You Li did not sleep well at all.
Even in his dreams, he kept hearing noises. The sound of someone getting up in the middle of the night. The water beside his bed seemed to have been drunk yet he knew it had not been him.
The bathroom door opened and closed over and over again. There even seemed to be the sound of flushing water. The sofa creaked softly too, as though someone had sat down on it, causing the cushions to sink.
It was noisy. So unbearably noisy.
After an unknown amount of time, You Li finally sat up and switched on the light. At the head of his bed, he found his medicine bag. He rummaged through it quietly before pulling out a box of Estazolam tablets.
It was a strip of sleeping pills containing sedative, anti anxiety and anticonvulsant properties. It could effectively ease feelings of tension and fear.
“Did you take your medicine today?”
“You didn’t take it, did you?”
The doctor’s words seemed to echo once more beside his ears.
You Li could no longer tell whether those words were his own thoughts or yet another hallucination. His fingers trembled slightly as he peeled one tablet from the foil pack and held it silently in his palm, staring at it.
Again and again, he questioned himself.
Over and over, he asked himself in his heart.
Did he really want to take it?
Was he truly sick?
You Li clenched the small tablet tightly in his hand, remaining in the exact same position as he sat on the bed, almost sleepless throughout the entire night.
By the time he regained his senses, he did not know how long the sun had already been up. The pill had long since melted from the warmth of his palm, leaving behind dry residue against his skin.
A nurse was knocking on the ward door, calling for the patients to wake up.
You Li pushed his wheelchair into the bathroom and carefully, meticulously washed his hands clean. Reflected in the mirror, his complexion looked terrible.
His eyes were rimmed with red, faint blood vessels spreading through the whites of his eyes. His dark pupils looked unfocused and dazed, while both his face and lips were pale as paper.
After an entire night without sleep, his exhaustion and mental strain were painfully obvious. He looked visibly worn down, fragile and weak.
After washing up, You Li sat quietly in his wheelchair beneath the warm sunlight filtering through the railings. Tilting his head slightly to the side, he slowly drifted asleep.
He had begun to fear the night.
Only daytime could still offer him a faint sense of safety.
He had not slept for long before a nurse came over and woke him again.
“Number 13? Number 13? Why are you sleeping here? Your complexion looks really bad. Do you need me to take you to see your attending doctor?”
You Li blinked several times, his eyelids trembling weakly as he struggled out of the overwhelming drowsiness. After hesitating briefly, he lifted his face and asked softly,
“…Can I go eat breakfast first?”
“I’m really hungry. My body feels so cold. I want to eat something warm.” The young man’s voice was low and light. “Nurse… I feel awful. I feel so unwell.”
There was the faintest trace of a sob hidden in his voice.
He was unbearably sleepy, desperately wanting to fall asleep yet at the same time terrified of sinking into deep slumber. Like a startled bird frightened by the mere twang of a bowstring, he remained constantly alert to every movement around him. Even the slightest disturbance would leave him badly shaken.
“A cup of milk is enough… I only want a cup of hot milk.”
You Li’s voice was faint and soft as he made a modest request, careful not to ask for too much.
In the end, he did get that cup of hot milk.
Only, it was inside the doctor’s consultation room.
The nurse had noticed immediately that his mental condition was visibly unstable and hurriedly brought him over.
The doctor personally prepared the hot milk for him before placing the warm cup into his hands.
“Your complexion looks terrible,” the doctor said gently. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Milk made from powdered formula was different from fresh milk. It carried a slight sweetness to it.
You Li held the cup carefully in both hands, lowering his head as he silently sipped from it.
When he did not speak, the doctor simply stayed there quietly with him.
Warm, scalding liquid slid from You Li’s mouth all the way into his stomach, slowly driving away the coldness that had seeped into his body after sitting awake through the entire night. Even his stiff, frozen limbs gradually regained warmth.
You Li quietly finished the entire cup of hot milk.
The doctor reached out, intending to take the empty cup from his hands.
“Do you feel any better now?”
Suddenly, You Li burst into tears.
Clutching the empty cup that still retained a lingering warmth, he hunched over completely, bending at the waist as he grabbed tightly onto the doctor’s arm.
“…Doctor, I feel awful.”
The young man’s trembling shoulders looked painfully thin. Curled into himself like that, he appeared exceptionally fragile, as though he might shatter at the slightest touch.
He buried his face into the doctor’s palm, his eyelashes soaked through with tears until his vision blurred completely.
“Please… please…”
“I don’t want to stay here anymore. I want to leave the hospital. I don’t want to take medicine. I’m not sick. I really am not sick.”
“There’s someone staying in my ward. He’s living there with me. I’m so scared. I don’t know who he is. I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep at all the entire night but I’m so tired… I’m so tired, doctor. I want to go home.”
“I want to go home.”
The young man buried his face even deeper, most of it hidden from sight as scorching tears fell one after another, slipping through the gaps between the doctor’s fingers.
His body was thin and frail as well. The way he cried resembled a newborn lamb struggling desperately within a hunter’s rough, bloodstained hands.
No matter how hard it fought, it could not stop the tightening grip closing around it little by little, nor the slow suffocating death that followed.
He gasped desperately for breath, trying to save himself yet his resistance was so weak and feeble that it could not shake anything at all.
“You think he’ll soften his heart for you?”
“You never learn, do you? If you’re going to cry, at least cry to someone else.”
Someone was speaking behind him.
The voice sounded younger than it had yesterday.
“He’s following me. He’s stalking me. Watching me. I can’t see him but I can hear him. He spoke to me again just now. Doctor, save me… save me…”
His sobs were filled with suffocating pain.
The doctor said calmly, “It seems neither psychological treatment nor medication has had any effect on you. Your symptoms have been gradually worsening step by step.”
You Li shook his head helplessly.
“I’m not sick. I’m not sick.”
“It looks like the hospital will need to proceed with physical intervention therapy for you,” the doctor said gently. “Modified electroconvulsive therapy is very suitable for your condition.”
“Don’t worry. Didn’t you stay awake the entire night yesterday?”
“It just so happens that modified electroconvulsive therapy requires anesthesia. You can use the opportunity to sleep properly for a while.”
You Li abruptly lifted his tear streaked face from the doctor’s palm in panic.
“No… don’t shock me.”
His pale lips had been bitten so hard that a deep reddish mark stained them like the imprint of a wound.
“I’m not sick. I really am not sick.”
The doctor asked in return, “Then why do you believe someone is living together with you? Your delusions are becoming more and more severe.”
You Li muttered weakly to himself, “He really exists… he really… Other people saw him too. It wasn’t only me.”
The doctor was clearly dissatisfied with You Li breaking hospital rules by sneaking out in the middle of the night to gather together with the others.
His expression darkened slightly as he frowned.
“That’s because the others also suffer from delusions. Gathering together like that only caused them to influence you.”
The doctor turned the computer monitor toward him.
“Our hospital surveillance system operates twenty four hours a day. If you’re uneasy, you can check it yourself.”
He pulled up the surveillance recordings and played them at increased speed, allowing You Li to watch the footage in its entirety. Not a single second of last night’s recording was missing.
The video even captured You Li leaving his ward in the middle of the night and later returning together with the girl in the bun hairstyle.
Aside from You Li himself, no one else had entered or exited his ward.
“The moment I arrived at work this morning, the nurses informed me that all of you secretly left your rooms last night and gathered together in Ward Six.”
“If you continue like this, how are any of you supposed to be discharged?”
You Li was rendered speechless by the doctor’s questioning.
He did not believe it had all been his hallucination.
But the surveillance footage was right there in front of him, undeniable proof and the doctor even seemed angered by his actions.
Covering his tear filled face, You Li apologized over and over.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, doctor.”
“I didn’t leave the ward on purpose. I was just too scared. I wanted to find a nurse…”
“That’s enough.” The doctor interrupted him. “I’m not holding you accountable. The hospital will not restrict a patient’s movements. At most, we can only provide reminders and regulations. The rest depends on your own self discipline.”
He stood up and pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Do you remember the consent form you signed when you were admitted? At the time, you stated that you were willing to accept physical treatment.”
It was unmistakably You Li’s own signature on the document.
“You Li, you have consistently refused to cooperate with treatment. I could completely transfer you to another doctor yet you are still sitting in this consultation room right now entirely because, as a doctor, I cannot stand by and watch my patient continue down the wrong path.”
“You are my responsibility. I won’t let anything happen to you. Trust me.”
You Li held the paper in his hands, his mind drifting in confusion.
The doctor seemed to have taken out a tissue and leaned closer to wipe away the tears on his face before letting out a soft sigh.
“You need to behave, otherwise you’ll make things very difficult for me, You Li.”
“You have to be obedient, understand?”
A few minutes later, You Li sat in his wheelchair as the doctor pushed him toward the electrotherapy room.
When he exited the consultation room, the other players happened to still be lined up outside the remaining offices, waiting for today’s psychological counseling sessions.
The doctor did not push the wheelchair very quickly.
It almost seemed intentional, as though he wanted the others to see.
In a voice neither too loud nor too quiet, he instructed the nurse following beside them,
“Prepare Number 13 for modified electroconvulsive therapy.”
At the same time, he signed something with his pen.
“Go to the pharmacy room and retrieve the anesthetic.”
The expressions of the other players changed instantly.
They looked at You Li as though they were looking at a dead man.
You Li had originally been sitting quietly with his head lowered but when he sensed their strange, piercing gazes on his back, he subconsciously raised his head and looked back at them.
The girl with the bun hairstyle looked at him with obvious pity.
Silently, she mouthed two words.
“Rest in peace.”
You Li did not understand why she would say such a thing to him.
All he could do was remain quiet and powerless as he was pushed into the electrotherapy room.
He was lifted from the wheelchair onto the hospital bed.
Forced injections of anesthetic and muscle relaxants entered his body.
Electrocardiogram monitors were attached to him.
His mouth was pried open and a bite block was inserted between his teeth.
Finally, an oxygen mask was fitted over his face.
Once the medication took effect, his consciousness sank completely into haziness.
It felt as though only a short moment had passed.
Yet at the same time, it felt unbearably long, so long that he fell into deep sleep.
You Li seemed to be lying on a soft and warm bed.
He felt no sensation of being electroshocked whatsoever.
Everything around him was quiet.
No hallucinations.
No phantom voices.
Someone stayed beside him, accompanying him while he slept peacefully through a long, long rest.
When You Li finally woke up, only the doctor remained beside him.
His blurred gaze drifted over slowly.
When he had fallen asleep, the doctor had already been there.
And now that he had awakened, the doctor was still there.
It was as though the other man had simply sat beside him the entire time, accompanying him through his sleep.
The only sound in the room was the faint electrical hum of the medical instruments.
The doctor waited until he had regained autonomous breathing before removing the oxygen mask.
“How did you sleep?” he asked. “Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”
You Li looked like someone abruptly waking from a dream.
He shook his head, then nodded again, meaning that he felt no discomfort at all.
In fact, he had slept very well.
He had not felt any sensation of being electrocuted whatsoever.
It was almost as though the doctor had brought him to the electrotherapy room for one simple reason only,
to let him finally have a good sleep.
The doctor carefully removed the electrode pads and medical instruments attached to his body one by one before lifting him back into the wheelchair.
“Let’s go.”
You Li turned to look at the doctor behind him.
Some color had returned to his complexion and the bloodshot redness in his eyes had faded significantly. Even his mental state appeared far more stable now.
Softly, he thanked him.
“Thank you, doctor.”
Then after a pause, he added quietly,
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you earlier in the consultation room.”
“It’s alright,” the doctor replied.
You Li was pushed out of the electrotherapy room.
The other players were still outside, though now only the girl with the bun hairstyle, the twin tailed girl and the square faced man remained.
Several doctors and nurses stood beside them.
The two sides appeared to be in the middle of some sort of tense standoff.
“Wait, why isn’t he dead?”
The bun haired girl’s voice carried clearly from the distance, filled with disbelief.
“Everyone who went in before died. So how did he come out alive?”
“He even looks better than before he went in,” the twin tailed girl said. “Could it be that the others triggered some kind of taboo? Maybe physical treatment itself is actually safe…”
As You Li was pushed farther away, their voices gradually faded behind him.
After the electrotherapy session, his exhaustion genuinely seemed much lighter. He had received proper rest and his emotions no longer felt so heavy and depressed.
Everything afterward was no different from the previous three days.
The doctor pushed him to the recreation room and exchanged his book for a different fairy tale before handing it to him.
You Li still sat in the same seat where sunlight could shine directly onto him.
Apparently, he had never once questioned why only he was ever allowed to sit there.
The stories inside the fairy tale book were warm and comforting.
Gradually, You Li became completely absorbed in reading.
Until someone suddenly sat down in front of him and spoke without warning.
“Only the three of us stayed behind just now because none of us revealed who ‘he’ is. The doctor made us choose one out of three treatment options.”
“After Fang Zhi saw that you came out unharmed, he also chose physical treatment but not electrotherapy. He underwent transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment instead.”
“After he came out… he lost his memory.”
You Li stared blankly ahead.
The person sitting before him was the twin tailed girl.
Suddenly, his breathing became hurried.
A numb chill spread across his back.
Ever since finishing the electrotherapy session, You Li had felt as though he were living inside a peaceful fairy tale dream.
But at this exact moment, that illusion shattered completely.
He had always been terrified of the “physical treatment” the doctor spoke of.
He feared electroshock therapy because he constantly smelled the scent of burnt human flesh somewhere within the hospital.
But the thing he feared most was “transcranial magnetic stimulation.”
You Li had never understood why before.
He never understood why merely hearing those five words would cause an overwhelming terror to instinctively rise from deep inside his body.
Then he heard the twin tailed girl continue speaking.
“He’s just like you.”
“He doesn’t remember anything anymore.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
Statistically speaking, coffee would be appreciated.
☕ 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)