Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 948: I am not in love with you (Part )

When he woke up, it was bright and the rain had stopped, but the air was still gloomy and damp. There is a subtle smell of disinfectant in the room, mixed with a jasmine-like aroma.

The room was quiet except for the hum of the equipment. When Cai Ji opened his eyes, he found that he was fixed on the bed, lying on his side facing the window. The hands and feet covered under the quilt were tightly attached to the body, unable to move at all, a bit like the feeling after putting on a bondage garment.

He stared at the sky outside the window for a long time, not knowing what he was thinking for a long time. Even though he could only see half of the room, he knew he must be in a hospital or something. Both the smell and the furnishings told him that. However, the environment here is much better than he imagined: the room is extremely quiet, there is no sound of other people, so it is a single ward; the floor tiles and walls are spotless, not the usual blue and white tones, but elegant The fresh light green reminds people of the atmosphere of early spring; near the corner under the window, there is a pot of frangipani that has been cultivated especially energetically. The pure white flowers are crowded on the branches. Although this flower has a strong fragrance, it is not very auspicious in Cai Ji's impression. People in my hometown say this is the dead man's flower, which only grows much around wild graves.

Cai Ji didn't think about it carefully whether the rumors were true. But in his eyes, the pot of flowers in the corner did not have an artistic conception linked to death at all, but was filled with vitality that almost burst out from the waterfall of flowers. The countless branches and flowers shine brightly, emitting a stronger light than the sky outside the window. He looked at the potted flower with fascination, one could say greedily, as if he wanted to draw its life into himself through his sight.

saved. My illness is cured. Although I don’t know how I came to the hospital or what kind of treatment I received, the long nightmare is over. From now on, I will be reborn, cherish every scenery and sound around me, be full of gratitude and joy, and live with all my strength like the potted flower in front of me——

He stretched his shoulders in the turbulent emotions, and his body facing the window uncontrollably tilted to the right, suddenly changing from lying on his side to lying flat on his back. The other half of the room that was originally invisible also came into view. I saw a woman sitting quietly by the bed, looking at him expressionlessly from about half an arm's length away. He also looked at her, with the tears and ecstasy of the aftermath of a disaster still remaining on his face, and there was already a suffocating feeling in his throat. asthma.

"Don't scream," the woman said. Eyes as cold as well water fell on his face, and the pain in the nightmare seemed to reappear. He closed his mouth tightly, not daring to move like a mouse under a cat's paws. Seeing him like this, the woman reached out and pressed the button on the bedside. Not long after, a female nurse walked in with empty hands and stood next to the woman. This nurse is tall and thin, with a featureless appearance. The dull look on her face is in line with Cai Ji's usual impression of hospital staff. However, her arms are slightly longer and hang abruptly swaying at both sides of her body. .

The female nurse just swung her arms like a wild dog shaking a piece of sausage in her mouth, staring straight at the woman beside the bed. Such a weird scene didn't make the woman react. She only said in a commanding tone: "Go get him a glass of water."

The woman was not wearing doctor's clothes, but the nurse immediately followed the order and walked out. Cai Ji stared at this scene blankly, trying to understand what was going on. Could it be that the woman in front of him is his attending doctor? However, she was still wearing that pearl gray woven sweater jacket, which was not dressed as a medical worker at all. More importantly, she was too young - she looked to be in her early twenties.

The nurse came back into the room. She helped Cai Ji up from the bed. Through the clothes and quilt, he still felt that the other person's hand was as cold as ice, but terrifyingly soft. It's not the kind of boneless body praised in novels, but as curly as a rubber hose. Because of the fear in his heart, he didn't even dare to make a slight struggle, and drank the glass of water without knowing whether it was okay or not.

After doing all this, the nurse did not leave. Instead, she walked to the corner and picked up the particularly lush pot of frangipani. She wrapped her arms around the flowerpot and pressed it tightly against her chest, as if she were holding a baby to examine its appearance.

"It's broken," the nurse said, her tone as flat as a foreign word.

The woman beside the bed raised her head slightly and finally looked away from Cai Ji. Still holding the flower pot, the nurse turned straight to face them and repeated: "It's broken."

"Did it get broken by the patient?"

"The branch is broken." The nurse still repeated it in the tone of a child's learning language, and each word was clearly broken. As if she felt it was not enough to express her opinion, she immediately lifted the flowerpot upwards and said in a dull and hasty tone: "It's broken!"

A chill rose in Cai Ji's heart. In that tone of voice that was completely unlike a normal person's speech, a strong danger gradually emerged. In the nurse's arms, the snow-white flowers suddenly lost their previous vitality and looked like a pile of fake flowers tied with paper hanging there. Don't you think he broke the flower? Just as he was thinking this, the woman beside the bed said, "It's normal for one or two branches to break, right? Just raise it and it'll be fine."

The nurse's expressionless face was slightly tilted up. Cai Ji, who was lying below her, could only see her chin twitching rapidly. Strong dissatisfaction emanated from the silence. Tiny and colorful particles vibrated in the air, reminding people of beasts. The vibrato that rolls in the throat when angry. His body froze immediately, half out of fear of this weird nurse, and the other half out of fear for himself. The air that was moving like particles in front of his eyes, blurred and fragmented, looked like a precursor to his initial illness.

He waited tremblingly. Waiting for any terrible scene to appear in the next second, tearing to pieces the little hope he had just sprouted not long ago. Regarding the situation in front of him, he basically gave up thinking. It would be useless to think about it again anyway. He could no longer distinguish the truth from falsehood in everything that had happened since Xiao Chu disappeared, let alone the terrifying woman next to him—not the angry nurse holding the frangipani flowers, but the one next to him— —Why on earth are you here?

The person who had a delicate appearance, but was truly a Rakshasa demon stood up. She was separated from the nurse by the hospital bed, and Cai Ji was on the bed. The two of them faced each other in a menacing atmosphere, as if it had become a confrontation before some kind of conflict broke out. In the end, it was the Rakshasa girl in his eyes who took the lead and said, "I won't do it next time."

The nurse's chin sank slightly, but she remained silent. Seeing this, the Rakshasa girl said in a final tone: "From now on, your flowers will no longer be used in the patient's room."

"No?"

"Well, no need - but you can't ask which patient broke the branch this time, and you can't go to him either."

The nurse's face dropped. The movement of her chin stopped, and a jasmine-like fragrance filled the air again. Then she wrapped her arms around the flowerpot and left the ward as if no one was around. After the door closed, the Rakshasa sat back down and slowly closed her eyes, as if to calm her mind. However, her head sank heavily, and she suddenly opened her eyes like a person who wakes up from a nap. Staring at Cai Ji.

"how do you feel?"

"...How about what?" Cai Ji said tremblingly.

"Do you feel anything in your body? Where do you feel uncomfortable? Or is there a part that you can't move?"

Can't move anywhere. Cai Ji thought in his heart. Whether it was psychological pressure or lying down for too long, after being asked this question, he just felt something was wrong all over his body, like chills and fever, sometimes pain and sometimes itching. Before he could figure out what he was feeling, the other person looked at him sloppily a few times like a doctor who had been sitting in an outpatient clinic all day, and concluded that he was fine.

"You just rested for a while, and your body probably can't move yet. You'll be fine in a few hours."

Cai Ji nodded confusedly. What else could he say? I don’t even know where to start from asking. After hesitating for a moment, he still said hesitantly: "You are..."

"I'm the dean here."

The woman who looked no older than thirty answered like this. In his situation, even if he didn't believe it, he didn't have the courage to question it at the moment. He could only follow her words and ask: "How...how did I get here?"

"Don't you remember?"

In an instant, the memories before waking up came back to his mind. But now he was in such a neat and quiet ward, everything looked so reassuring (except for the woman in front of him), and it made people feel the reality and relaxation of the civilized world. How could he believe that all those strange things before had happened? Is it true? I'm afraid it's all just a mishap during his illness. Therefore, he shook his head resolutely and carefully looked at the other person's face, looking for traces of the first encounter in the nightmare. The other person was also staring at him, assessing whether his answer was accurate and reliable. After a while, she finally said, "I brought you here."

"Um……"

"Because you had the intention of attacking others, I had to bring you for treatment."

Not knowing how to face this accusation, Cai Ji had no choice but to remain silent. The young woman who claimed to be the dean observed his expression. Her serious face showed neither sympathy nor accusation or disgust. She only stated the facts and said: "You have to stay here to recuperate for a while."

"...I don't have any money."

"It doesn't matter, you don't need to pay the fee."

After hearing this sentence, he didn't know whether it was a guarantee or not, and the heaviest stone in his heart was temporarily relieved. Although the Rakshasa girl is scary, her speech and behavior have an air of dignity that no one else can doubt. But are hospitals reliable? There is no treatment fee. Is this the kind of illegal clinic that sells patients' organs? Thinking of this possibility, he felt uneasy all over again, and there was a tingling feeling in his stomach that he didn't know if it was real.

He tried not to show his inner thoughts on his face, but the other person still kept looking at him, as if he was observing some kind of wild animal through the surveillance camera. Her fingers on her knees trembled slightly, which made Cai Ji vaguely feel that she was planning to say something to him, but when she spoke, she only said: "I have something urgent to deal with, so you can rest first. Wait. See you later."

The strange woman whose name she didn't even know left just like that, leaving only Cai Ji and his suspicions. For the rest of the day, he could only lie in bed, thinking over and over again, was he really saved? Or fell into a devil's cave? He looked around the room, but didn't find anything that looked like a camera, so he huddled under the quilt again, lifted up the hospital gown and looked at himself. There was still nothing there. At most, he was a little thinner than before. As for the tingling or itching feeling on his body, as well as the illusion that his hands and feet were bound, they disappeared as soon as the woman left. I'm afraid it was entirely due to his own psychological effects.

Do you want to take the opportunity to escape? He thought about this problem for a while, but he couldn't muster the strength. It was a kind of fatigue that occurs after sleeping for too long. So he sat on the bed until the evening, when the nurse with strangely long arms came in. She didn't give him any medicine or injections, but just brought a box of lunch. Really hungry, he wolfed down the food, then walked out of the ward with the help of the nurse and walked in the corridor outside for a while. I don't know if there was a language barrier or something like that, but the nurse didn't talk to him at all, and didn't answer his questions. She only acted rigidly when he made a request. If he asked her to give him a hand, he would only hold it for a moment. If he asked her to open the door, he would just open the door lock and not even twist the door handle for him. But when he slowly moved forward along the corridor outside the ward, she stood a few steps away and followed him indifferently, maybe to prevent him from escaping.

The corridor outside the ward is in a zigzag shape, surrounding the courtyard-like open space in the middle of the building, like a super-enlarged version of a courtyard house. Outside the corridor are all wards with closed doors, and there are no stairs or elevators in sight. After seeing the courtyard below and the opposite floor through the window, he knew that he should be on the sixth floor, but he didn't know the functional distinctions between the floors. During his walk, he couldn't help but glance at the closed ward doors and windows with hanging curtains, wondering if there were people like him inside.

"Is this a mental hospital?" he tentatively asked the nurse who followed him. The other party just lowered his head and twisted his arms, twisting his slender fingers around each other like a twisting rope. They were obviously slender and white fingers as green as green onions, but when they turned and twisted, they looked like squirming nematodes, with no trace of joints at all. Cai Ji felt his heart pounding suddenly after just one glance. He hurriedly turned his face away to look at the central courtyard surrounded by buildings.

Viewed from a high place, the area of ​​the central courtyard is about 100 square meters. Most of it is covered by the canopy of trees. It is not clear what kind of style it is. You can only occasionally glance at the blue-white pebble path between the lawns, and The stream-like living water glimmered faintly in the dusk. The dense flowers and trees and the deep artistic conception are like building a small garden in the hospital.

In the center of this garden surrounded by wards, trees are arranged in an octagonal shape, with a faint orange light shining through them, vaguely like some kind of small building for people to rest. But it is not an exquisite corner pavilion that is common in Chinese courtyards. It is just a boxy and extremely simple and rough bamboo shed. When he walked half a circle on the sixth floor and looked there from another angle, he realized that the woman from before was sitting in the shed - only the hanging skirt and feet wearing black leather shoes could be seen from the edge of the shed cover, so There is no conclusion either.

The clothes do look like that woman's. However, she clearly said she had something to do and left during the day, and she did look very hurried. Why was she sitting in the courtyard now? He couldn't help but stop and looked up, down, left and right by the window, trying to see clearly what the people inside were doing through a gap in the bamboo shed. This almost comical attempt lasted almost ten minutes, and the feet exposed under the bamboo shed did not move at all. Are you doing an activity that requires concentration, like reading, or are you talking to someone else? Cai Ji still didn't understand this until the nurse beside him pushed him back. He cooperated and returned to the turquoise room, watching the nurse draw the curtains and lock the door, thinking that this must be a difficult night. However, the first thing that silence brought was sleepiness, and before he could feel bored, a deep sleep conquered him.

The next morning, the same nurse came and brought him some porridge for breakfast, as well as a radio and several story magazines to kill his boredom. This reminded Cai Ji of his mobile phone and wallet. He asked the nurse, but the other party still ignored him. Throughout the day he could only rely on these things to entertain himself, or press the button on the bedside so that the nurse would open the door and let him go to the toilet. In the evening, he was still allowed to walk in the corridor for a while, and saw the figure under the bamboo shed in the center of the courtyard from a distance. The situation on the third day was much the same, except that the nurse got him an old-fashioned game console where he could play Snake or Tetris. On the fourth day he got another collection of strange folk tales. These things look old and I wonder where the nurse got them.

He didn't even know the nurse's name. But this incident didn't have much impact, because she was the only person he could see for a few days, so there was no need to address her specifically. Although he was allowed to walk in the corridor every evening and see the courtyard inside the building through the rows of windows, the figures under the bamboo sheds in the courtyard, and the various rooms on other floors, he never saw any other doctor, nurse or patient. This place didn't look like a hospital or a lunatic asylum at all, but more like some kind of privately owned sanatorium—except that sanatorium life was a little bit like prison.

The semi-imprisonment lasted a week. Cai Ji thought he wouldn't be able to bear it anymore and would be tortured by confused memories and full of doubts, keeping him awake all night and unable to eat or drink. But he gradually got used to it, and even fell in love with this monotonous and claustrophobic life. Compared to that chaotic nightmare, the time in front of him was peaceful and safe, with nothing to fear or worry about (he was no longer afraid of the nurse with the weird arms, and secretly nicknamed him "Sister Huasheng"). The doubts in his heart faded over time again, and he gradually stopped thinking, and instead turned his interest to the old book the nurse gave him. I don't know if it's because of his experience. In the past, he found the supernatural stories that were exaggerated and pretentious to be read with relish now, and he doubted whether anyone had really experienced these things. However, the nurse did not allow him to read or listen to the radio with the light on all night, so he began to secretly hide magazines under the quilt and read them at night using the light from the game console interface.

It was at this moment one night, when he was reading happily while hiding in bed, that the door of the room was quietly opened. Although the magazine was hidden under the sheets, it could not hide the clatter of the pages being hastily closed. He poked his head out in embarrassment and found that the person who came in was not a nurse, but a young woman who called herself the dean. She stood with her back against the door, and the light from the corridor shone on her face, showing a tired look that could not be concealed by thin makeup. Her expression was much softer than before, and she even had a faint smile. She turned on the light in the room, walked to the bed and sat down.

"It's better to turn on the light when reading. It's better for your eyesight."

Cai Ji agreed nonchalantly and his eyes couldn't help but fall on the other party's clothes. It's not the same as last time, but the style and color are similar, which shows that it's the other person's usual style. As if unaware of his secret observation, the other party continued to ask: "How have you been these days?"

"……Um."

"Is there anything uncomfortable? Physical or mental? Like a nightmare or hallucinations?"

Cai Ji shook his head.

"That's good...your name is Cai Ji, right?"

"Yes."

"Put your belongings in the staff lounge and they will be returned to you in a few days. Is there anyone you want to contact urgently?"

"……No."

"Don't you have any family or friends?"

"No."

For some reason, women seem to be particularly talkative this night. She and Cai Ji looked at each other wordlessly for a while, and then like all people who are not good at chatting, they broached the subject: "Is there anything you want to ask me?"

"...Do I have something wrong?"

The woman was silent for a moment and replied: "It can be considered sick."

"Can it still be cured?"

"I'm afraid I won't be able to fully recover."

"Then...are the sequelae serious? Or will you die?"

"Are you afraid of death?"

Cai Ji could only stare blankly at this weird rhetorical question. The woman thought for a while and said, "I will try my best to save you. No matter what, I will not let you die in the state of illness."

"...Thank you, thank you?"

Not sure what the other party's sudden promise was about, Cai Ji could only say this word of thanks that he always thought was hypocritical.

"Is there anything else you want to ask?"

There were more than a thousand things he wanted to ask, but given the situation at the time, he didn't know where to start. In the end, he could only say, "What's going on in this hospital? It seems... I don't see anyone."

"This place was originally designed to treat people like you. Many similar patients have been dealt with before, so they have been idle for a while. Now you are basically the only one who needs to be hospitalized. Just treat yourself as a VIP. ”

At this point, the other party actually smiled. This was the first time that Cai Ji felt that the person in front of him was not an inhuman ghost, but a person with normal emotions and thinking, and even a very elegant person.

"Cai Ji."

"……what?"

"About your condition, there are some important things that I have to explain to you, and you have the right to know. However, I think you are not in a state that you can accept now, so let's wait for a while. During this time, you can If you live here, just tell the nurse if you need anything, and I will try my best to come over.”

"...Are you trying to say that I'm going to die?"

"No. At least it's not what you are imagining now. And I also said that I won't let you get sick and die. So during this period, you can rest assured and cultivate."

After saying this, she stood up and left neatly. It stands to reason that hearing such unclear words would only make Cai Ji even more uneasy, but the "dean's" promise somehow made people feel at ease and made them feel that they could indeed be saved. So he fell asleep again. Since then, the nurse's requirements for him have become very relaxed, and the "dean" does come to talk to him every once in a while. They were almost like what common sense would call friends, but she never mentioned that night again.