Chapter 1161: Cruel Truth? (2 in 1)
His memory was fragmented into pieces. Whenever Chen Ge tried to remember anything, his brain would feel like it was about to shatter, but even so, he resisted the torture silently. The arms that gripped the bedsheet started to pop with green veins. Seeing Chen Ge in such pain, Xu Wan did not have the heart to continue the story any longer. She laid a consoling hand on Chen Ge’s arm. “I know how much the truth must hurt. After having your lunch, you’d better lie back down and rest.”
Xu Wan picked up the meal from the bedside table and fed Chen Ge a spoonful at a time. Chen Ge’s taste buds could sense the taste of the vegetables and meat perfectly. It was extremely real. Chen Ge masticated the food mechanically, and his eyes were unable to focus. The memory fragments that occasionally appeared in his mind convinced him that everything Xu Wan had told him was real. He indeed had been searching for his parents, and he rarely drove anywhere. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced he did have a trauma being behind the wheel.
Picking up the napkin, Xu Wan wiped Chen Ge’s mouth. “If you need anything, feel free to call me. If your recovery goes well, you should be able to move out from the quarantine area tonight. I know how much you wish to move back to the normal sickroom.”
“Why would I be so desperate to return to the normal sickroom? Is there any danger from staying at the quarantine area?” The term ‘quarantine zone’ made Chen Ge’s stomach flip. He had a very bad impression of this term.
“Of course, there is no danger here. No one will be able to harm you now that you are here. The reason you wish to return to the normal sickroom is because you will be able to see outside the hospital walls there.” Xu Wan collected the utensils and left.
“I will be able to see outside the hospital walls?” After Xu Wan left, the room became quiet again. Chen Ge lay in bed. If he could stop himself from thinking, the pain that came from all parts of his body would lessen enormously. The sun showered on his body. His head cus.h.i.+oned on the clean and fluffy pillow as Chen Ge gazed outside the window. It was a brilliant and sunny day. White clouds drifted freely against the azure sky. All that ruined the verdant spectacle were the iron wires on the window.
“Are the iron wires to stop thieves from getting in or to prevent the patients from escaping?” The hospital was very well kept, and it made people feel very comfortable staying there. But for some reason, Chen Ge felt incredibly anxious lying there, but he had no idea where the anxiety came from. Whenever he tried to figure it out, his body would be tormented by pain, but when he stopped thinking and lay in bed like a wooden puppet, the pain would slowly disappear. He tried to move his body. Chen Ge worked on controlling his muscles. He needed about an hour before he finally managed to sit up in bed using his own strength.
“Deep purple welts cover my wrists and ankles from the straps. There are bruises on my back and shoulders as well. My left leg’s wrapped in plaster, and my cheeks are scratched…” Chen Ge was inspecting his own body. His eyes slowly moved before they landed on the back of his arm. There was a wound that was in the shape of a blood droplet there. “When did this wound show up? How did it get there?”
Chen Ge tried to think about it, and then it felt like an invisible hand gripped around his nervous system. The heart-drilling pain was enough to make him nearly faint.
Bang!
The room door was pushed open again. Doctor Gao walked in alone. He was holding a doc.u.ment in his hand. When he saw Chen Ge was sitting up on his own, the expression on his face was one of surprise. “Looks like your recovery is going very well.”
“Doctor Gao, my head hurts so much.” Chen Ge sidled to the edge of the bed. His body was still very weak.
“Now is not yet the time for your meds. Come. Why don’t you do this with me? Cross your arms before your chest and take a deep breath.” Doctor Gao instructed Chen Ge patiently. After the latter had calmed down, Doctor Gao moved over a chair and sat himself down next to Chen Ge’s bed. “Do you still remember what happened last night?”
“Last night?”
“Your illness suddenly acted up last night, and you were caught in a very serious delusion. I had to call in three hospital workers before we managed to detain you.” Doctor Gao took out a mechanical watch from his pocket. He glanced at the time before placing the watch on the bedside table. The needle of the watch ticked rhythmically and softly with every pa.s.sing second.
“Why don’t you talk to me? Don’t treat me as a doctor. Just see this as a friendly chat between friends. There is no need to hide anything from me. Whatever you think of or anything that you have seen, you can tell me,” Doctor Gao said with a kind smile. “There is only one detail that you need to remember, and that is not to lie and do not say anything that is against your own principles.”
“I cannot remember anything. All I know is that I entered a dark and eerie hospital last night.” The memory in his mind had already been shattered. Chen Ge hung his head, and pain was plain on his face.
“What’s the name of that hospital? What did you see in that hospital? Did you have anyone accompanying you?” As the mechanical clock continued to tick, Doctor Gao patiently asked one after another question.
“I believe the hospital is called Xin Hai Central Hospital. I saw many different words and different handwriting. I did have someone accompanying me at the time… Her name was… Zhang Ya?” Suddenly, a name popped up in Chen Ge’s mind. The name escaped from his lips before he could stop himself. His hands reached to his head, and the immense pain caused the man to curl up in a fetal position on the bed. Screams kept coming out from his mouth. “So painful! This hurts so bad!”
Doctor Gao sighed softly, and he twisted open a medicine bottle and fed Chen Ge another two white pills. After swallowing the medicine, Chen Ge’s condition became much better. He lay back down on the bed, and his face was scarily pale.
“That was all a delusion. Last night, you stayed inside Xin Hai Central Hospital. You did not go anywhere. The eerie and scary hospital that you saw was this place.” Seeing that Chen Ge had slowly calmed down, Doctor Gao pointed around him. “Does this place look eerie and scary to you?”
The sun washed the room in a bright and sunny atmosphere. The room was clean, and everything was arranged neatly. The place had nothing to do with the terms scary or eerie.
“Perhaps this place is different at night compared to the day.” Chen Ge felt like he had said something similar somewhere else before.
“There is nothing different about the hospital, be it in the morning or at night. The building is not a living thing. All that will change is you.” Doctor Gao gradually revealed the truth to Chen Ge. “What changes when night falls is you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you can be communicated with normally in the morning, but at night, you will turn into something of a beast.” Doctor Gao placed the doc.u.ment that he had on the table. “Initially, we thought that was a post traumatic disorder, but then we realized you suffer from severe delusions. And not too long ago, we discovered there was another persona living inside you.”
“Another persona living inside me?” Chen Ge’s brain turned dull. He was unable to process so much information in such a brief period.
“Why don’t you come and look at the surveillance video that we have captured last night?” Doctor Gao took out his own phone. The phone was pure white in color and had a large screen. Pressing the play b.u.t.ton, a blurry video started to play on Doctor Gao’s phone. Chen Ge, who was lying in bed, suddenly sat up. He dragged his plastered leg and silently moved to the room’s door with his hands edging along the wall. When midnight arrived, he pushed open the door and attempted to escape from the hospital. However, he encountered the nurse on night duty. They got into an altercation. Chen Ge exploded like a cornered beast. He kept shouting words that no one would be able to understand, and he got into a serious physical tussle with the nurse.
About two to three minutes later, the hospital workers rushed to the scene. The three of them worked together to get Chen Ge under control and move him to the quarantine area. The surveillance did not end there. Chen Ge, who was lying in bed, struggled as best as he could. His eyes were red from the struggle. They were so red that it felt like blood would flow out from them any time soon. His body was twisted into impossible positions, and he appeared to be under enormous pain. His lips flopped open, and he screamed as if from pain.
“This was me?” Chen Ge looked at the video silently. Chen Ge lay in bed quietly. He had no recollection of this incident at all.
“He is you and not you. To be precise, he is the second persona inside you. The reason behind his existence is your illness,” Doctor Gao said seriously. “You must have an impression of his existence because you have been relying heavily on him, but you are unable to admit that to yourself.”
“No, I am me. There is no one else inside me.” Chen Ge shook his head firmly.
“Is that so?” Doctor Gao picked out a page from the binder. “From all the strange stories that you have told me, there was a ghost that has been protecting you. The ghost did not ask for anything in return for his protection. He even took up the role of being your guardian as the only reason in his life.”
Green veins surfaced on his forehead. Before the pain arrived, Chen Ge nodded. “I remember him. He’s not someone that I have made up…”
“Then, do you still remember the surname of your father?” Doctor Gao suddenly changed the subject.
“His surname is Chen.”
“Then, do you know what your own name is?”
“Chen Ge.”
“What is the surname of your mother?”
“It was Xu.”
“Now try to think about it. What is the name of that ghost?” Doctor Gao spoke very quickly. There was practically no gap between his questions.
“His name… is Xu Yin.” Chen Ge pressed his head from pain and difficulty.
Doctor Gao placed the page of information before Chen Ge. He pointed at the record from about a month ago. “The name that you have given your second persona is Xu Yin. In the morning, your name is Chen Ge, but at night, you are called Xu Yin. The ghost who has been willing to suffer all the pain without leaving and has been protecting you without asking for anything in return is actually yourself.”
“Impossible!”
“It is totally normal for you not to realize that. Based on my observation, the reason this second persona showed up is mainly because you have given yourself too much pressure, and you desperately needed someone else to come and share the pain and pressure that you were placed under.”
“That is absolutely impossible! Xu Yin is real! I remember him very clearly!”
“I am not saying that he is not real. In fact, he is as real as you and me, but he only exists in your brain and your stories.” Doctor Gao used a very soft and soothing voice to communicate with Chen Ge. “Whenever you wake up from your fainting, I’m the first person that comes to talk to you, and I’m always your first listener. In your stories, whenever you found yourself in danger, Xu Yin would show up to protect you. He is not that powerful, but he would always try his best to help you survive the ordeal. Think about it, a solitary figure that is not that powerful but refuses to give up, doesn’t that remind you of someone you know?”
Doctor Gao looked at Chen Ge with a sad smile. With the leading words from Doctor Gao, the figure in Chen Ge’s mind became more and more blurry before it completely overlapped with the image of his own self. Pain, loneliness, and sadness that could not be shared with anyone else—they shared too many similarities to be a mere coincidence.
“Xu Yin, Chen Ge…” Many different fragmented memories floated up in Chen Ge’s mind. He had no idea who to believe, but he soon adjusted to a firm belief. “Impossible. If Xu Yin is my second person, it means that all my previous experiences were fake, but I remember them very clearly. They are all real! There are really ghosts in this world! And Xu Yin is a real person!”
Chen Ge held onto the broken pieces of memory in his mind. Rationality told him that Doctor Gao was not wrong, but he refused to listen to himself.
“There are no ghosts in this world. The only thing that exists is the unpredictability of the human heart and the length that it might go to protect itself.” Every word that Doctor Gao said resonated greatly with Chen Ge. Chen Ge’s subconscious told him that the doctor was right, but he felt strangely discomfited by that thought.
“Come, I have already filled in the application for you to move back to the normal sickroom. Hopefully, you will recover soon.” Doctor Gao summoned Xu Wan, and the two of them supported Chen Ge on each side as they moved him out from the quarantine room. The bright and clean corridor smelt of disinfectant. The sickrooms on the two side of the walls were all locked. The window was blocked off by a thin curtain. Standing in the corridor, one would not be able to see into the other sickrooms. Walking down the corridor, the place was rather noisy. Many patients could be found loitering along the corridor.
“Please move out of the way.” Doctor Gao moved Chen Ge to the first room at the corner of the stair of the second floor. This room was much bigger than the room that he was staying in earlier. There were three beds inside the room.
“You should be able to remember your own bed, right?” Doctor Gao asked softly, but Chen Ge only looked back at him with confusion. “Looks like you have forgotten about it again. No matter, we can take this slowly. When the injury to your brain has totally recovered, it will not hurt so much anymore.”
Doctor Gao supported Chen Ge as they moved to the bed near to the window. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Chen Ge looked out the window. Beyond the wall was a theme park that was not that big. Chen Ge edged his way onto the bed, and when he settled down, he realized there was another theme park that he could see from his vantage point.
From Chen Ge’s bed, he was able to glimpse the entirety of the two theme parks. Most of the visitors were gathered at the theme park on the eastern side of Xin Hai Central Hospital. The place was equipped with a lot of high-tech entertainment devices while theme park on the western side of the hospital was relatively quieter with fewer visitors. Most of the rides on the western theme park were of the older fas.h.i.+on. The only attraction more conspicuous about the place was a haunted house. When he saw the haunted house, the memory in Chen Ge’s mind started to awaken. He held his head, but he did not move his eyes away. He kept his eyes on the theme park on the western side while resisting the pain.
“Is that New Century Theme Park?”
“That is called Xin Hai Theme Park. You often stand beside the window, observing it. Sometimes, you spend your whole day doing just that.”
“I think I have remembered something.” Chen Ge pulled on his hair with both hands. Thin veins appeared on his face, and sweat poured out from his forehead. “I once worked at a theme park. I inherited my parent’s haunted house, and I possess a haunted house that they left for me!”
“Just like her, right?” Compared to Chen Ge’s maddening claims, Doctor Gao’s voice was slow and even. He extended his finger and pointed in the direction of the haunted house’s entrance. Chen Ge followed the direction Doctor Gao was pointing. There was a woman dressed as a ghost standing at the entrance of the haunted house. The makeup on her face was ruined by the sweat that poured down her forehead. She wore a red dress, and currently, she was selling tickets while holding an advertis.e.m.e.nt board for the haunted house outside the gates.
“Zhang Ya?” When Chen Ge saw the woman’s face, he was stumped.
“To aid in your recovery, I went to make some inquiries. The ident.i.ty that you have given yourself is actually stolen from this girl. Her family opened a haunted house here about ten years ago. The haunted house has been in business since her parent’s generation.” Doctor Gao shook his head, and a trace of pity could be discerned from his eyes. “The person who was running a haunted house for a living is this young lady, and all you did was hide behind the hospital window and look at her. You have not said a word to her before, but you have indeed visited her haunted house, a long time ago. That’s how you know her name is Zhang Ya.”
“Impossible. She is a ghost, a very important ghost to me!” Extreme pain came from Chen Ge’s brain again.
“If she is really that important to you, why don’t you personally go and talk to her after your condition is better? If you go in your current state, you will only scare her,” Doctor Gao told Chen Ge softly.