IWOL Chapter 226: Who Was the Madman?

“Yes,” Dong Zheng lied.

The doctor nodded and scribbled on his clipboard. “This is a good sign that your delusions and hallucinations are reducing. Your schizophrenia symptoms have been much improved since when you were first admitted to the hospital. Continue to cooperate with your treatment. It won’t be long before you can leave the hospital.”

The doctor’s few words clarified what Dong Zheng had experienced previously. The first escape from the imperial city originated from the dragon boat on the bedside table. He didn’t know who put it there; maybe it was from a visiting friend. The story of a western cowboy came from the delusional murmurs of the clinically insane person next to him. The lunatic asylum was a fantasy when he was sick and a dream when he was asleep.

What about the hotel, when he saw Cui Zuojing in the mirror? The corner of the mirror had revealed a room behind the young man that had been burned in a mess but that he had recognized as the same hotel he himself was in. Cui Zuojing had shown him the lighter he’d given the girl, followed by the ciphertext of “The Truth is False.” Then there was that weird, terrifying distortion behind Cui Zuojing?

In the end, Cui Zuojing pressed their palms together across the surface of the mirror and he was sucked in through time and space. Where was he now?

Dong Zheng didn’t know. He still had the same feeling from the young man as before. He felt as close as if he was still in a prisoner’s space, but Dong Zheng couldn’t see or call him.

“By the way, can you remember what happened before?” The doctor put the cap back on the pen, looked at Dong Zheng, and said, “Remember your girlfriend who was burned to death?”

The girlfriend who was burned to death? Dong Zheng’s eyebrows moved slightly, but his expressions didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. He shook his head and frowned doubtfully. “What are you talking about? I have a girlfriend? Is there such a good thing?”

“Mental illness is not an excuse. If you really did kill her, it will be impossible for you to escape from the law. The police will investigate everything.” The doctor sneered. He seemed to have already seen through Dong Zheng’s heart. Leaning down, he stared into his eyes and said, “How did the fire burn? Can’t you remember it?”

Even though the doctor’s words had caused all kinds of possible speculations to arose in his heart, Dong Zheng’s expression remained calm. “I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

The doctor still wanted to talk more when the door was suddenly knocked open. The clinically insane young man who was reading screamed in fright at the sudden intrusion and shrank back on the bed. A group of nurses rushed into the room. They grabbed the doctor’s arms, and ignoring his protests, pulled him away from Dong Zheng.

The sounds of the doctor’s struggles intermixed with the nurses’ messy footsteps gradually disappeared from the hallway outside. The head nurse smiled at Dong Zheng’s surprised expression. She took the bottle of medicine from the bedside table and put it in her pocket, saying, “When he gets sick, he likes to pretend to be a doctor whenever he sees other doctors. He ended up deceiving the entire hospital. You just came here so you may not know. Just don’t believe him when you see him again in the future.”

The head nurse left. After a short silence, the young man slowly rose back from the corner of the bed. Seeing Dong Zheng lost in thought, he said, “You shouldn’t believe what any of the doctors and nurses said.”

Dong Zheng turned his head and looked at him. The young man was wearing glasses and his appearance was rather plain, but even with the blue and white hospital gown, he exuded a bookish temperament. “Why?”

“This world is crazy, and the lunatic manages the mad house,” the young man said seriously. “This is my favorite game. In short, this hospital is just like what it says. The sick people united one day and attacked doctors and nurses. They repeatedly brainwashed them to make them believe that they were mentally ill patients in this specialized hospital. The few doctors and nurses who believed them were given hospital gowns and are made to stay in the hospital. Those who were strong-willed are locked up in the underground equipment storage area, where they can never see the light of day again.”

“So according to what you’re saying, you used to be a doctor?”

“Yes, I used to be a doctor here. The head nurse who just spoke to you was a patient of mine. She has seven personalities and keeps insisting that one of the personalities killed another personality and hid the body.”

Dong Zheng asked, “If that’s the case, why not expose them?”

“Why should I want to expose them?” the young man asked back. “Now she’s the one taking care of me. I lie in bed and read a book every day. My life in the sun is pretty good. Every day, because of these mentally ill patients, my mental strength is haggard. Now that they have become normal in their own ways, why should I destroy this hard-won achievement?”

The young man smiled and said, “If you don’t believe me, just go to the equipment room in the basement. The rest of my colleagues are locked there. You won’t doubt me if you see them.”

After saying this, the young man ignored Dong Zheng and returned to his book once more.

Dong Zheng was doubtful. He’d learned some lie detection methods from Fu Zhe, but now he couldn’t tell who spoke the truth and who spoke lies. Their behaviors all had loopholes, and because of this, their absurd behaviors had become the best cover.

Or perhaps the doctors, nurses, and the young man in the next bed, none of them were right.

It seemed that he would have to go to the equipment room. Dong Zheng lifted the cover off his body. The needle pinprick at the back of his hand was no longer bleeding. He thought of the doctor questioning him. If that experience was related to the present, the fire may not necessarily be false. It was possible that, due to the fire, he became over stimulated and that was why he ended up in a mental hospital.

The meeting between Cui Zuojing and himself in the hotel before the fire and after the fire could be regarded as “he” fragmenting out of regret….If “he” was sick, was Cui Zuojing his split personality?

Who knew.

Dong Zheng walked out of the ward. There were other people in the hallway. Since he didn’t know where the equipment room was, he walked on aimlessly. He’d just passed by a room when the door suddenly opened. A pair of hands stretched out from inside and grabbed Dong Zheng’s arm.

He wanted to pull Dong Zheng in, but Dong Zheng was more powerful than he thought. Dong Zheng reflexively stepped back to dodge.

But when Dong Zheng saw that it was the “doctor” the nurses had taken away earlier, Dong Zhen frowned. Relaxing himself, he stopped resisting and voluntarily allowed himself to be dragged into the room. There was something he still needed to explore.

The “doctor” nervously closed the door, as if afraid he would be discovered. This was a small consultation room for doctors to check and talk with patients about their conditions. But it was unclear how the “doctor” had managed to escape from the nurses and hide in here from them.

The “doctor” stared at Dong Zheng. His muscles were tense and even the muscles on his face were tight with tension. “Do you really not remember that you had a girlfriend?”

“…..”

Dong Zheng fell silent for a moment. He really didn’t understand what the man wanted to do so he simply said, “I don’t remember.”

The “doctor” stared at him. When he saw that Dong Zheng’s expression was unchanged and that he didn’t seem to be pretending, the doctor took a step back and distanced himself from Dong Zheng, rubbing his temple with a sigh.

Two male nurses pushed in through the door behind Dong Zheng. They grabbed Dong Zheng to restrain him.

The “doctor” sat in front of the table, pulled a file from the cabinet, and began writing in the record in front of Dong Zheng. He told the nurses, “His condition still needs improvement so let’s provide him with more treatment.”

He was really a doctor?! His previous actions, including making himself seem like a “fake doctor was just an act to deliberately test him?

Even if he was well-trained, Dong Zheng wasn’t completely confident that he wanted to try escaping under the attack of two strong male nurses. He decided to temporarily change his mind and said, “I remember now! I do have a girlfriend!”

The doctor smiled. He stood up, and the two male nurses next to Dong Zheng took off their blue and white nurse uniform, revealing the police uniform underneath. They twisted Dong Zheng’s arms behind his back in order to handcuff him.

“You finally admitted that you and another suspect Zou Mou had cheated with each other. When the victim found out, a physical dispute occurred. She had a heart attack and died on the spot. In order to cover up the crime, you and Zou Mou used a lighter to burn down the crime scene, causing a fire that burned the innocent family in Room 302 alive.”

Dong Zheng: ?!?!?!

The doctor behind the table showed a regretful expression. “I told you that it is absolutely impossible to escape legal punishment by pretending to be crazy and stupid.”

“Wait a minute!” A second before the handcuffs were put on him, Dong Zheng exclaimed, “That’s not the case! You caught the wrong person!”

The policeman’s hand paused for a moment. Dong Zheng took the opportunity to pull his hand out, reach into the chest pocket of his hospital gown, and took the hard thing out to show the police officers.

This thing suddenly appeared in his pocket. Dong Zheng had the mentality to recklessly save his own life first so when he took the thing out, he looked at it closely and saw that it contained his photo and license information.

“I am the doctor here. You have all been deceived by him. This is a mentally ill patient in our hospital. He especially likes to pretend to be a doctor.” Dong Zheng pointed to the doctor behind the table who was incoherently trying to explain. Pretending that he wasn’t in a cold sweat, Dong Zheng calmly asked the police officers, “Can I leave now?”

The police officers were suspicious. After checking Dong Zheng’s medical license, they finally released him.

Dong Zheng walked out of the consulting room, not caring about what would happen in the room behind him. At the moment he left, the chaotic sound instantly quieted and the hallway changed its appearance. The doors on both sides disappeared, leaving only the double door at the end of the hallway.

A lamp on the ceiling in front of the door ‌emitted a cool white light.

Dong Zheng’s footsteps echoed in the empty hallway.

He walked to the door and easily pushed it open.

This was a filing room. Rows of filing cabinets more than two meters high stood in neat rows, filled with folders. Some folders were spread out on the middle table.

Dong Zheng walked over, turned on the lamp, and saw the picture of the head nurse in the file.

[Name: Bessie Hillman
Occupation: Former head nurse of hospital
After some tests were conducted, she was diagnosed with at least seven different personalities. Bessie claimed that one of the personalities had escaped from her brain after killing the other one. The whereabouts of this personality is currently unknown. The escaped personality is extremely aggressive and infectious. Bessie described him as an oriental young man who was about 19 years old and who called himself Cui Zuojing.]

Dong Zheng was stunned.

He picked up the file below.

[Name: Vincent Campbell
Occupation: Hotel staff
‌When a fire broke out in the hotel, he tried to rescue the guest trapped in Room 302, but failed. As a result, he suffered a strong stimulus, which caused a mental disorder. Psychological treatment is recommended. Later, after some observations, it is determined that he might have been invaded by one of Bessie’s personalities, as he began to display signs of schizophrenia and a split personality.]