Chapter 94: Reality and Illusion 1

Chapter 94: Reality and Illusion, Part One

In his dazed state, Zhang Sanlu heard screams. He thought he could also hear a jumble of hurried footsteps, even the sound of mournful wailing, and the noise filled him with irritation.

He tried hard to open his eyes, but it was useless, until he lost consciousness completely.

He did not know how long had passed before a steady, rhythmic beep drifted to his ears.

Zhang Sanlu suddenly opened his eyes. After staring blankly for quite a while, he finally realized that he was not dead at all, but lying in a hospital bed.

Looking around at the machines beeping all around him, there was no doubt this was a ward. A dozen paces away, an elderly man lay motionless on the opposite bed, his body threaded through with tubes.

Still groggy, Zhang Sanlu glanced to either side and saw that the devices on the floor were feeding many tubes into his own body and mouth. The sight of those lines burrowed into him made him think of the Li family matriarch and her translucent, threadlike umbilical cord.

He drew several deep breaths, trying to lift his head, but it was terribly difficult. With effort, he raised his right hand and pressed the call button beside the bed.

Buzz.

He lowered his hand and waited, but heard no footsteps and no voices.

Buzz.

He pressed it twice more. This time, still no doctor or nurse appeared; only the dim lights flickered faintly.

Zhang Sanlu forced his right hand upward again. Bracing his waist, he struggled to sit up, but the pain in his chest made him cough violently.

"Cough, cough, cough—"

Clutching his chest, he paused for a moment, then yanked the IV line from his arm. A few drops of blood fell to the floor. Next he tore off the adhesive electrodes stuck to his body, and the heart monitor, deprived of their contact points, let out a long, drawn-out beep.

He was not dead?

Yet Zhang Sanlu did not feel especially joyful.

After taking a few breaths, he pulled out the long tube in his stomach as well. When it came free, the irritation in his throat made him spit up a mouthful of sour water.

When he raised his head again, he found the opposite bed empty. The old man covered in tubes was gone, and the bed was neatly made. The machines were off, the lights dark.

"Another hallucination." Zhang Sanlu shook his head, trying to fling the delusion away.

Enduring the pain in his body, he moved his feet from the bed to the floor.

Clatter.

Zhang Sanlu was startled to find an iron chain locked around his left ankle. It seemed that while he had been over there in that other world, something else had gone wrong here as well, though this was entirely unlike the way a psychiatric hospital would handle things.

Such metal locks and chains not only failed to control psychiatric patients effectively, they could also cause secondary harm.

Rustle, rustle, rustle—

Just as Zhang Sanlu was staring at the chain in a daze, he suddenly heard a rustling sound from behind a door in the distance. It should have been a bathroom. Someone was inside using the toilet, and it was a man, otherwise the noise would not have been so loud.

Zhang Sanlu waited patiently for the person to come out, so he could understand what had happened again.

The sound ended, followed by the flush of a toilet, the turn of a tap, the sound of washing hands. Then the door opened, and a tall, thin man in a doctor’s white coat walked out. He glanced at Zhang Sanlu, said nothing, and merely raised a hand in greeting, signaling for him to wait.

Zhang Sanlu did not know him. In the institution where he stayed, doctors, nurses, attendants, and other staff were all required to wear uniforms during working hours, but he was certain he had never seen this person before.

The doctor in the white coat walked to the right side of the room and climbed the wooden staircase with heavy footsteps.

A staircase? Zhang Sanlu hesitated inwardly. Since when did a hospital have an indoor loft? What sort of ward was this?

After a while, accompanied once again by those heavy footsteps, the thin man came back down. As he lowered his head and descended the stairs, Zhang Sanlu noticed that his hair was a little thin at the crown.

"I shouldn’t be in a hospital, should I?" Zhang Sanlu asked, looking at him.

The man looked up at him, then seemed to caution him. "Yes, you’re clever. But you should stay calm."

"Am I not calm enough?" Zhang Sanlu said with a smile.

"You were screaming last night," the man said, standing beside the curtains. He appeared a little nervous and rubbed his hands together. "I know you must be worried. And if you’re feeling tense, that’s only natural. But things aren’t actually as bad as you imagine."

Zhang Sanlu said nothing, simply watching him.

"Well... if I think about it carefully, it is pretty bad. I know that. But I do really need your help," the man in the white coat said, nodding, visibly uneasy. "I truly do!"

Zhang Sanlu looked at him, then pointed at the chain around his foot. "Can you let me out of this first?"

The man did not answer. Instead, he pushed a movable table over, then brought over a chair and sat beside it. "I know this isn’t a good idea. You saw through it right away, as expected. But I really don’t know what else to do."

"Can I take it that I’ve been forcibly transferred to another hospital, or abducted?" Zhang Sanlu asked from the edge of the bed.

"It doesn’t have to sound quite so ugly. The environment here is the same as the ward, including the medical equipment and the staff." The man in the white coat waved a hand, wrote something in his notebook, and then said, "Especially with a professional doctor like you here. Don’t you think so, Doctor Zhang Wei?"

The other man sprang to his feet, surprise written all over his face. "How did you know it was me? We’ve never met."

"I only guessed, but now I’m sure." Zhang Sanlu smiled.

Zhang Wei let out a sigh. "You’re very smart, and very composed. Completely unlike the way you are when your illness flares up."

"Is that so? Did that make you uneasy?" Zhang Sanlu asked, guiding him further.

"Oh, don’t do that. I am a licensed professional psychologist," Zhang Wei said with exaggerated emphasis.

Zhang Sanlu looked at him, rubbing his somewhat painful chest. There seemed to be something hard protruding there. "Then let me think. Do you need some kind of help or cooperation from me?"

"I originally thought you might need some time to accept what happened here. I didn’t expect you to adapt this quickly." Zhang Wei tapped the table lightly with his pen, then suddenly changed the subject. "Have you seen Inception?"

"Of course. It’s a classic. In Chinese, the title would be translated as Inception." Zhang Sanlu was also a film enthusiast.

"Mm. Have you ever thought that perhaps reality does not exist at all, and we are merely trapped within it?"

"Are you suddenly trying to discuss my condition with me?" Zhang Sanlu asked in return. "Do you mean to say I’m always trapped in fantasies?"

"No, it’s me!!!"