A few days later, He Yu booked a restaurant in the clouds and asked Xie Xue to meet with him on a weekend night, in which he intended to make his feelings known. (1)
When Xie Xue received his call, he wasn't sure what to expect, but when he heard that there was something to eat, he was very happy: "Yes! I'm going! I will definitely go."
"Then on the 20th at 6 p.m., see you there."
"Hey, the 20th?"
"What's going on?"
Xie Xue was a little embarrassed: "I may be a little late that night, because the Shanghai emergency department just called me and told me that on the night of the 20th, the people at the relief post will pick up old Uncle Zhuang to take him to the psychiatric hospital in Chengkang. I also contacted the Chengkang and asked to talk to his boss about the possibility of bringing visiting students......"
He Yu sighed: "Then I will change the time."
"But this restaurant is so difficult to book, that the last time I called, the person on the other side told me that they needed at least three months in advance."
He Yu smiled: "Okay, you can go whenever you want. This restaurant is funded by my family."
Xie Xue: "......"
Capital is so boring. It takes away the joy of everything that is gained with effort.
"I prefer not to do it, it's a nuisance for the restaurant manager, and I don't like it." Xie Xue said: "Then on the 20th, I will try to do things quickly, and if there are any changes, I will talk to you on WeChat in advance."
He put his hand on his forehead and smiled even more clearly: "Okay, I will do whatever you want."
Xie Xue hung up the phone happily.
There would be something delicious to eat!
In the blink of an eye, the 20th arrived.
Xie Xue had to talk about a project for the school, so to look formal, he put on a small classic uniform of the university staff of Shanghai University and accompanied old Zhuang Zhiqiang to Chengkang Hospital along with the people of the relief post.
Unlike Wanping 600, Chengkang is a former private psychiatric hospital. As soon as they got out of the car, they perceived a nauseating smell, and it turned out that the nurses were reluctantly directing the removal of the patients' beds and sheets contaminated with feces and urine. Next to them were two men in charge of refueling the truck, who were discussing the shortage of gasoline.
Old Uncle Zhuang was a little scared and backed down, pulling Xie Xue's hand: "Daughter, this ......"
"Okay, old man, just stay here for a while, then we'll pick you up and go somewhere else, okay?"
Only then did old Uncle Zhuang slowly follow Xie Xue inside.
The reception of the psychiatric hospital was decorated in a fairly warm way, although the facilities were all quite old, but at least the smell of the house was refreshing and the color combination was reassuring.
"Little Zhang at the relief post, right? Are you here to manage the temporary guardianship service for the elderly Zhuang Zhiqiang?"
"Yes."
"The director had already told me, please here."
Zhuang Zhiqiang's disease was relatively mild and was found on the ground floor. Xie Xue was accompanied by the staff to see the atmosphere of the room and relaxed a little. Once the old Uncle Zhuang was inside, a caregiver of Xie Xue's age smiled and talked to him, and the old man took the other side again for his daughter, chatting endlessly.
"I'll bother you then." The relief post staff returned to the office with the head of hospitalization and signed a series of agreements.
But it was not the group of caregivers below who had to talk to Xie Xue about cooperation, but they had to go up. The receptionist had to accompany her, but unfortunately she could not go out, so she told Xie Xue to go directly to see Director Liang at the 24-hour guard office on the third floor.
The third floor of Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital was the intensive care area, and once Xie Xue got in the elevator, he instinctively felt a shiver: the whole atmosphere here was different from the one below.
The iron windows and prison doors looked like a prison, and the ghostly screams and cries that filled the entire corridor made the whole environment as terrifying as a scene from a scary movie.
The light in the corridors was bright, with incandescent lamps lit all year round, but the light was an abnormal white color dead in this atmosphere.
"I'm going to die! I'm going to die hahahahaha-"
"They are sick! You are the ones who are sick."
"I'm not human, I'm a ghost... No, I'm not a ghost, I'm human! ...... Who am I really? Am I a human or a ghost ......?"
Each room was sealed by thick iron doors, and each iron door had a tempered glass the size of an A4 frame through which you could see the scene of the interior.
Xie Xue entered with restlessness for a while and finally, unable to contain his curiosity, stopped at the door of one of the quietest rooms and tiptoed down to look out the window.
A woman was sitting in the room, smiling. The whole room was padded to prevent patients from committing suicide or self-harm. There was no table or chairs, and even the bed was a special type of bed without angles with black fastening straps placed on it.
The insane woman was right there, groping the fastening straps, squeezing them intimately against her generous chest, filling them as she did it, laughing out loud: "Let me fool me with that bitch, and look, now ah ...... I cut them into pieces... Who else but me would be willing to touch you and hug you like that? Husband......"
Xie Xue moved on to the next room.
The next room was empty, probably the patient had been taken for treatment.
In the next room there was a man with his back bent, sitting in a corner facing the wall, taking something and sticking it to the wall, the figure seemed very calm and peaceful. However, when Xie Xue looked more closely, he discovered that what had been smeared on the wall were actually his own stool.
The adjoining room was occupied by a young man who had been who knows how long he was tied in a special bed, but he kept laughing tirelessly, crying as he did it: "Fuck you! Why did you tie me up? I want to die! I want to die! If you don't let me die, I'll go out and kill them all ......! I'll kill them all if I go out! Let me out! Let me go!"
The more Xie Xue looked, the more her skin stood up, and the more her skin stood, the more fascinated she was.
His eyes moved over the glass window and headed to the next one.
"Ah!"
He jumped and shouted, retreating to the other side of the corridor, squeezing against the door on the other side and gasping.
The man in the room looked at her against the window glass, with a pair of cross-eyed eyes, horribly large and injected with blood, and seeing that she was afraid of him, she laughed out loud from the inside. Uncontrollably happy, the reddish nose tight against the glass rubbed on the surface of the window, leaving a greasy blur ......
Xie Xue's heart was beating hard, and he was already calming down a little when he suddenly felt a cold in his ankle.
He looked down and saw...
"Ahhhhhh!!!"
This time he shouted even louder than before.
It was a hand!!!
The iron door, in addition to the glass of the peephole above, also turned out to have a trapdoor underneath to distribute the food!!!
A small, pale hand came out of the flap and grabbed his ankle against the door.
Xie Xue was about to suffer a nervous breakdown and jumped away, crying, screaming, and kicking. The patient inside withdrew his small hand and walked away to the center of the room, standing in a position where you could see through the window glass, He was a small child with albinism, his whole body seemed to have been bleached, even his eyes were almost transparent. He stared at her, smiling with her white teeth.
"Sister ...... hee hee ......"
Chengkang's soundproofing was not good, so when this happened, the entire patient corridor was aware of such a disturbance, and everyone crowded against the window glass to look at Xie Xue, uttering all kinds of strange screams. Patients and sick people screaming and echoing, and several hands came out under the trapdoors, fluttering like algae and groping blindly.
"A woman has come to see us!"
"Who? A doctor?"
"A doctor farts! A visitor to the prison."
"She's a ghost woman!"
" Grab your feet!"
Of course they couldn't catch Xie Xue, but they laughed so much that for a moment he felt that he had entered a jungle where the spirits of the night had become evil and the sounds of ghosts and apparitions were everywhere.
Xie Xue couldn't take it anymore and was about to flee back, no matter how long the waitress downstairs kept busy, she would wait for her to finish and go up with her!
However, just at that moment, his shoulder was touched.
"Help!" In a two by three, Xie Xue's mental defenses collapsed completely.
"Shhh."
Xie Xue's face was soaked in cold sweat and he looked back in horror, only to face a very pretty face.
She was a beautiful woman.
The woman wore a very old-fashioned red vintage dress with red heels. She was a little older, about fifty years old, but you could still see that she must have been amazingly beautiful in her youth, although she was now dry like a snake fruit that has lost water and spoiled, you could still see some of the charm of her delicate beauty at the time.
On his chest there was a label with his name: "Liang Jicheng".
Xie Xue suddenly let out a sigh of relief, and almost collapses, like a punctured ball: "Liang, Director Liang ......"
Liang Jicheng smiled, but for some reason, his face was a little stiff, as if he could not fully mobilize his muscles, and he could only bring that smile to light.
He gently said to Xie Xue: "You should not shout here, the more you shout, the more these patients will get irritated and the more they will try to scare you. Come, come with me to the office."
.
Half past five.
He Yu suddenly received a message from Xie Xue: "I shouldn't be late."
He replied, "Has everything gone well on your part?"
"Very well, the other party has agreed to have some of the students visit us, but the demands are a little high, I'm still talking to her."
After a while: "By the way, this director Liang, who was in charge of receiving me today, is very beautiful. A great beauty, and very temperamental. It's a shame you didn't come."
He Yu didn't bother to pay more attention to her, threw the phone, got up, took her clothes out of the closet and prepared to go out to the hotel to wait for her.
It was still early when he arrived at the hotel, and the manager respectfully guided him to his reserved place on the roof. Although there were private cubicles, He Yu chose the terrace, which had a view of the entire landscape of Huzhou and had a pleasant night breeze, and red clouds on the horizon, with a pleasant and solemn appearance. He thought Xie Xue would like to be here more.
6:05.
Xie Xue hadn't arrived yet.
He Yu sent him a message asking where he was and if there was traffic, and as soon as he sent the message he heard the voice of the waiter not far away: "Ladies and gentlemen, please be careful on the stairs."
He looked up and saw that there was a large group of people outside, as if it were some kind of business meeting or a party of the senior management of a company.
He Yu found it a little noisy and was thinking of changing seats when he looked and saw a man with an indifferent expression.
He Yu was stunned for a moment: "Xie Qingcheng?"
The Xie Qingcheng medical school had an important event, and they had arranged for the venue to be this hotel for a few months, and now that the event was over, they had the consecutive dinner.
He Yu had never thought he would be so unlucky enough to meet Xie Qingcheng when he had a date in such a place.
How could he confess his love to Xie Xue with such a feudal leader around? Xie Qingcheng would probably throw it from the top floor to the river below!
Xie Qingcheng also saw him, said a few words to his colleague and came to say hello to He Yu: "Waiting for someone?"
"...... Yes."
A good colleague of Xie Qingcheng approached and saw He Yu: "Hey, what a handsome young man, Professor Xie, is he your relative?"
"The son of a client."
"Oh...... boy, are you dating your girlfriend, oh?" There are always people interested and upset in this world, who ask meaningless questions about the limits.
He Yu was kind, and smiled: "I'm waiting for Professor Xie's sister."
The colleague became even more confident, turned his head and winked at Xie Qingcheng: "Your brother-in-law is very handsome."
He Yu looked at Xie Qingcheng's face and knew that if he dared to confess his love to Xie Xue today, Xie Qingcheng would dare to destroy his table and fight with him on the spot.
...... To put it another way, forget it, it will be another day, today I would only eat with Xie Xue.
"You misunderstood, we are just ordinary friends." He thought about it on his own, and said this with a smile on his own initiative
Xie Qingcheng kept frowning: "What's up if you invite her out."
"I haven't invited her correctly even once since I returned to China."
Xie Qingcheng was about to say something when his table was already calling them both to sit down and his colleague pushed him away, so he had no choice but to throw a warning look at He Yu and return to his table.
Quarter past six.
The table of the professors of the medical school had already begun to serve the food, but Xie Xue had not yet arrived.
Not only did he not show up, but he had not even responded to the message that He Yu had sent him ten minutes ago. He Yu sent another message asking about her, but there was no answer yet.
He Yu felt that something was wrong, so he just called Xie Xue on WeChat.
There was no answer.
He called again.
First a wait beep was heard, and after waiting a long time, there was still no response.
He called again -
Something was really wrong.
"Hello, the user you have called is offline, please call back later."
Xie Xue had never suddenly turned off her phone!!
Now He Yu was sure that something was wrong, and he immediately got up and left the Restaurant in the clouds. The director was startled to see that the man was in such a hurry and cold eyes, and he said a little scared.
"Mr. So, is there a problem with the service?"
"No." He Yu pressed the elevator button, his eyes became severe: "Tell the lobby to call me a car, and let it be fast."
"Oh oh oh, good good."
At this point, He Yu was getting angry, why the hell did it have to be such a stupid tall building? What was the point of building so high?
"Ding...!"
The elevator reluctantly arrived at the floor, the dark gray mechanical door opened, He Yu entered and was about to close the door when a hand hit the elevator door and reopened it.
He Yu looked up with a bad face to see which of them was delaying him, then he saw that it was a long and beautiful hand wearing a wristwatch, and when he looked over his arm, he found Xie Qingcheng's cold face.
"What's going on?"
.
Forty minutes later, and after passing by who knows how many red lights along the way, the hotel car stopped in front of Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital.
He Yu and Xie Qingcheng entered the psychiatric hospital together.
It was already dark, and the lobby of Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital was illuminated, with some slightly ill patients on the ground floor performing recreational activities accompanied by nurses.
"Who are you looking for?"
The nurse at the reception was frozen to see that He Yu and Xie Qingcheng were entering through the door with the faces of few friends and got up to ask.
Xie Qingcheng: "There is a girl, a teacher from Huzhou, who has come to see her director Liang this afternoon to talk about a project. I'm her brother, where is she?"
"Then I should be on the third floor." The nurse looked at Xie Qingcheng and suddenly blushed and smiled: "The handsome brother is worried about his sister, huh?"
She joked sweetly: "You don't have to be so nervous, here we are a normal hospital, there shouldn't be any problem. Maybe they stayed talking a little too much. In addition, director Liang is more than 50 years old. And he has a wife and children, so don't... "
"What did you say?"
He Yu suddenly interrupted her.
"Are you saying that Director Liang has a wife and children?"
"Yes, yes."
His face suddenly changed.
What had previously been just an uncomfortable assumption, now He Yu was completely sure that something was wrong.
He still had the last message that Xie Xue had sent him to his phone, when he had told him...
"This director Liang, who was in charge of receiving me today, is very beautiful. A great beauty, and very temperamental"
"Director Liang couldn't be a woman!"
He and immediately ran upstairs!!
.
At this very moment.
In the guard office of Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital, the lively song resounded: "Throw, pull, throw away the handkerchief, put it gently behind the girl, don't tell her ......"
"Liang Jicheng" hummed this song carefreely, holding a scalpel in his hand and cutting something on the floor.
The fan buzzed above his head, chopping the light and shadows confusingly, but while continuing to illuminate what was in front of him...
It was the corpse of someone who hadn't been dead for a long time.
The blood had stained the uniform of the staff of Shanghai University ...... The University of Shanghai?
It was Xie Xue!
"Liang Jicheng" finally cut off Xie Xue's entire hand. He held his cut hand and looked at it for a moment, with a numb expression, then threw his cut hand. The hand rolled next to Xie Xue's already cold corpse ......\n
The author has something to say.
Minitheater.
Character card.
Xie Xue
Gender: Female
Age: 24
Height: 160cm
Favorite dish: My brother's kitchen
Less favorite dish: There is no dish that I don't like
Favorite color: White
He doesn't like it: black
Is there anyone you like right now?: Yes
Favorite animal: anything stuffed animal
He doesn't like it: bugs, snakes
Highlights:
When Xie Xue was a child, her family didn't have much money and didn't have a computer. She wanted a computer so much that she told Xie Qingcheng why all the other children had computers and she didn't. Xie Qingcheng told him that without a computer he could still concentrate on his studies.
Xie Xue said that all the children her age were playing with computers, and that everyone was gradually getting their own computers, so they didn't go out to play hide and seek with her. So she felt lonely playing in the yard. But if you couldn't buy one, then I would go play on the big tree.
Xie Qingcheng suddenly felt sad to hear this, so he worked hard for three months after his homework, and then took the money he had saved to the home appliance market, where he approached the counter and said to the staff: "Hello, I want to buy the best computer. Is there any color for a girl?"
Translator's note:
(1)- It is a restaurant on top of a tall building. As a result, the restaurant not only has large windows, but also seems to be in the clouds.