These medications had been divided with a pill cutter, some into quarters, some into halves, while others remained whole. There were even several pills he had to take at the same time.
Using a cup of warm water, You Li swallowed them one by one into his stomach. By the end, he had drained the entire glass.
The doctor stood nearby and watched in silence. Only after the very last pill had been swallowed did he step forward to place the empty cup back where it belonged.
“Good boy.”
You Li lowered his head. Discomfort pinched at his brows, his complexion pale, even his lips drained of color, as though he had become sick from drinking too much water.
Even so, he still forced himself to behave as politely as usual.
“Good night, Doctor.”
As the doctor left, he pulled the ward door shut behind him.
“Good night.”
The sound of footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Leaning weakly against his wheelchair, You Li pressed a hand over his abdomen, his brows faintly knitted together. The medication was beginning to take effect slowly.
It felt as though his emotions had separated from his body, emptying, dissolving, fading away bit by bit…
The sedatives drained the strength from his entire body. Even the fingertips resting over his stomach trembled faintly.
It felt as though he had eaten an entire meal made of medicine. His tongue, throat and mouth were filled with the bitter taste of pills, while his stomach ached with bloated fullness from the glass of water he had forced down. The discomfort was unbearable.
His trembling hands slowly pushed the wheelchair forward, inch by inch, until he finally made it back into the bathroom.
Facing the toilet, the faint nausea that had lingered at the edge of his senses gradually intensified under the pressure of psychological rejection.
Covering his mouth, You Li dry heaved a few times. Not long after, all the medicine he had swallowed moments earlier came back up.
Some of the pills had already begun dissolving yet the medicinal liquid had not fully broken apart. His entire mouth was flooded with bitter medicine. After flushing the toilet, he rinsed his mouth over and over again.
The face reflected in the mirror looked even paler than before yet the corners of his eyes and the tip of his nose were flushed red from the physical strain.
You Li looked as though he was on the verge of vomiting up tears. His lashes were damp but he seemed accustomed to swallowing every ounce of pain back down his throat.
Quietly, so very quietly, he scooped up water to wash his face, then rinsed every finger beneath the cold stream as well.
The reason he had never flushed the hidden pills down the drain was because wasting them always filled him with guilt.
The places where he hid his medication were always clean and carefully chosen, all because he feared that one day, if he relapsed and lost control again, he might desperately need them in an emergency.
But after trying just now, he realized that the moment he swallowed them, he would only throw them back up again.
There was nothing he could do.
You Li stared silently at himself in the mirror. He lifted a finger to wipe away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes but in the next instant, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
The bathroom mirror could reflect the door to the hospital ward.
The doctor, whom he had assumed had long since left, was standing behind the small window in the ward door at this very moment, silently meeting his gaze through the mirror.
Panicked, You Li abruptly turned around and met the doctor’s eyes directly.
He had no idea how long the doctor had been standing there, nor how much he had already seen.
Seen him gagging in disgust.
Seen him struggling to push his wheelchair.
Seen him vomiting again and again, rinsing his mouth, washing his face,
And through it all, never saying a single word.
Now the two of them faced each other in complete silence.
The doctor suddenly smiled at him.
A strange, unsettling smile.
Almost instinctively, You Li gripped the wheelchair armrest tightly.
Without warning, a drop of water slid down the boy’s face. It was not a tear, merely water left behind when he had wiped at his eyes with freshly washed fingers.
Yet against the confusion and helplessness written across his expression, it resembled a tear far too much.
In the end, disappointment gradually surfaced within the doctor’s gaze.
Without a sound, he turned and left.
You Li blamed himself terribly after that.
He barely slept the entire night.
Early the next morning, he was wheeled into the consultation room.
The doctor’s tone sounded as familiar and natural as though nothing had happened the previous night.
“Didn’t sleep well?”
You Li remained unusually quiet. Lowering his head, he clasped his fingers together and gave a small nod.
The doctor asked, “You threw up all your medicine last night, didn’t you?”
Shame flooded You Li immediately.
Unexpectedly, however, the doctor comforted him instead.
“It’s not your fault.”
You Li let out a quiet breath of relief, though at the same time, his heart tightened uncontrollably once more.
From the moment he entered the room until now, he still had not spoken a single sentence.
The doctor continued, “This is because your condition has already worsened to the point of developing somatic symptoms.”
You Li murmured softly, “Has it really become that serious?”
He truly had felt awful last night.
The doctor’s tone carried a trace of regret.
“If medication no longer produces results, the hospital may need to proceed with physical intervention treatments for you.”
He gave examples calmly.
“Such as modified electroconvulsive therapy without convulsions, or transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment.”
The moment You Li heard those two terms, his breathing turned tight and uneven.
An instinctive physiological rejection surged through him so violently that his voice almost sounded pleading.
“Doctor, I’ll take my medicine properly. I’ll cooperate with treatment. I’ll be obedient.”
Clearly, these physical treatments were all legitimate medical procedures. Even after undergoing dozens of sessions, people generally would not die from them.
How strange, he thought.
In his mind, he did not feel afraid, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he did not think there was anything particularly frightening about them.
Yet his body was telling him something entirely different.
It was telling him that he was terrified.
The doctor asked in return, “Then how am I supposed to trust you again?”
You Li’s fingertips tightened around his clothes.
He had no answer.
A long silence lingered inside the treatment room before the doctor finally let out a weary sigh, as though deeply troubled.
“How about this instead? We’ll move to psychological therapy.”
He continued, “This afternoon, we’ll be gathering psychiatric patients who suffer from persecutory delusions, just like you, for a group psychotherapy session.”
The doctor looked at him.
“You’ll cooperate actively this time, won’t you?”
Relief washed over You Li so suddenly it felt like surviving a disaster. He nodded repeatedly.
“Thank you, Doctor. I definitely will.”
The doctor was extremely busy today and only instructed a nurse to wheel him out afterward.
After the afternoon nap, You Li was brought to a special consultation room.
Aside from himself, there were seven other people present.
Eight small desks and chairs formed a circle together, surrounding the spotless white floor in the center of the room.
One after another, they took their seats. Once the nurse left, they immediately began speaking familiarly with one another.
The doctor had not arrived yet.
Only You Li remained silent and unfamiliar, so out of place that he seemed incompatible with the atmosphere around him.
Amid the surrounding whispers and the strange looks the other seven people occasionally cast toward him, he lowered his eyes and quietly began hoping for the doctor to arrive sooner.
The girl with the meatball bun hairstyle he had spoken with yesterday was here too.
“Isn’t he an NPC? Why is he here too?” she said without lowering her voice at all, treating the “NPC” in her eyes as though he were invisible, no different from empty air. “The people who were notified to come here should all be players, right?”
The square faced man sitting to her left replied, “Isn’t there another NPC over in the corner too? The one with the bowl cut. Probably arranged by the dungeon to act as atmosphere filler.”
On her right sat a girl with twin ponytails. Her eyes darted around warily as she spoke.
“Today’s already the fourth day. This instance is way too peaceful. Why is there no danger at all?”
She was one of the people who had spoken to You Li before, the one who claimed to be an experienced player.
Quietly, You Li pushed his wheelchair slightly backward.
For some reason, he felt as though he had accidentally wandered into some massive gathering of psychiatric patients.
Compared to them, he suddenly felt that he actually counted as fairly normal.
Beside the twin tailed girl sat a man with a buzz cut, arms crossed over his chest.
“I still don’t know how we’re supposed to clear the instance and get discharged. These past few days, anyone who actively cooperated with treatment either disappeared or died.”
The final two people were a middle aged married couple.
The man said, “Meanwhile, people like us who refused to cooperate with treatment have stayed alive this whole time. The doctors and nurses doing ward inspections never said anything even after discovering we weren’t taking the medicine.”
The woman added, “I don’t think the clearance condition for this dungeon is getting discharged through normal procedures. There are only three days left now.”
“With this little time, how are we supposed to convince the hospital that we’ve recovered and obtain discharge papers?”
“There aren’t even any family members or friends inside the instance who could come pick us up.”
“We escape,” the twin tailed girl said decisively, sounding highly experienced. “As long as we leave the hospital, it should count as being discharged.”
The buzz cut man said, “The emergency exits are all locked. We don’t know where the keys are, so the only option is using the elevator.”
The square faced man added, “The elevator requires a keycard and there are surveillance cameras too.”
The twin tailed girl continued, “What about the main entrance? None of us have gone to the first floor yet. All we know is that every patient entering or leaving is escorted by nurses.”
The middle aged man guessed, “Iris recognition?”
“Or fingerprints?” the middle aged woman suggested.
Gradually, their plan became more and more complete.
“I have an item that can help detect blind spots in the surveillance system,” the twin tailed girl said, filling in the final details of the plan. “There are too many people during the day. At night, when one of the nurses doing rounds gets isolated, we can overpower her, take her nurse card and use the elevator.”
“Sounds good.”
“To be safe,” she continued casually, “we can cut off her hand in advance. We can gouge out her eyes too and if there’s a thermal detection system, then we can just cut off her head as well.”
“But we’ll have to move quickly. Once a person dies, algor mortis sets in very fast. At this temperature, within two hours the corpse temperature will become the same as room temperature.”
The meatball bun girl shuddered in disgust for a moment before exaggerating dramatically, “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
The twin tailed girl sneered coldly.
“You’ll understand after surviving a few more instances. NPCs aren’t people.”
A vicious hostility flickered within her eyes.
“If you don’t kill them, they’ll come kill you instead.”
The other five people all looked somewhat shaken by her words.
Within the heavy silence that followed, a long while passed before someone finally spoke again.
“But…”
The one who spoke was You Li.
The instant his voice sounded, the gazes of all six people snapped toward him at once. Without exception, every single pair of eyes fixed tightly onto him, especially the wary, scrutinizing stare from the girl with twin ponytails.
Being stared at like that made You Li visibly nervous but he still forced himself to continue speaking.
“The nurses are all actually very nice people. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, they’re all very patient and responsible toward the patients.”
“The head nurse on the second floor, Sister Li Lihong, has a two year old daughter. Their family of three is very loving.”
“And Sister Yan Ling from the third floor is about to get married soon. She even invited the patients who manage to get discharged to attend her wedding.”
Silence.
Dead silence filled the room.
The meatball bun girl’s expression completely blanked out.
“No, wait, how can you hear what we’re saying?” She frantically waved her fingers through the air as though tapping at some invisible interface. “That’s impossible. Did my item malfunction?”
“No, it didn’t. The system still says it’s active…” Her face grew increasingly bewildered. “Then how can he hear us talking? Isn’t he one of those fake NPCs planted by the instance? Wasn’t he supposed to be an NPC? Why is he actually a player?!”
You Li spoke weakly, “I’m not deaf.”
As though trying to demonstrate something, he awkwardly gestured with his hands, attempting to offer a suggestion.
“Um…”
He hesitated for a moment before speaking in a very small voice.
“I don’t think killing people is… a very good thing to do.”
Then, almost timidly, he asked in return,
“What do you all think?”
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(づ｡•́‿•̀｡)づ ☕ — coffee for the hardworking translator
☕ 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)