Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Sudden Malady

“Why are you staring at me?” his coworker said, rubbing at his face, embarrassed. “I got breakfast on me?”

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t breakfast. And it wasn’t his face.

It was his eye.

Lin Jianyuan stared at his coworker.

His coworker was Pei Shuo, male, twenty-three, fresh out of school—led astray by campus recruiting into this company.

He was still an intern, shadowing Lin Jianyuan and learning on the job.

Lin Jianyuan hadn’t wanted to babysit an intern, but the kid had the golden-retriever vibe—sitting in HR with hands on his knees, looking up with that obedient, sweet face.

Especially those glimmering puppy-dog eyes—when he looked up and begged, you just couldn’t say no.

Only now, those glossy black eyes had sprouted two vines.

At first Lin Jianyuan thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, noticing what seemed to be two worms crawling out of Pei Shuo’s eyes. Seeing clearly that they were vines wasn’t exactly an improvement.

The vines were glossy green, a shade thinner than a phone charging cable, dotted with tiny leaves that swayed and writhed. No wonder his first thought was “caterpillars.”

Lin Jianyuan stared at the vines for a bit and asked, “Your eyes don’t feel weird?”

“Huh? Now that you mention it, kind of,” Pei Shuo said, lowering his head to rub his eyes. “I binged a show till two last night. Are they red?”

Lin Jianyuan: “…”

Because of the vines, his lids couldn’t close all the way when he rubbed. The whole scene looked… unsanitary.

Lin Jianyuan couldn’t take it. “Hey, stop rubbing. That’s bad for your eyes.”

“Oh, right. , you got any eyedrops?” The golden retriever lifted those puppy eyes again.

Only eyes sprouting vines weren’t cute at all—there was a bizarre, deadpan hilarity to it.

Lin Jianyuan slid open the drawer in the monitor riser and dug out a bottle of eyedrops.

“Thanks!” Pei Shuo said, delighted, and tilted his head back to drip them in.

Given that the vines were rooted dead center in his pupils, this was basically watering them.

Which proved true—once the drops hit his pupils, the vines perked up like they’d been juiced, their green stems twisting even more exuberantly. Like two outrageously fat caterpillars.

A picture popped into Lin Jianyuan’s head: yellow-green parasites thrashing inside a snail’s swollen eyestalks. He jabbed his straw into the soy milk with a wet pop and asked, “What were you binging?”

Breakfast was courtesy of Pei Shuo. Like any golden retriever, he came with the preset characteristics of being caring and considerate; once he noticed Lin Jianyuan couldn’t be bothered to detour for food, he started bringing it every day.

“Uh, that super popular costume idol show. The one with Shi Shaoning and Xue Lu,” Pei Shuo said, cheeks flushing like he was embarrassed to say the title. “It’s a very clichéd, melodramatic xianxia, but it’s pretty good.”

Lin Jianyuan ate and listened to him recount the plot. He’d never heard of the actors; he was just curious what kind of xianxia fluff could keep a sunny college boy up past midnight.

Turns out it wasn’t the show—it was the college boy who had a taste for that stuff.

As the trashy plot went on, Lin Jianyuan wore the same stunned look as that old-guy-on-the-subway meme, and was just wondering how to bow out gracefully when Boss Jiang came downstairs, rapped on the desk, and said, “Meeting room at twelve-thirty.”

Their office was an open-plan shared space: cubicles penned in on the first floor, the boss’s office on the second.

Any time he felt like being a creep, the boss could stand up there and look down on everyone. The view was sweeping and to the employees, felt worse than a homeroom teacher peering through the back door in high school.

"Oh, oh." Pei Shuo nodded in a hurry, wearing the timid, deferential look of a fresh grad just out in the world. The other colleagues said they got it too.

Lin Jianyuan noticed Mr. Jiang didn’t react at all to the tendrils coiled in Pei Shuo’s pupils. He turned to look; the two vines were still writhing. It made his fingers itch with the urge to yank them out.

But what would happen if he did?

Lin Jianyuan didn’t dare picture it.

The moment Mr. Jiang left, the coworkers started venting.

“Fuck! Another meeting? That fucking dumbass Jiang Chen really has nothing better to do than screw with us every damn day, huh.”

“Right? Fuck. And at twelve-thirty! What kind of toxic shit is hijacking our lunch break! Report his ass! And he won’t even give the time back afterward!”

“Whatever—let it go. Once you accept the premise that he’s a dumbass, all his dumbass decisions start to seem perfectly reasonable…”

Drinking his soy milk and eating a tea egg, Lin Jianyuan quietly watched the people around him.

The tendrils in Pei Shuo’s eyes kept writhing in plain view, yet the others acted as if they didn’t see them.

Pei Shuo himself, though, wore a lost look, like he had no idea how to handle the old hands swearing a blue streak.

“Spooked?” Lin Jianyuan saw through his hesitation. “It’s fine, you just got here. Give it a week and you’ll see—it’s not that we lack class; it’s that the boss is a real dumbass.”

“Bro.” Pei Shuo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re a real comfort.”

For a moment Lin Jianyuan couldn’t tell if he meant it or was being snide, and he suddenly felt this intern had real potential.

So he leaned in and murmured, “Our official lunch break is twelve to one. Used to be, once you finished your work you could go eat, but lately the boss has gone nuts—last meeting he hammered no being late or leaving early, especially at noon. Every day at eleven-thirty he hits the cafeteria; when he comes back he checks if you’re still at your desk. If he doesn’t see you at twelve, he blows up, drags you out for a company-wide dressing-down, and docks your pay.”

“Huh?” Pei Shuo was taken aback. “That’s so fucked up!”

“Do this: start ordering takeout at eleven. At eleven-thirty, once the boss leaves, you start eating—eat till twelve. That way he won’t catch you ducking out early at noon, and you get a bit more time to rest.”

“Brilliant!” Pei Shuo was floored, then burst out, bitter, “But what a double standard! He goes to lunch at eleven-thirty himself—why make us sit here till twelve for no reason?”

Lin Jianyuan shrugged. “You know how it is.”

Pei Shuo looked enlightened. “Oh, right. Because he’s a heartless capitalist.”

“No,” Lin Jianyuan said. “Because he’s a dumbass.”

Pei Shuo: “…”

By twelve-thirty, Lin Jianyuan had eaten and grabbed a quick nap at his desk. Taking his advice, the intern did the same. The two of them shuffled into the conference room, bleary-eyed.

The others who’d gone to the cafeteria trailed in behind them, resentment almost solid enough to touch.

Everyone took their seats in turn. The secretary had Mr. Jiang’s PowerPoint ready. He cleared his throat, stood in front of the projector, and began: “Let me just croak a few quick words—”

A frog hopped into view.

Lin Jianyuan jerked, eyes going wide at the frog in front of him. Its back gleamed wet and slick green; its huge pupils were pitch-black, ringed by a circle of yellow—the iris.

The frog went along in wet little hops, slap-slap, from one end of the long conference table to the other.

Following the wet trail behind it, Lin Jianyuan looked across and saw Mr. Jiang at the projector, spittle flying. His mouth opened and closed, and a split little mouth on his throat opened and closed too.

With every croak, the slit on Mr. Jiang’s throat spat out frogs, as if laying eggs. Slick with moisture, the frogs leapt onto the conference table, their powerful legs arcing gracefully through the air.

Staring at a conference table that filled with frogs in seconds, Lin Jianyuan was dumbstruck.

“Yuan-ge?” Pei Shuo nudged him with his elbow.

Lin Jianyuan pressed a hand to his forehead. “Something’s wrong with me…”

“Ge! The boss is calling you!”

Lin Jianyuan shot up reflexively and looked at the boss. Mr. Jiang’s face was thunderous; the mouth on top was chattering and spraying nonstop, and the one below—no, his throat—the mouth on his throat was chattering and spraying just as hard.

He couldn’t focus on a word he was saying; his head was nothing but croaks.

Croak croak croak croak croak croak croak croak croak croak croak croak…

The boss’s blather, wrapped in damp frog-chorus, fermented in the central air-conditioning into the mildewed reek of monsoon season.

“Mr. Jiang.” Lin Jianyuan cut across his roar, voice weak. “I might need another two days off. I’m not feeling well.”

There were so many frogs the table couldn’t hold them; a bunch had already hit the floor and were skittering across the gray carpet.

At that, Mr. Jiang’s expression went odd. His appraising gaze swept up and down, as if gauging whether he was truly weak enough to merit sick leave.

All at once, Lin Jianyuan lost his temper. “I’ve slept two hours in three days, reworking the proposal till I blacked out and landed in the hospital! Keep this up and I’m gonna fucking drop dead, for real!”

As he said it, his fists clenched; he was grinding his teeth so hard his voice shook. Sensing the turn, Mr. Jiang hurried to say, “Then rest, of course—I never said I wouldn’t approve! Your health comes first. Head on back!”

The others chimed in, “Yeah, yeah, go on, head back.”

Lin Jianyuan kicked his chair aside with a crash. Pei Shuo jumped up, grabbed his arm, and whispered, “Ge, should I go with you?”

Lin Jianyuan nodded, irritable, and Pei Shuo walked him out. Just before they left the conference room, through the door crack Lin Jianyuan heard Mr. Jiang grumbling, “He yelled at me? He actually yelled at me? Doesn’t he still sound plenty strong in the lungs? How can a grown man be so delicate…”

Back in the open-plan workspace, there wasn’t a soul around; Lin Jianyuan felt he could breathe again.

“Ge, you okay? What was that just now? You scared me.”

“I’m fine. Take the afternoon off.”

“Aren’t I taking you to the hospital?”

As he said it, those puppy-dog eyes were all shiny, and inside them two vines were still twisting and writhing.

Vines or frogs, whatever—Lin Jianyuan was sure something was wrong with his head. The starting bid here was schizophrenia. He needed to get to a psych hospital, fast.

A regular hospital was one thing, but a psych ward… better not bring a coworker. They weren’t even that close. He waved him off. “Be good, go have some fun this afternoon. You might not get another chance.”

Hesitating, Pei Shuo walked him to the elevators. Lin Jianyuan didn’t look back. He shouldered his sling bag and left.

The psychiatric hospital in City A was called the City A Mental Health Center, at 700 Jiangchuan North Road. People in City A liked to use “Go to 700 Jiangchuan North Road” as a civil way of saying, “Are you crazy?”

It was Lin Jianyuan’s first time in a place like this. He’d braced himself for bedlam, only to find a security checkpoint right at the door.

There’s something deeply reassuring about clearing security, as if all danger has been sealed outside. Lin Jianyuan took a random number at registration and queued in the waiting area.

Numbers flashed on the waiting-room screen; with a “ding,” a violently blinking text box popped up: “No. 314, Wang *** ling, please proceed to Consulting Room 07.”

For some reason the box was blood-red, twitching at a hair-trigger frequency, like it could blow any second. Was that really a good idea?

After more than half an hour it was finally Lin Jianyuan’s turn. As he went in, a patient came out—a young girl, probably middle school age, with a man beside her who looked like her dad.

Kids these days carry so much pressure... With that thought, Lin Jianyuan stepped into the consulting room.

The visit wasn’t what he’d pictured. In his head, a doctor in a white coat would listen as he poured out his heart in tears, nodding and soothing him. He’d only gotten a third of that right.

He didn’t cry, and the doctor across from him didn’t look especially gentle or kind.

Across from him sat a young male doctor in rimless glasses—bookish, fine-featured—who conducted a cool, steady back-and-forth.

“Do your hallucinations tell you to do anything?” the doctor asked.

“No...” Lin Jianyuan scratched his head. “Frogs and vines don’t speak human.”

“Mm.” The doctor didn’t comment, just followed up with a few more questions.

At last he said, “It isn’t serious. You likely have an acute transient psychotic disorder brought on by overwork and stress. I’ll prescribe some medication; it should make things less hard.”

Hearing the last line, Lin Jianyuan found it absurdly funny. “So it’s basically a sudden bout of something nasty?”

The doctor glanced at him. “Don’t stress. Cases like yours usually resolve completely within a month and generally don’t recur. Try to relax. If work is too much, take a few sick days. Do you need a note?”

“Okay, okay. Thank you, doctor.” Lin Jianyuan realized the man was actually quite considerate—and, by extension, his face had started to look handsome, too.

On his way out he glanced at the nameplate: the doctor’s name was Cen Zheng.

Unusual name, good person. Lin Jianyuan decided he’d book him again next time.

His company, 700 Jiangchuan North Road, and Lin Jianyuan’s home formed an equilateral triangle.

Given that the company to 700 Jiangchuan North Road takes an hour by subway, and 700 Jiangchuan North Road to home also takes an hour, please find the time from Lin Jianyuan’s company to his home.

In theory it should be an hour too, but life isn’t math. There’s rush hour, trains you can’t squeeze onto, and shared bikes you can’t snag. Factor in the walking, and it’s two hours.

With a bag of meds in hand and the sunset on his back, Lin Jianyuan trudged home. He still hadn’t quite accepted it—he’d actually come down with a mental illness. That acute transient whatever... a sudden nasty spell.

Squeezed this hard already—maybe it was time to change jobs?

Rent is 3k a month, food 2k. Prices in City A were steep; he cooked for himself most of the time, but his cooking was terrible. When he really couldn’t take it, he’d treat himself to a meal out. Now there’s the cost of meds on top of that. Psych meds are actually pretty pricey...

Forget it, let’s just muddle through for now. Lin Jianyuan had graduated from a third-tier college; in a metropolis like City A, that’s practically the same as not having gone to college.

At his current company the boss may treat people like dirt, but at least it pays 9k pre-tax. That’s not bad. After paying into the five insurances and the housing fund, he takes home 7k; subtract rent and daily expenses, and he can still sock away a thousand a month.

But today the doctor only gave him a one-week prescription—registration fee and the meds, plus the full-attendance bonus docked for taking leave... that’s four trips a month... and he still doesn’t know whether, a month from now, he’ll really be “fully recovered” like the doctor said...

Let it all just end.

Or the world could just end right now.

The more he ran the numbers, the more irritable he got; all he wanted was to go down into the complex, pick up a turd, and shove it into his boss’s mouth.

He carried his meds to his door, sighed, and felt like a fish trapped in a mire, unable to leap free.

The key slid into the lock without resistance, like being swallowed by a silky throat.

Lin Jianyuan opened the door and, out of habit, reached for the light switch. Click—the light came on.

In the living room, an entire meat-pink digestive system turned at the sound to face him head-on, its mouth opening and closing as it smiled and said:

"You're back."

"What do you want first? A shower, dinner, or... me?"

Lin Jianyuan: ...

Lin Jianyuan looked the mass of midair viscera up and down. Its lips connected to a throat, the throat to a stomach. A liver, a gallbladder, and some organs he couldn’t name were neatly arrayed together. Below that was a big tangle of flesh-pink intestines, slowly squirming.

After staring for a long moment, Lin Jianyuan suddenly blew up and snapped, "Isn’t this whole set of offal still raw? How the hell am I supposed to eat that!"