Lying on the bed of a patient in a mental illness treatment center, Chen Ge's expression and words perfectly blended into this environment.

"How come he was fine during the day and so sick at night?" Zuo Han sat back on his bed, standing a long distance away from Chen Ge. "I'm a forensic doctor. I've been studying for so many years, but I've never heard that frequent stimulation can activate memory."

"You study forensics and deal with corpses. The situation with living people may be more complicated."

"Do you know how low your body temperature was when you had the attack just now? The only difference between you and a dead person at that time was that you still had a heartbeat." Zuo Han initially wanted to cooperate with Chen Ge and escape together, but he gradually realized that his roommate was very dangerous and might kill him at any time.

In Zuo Han's opinion, Chen Ge was not just sick, he seemed to be hiding other secrets.

"Has this hospital been conducting human experiments?" Zuo Han tried to find the answer with his knowledge, but the more he thought about it, the more confused he became. Science could not explain Chen Ge's condition. This was already in the realm of theology.

"Zuo Han, can you tell me some ghost stories? The scariest ones." Chen Ge lay on the bed, turned his head and looked at Zuo Han, his face full of anticipation.

"Are you sick? Why are you suddenly listening to ghost stories?" Zuo Han blurted out. He found that he could not see through Chen Ge at all. "You want to listen to a fellow patient telling ghost stories in the middle of the night. I really want to know what kind of mentality you have to say such a thing?"

"I just want to give it a try to see if the emotion of fear can stimulate me to recover my memory."

After hearing Chen Ge's words, Zuo Han also felt that there was a hint of truth in them. The corner of his eye twitched slightly, and then he told Chen Ge a few ghost stories he knew.

"Do you feel scared?"

"No, your story doesn't excite me at all."

"Who wouldn't get excited after hearing a ghost story?" Zuo Han climbed up from the bed and dragged his bed away from Chen Ge until he reached the door.

At this distance, if Chen Ge was at a disadvantage to him, he could open the door and run away immediately.

"Has anything really terrible ever happened to you?"

"Yes, I was locked up in a mental hospital, and my fellow patients asked me to tell him ghost stories at night." Zuo Han couldn't understand Chen Ge's behavior at all. It was difficult to explain from both medical and mystical perspectives.

"Your ghost stories are not scary at all. Why don't we..." Chen Ge reluctantly raised his hand: "How about we play some psychic games? Like pen fairy, plate fairy or something like that?"

There is no need to think, some things have been engraved in the body, Chen Ge is very familiar with these words.

"Didn't you lose your memory? How come you know so much about these weird things?" Zuo Han realized the problem.

"I had the impression that I was the owner of a haunted house, but the doctor said that I had taken on someone else's identity and that my story was made up."

"The doctor may be deceiving you. Judging from your strange behavior tonight, you are keen on seeking excitement and like the feeling of fear. You are also familiar with horror games such as the Ouija Board and the Die Board. You may have run a haunted house in the past!" Zuo Han touched his chin in thought.

"But why did the doctor lie to me?"

"How should I know?"

"Then let's play the Pen Fairy game? I should be able to remember something slowly."

“No play, no pen.”

"Where's the Ouija board? I also know a horror game called Back to Back, where one person lies on the bed and another hides under the bed..." Once Chen Ge thought deeply, his brain seemed to be torn apart, so whether he spoke or did something, it was all out of instinct.

Zuo Han did not speak to Chen Ge anymore. He lay on the bed with a cold face, his back to Chen Ge, and began to think about how to escape from the hospital.

After lying in this position for a while, Zuo Han felt inexplicably uneasy. He recalled Chen Ge's words and felt that something was wrong: "Is it possible that he is pretending to be sick? I have my back to him. Will he be standing behind me now?"

Goose bumps appeared on his neck. Zuo Han turned over suddenly and found that Chen Ge had fallen asleep.

"He looked normal when he was asleep. I never thought he would say something so horrible."

The ward fell quiet. At around two in the morning, a strange noise suddenly came from somewhere in the hospital, as if something had exploded.

Chen Ge and Zuo Han were both awakened. Before they could react, footsteps were heard outside the corridor.

“Someone is coming!”

There were two gentle knocks on the ward door. Before Chen Ge and Zuo Han could get close, the footsteps faded away.

When Zuo Han opened the door, there was no one in the corridor outside: "Who knocked on the door?"

"By the way, when you went out to check last night, someone came and knocked on the door, but he only knocked once." Chen Ge found that when he recalled the memories after waking up in the hospital, his brain did not hurt, but if he recalled the memories before he fell into a coma, his head would feel a tearing sensation.

"He knocked once yesterday and twice today? It seems that the other party came here specifically to do this." Zuo Han stared at Chen Ge: "Do you know any other patients in the hospital?"

"I don't remember. Since I was hospitalized until now, I seem to have been in a coma many times. Every time I wake up, my memory before the last coma becomes fuzzy."

"Is it possible that this is the case? The hospital wants to make you a 'normal person' that meets their standards, but each treatment fails, so they have to keep 'restarting'?" The more Zuo Han thought about it, the more he felt that it was possible: "You may have experienced similar treatment processes many times, but you didn't realize it."

"But what does this have to do with the person knocking on the door?" Chen Ge lay on the bed, trying his best to control himself from thinking and to seize the time to recover.

"Could the relationship between you and the person knocking on the door be the same as our relationship?" Zuo Han boldly speculated: "He should be your former patient. You were 'restarted' due to treatment failure, and he hid himself. The knocking on the door may be some kind of agreement between you, or he may be hinting at something to you?"

"That makes sense." Chen Ge nodded.

"It's possible that he will show up again tomorrow night. We will try to contact him then."

"good."

The hospital was not peaceful tonight. There were footsteps in the corridor all the time. Chen Ge fell asleep just before dawn.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the door of the ward was pushed open, and Dr. Gao and Xu Wan entered the ward together.

"How was your rest last night?" Doctor Gao once again ignored Zuo Han who was lying on his side in bed and walked directly to Chen Ge's bedside. He looked a little tired.

"Not too well. Something seemed to have exploded in the hospital last night. I was woken up by a loud noise." Chen Ge looked a little weak and spoke slowly.

"There's something wrong with the hospital's boiler room. It's not a big deal." Doctor Gao sat on the bed in the middle of the ward and asked, "Did you have a dream last night?"

"No." Chen Ge shook his head: "I feel like I am forgetting something. Some vague memory fragments in my mind are being covered by new memories. I am very conflicted and don't know which one is the real me."

"You can realize this, which means your condition has improved significantly. Don't force it. Let's take it slowly." Dr. Gao is very patient: "You can't be impatient when treating mental illness. You have to accept it, recognize it, and then defeat it."

After finishing speaking, Dr. Gao turned his head and looked at Zuo Han for the first time: "Chen Ge, I heard from the nurse that someone was wandering around in the corridor last night. You and your roommate did not leave the ward last night, right?"

Hearing what Dr. Gao said, Zuo Han opened his eyes, but he was lying on his side with his back to Dr. Gao, so neither Dr. Gao nor Chen Ge noticed.

"We were all in the room the whole time, but I did hear footsteps in the second half of the night. It was chaotic, as if there were a lot of people outside." Chen Ge did not continue the topic, but instead talked about the incident that woke him up just now: "Doctor Gao, I also found something very strange last night."

"you say."

"When I was awakened by the explosion last night, the sense of terror that I felt at that moment ran through my body like an electric current. I hated that feeling of fear and my body kept shaking." Chen Ge hit his chest with both hands, his face looking very bad.

Doctor Gao listened patiently, while Zuo Han, who was pretending to be asleep, curled his lips.

The madman who could stare at the mentally ill patient inside the door with a perverted smile on his face now says that he hates the feeling of fear?

"I felt like I was thrown into an endless nightmare. I had a headache, palpitations, and was covered in cold sweat. I couldn't breathe, and even felt weightless and dying." Chen Ge covered his head and spoke in a hurry: "My past memories seem to be filled with fear. When I was frightened again, a deep sense of powerlessness invaded my whole body. I hated the memories of the past and wanted to completely remove them from my mind! Doctor Gao, can you help me?"

Before Doctor Gao, who was sitting beside the bed, could speak, Zuo Han opened his eyes wide. He already knew what Chen Ge wanted to do.

"Does fear make you feel disgust and fear towards your past memories?" Doctor Gao nodded slowly. "I've talked to you before. The story you made up is really scary. It's definitely a terrible memory."

Chen Ge stared at the ceiling blankly. "It's really painful. I hate myself for being so scared."

"This is a normal reaction. You feel this way, which means you are gradually being cured." Doctor Gao took out the medicine bottle from his pocket and poured out two pills. He watched Chen Ge take them and turned away. "I'm going to modify the treatment plan. You and Xu Wan will go have breakfast later."

After Dr. Gao left, Xu Wan helped Chen Ge up, helped Chen Ge wash up, and then took Chen Ge to the hospital cafeteria.

"This is the cafeteria of the third ward. When your condition stabilizes, you can come here to eat by yourself." Xu Wan prepared food for Chen Ge before leaving.

"I am very familiar with this scene. In my memory, she often brought me meals." Chen Ge said to himself. He had no friends and sat alone in the corner of the restaurant, occasionally looking up at the patients around him.

"The Third Ward of Xinhai Central Hospital is a treatment center for mental patients, just like the place called the Third Ward in my memory."

Memories were interspersed with reality, tightly intertwined. Chen Ge tapped the table lightly with a spoon.

He had a blank expression on his face, thinking about something in his mind.

"Doctor Gao said that self-awareness is extremely important for mental patients. The word "self-awareness key" appeared in my mind some time ago, and the memory of the third ward also appeared with this word. Although I don't remember what I did in the third ward, one thing is certain, there is a certain connection between the self-awareness key and the third ward. If the third ward I imagined is based on the third ward in reality, does it also indirectly mean that the self-awareness key is hidden somewhere in the third ward?"

The key in his hand was twisted out of shape and the pain tortured Chen Ge's nerves, but he held on with his terrifying will.

"Doctor Gao said that my past memories are all fabricated stories. Everything that is deeply impressed in my memory can be found in reality. Then I want to see what the key to self-awareness in my memory looks like in reality."

When Chen Ge thought of the Self-Awareness Key and the Third Hospital Wing, another memory fragment naturally emerged in his mind: "Self-awareness is very important to mental patients. The Self-Awareness Key is related to the mental hospital. This arrangement is not accidental. It feels like someone behind the scenes deliberately set up all this. It's like he foresaw that one day I would be locked up in a mental hospital and set up the Self-Awareness Key in advance."

Every time the brain moves, it feels like being pierced by countless needles. Most people cannot bear this kind of pain.

“The key to self-awareness is like a node that triggers memory and points me in a direction for thinking.”

Chen Ge endured the severe pain while turning the key that was about to be deformed and ate his meal mouthful by mouthful.

He is slowly getting used to the pain, and facing his past in this most stupid and cruel way.

After finishing his meal, Chen Ge came to the garden outside the hospital on crutches: "No matter what, I can't be locked up in the isolation ward again. I will play whatever kind of person the hospital wants me to be. This way, I will have a chance to investigate the truth."

Sitting on the bench, Chen Ge looked at the pavilion in the distance. Zhang Jingjiu did not come over.

"Just for saying a few words to me, should I be punished so severely?" The sun shone on Chen Ge's face, but he did not feel the slightest warmth.

"It seems that Zhang Jingjiu will not come."

A few minutes later, the flowers were pushed open and a cat's head appeared. It seemed that this stray cat had been waiting for Chen Ge. Of course, Chen Ge might have been waiting for it too.

Coming out of the bushes, the white cat bit Chen Ge's trouser leg and dragged him towards the fence. Chen Ge did not resist.

But this time was different from the last time. After the white cat led Chen Ge to the fence, it called out to Chen Ge a few times, then it climbed out through the gap in the fence and ran to the park across the street.

"Is it asking me to wait here?" Chen Ge had no impression of this cat. There was no trace of this cat in his past or present memories.

Ten minutes later, just when Chen Ge suspected that he had been stood up by a cat, the white cat appeared again, followed by a woman in red.

"Zhang Ya?"

The woman was wearing ghost makeup and was slightly stunned when she heard Chen Ge calling out her name.