The Third Mental Illness Rehabilitation Center was built twenty-three years ago and is one of the earliest private mental illness treatment institutions in Jiujiang.
As the name suggests, they are not a regular mental hospital, but just a rehabilitation center.
There are three wards in the rehabilitation center. The fees in the first ward are much cheaper than those in regular hospitals, but the accommodation environment is extremely poor.
The second ward charges one-fifth more than regular hospitals and is equipped with dedicated care and doctors on duty.
The third ward serves a small number of patients and charges extremely high fees, several times that of ordinary wards.
From the notes left by the dean, it can be seen that the rehabilitation center was completely different when it was first established. At that time, Ward 3 was not only not a closed restricted area, but also the place with the highest fees and the best environment in the entire rehabilitation center.
After operating for about three months, the rehabilitation center welcomed a special patient.
The dean recorded the scene in detail. In his mind, that day should be a turning point.
A car with a license plate from another province drove into the hospital, and two men dragged out a pregnant woman with delicate features and beautiful natural look from the back seat of the car.
The dean received them personally and after questioning found out that the woman was suffering from a serious mental illness.
Out of consideration for the pregnant woman's safety, the dean refused.
The man didn't care. He paid ten times the hospital fee for a VIP ward and told the dean that he would prepay the fee for half a year at a time.
Looking at the cash on the table, the director and several doctors were somewhat tempted. After the rehabilitation center opened, the general wards were overcrowded, but most of the rooms in the third ward were still empty. After all, most patients who are not short of money will still choose to receive treatment in regular hospitals.
Under the doctor's persuasion, the dean arranged for the pregnant woman to be admitted to hospital and placed her in Room 3 of the Third Ward.
After making sure the pregnant woman was safely admitted, the man left his phone number with the doctor and claimed that he was the pregnant woman's husband. However, when the dean wanted to see their marriage certificate, the man could not produce it.
The money had been received and the matter was a done deal. Even if the dean wanted to go back on his word, he couldn't. All he could do was take good care of the pregnant woman.
After diagnosis by the doctor, it was found that the pregnant woman was indeed suffering from a mental illness with typical symptoms of bipolar disorder. She never communicated with others, sometimes cried alone, sometimes became furious, smashed everything she saw, and even hurt herself.
In order to protect her, the hospital wrapped the furniture in Room 3 with thick cotton cloth.
The woman's condition was very unstable, and because she was pregnant, most medicines could not be used. Doctors could only take turns to provide her with psychological counseling.
More than three months passed like this. As the due date approached, the director specially hired several nurses to guard the ward around the clock.
It is not known whether it was because the upcoming birth of the child awakened the crazy woman's maternal instinct, or whether the doctor's treatment was effective.
The pregnant woman was no longer going crazy, and most of the time she would not let anyone get close to her. She would just touch her belly and sit in a low bed, talking to herself.
Four months later, the baby was born and the pregnant woman's condition had improved significantly.
The director and the doctor at the rehabilitation center breathed a sigh of relief and called the pregnant woman's husband that day, but after several calls, no one answered.
They had a bad feeling and went to check the man's ID card, only to find out that all the documents were fake.
The director and the doctor discussed and decided that if the man still didn't come after the advance money was spent, they would call the police. Considering the woman's condition, they didn't tell the woman about it.
The pregnant woman did not know the news. After the child was born, she seemed to have regained hope in life and began to actively cooperate with the treatment. From time to time, she would take the initiative to ask for her husband's information. She felt that her husband would come to pick her up after she recovered from her illness.
But after waiting for half a year and spending all the prepaid hospital fees, the man seemed to have disappeared and never showed up again.
Different voices gradually emerged in the hospital. Some doctors and nurses suggested sending the pregnant woman away, as it was time-consuming and laborious to take care of a large and a small child.
The director couldn't bear it and said to wait a little longer, but the nurse who was taking care of the woman's daily life accidentally let it slip.
The woman took the initiative to ask to call her husband, but there was a cold, mechanical voice on the other end of the phone, indicating that the number had been suspended.
Before the woman was sent to the rehabilitation center for treatment, she seemed to have reached an agreement with the man. Now that the agreement has been torn up, the woman, who was already ill, is in a worse condition.
She began to feel hostile towards the people around her, as if she was lost in a dark maze and couldn't get out.
To prevent the sick woman from harming the newborn, doctors separated her from the baby.
The woman was crazy and unable to communicate, and the baby was still young, so the hospital had no choice but to raise the baby.
They are also actively treating the woman, hoping to get the man's information through her so that he can pay for the follow-up treatment and hospitalization costs.
No one could have imagined that this treatment would last for three years, and that the woman's child grew up in a mental hospital and learned to talk and walk in this hospital full of crazy people.
The age of zero to three is called infancy, which is the period of most efficient learning in a person's life and also a critical period for forming basic cognition of things.
It was in this twisted and morbid environment that the woman’s child experienced the most important three years of her life.
The prepaid money had long been spent, and the doctors and nurses were now taking care of them on a voluntary basis. One or two days was fine, but as time went on, more and more people began to complain, and their views on the child became complicated.
The crazy mother lived in the ward. The thing the child did most in the past three years was to be picked up by doctors and nurses and look through the window on the door of Ward No. 3 at the woman inside through the door panel.
After a long time, after the child learned to walk, he would sometimes run to the outside of Ward No. 3 by himself and look at the ward door which was several times his height.
As the days go by, the world is full of colors for children of the same age who are accompanied by their families.
The world in this child's eyes was somewhat distorted. The cold white tone occupied most of his memories, and gradually he began to behave differently from ordinary children.
Chen Ge unknowingly turned to the end. The contents on the white paper were like the dean's personal diary: "This child is even more terrifying than my childhood experience."
He thought that playing with human head models and taking apart plastic bones when he was a child was already too much, but he didn't expect that there were people who were even more miserable than him.
Putting down the white paper, Chen Ge looked at the unsent letters.
There was no stamp or signature on the envelope, and it looked yellowed and worn. It must have been written many years ago and never sent.
Chen Ge opened the letters one by one in chronological order.
The first letter was written twenty years ago, when the woman's child was only two years old.
"Doctor Chen, this is the first time I've seen such a smart child. I can't believe he can learn everything so quickly."
"Born in a place ignored by the normal world and living in a sick environment, should I send him away?"
"This kid will definitely be a genius when he grows up, but his current behavior makes me feel uneasy."
"Since he learned to speak, he has always liked to talk to himself, just like his mother. No, it feels more like he is communicating with something we can't see."
"The doctors and nurses on duty were very busy. No one except me taught him to speak, but I always heard some unfamiliar words from his mouth."
"Did he learn it himself, by eavesdropping on doctors and patients? Or was there something teaching him?"
"I am a materialist, but what happened to this child has shaken me. It is said that when they are infants, they can see things that adults cannot see. Is this true?"