To play a role.
Fang He said this was the key to identifying them.
“From the very beginning, I played the role of Dr. B, and I pretended to be a nurse for beds 3 and 4. As for Su Xin…”
“She pretended to be crazy; from the beginning, she was focused on playing the role of a patient.” Xiao Cheng quickly understood what he meant. “But I didn’t. The things I experienced were all the gardener’s methods of treatment. He wanted me to admit that I was crazy.”
Until last night, she remembered her persona and began to exploit it.
Therefore, in the gardener's view, the treatment was about to succeed and everything was about to end.
“I will recount the truth to the gardener, but that shouldn’t be all the information, so you need to add to it,” Fang He said to Xiao Cheng before entering the ward. “No matter what you say, you are the only one who has the opportunity to add to it before the treatment is completely over.”
After meeting the gardener, Xiao Cheng finally understood why Fang He had said those things.
In her hospital room, Su Xin and the other two were all unconscious, suspended by vines hanging from the ceiling.
A dense swarm of insects hovered around them, buzzing with hunger, and occasionally fawningly approached the gardener, as if urging him to have a meal soon.
The gardener remained as gentle and refined as ever, his hat brim pulled low, obscuring the black beads pinned to his face and revealing only his pale, thin chin.
He was wearing a white lab coat, and apart from the top hat, he looked exactly like the person in the promotional poster.
“You’ve come, my last patient.” He gave Xiao Cheng an incredibly sincere smile. “I’m so glad. After all, I knew from the first moment I saw you that you belonged here. Now I’m asking you for the second time, do you want to stay?”
Xiao Cheng had anticipated this. The gardener's figure gradually overlapped with the dark figure he had seen in his dream. He extended his right hand, which was wearing a white glove, and invited him once again: "Stay. Not only as my patient, but you are also qualified to be my student."
Xiao Cheng: "..." This sudden enrollment brochure.
"Excuse me, I'd like to interrupt you," Fang He said. "Before she gives her official response, there's something else I'd like to say."
The gardener was clearly only patient with Xiao Cheng. He turned his head to look at him with displeasure and said coldly, "I'll only give you three minutes."
“I’m afraid that’s not enough.” Fang He maintained a polite smile. “After all, what I’m going to say is about the entire hospital, about the truth about you.”
The gardener paused for a moment, then removed his top hat, his expression tense: "Very well, you now have five minutes."
Fang He reorganized his words and briefly recounted his previous analysis. The gardener's expression was quite calm, revealing no emotion whatsoever.
"And then?" he asked casually.
“You buried those dead patients under roses. You hated those who killed them, so you used this as punishment.” Fang He pulled out a long string of dog tags.
A strange, enigmatic smile appeared on the gardener's face: "You consider this punishment?" He slowly raised his hand, and the insects swarming around him stirred restlessly.
In the nick of time, a brilliant idea flashed through Xiao Cheng's mind, and she suddenly shouted before Fang He could, "It's treatment!"
The gardener abruptly stopped, his arm frozen in mid-air. He looked surprised, then turned his head with interest, his voice softening: "Tell me, why do you think that?"
"Because you are a highly skilled doctor, your treatment cannot be wrong. You are confident that those people have long since been completely cured under your treatment. They are your perfect works." Xiao Cheng forced himself to continue.
"But even after they left the hospital, some people still thought they were sick, and some even drove them to their deaths. Your masterpiece has been ruined, which shows..."
"What does that mean?" The gardener became visibly excited, a maniacal smile spreading across his face as he eagerly awaited Xiao Cheng's answer.
Xiao Cheng took a deep breath and slowly said, "This means that the sick ones are not the cured patients, but—everyone outside this hospital."
"They all need to receive treatment."
As soon as he finished speaking, the gardener burst into maniacal laughter: "And then? And then! The final truth, the very final truth!"
Thick black mist uncontrollably emanated from his body, like a giant, eerie shadow, enveloping him with menacing barbs.
A wisp of mist slowly drifted outwards. The black beetles let out a mournful howl the moment they came into contact with the mist, and then fell down one after another, quickly piling up into a dark mass on the ground.
The insects' bodies were gradually corroded, until only tiny, sesame-seed-sized growths remained. They continued to wail, their previously blurred features becoming incredibly distorted, like countless tormented ghost faces emitting helpless screams.
Xiao Cheng felt a chill run down her spine. She already knew where those who had been treated ended up, and why the dog tags were buried in the black flower bushes.
The gardener urged them to tell the final truth.
The vines binding the other three also began to writhe violently, twisting and turning like snakes, tightening their grip on them. Su Xin was being strangled, her face turning blue and purple, and she was clearly about to suffocate.
"Finally, finally..." Xiao Cheng looked to Fang He for help.
But Fang He's situation is not much better now. After the black mist killed the insects, it immediately set its sights on him and launched attacks on him almost everywhere.
He nimbly leaped left and right, temporarily avoiding being touched by the black mist. Taking advantage of a brief moment of dodging, he turned to Xiao Cheng and shouted, "Think carefully! What did he say to you! What did he only say to you!"
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
