A few days later, He Yu made a reservation at a rooftop restaurant and asked Xie Xue to meet him on a weekend evening. He was planning to formally express his feelings to her there.
Xie Xue was confused when she picked up his call, but once she heard that there would be food, she was immediately overjoyed. "All right! I'll be there! I'll definitely be there!"
"Then let's do six o'clock on the 20th. See you there."
"Eh? The evening of the 20th?"
"What is it?"
Xie Xue felt a bit distressed. "I might be a little late if it's then. The Emergency Department at Huzhou First Hospital just called me and said that Homeless Services would be taking Uncle Zhuang to Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital that evening. I also reached out to Cheng Kang, since I wanted to discuss bringing students over to visit with their director…"
He Yu sighed. "Then I'll pick a different time."
"But it's so hard to get reservations at that restaurant. The last time I called, they told me I would need to do it at least three months in advance."
He Yu smiled. "Don't worry, we can go anytime you want. My family is one of the restaurant's investors."
Xie Xue was speechless.
Capitalism. What a disgusting thing. It robbed all the satisfaction of a hard-won prize.
"Don't. It's so much trouble for the restaurant managers, and I don't like doing things that way," said Xie Xue, "Let's just go with the 20th. I'll try to finish up as quickly as possible. If anything changes, I'll tell you on WeChat beforehand."
He Yu pressed a hand against his forehead, smiling even more widely.
"Okay, it's all up to you."
Xie Xue happily ended the call.
There was going to be good food to eat!
The 20th arrived in the blink of an eye.
Because Xie Xue was discussing business on behalf of the school, she wore a classic Huzhou University faculty uniform suit to accompany Zhuang Zhiqiang to Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital with the employee from Homeless Services.
Unlike Wanping 600, Cheng Kang was a privately run and very old psychiatric hospital. As soon as they stepped out of the car, they were assaulted by a horrible stench. A staff worker was in the middle of directing a cleaning cart to drag off a load of bedsheets that had been soiled with patients' feces and urine with a look of aversion on their face. Off to the side, two people in charge of refueling a car were arguing, their faces turning red as they debated whether or not some gas had gone missing.
Uncle Zhuang was a bit afraid, and he shrank back, tugging on Xie Xue's hand. "Daughter, this…"
"Don't worry, Uncle. You'll only be here for a short while. They'll take you somewhere else later, okay?"
Only then did Uncle Zhuang slowly follow Xie Xue into the building.
The decor in the psychiatric hospital's reception area could be considered comforting. Though the facilities were all aging, at least the air inside the room was clean and fresh, and the color scheme was soothing.
"Xiao-Zhang from Homeless Services? You're here to arrange Mr. Zhuang Zhiqiang's temporary guardianship service, correct?"
"Yes."
"The boss mentioned you'd be coming. This way, please."
Zhuang Zhiqiang's condition was classified as a relatively minor case, so he was placed on the first floor. Accompanied by an employee, Xie Xue toured the room and surrounding areas, which relaxed her slightly. A young staff member began to speak with Uncle Zhuang, her expression all smiles.
Mistaking the staff for his daughter, he began to ramble on again.
"Well then, we'll be leaving him in your care." The Homeless Services employee returned to the office with the director of long-term hospitalizations and signed a stack of forms.
But Xie Xue's appointment wasn't with the receptionists. She needed to talk to Director Liang, who was upstairs. The receptionist couldn't step away from her post to guide her, so she gave Xie Xue directions to the third-floor shift office where she could find him.
The third floor of the Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital was the ward set aside for acute cases. As soon as Xie Xue stepped out of the elevator, she felt a chill—the entire atmosphere on this floor was completely different from downstairs.
It felt like a prison, with its barred windows and reinforced doors lining the entire corridor. Shrieks and sobs filled the air, making the whole area seem as frightening as a scene out of a horror movie.
The incandescent bulbs flooded the corridor in bright light around the clock, rendering it an abnormal, deathly white.
"I'm dying! I'm dying, ha ha ha ha ha ha—"
"You're sick! You're the sick ones!"
"I'm not human, I'm a ghost, no, I'm not a ghost, I'm human! …Who exactly am I? Am I a human or a ghost…?"
Each patient's room was sealed with a heavy steel door, and each steel door had a copy-paper-sized tempered glass window through which it was possible to peer inside.
Trembling with fear, Xie Xue ventured a bit further down the corridor. In the end, she couldn't contain her curiosity and stopped at the doorway of a relatively quiet patient's room, lifting herself onto her toes to peek in the window.
A woman was sitting inside, laughing foolishly to herself. The entire room was fully furnished with soft objects that ensured the patient could not harm or kill herself. There were no tables or chairs. Even the bed was a special type that didn't have corners, and it came equipped with pitch-black restraints that trailed down to the floor.
That madwoman was sitting there and caressing the restraints, clinging to them intimately and shoving them into her ample bosom, giggling stupidly. "Who told you to cheat with that bitch? Look, now… I've already chopped you into strips… Other than me, who else would be willing to touch and hold you? Husband…"
Xie Xue moved on to the next room, but it was empty. Perhaps the patient had been taken away for treatment.
The window of the room after that showed the silhouette of a hunchbacked man, sitting facing a corner and smearing something on the wall. He appeared extremely calm and peaceful, but as Xie Xue stared, she realized that what he was smearing was his own excrement!
Continuing to the next room, she saw the patient was a young boy.
Perhaps because he had mutilated himself too badly, he had been completely bound to a specialized bed—who knew for how long. He was laughing and sobbing hysterically with his face upturned. "Fuck you! What right do you have to tie me down? I want to die!! Why can't I want to die?! If you don't let me die, once I get out, I'll kill you all…! Once I get out, I'll kill every last one of you!! Let me out! Set me free!!"
The more Xie Xue watched, the more terrified she became; the more terrified she became, the more she stared, stupefied.
Eventually, her eyes moved along the glass window, to the next—
"AH!!!" Xie Xue screamed.
A face pressed against the glass window caught her off guard.
Horribly frightened, Xie Xue retreated to the opposite side of the corridor, leaning against a door on the other side and panting harshly.
The man at the window was cross-eyed, and he stared at her with terrifyingly huge, bloodshot eyes. Seeing her frightened expression, he started laughing loudly with delight from inside the room. His nose, red and swollen from rosacea, was pressed tightly to the glass, rubbing sebaceous streaks all over the window.
Xie Xue's heart pounded. She had just struggled to collect herself when she suddenly felt something ice-cold on her ankle.
She looked down and screamed even louder than before.
"AAHHHHHH!!!"
It was a hand!
In addition to the eye-level windowpane, there was also a flap for delivering meals at the bottom of the steel door. Taking advantage of this, a tiny pale hand had reached out from the opening and was grabbing tightly onto her ankle, which was pressed against the door.
Xie Xue nearly had a breakdown. She jumped up immediately, crying and screaming while stomping her feet. The little hand retreated, but the patient went back to the center of the room, standing where he could be seen through the windowpane. It was a young boy with albinism. His entire body looked as if he'd been bleached—even his pupils were nearly translucent. He stared calmly at her, baring his gleaming white teeth in a grin.
"Jiejie… Heh heh heh…"
Cheng Kang had poor soundproofing. All the patients along the corridor had taken notice of the ruckus. They squeezed up to their respective windows and stared at Xie Xue while filling the corridor with a cacophony of strange noises. The patients shouted among themselves, and a number of them stuck their hands out through the opening flaps, swaying them back and forth and grasping the air blindly like floating seaweed.
"There's a woman here to see us!"
"Who is it? A doctor?"
"A doctor, my ass! A visitor!"
"It's a female ghost!"
"Grab her legs!"
They couldn't reach Xie Xue, of course, but they laughed with extreme and unbridled abandon. For a moment, Xie Xue practically felt like she'd walked into a forest filled with owl spirits, surrounded by ghoulish cries.
Xie Xue couldn't bear it anymore. She prepared to flee back to where she had come from. No matter how long the receptionist took, she'd wait until they were done before coming back up with them!
But right at that very moment, someone tapped her on the shoulder.
"HELP AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" Bad things came in threes; Xie Xue's mental defenses broke down completely.
"Shh."
Xie Xue's face was soaked in cold sweat. She turned in the direction of the shushing sound in horror only to see an exceptionally attractive countenance.
It was a beautiful woman.
That woman wore an old-fashioned, vintage-looking red dress with a pair of red heels. She was a little along in years, about fifty or so, but one could still see the stunning beauty she must have possessed when she was younger.
Even though they'd begun to shrivel away like a drying apple, one could still imagine the beguiling allure her features once had.
A name tag hung over her chest: "Liang Jicheng."
Xie Xue let out a sudden sigh of relief like a leaking ball on the verge of collapse. "D-Director Liang…"
Liang Jicheng smiled, but for some reason, her face was a little stiff, as if she couldn't move her muscles fully and could only manage that superficial expression.
She told Xie Xue quietly, "You must not scream here. The more you scream, the more it thrills the patients, and the more they'll try to scare you. Come, let's go to my office."
At five-thirty, He Yu suddenly received a message from Xie Xue. "I probably won't be late."
He replied to her. "Did the talks go smoothly on your end?"
"Quite smoothly. They agreed to let me bring a group of students here to visit, but they have more requirements than I expected, so I'm still hashing out the details."
After a while, she texted, "Oh, right. The Director Liang in charge of showing me around today is beautiful! A real stunner, and super poised. It's really too bad that you didn't come along."
He Yu didn't want to bother himself with her anymore. He tossed his phone aside and got ready to wait for her at the restaurant.
It was still early when he arrived. The manager reverentially led him to the table at the rooftop observatory he'd booked in advance. Even though there were private rooms, He Yu had chosen an open balcony seat so that they could look down at Huzhou's scenery. Plus, the night wind was very calming, and the rosy sunset was beautiful and majestic. He felt that Xie Xue would like this better.
At 6:05 p.m., Xie Xue still hadn't arrived.
He Yu sent her a message asking where she was and whether she was caught in traffic. Right after that, he heard a nearby server say, "Ladies and gentlemen, please be careful on these steps."
He looked up to see a large group of people had arrived. It looked like some business conference or a gathering for the higher-ups of a company.
He Yu found it a little noisy. Just as he was thinking about whether he should get a different seat, however, the sight of an indifferent-looking man among the crowd startled him. "Xie Qingcheng?"
As luck would have it, the medical school that Xie Qingcheng worked at had an important event at this venue, which was chosen months in advance. Now that the event was over, it was dinnertime for the attendees.
When arranging a date at such an upscale spot, He Yu never could have imagined that he would be so unfortunate as to still end up bumping into Xie Qingcheng.
How could he possibly express his feelings to Xie Xue with this feudalistic patriarch at the scene?! God knows, Xie Qingcheng might throw him off the top floor into the river below!
Xie Qingcheng had noticed He Yu as well. He said a few words to his colleague and walked over to greet He Yu. "Waiting for someone?"
"…Yes."
One of Xie Qingcheng's nosy coworkers approached. Upon seeing He Yu, they said, "Ooh, what a handsome young man. Professor Xie, is this your relative?"
"A client's son."
"Oh… Young man, are you on a date with your girlfriend?" In this world, there were always irritating social butterflies who pried without the slightest respect for boundaries.
He Yu had a good sense of self-restraint. He smiled, saying,
"I'm waiting for Professor Xie's little sister."
The colleague grew even more excited, turning to bat their lashes in Xie Qingcheng's direction. "Your brother-in-law is so handsome."
At the sight of Xie Qingcheng's expression, He Yu knew that if he dared tell Xie Xue how he felt today, Xie Qingcheng would flip a table and start a fight with him on the spot.
…What if he gave up? He could tell her some other day and just have dinner with Xie Xue this time round.
His mind set, he voluntarily took the first step to smile and say, "You've misunderstood, we're just friends."
Xie Qingcheng was still frowning. "Why did you make plans with her?"
"I haven't had the chance to treat her properly since I came back from overseas."
Just as Xie Qingcheng was about to say something else, his colleagues at their table started calling for them to get seated. With his colleague pulling him away, he had no other choice but to leave. He shot He Yu a look of warning before returning to his own table.
When 6:15 p.m. rolled around, the food had already begun to arrive at the medical school professors' table. Xie Xue, however, had yet to make her appearance.
Not only that, but she also hadn't even replied to the messages that He Yu sent her ten minutes ago. He Yu sent another text, but there was still no response.
Feeling something was off, He Yu decided to call Xie Xue directly on WeChat.
She didn't answer.
He then tried calling her cell number.
At first, the dial tone beeped, but after a long time, there was still no response.
He called her again…
Something was definitely wrong.
"Hello, the user you are calling has their device switched off. Please call back later."
Xie Xue's phone had suddenly been switched off.
This time, He Yu was certain that something had happened. He immediately stood up and made to walk straight out of the rooftop restaurant. At the sight of Young Master He moving so quickly and with such a dark expression, the manager was terrified out of his wits. With panic in his voice, he asked, "Young Master He, was there a problem with the service?"
"No." He Yu pressed the elevator buttons, his expression growing increasingly severe. "Have the lobby call a car for me, immediately."
"Oh! Yes, straight away."
He Yu's temper was beginning to flare; why the fuck was this building so tall?
He even had to switch elevators to get all the way down!
With a loud ding, the offending elevator finally reached his floor. The gunmetal-gray doors opened, and He Yu strode in. Just as the doors were about to close, a hand shot between them and pushed them open again.
He Yu looked up viciously to see which tactless bastard was wasting his time. What he saw was a beautifully slender hand wearing a wristwatch.
His eyes traced their way up the length of that arm, only to meet Xie Qingcheng's gravely stern face.
"What happened?"
Forty minutes later, after running too many red lights to count and breaking numerous traffic regulations, the restaurant's luxurious shuttle bus came to a stop outside Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital.
He Yu and Xie Qingcheng entered the building together.
By this time, the sky had already turned dark. The lights were on in the lobby and the first floor. Several patients with mild conditions were doing rehabilitation exercises under the nurses' supervision.
Upon seeing He Yu and Xie Qingcheng's harried expressions as they pushed open the door, the nurse at the reception desk stared briefly in surprise before addressing them. "Who are you looking for?"
"A young female teacher from Huzhou University came to see Director Liang to discuss a project this afternoon," said Xie Qingcheng.
"I'm her older brother. Where is she?"
"In that case, she should be on the third floor." The nurse looked Xie Qingcheng up and down and suddenly smiled, her face reddening. "You're worried about your little sister, handsome? You don't need to be so nervous," she teased in a saccharine voice. "We're a licensed hospital here.
Nothing can go wrong. They probably just got carried away while chatting.
Plus, our Director Liang is in his fifties and has a wife and kid. There's no way he would—"
"What did you say?!" He Yu suddenly cut her off. "You said Director Liang has a wife and a kid?"
"Y-yes."
He Yu's face blanched. Originally, he only had an unfounded ‐ suspicion that something was wrong, but now He Yu was completely certain.
He still had the last message that Xie Xue sent to him. She had said,
"The Director Liang in charge of showing me around today is beautiful! A
real stunner, and super poised."
But Director Liang wasn't a woman!
He Yu immediately sprinted up the stairs.
At that very moment, within Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital's shift office, drifting snippets of a children's nursery rhyme echoed throughout the space. "Drop, drop, drop the hanky, set it lightly behind your friend's back, no one let her know…"
"Liang Jicheng" absentmindedly hummed this song as she hacked at something on the ground again and again with the surgical scalpel in her hand.
The fan above her head whirred with a droning hum. It threw the stark lines of shadow and light into a chaotic mess, but the object in front of her was still illuminated.
It was a body, still fresh.
Blood had already dyed the Huzhou University faculty uniform bright red… The Huzhou University faculty uniform…
And in it was Xie Xue.
"Liang Jicheng" finally managed to hack off Xie Xue's entire hand.
Holding it up, she examined the hand for a while before apathetically tossing it aside. The disembodied body part fell to the ground next to where Xie Xue's ice-cold corpse lay…