Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"009"

Xiao Lancui glanced at the text, then switched his phone to airplane mode.

It took half an hour to walk from the subway station to Sen Mountain Psychiatric Hospital. He walked in fits and starts, buying a few packs of cigarettes and several boxes of nutritional supplements along the way. An hour later, he arrived at Sen Mountain Psychiatric Hospital.

New Year's Day had just passed, and the festive decorations hanging everywhere hadn't been taken down yet, but Sen Mountain Psychiatric Hospital seemed to exist in a different world—bleak and decaying, steeped in a suffocating, oppressive lifelessness.

The rusty iron gate was mottled with corrosion and remained tightly shut even during the day. It was much taller than a standard gate, with thick electrical wires wrapped around the top.

This was an old, locked-down psychiatric hospital.

Poplar trees lined the gate on both sides. In winter, they had no green leaves and no catkins—bare and stark, their branches sprawled every which way against the gray-white sky like skinny bones.

A kite had gotten stuck at the top of one of the poplars inside the gate at some point. Its colors had faded completely in the cold wind, flapping and rattling as it blew.

You could see it and hear it from outside the gate.

Xiao Lancui coughed a few times, his throat scratchy and dry. He opened his bag, took out the sip cup, and took a few slow sips of the warm herbal medicine. After capping it and stowing it back in his bag, he stepped forward and knocked on the gate.

On the lower left side of the main gate was a small iron door for coming and going, with a square opening in the middle about the size of a bowl.

No one answered for a long time. Xiao Lancui knocked twice more before he finally heard footsteps approaching.

After a moment, a pair of murky eyes appeared at the window, sizing up Xiao Lancui. A gravelly voice asked, "What do you want?"

Going by the voice, the man was probably sixty or older.

Xiao Lancui said politely, "Hello, I'm looking for Sun Qinian. He works in the kitchen. His family asked me to drop some stuff off for him."

The small iron door opened. The guard was a wiry little old man with a cigarette tucked behind his left ear. He looked at Xiao Lancui with surprise and said, "There's no one named Sun Qinian in the kitchen?"

Of course there wasn't.

Sun Qinian was Xiao Lancui's top bodyguard.

Xiao Lancui asked, "Is this Sen Mountain Psychiatric Hospital?"

"Yeah," the little old man said. "But there's really no Sun Qinian in the kitchen. Only three people work there, and I know all of them!"

Xiao Lancui said, "This is the address he gave his family." He took out a pack of cigarettes and handed them to the old man with a smile. "Could you do me a favor and ask around? Maybe he's a security guard."

The little old man grinned, took the cigarettes, and said, "Alright, go wait in my shack. I'll go ask."

He beckoned to Xiao Lancui. "Come on in."

Only then did Xiao Lancui step through the door. The old man waited until Xiao Lancui entered the hut before trotting off.

The hut was the guard station, split into two small rooms—an outer one of about four or five square meters with a table, a beat-up swivel chair, and two plain chairs.

On the table sat a portable flashlight and a nightstick. In front of the table were two sliding glass windows, no longer used, shut tight. A duty schedule was taped to the left of the glass.

There was only one name on it: Zhou Fengqiang.

Xiao Lancui set down the rest of the cigarettes and supplements. He didn't sit down. Before long, Zhou Fengqiang came back, shaking his head. "You must've got it wrong, kid. I asked everyone—even the nurses—there's no Sun Qinian here."

Xiao Lancui put on an apologetic look and said, "I'm sorry, Uncle Zhou. Actually, I came here to find someone else."

Zhou Fengqiang went, "Huh?" and Xiao Lancui continued, "A good friend of mine was sent here. I know you don't allow visitors, so I came up with this little scheme."

Before Zhou Fengqiang could speak, he added, "Uncle Zhou, I'll just take a quick look and leave. I won't stay long. This little something on the table—hope you can help me out."

The cigarettes Xiao Lancui had given him were top-shelf. Zhou Fengqiang glanced at the expensive nutritional supplements on the table and said with a smile, "Why didn't you say so earlier? Could've saved yourself a trip." It wasn't just about the gifts—he sighed and said, "You and your friend must've been through hell together! I've seen it all here—even parents and kids don't come visit. Screw 'no visitors allowed.' Nobody ever comes anyway. By the way, what's your friend's name? Maybe I know him."

"Lu Ao."

Zhou Fengqiang did know him. He's a recent arrival, completely out of his mind, locked up alone in the sealed room, and has to get sedative shots on a schedule every day.

Zhou Fengqiang clicked his tongue. "Him? You can only see him through the window."

The room had just one small window, sealed from the inside with thick steel bars. A little light crept through the gaps. The lights were off, and you could barely make out a mattress inside.

Just a mattress—no bed frame. A very tall figure lay flat on it. More precisely, Lu Ao was strapped down from shoulders to feet with restraints, a blue-and-white checkered blanket bunched up at the foot of the mattress, not covering him.

His head was still wrapped in white gauze, so you couldn't see his face at all.

Zhou Fengqiang said from the side, "Your friend was a nightmare on his first day here. Three young guards could barely hold him down. In the end, they had to restrain him. Every day, during the few hours he's awake, they have to hit him with a sedative right away. There's no other way. Forget the straps—he's kicked through several doors already. Look over there—he busted that one yesterday and they haven't even had time to replace it! He's nothing but skin and bones, but where the hell does he get that strength!"

Xiao Lancui looked at the door—a wooden one with a jagged hole kicked through the bottom.

He'd felt Lu Ao's strength firsthand. The guy had nearly crushed his throat.

He looked away. "Let's head back."

Zhou Fengqiang took Xiao Lancui down a side path, avoiding people both coming and going. But the hospital barely had any staff left anyway—just a few new young guards the Lu family had sent specifically to watch Lu Ao.

Zhou Fengqiang didn't know that, of course. As he walked Xiao Lancui out, he seemed in no hurry to end the conversation. He rarely got to talk to a normal person around here and was usually bored out of his mind. He couldn't help asking, "You gonna come visit your friend again? He's so bad off—who knows how long he'll be here."

Xiao Lancui smiled. "I will." He added, "I've got relatives in Shandong who send me local specialties all the time. I'll bring you some next time."

He'd caught Zhou Fengqiang's accent.

Zhou Fengqiang grinned from ear to ear, clearly delighted. He pulled out his phone and said, "Give me your number. When your friend wakes up, I'll call you—that way you might still get here in time to see him! What's your name?"

"Xiao Zixian."

Zixian, his courtesy name.

Xiao Lancui took out his phone, turned off airplane mode, and gave his number. When Zhou Fengqiang called, he glanced at the incoming number, memorized it, and didn't save it.

After leaving Sen Mountain Psychiatric Hospital, Xiao Lancui pulled out an oxygen tank and took a few hits of oxygen. The hospital was too stuffy and depressing; his chest felt tight and uncomfortable.

He'd already missed his morning classes. Not in any rush to get to school, he walked back to the subway, picked a station with a nice-sounding name at random, got off, and found a convenience store that sold Matcha Milk Pudding Ice Bread.

It was lunchtime, so the convenience store was packed. Xiao Lancui grabbed a Matcha Milk Pudding Ice Bread, a bottle of distilled water, and a pack of tissues.

While waiting in line, a lot of people—men and women alike—stole glances at Xiao Lancui, but no one dared approach him to ask for his WeChat.

He was beautiful but cold, like a still, clear lake or a towering snow-white mountain. Standing in the middle of a busy convenience store, he seemed to exist on a whole different plane from everyone around him, naturally radiating elegance and something almost divine.

All they could do was admire him from a distance.

Xiao Lancui paid and stepped out of the convenience store. The warmth was cut off the second the glass door shut behind him. It was freezing outside. He coughed lightly a couple times, pulled his soft scarf tighter, and hurried to find a restaurant.

One meat dish, one veggie dish, one soup, and a bowl of rice. Xiao Lancui ate in silence. Before long, his phone rang again.

This time, it was a different unfamiliar number.

Xiao Lancui didn't recognize the number; it hadn't appeared in the original text. He answered, and Lu Siye's laugh crackled through the receiver, "You really blocked me—"

Xiao Lancui hung up and added another number to his blocklist.

Lu Siye had previously used the original host's body to get close to Xiao Anfeng, but only put on a show in front of Xiao Anfeng; privately, he almost never contacted him.

But now he was contacting him way too often. Did that mean things had stalled with Xiao Anfeng?

Xiao Lancui quickly ran through the original story—nope, nothing. After Xiao Anfeng and Lu Siye spent a night alone on the island, the two had gone quiet with each other.

Xiao Lancui found these pointless interruptions seriously annoying; his time was too valuable for this.

After lunch, he still had some time to kill. Xiao Lancui ate his ice bread while logging into City University's internal network, scrolling through the course listings for the College of Science and the Math Department.

The original host had majored in econ and management at City University, but Xiao Lancui wasn't planning on going to those. He was going to sit in on classes at the College of Science instead.

Quantum mechanics—the talk by that quantum tunneling expert—was from 2:20 to 4:20 PM.

The venue was the Science Hall, a lecture hall that seated three or four hundred people.

Around 1 PM, the lecture hall was still empty. Xiao Lancui grabbed an inconspicuous aisle seat on the edge and sat down, opened his laptop, and searched for quantum mechanics papers.

Slowly, the room filled with chatter as students trickled in. A bit later, Xiao Lancui was deep in his reading when someone dropped into the seat to his left, and a heavy stench of tobacco hit him immediately.

Xiao Lancui glanced sideways and locked eyes with Lu Siye, who was smirking at him. Lu Siye had a lollipop in his mouth. Once he saw Xiao Lancui had spotted him, he pulled it out—a pale pink ball, tropical raspberry—and grinned, "Ignoring my calls, huh? So you're here crashing lectures at the College of Science."

Lu Siye raised an eyebrow and asked, "Never heard you give a damn about quantum mechanics before. What, thinking of becoming a scientist now?"

Suddenly his smile froze as he stared uncertainly at the obvious disgust on Xiao Lancui's face.

Disgust at whom?

At him?

Lu Siye thought he must have seen wrong.

What standing did Xiao Lancui have to dare show disgust toward him?

Xiao Lancui said unhurriedly, "I have no memory of you, so I doubt our relationship is as close as you claim. Don't contact me again—let's save each other's time. And also."

He pulled out a tissue, covered his mouth, and said with a frown, "You stink. Stay away from me."

No one had ever dared to look down on Lu Siye, let alone call him stinky. His expression turned completely cold.

He wasn't the type to control his temper, and Xiao Lancui certainly didn't deserve to make him suppress it.

Lu Siye stood up, grabbed the laptop off the desk with one hand, and hurled it.

A male student got hit, yelped, and turned to look back.

The laptop crashed to the floor, making a conspicuous noise in the otherwise quiet classroom.

The male student opened his mouth to curse, but his friend beside him quickly clamped a hand over his mouth and urgently whispered, "Buddy, don't cause trouble—that's Lu Siye from the business school!"

A wave of gazes converged on Xiao Lancui in hushed silence, and the lecture hall fell completely still.

Lu Siye stood sideways, one hand in his pocket, leaning down until he was inches from Xiao Lancui's nose. Staring into his eyes, he sneered and, in a voice only the two of them could hear, bit out each word, "Xiao Lancui, say that again."