The patient support group session came to an end.
You Li continued flipping through the copy of Andersen’s Fairy Tales in his hands. To his right was a window that had been nailed shut. Although it could not be opened, it was the only glass window in the entire hospital that had not been fitted with iron bars.
Sunlight poured through the clear pane without obstruction, driving away the cold, antiseptic scented air that lingered indoors.
You Li sat completely bathed in that holy glow, his fingertips lightly turning the pages one after another.
He liked this place very much.
It gave him the illusion that he was still a normal person, still living a proper life. Even his body seemed to grow warm beneath the sunlight.
And so, in an environment where someone crouched in front of him pretending to be a potted flower, while another person behind him writhed across the floor insisting he was a caterpillar, You Li quietly finished reading the entire book of Andersen’s Fairy Tales.
At three in the afternoon, recreation time ended.
“Number 13.”
They were calling for You Li.
Every patient in the hospital had their own number, either a hospitalization number or a bed number.
Partly for privacy protection and partly because psychiatric patients often struggled to remember even their own names, doctors and nurses found it far more convenient to address them by numbers.
If the doctor had not told him his name was You Li, he probably would have believed that his name really was Number 13.
After all, he had lost his memory.
The doctor assigned to pick him up pushed the door open and entered, glancing around the recreation room while checking the watch on his wrist.
“It’s time for your blood tests and EEG examination.”
Like an obedient student, You Li raised his hand.
“Doctor, I’m over here.”
The doctor helped him return the book before moving behind him to push his wheelchair.
“Did You Li finish the book?”
In private, they never called him Number 13.
You Li seemed entirely unaware of this. He tilted his face up slightly to look at the doctor bending over behind him as he pushed the wheelchair out of the room, exposing the pale line of his neck without any defense at all.
“The book was very good. Thank you, Doctor.”
Like a little lamb.
“Feeling a bit better now?”
“Much better.”
The infusion room and the blood testing laboratory were located on the same floor. Three in the afternoon was the hospital’s fixed examination period and aside from them, many others were already lined up outside the blood collection window.
The nurse repeatedly drew liquids, flicked the syringe with practiced movements, her actions professional, swift and efficient without wasting a second.
“Next.”
“Next.”
“Ne-”
You Li watched her mechanical repetition in silence as his wheelchair was pushed forward through the queue until it stopped in front of the window. Since he was right handed, he instinctively extended his left arm for convenience.
Seven full tubes of venous blood were drawn before the process finally stopped.
Every vial was labeled before being sent away for different tests afterward.
The nurse pressed a cotton swab firmly against the puncture site.
“Next.”
You Li accepted it from her hand.
“Thank you.”
The doctor pushed him beside a medical waste bin and waited for him to finish stopping the bleeding before throwing the bloodstained cotton away.
Having lost quite a bit of blood, You Li felt somewhat dizzy.
“Doctor, let’s go do the next test. I want to rest.”
The doctor peeled open a candy wrapper and placed a piece of candy into his mouth.
“Keep it in your mouth. Don’t swallow it.”
You Li held the candy obediently between his lips. His speech became slightly muffled but he still nodded compliantly.
“Thank you.”
The next examination was the EEG test.
The testing room was very small and almost empty inside.
Fixed equipment. Cameras. A white examination bed. A wooden chair.
The doctor skillfully applied conductive gel onto him. It felt cold against his skin. Then he attached electrode pads to You Li’s forehead, reminding him carefully not to move too much or let them fall off.
You Li lay flat on the bed and nodded seriously.
For some reason, the entire process felt strangely familiar to him, as though he had already undergone it countless, countless times before.
Even the fingers resting lightly over his abdomen remained completely relaxed.
A voice suddenly came from behind You Li.
He turned his head to look.
The doctor was standing outside by the small window in the door, his gaze direct and unwavering as he asked calmly.
“Are you done showering?”
You Li nodded.
“Then I’ll come back later for rounds.”
After saying that, the doctor turned and left.
You Li’s palms were damp, water still dripping from them. The heat from the shower had flushed his skin a faint pink. He waved his hand lightly.
“Okay. Goodbye, Doctor.”
Then he added softly,
“See?”
Inside his mind, cold laughter rang out three times in succession.
You Li’s legs were not truly crippled, nor were they diseased. He could still manage simple standing movements. After drying himself off, he changed into a fresh set of hospital clothes.
His husband must have been very wealthy.
He even had separate hospital sleepwear to change into. Unlike the blue and white striped patient uniform he wore during the day, this set was made from a smoother, softer fabric that clung lightly against the skin, patterned with pale white and pure white stripes.
You Li slowly opened the shower room door.
With painstaking effort, he shifted himself little by little across the short distance toward the wheelchair waiting just outside.
By the time he finally managed to sit down successfully, his breathing had already become uneven and shaky. He pressed hard against his trembling legs, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to steady himself.
Not long afterward, the doctor returned.
“Did you take your medicine?”
“I did.”
You Li sounded nervous.
But his nervousness was not because he had failed to take the medicine, nor because he had secretly hidden the pills away.
It was because……
After checking the medicine packets and confirming that every prescription for today had decreased by exactly one day’s dosage according to schedule, the doctor walked directly into the bathroom with absolute precision.
Without the slightest hesitation, he picked up the rinsing cup sitting in front of the plastic mirror and removed the toothbrush inside.
Then, deliberately turning around so You Li could see clearly, he flipped the cup over.
The pills hidden at the bottom spilled neatly into his palm.
Every single day.
Every day since You Li had awakened two days ago, up until today, the third day, no matter where he hid the medicine, the doctor never needed to search for it.
Every single time, it was as though this scene had already happened countless times before.
The doctor always knew in advance where You Li would hide the pills.
Without wasting even one second thinking about it, he would walk straight toward that day’s hiding place.
“The day before yesterday, it was inside the folded towels.”
“Yesterday, it was underneath your pillow.”
“Today, it was at the bottom of the cup.”
“Ours is a legitimate hospital. Even if patients refuse to take medicine, we do not use forced measures.”
“But your condition has clearly worsened because you didn’t take your medication these past two days.”
The doctor stared at him steadily.
“Just now, were you talking to the thing inside your head again?”
One question after another pressed down upon him.
You Li was almost too ashamed to lift his head.
“Yes.”
“You’ve already started developing a sense of identification with your second personality.”
The doctor’s tone became severe.
“If this continues, one day it will completely replace you.”
A string of garbled curses exploded inside You Li’s mind.
His expression turned slightly blank.
“But I…”
The doctor interrupted with a question of his own.
“You think you’re not sick?”
You Li fell silent.
“No normal person talks to the voices inside their own mind.”
“And no normal person believes the world is fake, or thinks they could die at any moment.”
“You are already gravely ill yet you still refuse treatment from the hospital.”
“If this continues, you’ll never leave this place for the rest of your life, You Li.”
The emotions in the doctor’s voice remained calm throughout, as though he were merely stating objective facts.
“Your husband is dead.”
“But your parents, your family, your relatives and friends are all still waiting for you outside.”
“They all hope you can recover, stand up again, continue your studies and have a bright future ahead of you.”
The doctor paused briefly before adding,
“Rather than spend your entire life confined to a wheelchair.”
He bent down and placed the pills back into You Li’s hand.
“You’re still so young. The choice is yours.”
Struggle and pain slowly surfaced in You Li’s eyes.
“…Am I really… sick, Doctor?”
Ever since waking up with amnesia, he had never truly believed it.
Nothing felt real.
It was as though he were floating in empty air, untethered and insubstantial, unable to find any solid ground beneath his feet.
“Even if you refuse to believe you have a mental illness, the fact that you remember nothing is undeniable.”
“Don’t you want your memories back?”
A very long silence followed.
Finally, the young man lowered his head.
His eyelashes drooped quietly, the curve of the back of his neck revealing a soft and vulnerable angle as he stared at the mountain of colorful pills piling up in his palm.
When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“I do.”
“I want to.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(╯°□°）╯︵ ☕ — deploy caffeine!
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · I have amnesia (1)Chapter 2 · I have amnesia (2)Chapter 3 · I have amnesia (3)Chapter 4 · I have amnesia (4)Chapter 5 · I have amnesia (5)Chapter 6 · I have amnesia (6)Chapter 7 · I have amnesia (7)Chapter 8 · I have amnesia (8)Chapter 9 · I have amnesia (9)Chapter 10 · I have amnesia (10)Chapter 11 · I have amnesia (11)Chapter 12 · I have amnesia (12)Chapter 13 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 14 · I have amnesia (14)Chapter 15 · I have amnesia (15)Chapter 16 · I have amnesia (16)Chapter 17 · I have amnesia (17)Chapter 18 · I have amnesia (18)Chapter 19 · I have amnesia (19)Chapter 20 · I have amnesia (20)Chapter 21 · I have amnesia (21)Chapter 22 · I have amnesia (22)Chapter 23 · I have amnesia (23)Chapter 24 · I have amnesia (24)Chapter 25 · I have amnesia (25)Chapter 26 · I have amnesia (26)Chapter 27 · I have amnesia (27)Chapter 28 · I have amnesia (28)Chapter 29 · Desert Highway (1)Chapter 30 · Desert Highway (2)Chapter 31 · Desert Highway (3)Chapter 32 · Desert Highway (4)Chapter 33 · Desert Highway (5)Chapter 34 · Desert Highway (6)Chapter 35 · Desert Highway (7)Chapter 36 · Desert Highway (8)Chapter 37 · Desert Highway (9)Chapter 38 · Desert Highway (10)Chapter 39 · Desert Highway (11)Chapter 40 · Desert Highway (12)Chapter 41 · Desert Highway (13)Chapter 42 · Desert Highway (14)Chapter 43 · Desert Highway (15)