Chapter 26: Sanatorium
Qiming Mental Hospital was located on the outskirts of the city, occupying an extremely large area. It was said to have the best and most authoritative mental health experts, as well as the most attentive nursing care.
But only Gu Qing, who had actually stayed at Qiming Mental Hospital, had the right to speak about this.
“Those experts just prescribe sedatives when they see your condition is serious, making you sleep and reducing your mobility. When you look dazed and stupid and stop acting crazy, of course it seems like you’re cured. The one-on-one consultations with experts are just them sitting in front of you asking questions from a checklist, business-like and never really caring about the cause of your condition. They use their authority to define your illness without giving you a chance to explain. But the nurses are all really pretty—I used to love listening to their gossip when I was sunbathing in the courtyard.”
In Ji Yueling’s car, Gu Qing unusually chattered on, telling Ji Yueling everything about this mental hospital. When Ji Yueling first appeared today, her expression was cold, as if this trip to the mental hospital had triggered some kind of protective mechanism in her.
But she was indeed dressed very youthfully today—a loose black hoodie, tight black shorts that fully displayed the curves of her long, straight legs below the shorts, and white sneakers with white knee-high socks covering her calves.
Her calves were slender, her ankles delicate. This leg shape wore the white knee-high socks extremely well, looking pure and innocent with a hint of provocative calculation.
At this moment, she really looked like a college student her age should, probably the campus goddess type. Gu Qing kept his eyes on the road ahead, occasionally glancing at her white, slender thighs when the mood struck. Her ability naturally made her skin smooth and delicate, as if dusted with pearl powder, lustrous and alluring, very pleasing to the eye.
Ji Yueling listened to his chatter the whole way. What he talked about most was probably commenting on which nurse had a nice voice, which nurse was actually quite materialistic in private, which nurse had a good figure. If it had been someone else chattering in Ji Yueling’s ear about these things, she probably would have had the urge to kick them out of the car long ago. But because it was Gu Qing, surprisingly, Ji Yueling didn’t find it annoying.
Instead, it seemed to quietly dissolve some of the gloom in her heart.
“Speaking of which, didn’t Li Si say all your friends were dead? How is there still one alive?”
Now looking like he had become quite familiar with Ji Yueling, Gu Qing had his legs propped up on the front of her car, leaning back in his chair in a lazy, sun-bathing posture. His words were completely unfiltered, seemingly not caring at all about touching on the wounds in her heart.
But perhaps it was precisely because of this that Ji Yueling could answer calmly, “Because Old Tao played a game with me.”
“A game?”
“As long as I ate her flesh, he would let her live.” Ji Yueling answered coldly.
“Did it taste good?” Gu Qing scratched his head and asked curiously.
Ji Yueling didn’t answer, seemingly because Gu Qing’s question had finally crossed her bottom line. Her face was cold as frost, and she stopped talking to Gu Qing.
Gu Qing sensibly didn’t say more.
At this moment, he felt no pity for Ji Yueling, and pity was exactly the emotion Ji Yueling needed least. That pity would only make her recall countless times the most helpless moment of her life, tearing open her wounds again and again, making them bleed profusely.
Gu Qing took out his phone and started chatting with someone, not knowing if it was Lu Qianqian or someone else.
Today the sun was bright. The sports car drove on the asphalt road, and the roadside in the suburbs was somewhat desolate, but the road was very wide, so Ji Yueling could drive faster, making Gu Qing in the passenger seat gradually turn pale.
This seemed to be her revenge for Gu Qing’s loose tongue. Gu Qing immediately complained from the side, “Slow down, I can’t type properly. I’m trying to chat with someone…”
Ji Yueling said nothing, just kept accelerating.
Gu Qing couldn’t continue chatting, so he had to put away his phone and continue nagging in Ji Yueling’s ear. “So how did your friend end up in a mental hospital? Scared crazy?”
Ji Yueling was silent for a moment, then answered, “Yeah.”
“No one in the Alliance can treat her?”
“The doctors said it was a mental problem. My ability can only heal the body. I’ve tried every method I could think of in the Alliance, but they were all futile.”
“Oh…” Gu Qing nodded, then asked, “Is she pretty?”
“I regret bringing you here with me.” Ji Yueling looked coldly at the road ahead. “How about I drive you back?”
“Don’t do that. I’m familiar with all the nurses here. It’s rare to get a chance to catch up with them.”
Ji Yueling’s car finally stopped in the parking lot of Qiming Mental Hospital. The road at the hospital entrance was also lined with sycamore trees, and because they had come too early, the fallen leaves on the ground hadn’t been swept up yet. Gu Qing got out of the car with her and looked at the tall buildings in front of them. The courtyard wall of the patient building in the distance was covered with large patches of ivy, some still withered and yellow, while others had already grown green leaves.
Ji Yueling came here every month, and because of her status, there was already a dedicated attending physician waiting here.
Her friend staying here was named Jian Wei.
Jian Wei’s attending doctor appeared to be a woman about twenty-five years old, wearing a white medical coat, gold-rimmed glasses, with her long hair pinned up and pretty features.
“Miss Ji.” The white-coated female doctor received Ji Yueling and said softly, “Jian Wei’s condition has improved greatly recently. She no longer falls into hysterical states from time to time like when she was first admitted. She can finally eat some meat, and her complexion has improved a lot. I believe you’ll be happy when you see her.”
“Oh, so you increased the medication?” Gu Qing’s inappropriate voice sounded from the side. The female doctor turned to look, and the moment she saw Gu Qing, her eyes showed surprise. “Little Gu?”
“Dr. Lin.” Gu Qing greeted her, though his tone was somewhat perfunctory.
“What are you doing here?” Dr. Lin seemed somewhat surprised and asked gently.
“A new friend. Just happened to come back and take a look with her.” Gu Qing answered casually. “Don’t mind me, I want to walk around.”
“Just don’t disturb my patients again.” Speaking of this, Dr. Lin’s tone became somewhat more serious, yet revealed a hint of helplessness.
“Didn’t I help several of them recover through talk therapy and get discharged? Dr. Lin, you’re just annoyed that I made them all leave, causing you to lose a lot of money. Don’t be so greedy—their families already paid plenty when they sent them here.”
“Your methods aren’t stable. The patients could relapse at any time. As a doctor, I must be responsible for my patients, not…”
Unfortunately, Gu Qing had already covered his ears, indicating he wouldn’t listen. “I’m not going to argue with you. I’m going to wander around.”
With that, Gu Qing quickly walked away, while Ji Yueling followed beside Dr. Lin. At this moment, her eyes held more curiosity. “Dr. Lin, what were you just discussing with him?”
Dr. Lin hesitated for a moment, then slowly answered, “Little Gu also stayed here for a while before.”
“I know, he told me. When he was admitted… what was it for?”
“A powerful person arranged for him to come here, just asking us to take good care of him. As for his condition… he didn’t really seem sick. Our psychological evaluations of him were always normal. At most he had some borderline personality disorder, but it wasn’t very obvious. He kept reading various psychology books, actively trying to heal himself. Apart from occasionally flirting with our female nurses, everything was fine.”
“But after he read through a bunch of psychology and mental health books, he started trying to use the methods he learned from books to practice, attempting to treat patients in the hospital. But most patients who come to this hospital for treatment are already at the point where they need medication to control their condition. Many patients stopped taking their medication at his instigation, causing their conditions to become more serious. Some patients did gradually stabilize through some of his methods and were discharged, but his cognitive therapy methods were more radical, trapping patients in the logical world he constructed. The essential problems weren’t solved.”
“In my opinion, he wasn’t really trying to help these patients. Instead, he was like a childish kid bullying these people who were already disconnected from the world, satisfying some twisted desire for control in his heart. But because of that powerful person’s relationship, we couldn’t do anything to him. We could only warn him repeatedly. Later, after two months, he seemed to get bored and left voluntarily.”
“Is he Miss Ji’s friend?” Dr. Lin suddenly asked.
Ji Yueling hesitated for a moment, then nodded lightly.
“Although this might be presumptuous, I still hope Miss Ji can be a bit careful around him. Little Gu is a very smart child, smart to an enviable degree. It seems to be precisely because of his intelligence that he’s become strange and obsessive. Miss Ji should maintain some wariness when interacting with him.”
“Thank you, I understand.” Ji Yueling answered softly, seemingly not wanting to discuss this topic further. The two of them had now arrived at the door of a hospital room.
Through the glass window of the room door, they could see the woman sitting on the hospital bed, currently lying prone on a folding table on the bed, seriously drawing. Ji Yueling looked through the glass at her face. Her complexion was much, much better than the last time she had come, and her body was no longer so sickly thin. Dr. Lin beside her also looked somewhat relieved. After hesitating for a moment, she slowly said, “Try seeing her once more. If she no longer becomes hysterical upon seeing you, it means her condition is gradually stabilizing. Perhaps by mid-year, she’ll be able to leave for outpatient treatment.”
Ji Yueling wanted to step into this room, but her footsteps became somewhat heavy.
Jian Wei was her best friend from high school, a girl who loved to draw. She had a pure and gentle personality, and her paintings always had a spiritual quality. They became friends because neither liked things too lively. But since that incident, every time they met ended with Jian Wei becoming hysterical again.
Ji Yueling hesitated for a minute, but finally slowly reached out her hand and pushed open that door.
Jian Wei in the room heard the sound, and the moment she saw her face clearly, she suddenly curled up tightly, hugging her knees desperately. Her voice trembled, her expression became ferocious in an instant, her eyes turned red, her breathing became extremely rapid, and her voice began to turn hoarse.
“Don’t… don’t eat me… don’t…”
“Save me… Ji Yueling… eat quickly… eat quickly… eat it… please… eat it quickly…”
“Don’t… don’t eat me!! Don’t!!!”
The room was filled only with Jian Wei’s crying and screaming, exactly the same as that time.
Ji Yueling’s body suddenly became extremely rigid. She seemed to fall back into the scene of that day again. She had to straighten her back to squeeze out a bit of strength from her bone marrow, allowing her to still stand steady in place.