Six wards, and only the first door would open.
Was this the only one "set" to be openable? Or was it like the great gate he'd knocked on for five years—his current strength was only enough to open the first door?
Lin Qiye had knocked on the gate for five years, and only after opening his eyes—after his mental perception grew stronger—had he been able to open it and enter the asylum.
So the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth wards—would they, too, only open once his strength grew again?
Lin Qiye couldn't be sure. And right now, he had no time to dwell on it.
Because before his eyes, the ward door once covered in seals was slowly swinging open.
The ward inside wasn't large, and the light was dim. In the very center of the room stood a chair, and on the chair sat a woman in a black dress of star-sand, staring blankly ahead.
One woman. One chair. In the gloom of the room, there was nothing else at all.
Lin Qiye edged carefully up to the door, thought for a moment, arranged an extremely diplomatic smile on his face, and waved to the woman inside.
"Hello. I'm Lin Qiye."
Whoever she was, a little courtesy couldn't hurt. As the saying went, no one strikes a smiling face. If he minded his manners, then even if this was a god, she surely wouldn't make things hard for him.
But Lin Qiye stood outside smiling until his face went stiff, and the woman in black remained as motionless as a statue.
Lin Qiye gritted his teeth and walked straight into the room.
The instant he stepped inside, lines of text surfaced abruptly on the wall behind the woman in black.
"
Ward One.
Patient: Nyx.
Mission: Help treat Nyx's mental illness. When treatment progress reaches the set thresholds (1%, 50%, 100%), you may randomly draw a portion of Nyx's abilities.
Current treatment progress: 0%
"
"Nyx?" When Lin Qiye made out the words on the wall, he sucked in a sharp breath!
He didn't know much about mythology, but Nyx, Goddess of the Night—one of the five primordial creator gods of ancient Greek myth—her, he had heard of.
This was one of the gods standing at the very apex of the mythological hierarchy!
So this vacant-looking woman in front of him was the famed Goddess of the Night?
An aloof, elegant bearing; flawless features; smooth black hair spilling down her back like a waterfall; a black star-sand dress deep as the night itself, setting off skin so pale and fine it seemed carved from snow-mountain jade.
Her eyes were empty—but merely sitting there, she radiated a presence no human being could ever possess.
Even the empresses of recorded history could not have stood comparison.
Nyx. She was a god, and she was a sovereign.
The sovereign of the night!
Lin Qiye stroked his chin, studying Nyx carefully at close range. He had seen a god with his own eyes, and compared to that seraph on the moon, he kept feeling that something about Nyx was... missing.
Divinity? Power? Authority?
Or all of them at once?
Lin Qiye didn't know. But he could guess: whatever had reduced Nyx to this state was bound up with her illness.
And yet—this was a god!
A god standing at the summit of mythology!
How could she possibly fall ill?
Was her illness natural—or was it... man-made?
If someone claimed it had arisen naturally, Lin Qiye found that hard to believe. But if it was deliberate... he couldn't imagine what kind of existence had the power to make the Goddess of the Night sick.
And mentally ill, at that.
If the text on the wall was to be believed, Lin Qiye now had to try to treat Nyx. But what exactly was her illness?
As a former "mental patient" himself, Lin Qiye knew a little about mental illness. Broadly speaking, there was depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, delusional disorder, and so on.
To treat Nyx, he first had to determine what she actually had.
Lin Qiye considered for a moment, then crouched down in front of Nyx and waved a hand before her eyes.
"Can you hear me?" Lin Qiye said softly at her ear.
Suddenly, Nyx's body shuddered—startling Lin Qiye into stumbling back several steps!
Then, stiffly, Nyx's head turned toward him, her vacant eyes fixing dead on his!
Lin Qiye swallowed, not daring to move a muscle.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds...
Just as her stare was making Lin Qiye's scalp prickle, the look in Nyx's eyes began to change.
From vacancy to confusion.
From confusion to shock.
From shock to brimming tears!
Nyx's body trembled faintly, tears welling in her eyes. Her lips parted with difficulty,
she choked on the words for a long moment,
and then spoke, hoarse:
"I've found you at last... my child!!"
In that instant, Lin Qiye felt a jolt of electricity shoot from his soles straight into his skull, blasting his mind blank!
Her?
Me?
Child?
Huh???
Lin Qiye genuinely didn't remember what his parents looked like. After all, they had given birth to him, left him in Auntie's care, and vanished to who knew where.
But...
his mother should, presumably, in all likelihood... have been human.
Not the Goddess of the Night.
No—but what if...
Wait! This foreign Goddess of the Night—how is she speaking fluent Chinese?!
Oh, right. This is my dream. Understanding the speech of gods probably isn't strange here... maybe it's brainwave signal transmission or something?
While Lin Qiye's thoughts ran wild, Nyx rose to her feet, flung her arms wide, and came tottering toward him at a run!
She ran faster and faster, growing more and more worked up!
By now Lin Qiye's mind was pure porridge. Reflexively, he opened his arms, bracing to receive the Goddess of the Night's embrace!
And then,
the Goddess of the Night ran right past him, brushing his shoulder,
and threw her arms around...
the little vase on the windowsill behind him.
Nyx clutched the vase tight, tears streaming down her face. "My child... you were alive all along. I've finally found you!"
Lin Qiye: ...???
Next, Nyx's gaze landed on the chair she had sat on for untold ages.
She froze for a moment,
then rushed over, hugging chair and vase together, and burst into fresh sobs!
"Hypnos! My child—so you were here too!!"
Lin Qiye stood there like a statue, dishevelled and speechless, watching as Nyx claimed the vase, the chair, the wall, and finally the empty air as her children, one after another, crying herself into a soggy mess.
Lin Qiye: I think... I have a pretty good idea what her illness is...
And it's not a mild case...
...
In the morning, Lin Qiye drifted awake from the dream, stared at the bare ceiling, and sighed in resignation.
After a whole night with Nyx, he felt like a wrung-out rag.
Just as he was about to get up, he let out a soft "huh."
In his mind, that Mental Asylum of the Gods was floating amid its shroud of mist—and between him and the asylum there now seemed to be some intimate, unbreakable connection.
He no longer needed to be asleep; he could cast his consciousness into the asylum whenever he pleased.
So this is the perk for opening the gate... Lin Qiye experimentally linked his consciousness into the asylum, and instantly he could sense everything happening inside.
The five sealed wards, of course, remained closed to his probing.
At the moment, Nyx was in the courtyard, hugging her vase and her chair, murmuring to the empty air beside her about who knew what.
Lin Qiye sat on his bed, glumly rubbing the corner of his eye.
"Treat her, treat her... I'm no doctor. How am I supposed to cure her..."
Suddenly Lin Qiye's eyes lit up, as if something had occurred to him.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and a smile crept onto his lips.