctor Liu said with a forced smile, "Forget the meal. I don't know why you want to label him a mental patient, and I don't want to ask. But when the court comes to review it, I can overturn my diagnosis."
Chen Ji's second uncle, Chen Shuo, quickly pulled out a bulging file bag from his black leather bag and said, "Count them."
Doctor Lao Liu opened the file bag and took a quick look. "Okay, you guys go back. I'll arrange for him to be hospitalized. I don't think he's going to resist, but just to be safe, I'll call two male nurses over."
"Okay, I'm leaving now," Chen Shuo walked towards the elevator with his wife Wang Huiling.
As they walked in the dim corridor, Wang Huiling lowered her voice and asked her husband, "How much money did you give him?"
"fifty thousand."
"Give so much? He
I just sat there and asked a few questions, so why did you take so much?" The plump Wang Huiling widened her eyes.
Chen Shuo said impatiently, "Do you really think that treating him to a meal is enough? It's only fifty thousand yuan, nothing compared to Chen Ji's house! Hurry up and go to the court to file an application tomorrow. When he becomes a person with no civil capacity, we can transfer the house to our names first, so that we don't have to worry about it any more."
Wang Huiling whispered, "Is Old Liu reliable? Don't let Chen Ji escape from the hospital."
"Don't worry, I heard that the sixth floor of Qingshan Hospital is like a prison, you can't escape. Let's not talk about things in this damn place, it always feels eerie to me."
When walking out of Qingshan Mental Illness Hospital, Chen Shuo looked back as if possessed by a ghost.
In the night, the twisted and dense ivy snaked around the building, almost obscuring the windows. As he glanced over, he saw shadows swaying in the gaps between the ivy, as if many "people" were watching him.
…
…
Chen Ji was held by two male nurses, one on each side, as they walked in the dark corridor on the sixth floor. Only the emergency passage sign on the wall provided some faint light.
There was no nurse's station on this floor. At the end of the corridor was a metal door that required a password to open. A male nurse covered Chen Ji's eyes while another entered the password.
With a click, the door opened.
Inside the door was a spacious hall, with single beds placed every 1.5 meters. In the dim light, the single beds looked like coffins, and there were hundreds of them.
The next moment, black figures sat up on the beds, turned their heads, and stared silently in the direction of Chen Ji.
The male nurse whispered, "Don't worry about them, just finish your work and get out."
The two of them pressed Chen Ji flat on the bed and secured his hands and feet with restraints.
"Wait!" said Chen Ji.
"What's wrong?" the male nurse asked impatiently.
Chen Ji: "Don't you need to change into hospital gown?"
"...Are you sick?" the male nurse cursed softly, then turned to his colleague and said, "Hurry up and leave."
With a clang, the iron door closed and the room fell into silence again.
Chen Ji turned his head and looked around. The windows of the ward were all welded with stainless steel anti-theft windows.
Rustle.
The sound of clothes rubbing against bedding could be heard in the ward, followed by the sound of footsteps.
Chen Ji heard the voices approaching him, and the voices became more and more numerous and closer.
"No..." Chen Ji opened his eyes helplessly and stared at the ceiling: "You're just going to kidnap me alone? How presumptuous."
In the faint moonlight outside the window, he saw five or six heads poking out like turtles, filling his field of vision with the ceiling. Each of their darkened cheeks wore a strange smile.
Chen Ji: "It's so fucking scary. It even cured my mental illness..."
Someone whispered, "Do you think he poops before or after meals?"
"Let me call the United Nations," a middle-aged man said as he took out a calculator and quickly punched in a series of numbers. The crisp voice of a woman counting was particularly abrupt in the ward.
Before he could finish pressing the button, an old man pressed the calculator.
"Return to zero."
All the sounds disappeared and the patients made way for the old man.
The old man came to the bedside, bent down and looked down at Chen Ji: "You are really here."
Chen Ji: "What do you mean?"
The old man took out a piece of paper and said, "Someone once said that you would come here today."
On the piece of paper, his appearance was drawn in pencil, and it looked very lifelike.
Chen Ji stood in awe: "Very reasonable."
…
…
People who are admitted to a mental hospital are either too stupid or too smart.
They are just dealing with themselves in a paranoid world, endlessly and unable to escape.
Chen Ji has some respect for the mental hospital.
So when he saw the sketch, he felt
The world began to become mysterious: "My head itches, as if it's going to grow a brain! Old man, did you draw this?"
"It's not painted by me, but I can take you to see the painter," the old man untied Chen Ji's restraints, and all the patients made way for them.
At the end of the corridor, a young man sat stupidly on the edge of the bed, staring blankly out the window.
"What's his illness?" Chen Ji asked.
"He had severe paranoia. He always said he was living in another world and that this world was his dream. Later he developed dissociative symptoms and became completely demented," the old man replied.
"When did he come in?"
"Come in a year ago. He said you'd show up today to prove he wasn't lying."
Chen Ji looked at the old man in surprise: "What's wrong with you? Your thoughts are so clear."
"I'm not sick," the old man said.
"He seems a bit like a mental patient..."
The old man said angrily: "I'm really not sick. I just hid here because I did something wrong before. If you don't believe me, ask me with the paranoid thinking scale."
Chen Ji: "Do you like dad or mom?"
Old man: "I like my mother."
Chen Ji: “…”
He came up to the delusional young man and asked, "Hello?"
But the young man just stared out the window in the dark without saying a word.
Old man: "He hasn't spoken in half a year."
"What's his name?"
"Li Qingniao."
Chen Ji felt a little regretful. He carefully looked at the dazed Li Qingniao and asked in a low voice, "Grandpa, did he ever mention what the world he lived in was like?"
"No," the old man shook his head.
Chen Ji asked again: "Grandpa, has he received any treatment since he was admitted to the hospital? Is there any way to restore his consciousness?"
"Why bother with treatment? Living on the sixth floor means they've given up on treatment. Just staying alive is enough."
"Ah? Don't try to save him? What if he's cured?"
"It can be cured," the old man touched his chin.
"How did you cure it?"
"There was a little girl with severe depression who lost over 30 kilograms in just over a month. Later, her father won over 20 million yuan in the lottery and took her out of the hospital, and she recovered."
ah?
Chen Ji slowly turned his head and looked at Li Qingniao: "I'll give you 20 million too."
Li Qingniao, who had been silent for half a year, suddenly said, "You are going to that world too."
ah?
The old man's eyes widened.
Chen Ji hurriedly continued to ask: "How do we get to that world?"
Li Qingniao fell silent again.
Chen Ji: "I'll give you another 20 million!"
Li Qingniao: "The people of Northern Juluzhou will be responsible for the smuggling."
Chen Ji: "I'll give you another 20 million... What is that world like?"
Li Qingniao paused for two seconds: "You only have a little over 40 million in your card."
Chen Ji: “???”
Brother, are you pretending to be sick?
He reached out to pinch Li Qingniao's cheek, but no matter what he did, Li Qingniao stopped talking.
The old man, with his back hunched and his hands behind his back, asked, "Young man, why are you here?"
Chen Ji responded: "My parents passed away, and I've been a bit withdrawn for the past six months, so my uncle and aunt sent me here."
The old man narrowed his eyes slightly and asked: "Young man, how much inheritance did your parents leave you?"
Chen Ji: "A villa worth over 20 million yuan, and tens of millions in savings."
The old man seemed to be thinking: "Then you have to be careful with your uncle and aunt. If they ask the court to declare you 'incompetent', you won't be able to keep your property."
Chen Ji's expression was drowned in the darkness of the ward: "How could that be? They are my relatives."
The wind picked up outside the window, swaying the ivy. The shadows of the leaves filtered through the moonlight, swaying and dancing on the ground like black flames.
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