Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Qin Song struggled to sit up, only to realize his hands and feet were tied to the bed. He lifted his head and looked around, then sucked in a sharp breath.

White walls. White sheets. An iron-framed bed.

This was a hospital room.

Qin Song was stunned. Before he fell asleep, he had been on the massage bed at Huahua’s place. So why had he woken up in a hospital room?

He clearly remembered it had been daytime when he fell asleep. He and Huahua had even shared a cup of instant noodles for brunch.

But the room’s thick curtains were drawn, and the lights were on. It seemed night had already fallen.

He couldn’t tell whether the door to the room was open or closed. A screen was blocking the entrance, making it impossible for him to see the door at all.

Had he really slept for more than ten hours?

Qin Song could no longer tell whether it was day or night. He couldn’t even tell whether this was reality or a dream.

He pricked up his ears and tried hard to listen to the sounds around him.

Huahua straightened the pillow that had slipped crookedly under Qin Song’s head and patiently soothed him. “Qin Song, you were just dreaming. Don’t be scared.”

Qin Song said nothing. He only stared at her warily.

He clearly remembered her wearing a white shirt dress, but now it had turned into a white coat.

Had she been wearing the white coat all along? Or had she changed into it?

Qin Song tried hard to think.

He had been “force-rebooted” out of a nightmare, and his mind was still foggy. He was terrified that the moment he opened his mouth, he would say something he shouldn’t.

Huahua handed him a cup of warm water and a vitamin. “Here. Today’s vitamin.”

Qin Song turned his head away. “Put it on the table. I’m not taking it.”

So Huahua placed the pill and the water on the small table by the bed, then sat down at his bedside.

Qin Song glanced over and saw several little dolls on the table, along with the cup Huahua had just set down. The cup was short and squat, with a very distinctive shape.

He suddenly jerked his hands and feet, and the entire bed shook violently.

He came back to himself a little and roared, “Why the hell did you tie me up? Untie me!”

Huahua looked like she wanted to say something but hesitated. She leaned forward a little. “You… don’t remember anything again?”

Qin Song glared at her irritably. “What are you talking about? And why did you call me Qin Song just now? My name is Wang Hai. Did you forget?”

Huahua sighed. After a moment of hesitation, she said, “Forget it. We won’t do the injection today. Take some time to calm down. I’ll stay here with you.”

Listening to her disconnected remarks, Qin Song made a rough judgment of the current situation: this was probably another dream.

Then Qin Song thought of that text message again. The h and the u.

He stared into Huahua’s eyes and suddenly asked, “What’s your surname?”

Huahua shook her head helplessly. “We repeat this conversation every single day. Now I have to repeat it for the N – plus – first time…”

Qin Song watched her mouth with guarded eyes.

Huahua gently patted Qin Song on the shoulder. “Qin Song, my surname is Hua. My name is Hua Yuxi. I’m your attending physician, and you’re my patient. When you’re lucid, you usually call me Huahua. This is Mingdu Mental Hospital. You’ve been living here for two years…”

Qin Song took a full five seconds to process that, then suddenly burst out laughing.

When he had laughed enough, he tossed out one sentence. “What a load of bullshit. Go fuck yourself.”

Huahua said nothing. She turned her head and looked at the wall.

Qin Song said, “Where’s my phone?”

Huahua said, “Qin Song, it isn’t time for you to use your phone yet.”

Qin Song snapped, “Qin Song, Qin Song, Qin your fucking Song. I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull, but you’d better stop right now!”

Huahua smoothed out the wrinkled bedsheet for him. “Why don’t you sleep a little longer? You’ve been out of it for quite a long time today…”

Qin Song found it utterly laughable. “Out of it? How am I not lucid right now? Then tell me, what does the lucid world look like?”

Huahua suddenly said, “Tell me about your life right now.”

Qin Song said, “Tell you what… I think you’re the fucking mental patient here. What you’re doing right now is false imprisonment!”

Huahua asked, “Do you have a good friend named Hu Heng?”

Qin Song froze for a moment, then his expression returned to normal. “No.”

Huahua said, “I know. You’ve always believed you killed someone and changed your name to Wang Hai. In your understanding, your ex-wife is He Qian, your lover is Huang Yuanrui, and you killed her with an ashtray… If I put it that way, do you believe me now?”

Qin Song’s gaze turned ice-cold. He stared straight into her eyes without saying a word.

Huahua sighed. “All that treatment lately was for nothing.”

Qin Song tilted his head and asked her, “How do you know my friend’s name?”

As if afraid Qin Song would react too violently, Huahua moved her chair back a little before sitting down again. “Qin Song, I don’t just know that your friend’s name is Hu Heng. I also know you currently believe your name is Wang Hai.”

She cleared her throat and looked at him with concern. “You should have had a complete and happy life. Unfortunately, when you and your best friend Hu Heng were fourteen, he was injured by some thugs while trying to protect you. At first, he had only suffered a head injury and was hospitalized, but after a while, his condition worsened, and he passed away. From that time on, your mental state began to develop certain… problems.”
Qin Song shot her a vicious glare, then struggled violently but futilely against his restraints.

Huahua looked at him with deep regret in her eyes. “Two years ago, you were transferred here, and I became your attending physician. I discovered that in your fantasies, you were living a normal life in another world. In that world, you had a career, a family, and Hu Heng was still by your side. You were happy…”

Qin Song stared warily into her eyes, his mouth pressed into a tight line.

Huahua reached out and touched the water glass on the table. “Whenever you were immersed in that fantasy world, you were in a wonderful mood. In your imagined world, you were a successful man, so I chose to turn a blind eye. After all, even if we cured you completely, our reality might not be as happy as the world you imagined. Don’t you think?”

Qin Song still said nothing.

Huahua’s brow furrowed slightly. “Unfortunately, later on, something went wrong in your fantasy world. You imagined an affair partner, then later imagined a second one. You weren’t very attached to the second affair partner, so you gave her up quickly. But with the first one, you seemed unable to let go. In that world, she kept pestering you like a madwoman, and later, you killed her.”

Qin Song let out a cold laugh. “What are you, God? A worm in my stomach? Even if you’re a psychiatrist, you can’t see directly into someone else’s mind, can you? You can’t even lie properly. This is complete nonsense.”

Despite being insulted, Huahua wasn’t angry. Magnanimously, she said, “You’re not in a good state today, so you don’t recognize me again. Actually, most of the time, you trust me a great deal. You share your fantasy world with me. I even play the role of your colleague in that world.”

She continued, “Ever since you had those cheating experiences in your fantasies, your condition has gotten worse and worse. You often told me you received anonymous letters, text messages from an Unknown Number. You became jumpy and paranoid, seeing threats in every rustle of the wind…”

She picked up a small figurine from the table. Qin Song looked closely and saw that it was shaped like a woman.

Huahua said, “This little thing here – you once believed it was your wife. You even gave her a name. You called her He Qian.”

Huahua picked up another female figurine from the table. “This is one of the affair partners from your fantasies. You named her Zhang Qiong.”

Qin Song quietly drew in a breath.

Then Huahua opened a drawer, dug something out from the very back, and placed it before Qin Song’s eyes. “This is the hurdle in your heart you can’t get past.”

Qin Song glanced at it. It was another female figurine, only this one was far more delicate and beautiful than the previous two, like a miniature doll.

Huahua stroked the miniature doll’s face and said, “You believed she was a beautiful but deranged affair partner, and you gave her a name too – though her name came from real life. In your fantasy, the two of you often argued. In the end, you locked her in a drawer.”

Qin Song’s eyes flicked rapidly left and right twice as he tried hard to judge whether any of this was true.

Huahua continued, “You believed that meant you had killed and buried her, while you became a fugitive. You even gave yourself a new name – Wang Hai. But you seemed to think you weren’t capable of doing all that alone, so Hu Heng became your accomplice in the fantasy. Everything you didn’t have the confidence to do, he helped you complete.”

Huahua placed the miniature doll back into the drawer. “A few times, I wanted to help tidy your desk and took it out of the drawer to put it on the tabletop. As a result, you reacted extremely violently. You kept crying and screaming that she had crawled out of the ground. In the end, I had no choice but to put her back in the drawer.”

Calmly, Qin Song asked, “Are you finished? When are you going to untie my hands and feet?”

Although Huahua’s words had already stirred up a storm inside Qin Song, he still did not believe any of this absurdity for a second.

He clearly remembered the day he got married, when his buddies made trouble in the bridal chamber, banging a broken gong right beside his ear, and He Qian laughed as she covered his ears for him.

He also clearly remembered the early days of starting his business, when one night he drank so much that four taxis refused to take him. The driver of the fifth cab said, “Two hundred if you puke in the car,” so before getting out, Qin Song had no choice but to pay him two hundred.

Details didn’t lie. Qin Song believed this was not a fantasy.

But how exactly had this woman, Huahua, learned about all of it? And what was her purpose in stuffing him into a psychiatric hospital while pretending to be his attending physician?

No matter how Qin Song thought about it, he couldn’t make sense of it.

Huahua rubbed her face. “You’re impulsive right now, so I can’t let you go yet. But maybe after you sleep, you’ll be better tomorrow. Let’s eat first. The hospital cafeteria made ribs today. They’re your favorite, right?”

Huahua called toward the door, “Did you pick up today’s boxed lunches?”

Qin Song held his breath and looked toward the doorway.

A screen stood in the way, painted with several stalks of bamboo. He couldn’t see the door at all.

A few seconds later, a woman’s wavering voice drifted in from outside. “Yeah, got them!”

Huahua called again, “302 needs two portions!”

302?!

This ward just happened to be 302?

A chill ran over Qin Song’s body, and goosebumps rose all over his skin.
The door creaked open. A figure emerged hazily from behind the screen. After just one glance, Qin Song started screaming frantically.

Yes, the person who came out from behind the screen was Huang Yuanrui.

But for some reason, she was wearing a nurse’s uniform, and her face no longer looked full of resentment.

She had light makeup on, and she was smiling cheerfully.

Qin Song thrashed on the bed like a fish thrown into a sizzling oil wok. Huang Yuanrui was so startled she stepped back several times.

Huahua quickly stood up and pinned him down. “Qin Song, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid! She’s a nurse here!”

Qin Song calmed down a little, then glanced at Huang Yuanrui again.

She was like a child who had done something wrong, holding two packed meals in her hands and standing by the wall, looking at him timidly.

Huahua wiped the sweat from Qin Song’s forehead and said softly, “Qin Song, don’t be afraid. She’s a nurse here, and her name is Huang Yuanrui. You thought her name sounded so nice that you forced it onto your little doll. I know you fantasized that your affair partner would have that name, right?”

Qin Song looked at Huang Yuanrui in fear, then at Huahua.

Huahua took the packed meals from Huang Yuanrui and put them on the table. “See? She’s here to bring us food. She means no harm.”

Huang Yuanrui glanced fearfully at Qin Song, then turned to Huahua. “Director, should I leave first?”

Huahua nodded. “Yes, go out for now.”

Huang Yuanrui looked back at Qin Song once more, then ran out behind the screen in small steps.

Qin Song heard the door creak again.

He pricked up his ears but didn’t hear any footsteps of other patients or doctors in the corridor.

It was too quiet here, as if he were the only one.

Huahua fell silent, concentrating on unpacking the meals.

Qin Song turned his head to look at the scattered dolls on the table. His body couldn’t stop trembling slightly.

He asked a very odd question, one that even he found a bit baffling.

“Huahua, that cup on the table… is it also mine?”

Huahua looked up and said offhandedly, “Oh, you brought that too. You kept holding onto it, said it was your ashtray.”

Qin Song slowly looked at Huahua, then suddenly burst into loud laughter.

This laugh was as if his body’s brakes had failed. Qin Song laughed so hard the entire bed shook violently, and he didn’t stop.

Tears streamed from his eyes and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth from laughing.

Even so, he kept laughing.

Huahua sat in her seat, watching his frenzied state without any visible emotion.

Finally, she slowly put down the packed meal and leaned in to look at him – his eyes were bloodshot, his lips chapped, his hair a mess like a chicken coop from rubbing against the bedsheets.

She patted his face lightly, neither too hard nor too soft. “Hey.”

Qin Song sniffled and looked at her lazily.

Huahua asked, “What’s your name?”

Like a child, Qin Song shouted, “Qin Song! Hahahahaha…”

Huahua tilted her head to look at him, then asked, “Do you know Huang Yuanrui?”

Qin Song nodded and laughed. “Ruirui is my most beloved little darling. I killed my little darling, tee-hee-hee…”

Mid-laugh, his expression suddenly turned angry. “But she’s also a bitch! She ruined me, so tell me, shouldn’t I have killed her?!”

Huahua nodded and stepped back two paces.

“You rest now. I’m leaving first.”

As if he couldn’t hear her, Qin Song kept talking to himself toward the ceiling.

Huahua went behind the screen and opened the door.

Outside the door was Huahua’s living room.

Yes, Huahua’s place had two bedrooms, which were normally kept shut. When you opened the doors, one was a massage room, and the other was a “sickroom.”

Huang Yuanrui was lounging lazily on the sofa, lighting a cigarette and resting her head on her hand as she looked at Huahua.

Huahua pouted her lips toward the bedroom. “He’s gone crazy now.”

Huang Yuanrui smiled and nodded, exhaling smoke from her nose.

Huahua tossed out a paper cup and poured some water. “There’s a cat in the house. Don’t smoke indoors.”

Obediently, Huang Yuanrui stubbed out the cigarette in the paper cup. “OK.”

She stretched, stood up from the sofa, opened the door, and stepped into the “sickroom.”

Qin Song was still talking to himself at the ceiling, but when he saw Huang Yuanrui come in, his eyes instantly lit up.

“Ruirui… no, I mean, Nurse Huang, tee-hee-hee… come here, let me look at you.”

Huang Yuanrui swayed her hips as she walked over, smiling as she took Qin Song’s hand.

She bent down and took a deep breath.

“Mmm, honey, that familiar scent of yours hasn’t changed at all.”

She leaned into Qin Song’s ear and whispered something, then turned and left the room.

Still wanting more, Qin Song lay on the bed and yawned, then drowsily fell asleep.

What did she whisper in his ear?

She said, bingo.