Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Delirium

It happened to be a Saturday, but Lin Jianyuan didn’t sleep in. He was up at dawn, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and headed out without even stopping for breakfast.

“Overtime?” his roommate emerged from his room at the same time.

“Hospital,” Lin Jianyuan said. “A checkup.”

He’d known something was off at work the day before.

Work is bad for the body, sure, but losing your life force after an hour in front of a screen was ridiculous.

His body had started throwing up flares; of course he needed a hospital. So the moment he got home last night, he booked a full physical.

Roommate: “Want company? I’m free anyway.”

The pink digestive system floated over to his side, drifting like a soft cloud.

He considered. “Yeah, okay.”

From the way Pei Shuo looked yesterday, he knew he’d gone off in public again and spooked his colleagues.

Better to have someone with him when he went out—if he had an episode on the street, it would be a mess.

He stuffed his squish toy into his pocket and headed out with his roommate.

Before they left, he grabbed the trash as well.

sk——

sk—

“So handsome…”

In the operating theater, a patient under general anesthesia was wheeled off the table.

Under the corridor’s incandescent lights, her face was blank. She stared wide-eyed at the male nurse pushing her gurney, eyes bling-bling bright. “Doctor, you’re so handsome. Are you a doctor or a nurse? So handsome. So handsome.”

The nurse being praised turned red to the tips of his ears. The orderly beside him teased, “That’s right—our Nurse Zhang has plenty of admirers!”

“What a handsome butt,” the young woman giggled. “The doctor’s handsome too. Your fingers are handsome. Hee-hee-hee, so many hotties—this ten-pull is all SSRs.”

The male nurse: “?”

She kept chuckling. A surgeon in green scrubs passed, glanced over, and smiled. “Post-anesthesia babbling. Don’t just stand there—get her to recovery. Next case is up.”

“Oh, oh.” The male nurse’s ears reddened further. He hurried off with the orderly, pushing the bed.

In the recovery room, every bed was occupied.

An anesthesiologist kept watch, eyes fixed on the monitors at each bedside.

The male nurse handed the patient over and said, “She’s talking a little nonsense.”

The anesthesiologist was unfazed. “It’s fine. Normal.”

“So handsome,” the woman said, eyes sparkling as she beamed at the anesthesiologist. “You’re handsome too. How are you so handsome as well?”

The anesthesiologist couldn’t help laughing. “I’m a woman.”

“Women are handsome too. How is everyone so handsome? This banner’s great—I want them all. All of them. Hee-hee-hee-hee.”

The male nurse was about to leave when the anesthesiologist called him back to ask a few intraoperative details.

The male nurse said, “Vitals were stable during the operation, estimated blood loss about fifty milliliters—except when the Eight Immortals were crossing the sea, the computer kind of black-screened.”

The anesthesiologist, pen moving across her chart, froze.

She looked up. “Huh?”

“The piggy curtain’s name is Dog. The leaders of our nursing department are eighteenth-generation purebred dumbfucks. Why do people want to ascend to heaven? Oh—turns out the nursing department are all stinking dumbfucks.”

Hearing this, the anesthesiologist finally understood. She nodded gravely. “Hawthorn water can indeed substitute for an AAA battery. Performance reviews are doing overtime. Expired stool specimens should be evenly smeared on the hospital director’s gastric mucosa.”

Delighted, the male nurse proclaimed, “I am a seal! Milk tea is a fatty liver and it’s twenty-three years old this year!” He hitched up his scrubs and happily slapped his belly.

The anesthesiologist glanced around, confirmed every patient’s vitals were steady, and, pleased, said, “Love the overtime! It’s raining and I didn’t bring an umbrella—because I just adore coming to work!”

“What are you—” A doctor who hadn’t seen a single patient all day poked his head in, baffled, then suddenly got it. “Great! Full of pep! I’ve topped up my parking app—after shift, wanna go down to the sea and fish for some SCI papers?”

“...?” The patients, surfacing from anesthesia, watched the staff in alarm.

Before long the patients were laughing too, chattering excitedly about life.

Outside the hospital.

“Captain Shi! All civilians within one kilometer of the contamination zone have been cleared!”

“Captain Shi! Public narrative’s contained! We’re calling it an emergency oxygen pipeline repair! More support is en route, mixed in with the fire engines!”

“Captain Shi! No casualties so far!”

“Captain Shi! The Mark has been classified—S-class—”

“Delirium,” the masked man said, flicking a hand, voice cold. “Move in.”

“Yes, sir!” The operations team fell in behind him, crossed the cordon, and drove hard toward the contaminated zone.

—ip.

“Why is it so jammed?” Lin Jianyuan stared, puzzled, at the lanes of motionless cars.

The street was packed solid. Impatient drivers leaned on their horns.

Every car was headed away from the hospital.

At the intersection, traffic police were directing the flow; the approach to the hospital was roped off with bright tape, no vehicles allowed through.

A fire? Lin Jianyuan wondered. But there weren’t any fire trucks.

Whatever it was, something about this was seriously off.

Lin Jianyuan decided on the spot. “Forget it. Let’s skip the appointment. Come on.”

His roommate asked, “Head home?”

Lin Jianyuan turned and gave his roommate a once-over and got it immediately—he was practically glowing again today, clearly dressed up.

He had no idea why his roommate needed to dress to the nines just to tag along to a clinic, but since he looked that good, he probably didn’t want to just turn around and go home.

Lin Jianyuan thought a moment, pulled out his phone, and scrolled a review app for nearby food.

“Then let’s grab a bite...” He realized it was a bad hour for lunch—barely past nine—so he pivoted. “Or we could get coffee and head back?”

“Sure.” His roommate smiled, gentle as ever, like someone who never lost his temper.

He really didn’t have much of a temper, and he wasn’t picky either.

Lin Jianyuan picked a nearby café at random, showed him the screen, and his roommate said, “Okay.”

They followed the map and set off. Lin Jianyuan didn’t know the area, and the road by the hospital was closed; they walked a long while by the GPS and still couldn’t find a way around.

“What’s with this navigation? There’s clearly no road ahead. Did I turn too early? That makes no sense...” Lin Jianyuan muttered at his phone.

A slash of uncanny white caught at the edge of his vision; he glanced over without thinking.

It was a young man, clothes in disarray, a baggy shirt slipping on his frame.

His white shirt was crumpled, the black trousers beneath just as creased, smeared with dirt—as if someone had shoved him hard into the mud.

He was deathly pale and painfully thin, eyes hollow, expression blank. Even his steps seemed unmoored, as if he were walking on cotton.

The man lurched past Lin Jianyuan.

Lin Jianyuan lifted his head from the map and called out, “Hey.”

His roommate stopped beside him. The man, as if he’d heard nothing at all, kept stumbling forward.

His long, pale limbs looked as if the bones had been pulled out—no strength left in them.

His head bobbed with each step, like a spore-cap too weak to hold itself up.

Lin Jianyuan frowned, took two steps, and said, “Bro, hold up.”

Stopped by a stranger, the man paused. His vacant eyes lifted, unfocused, to Lin’s face.

Lin Jianyuan glanced at the slack shirt—the open collar showed his collarbones.

It wasn’t on purpose; the top button was gone.

A crooked thread poked out, like a question mark.

The man himself was one huge, pale question mark.

“You sick or something? Need help?”

He didn’t answer, just stared, fogged.

“Hey?” Lin Jianyuan waved a hand, wondering if the guy was blind.

He wasn’t.

The silent eyes finally refocused.

The pale, disheveled man looked up at Lin Jianyuan, lips parting to rasp a single sound:

“Ah.”

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

Barely a breath, with no tone at all.

Lin Jianyuan blinked. “Huh? Say what?”

He didn’t speak again. Still blank, his lips let out empty little breaths: “Ah, ah…”

Lin Jianyuan frowned. “Sleepwalking…?”

His roommate’s intestines writhed slowly. “What are you going to do?”

Tone: amused.

Lin Jianyuan looked down, fiddling with his phone. “Call the police for him. Something’s off—maybe he’s lost from his family.”

He dialed 110. He looked up to check the street sign—and the man was gone.

Gone?!!

Lin’s pupils blew wide. A woman’s voice came through: “110 dispatch. What’s your emergency?”

He looked around in shock. The street was empty—no shadow of anyone, let alone the disheveled man.

He turned to his roommate. “Where’d he go?!”

Roommate: “Huh. No idea.”

Lin Jianyuan: “He was right here! Big grown man—you didn’t see where he went?!”

Roommate: “I was watching you make the call.”

Lin Jianyuan: “………………”

“Hello?” the dispatcher persisted. “What’s the situation?”

Lin Jianyuan had no idea what to say. He apologized to the dispatcher.

He hung up and stared, baffled, at the empty road.

“Another hallucination?” He was completely lost. He pointed. “You saw him, right? There was a guy there, right?”

Roommate: “A guy?”

Lin’s heart slammed. He braced for “There was no one.”

And then it’s a ghost story.

Thankfully, he didn’t say that.

“Yeah. But he vanished in a blink. Weird.”

Lin Jianyuan let out a breath.

Roommate: “Why are you relieved?”

Amused.

Lin Jianyuan eyed the upturned corner of his mouth. Laughing at something this creepy—clearly you’re the weird one here.

That night, Lin Jianyuan scrolled into a local trending topic.

#Oxygen Pipeline Leak at XX Hospital#

He tapped in—turns out it was the hospital he’d skipped.

The central oxygen line had leaked, with explosion risk, so the police and fire department cleared the area.

“These accidents keep happening,” Lin Jianyuan said, leaning in the kitchen doorway, scrolling. “Gotta be careful out there.”

“Yeah.” His roommate was stir-frying, heat roaring, a carnival of intestines. Quite a sight.

Lin Jianyuan: “By the way, remember that guy outside the hospital? Didn’t he seem…”

The duodenum curled around the handle; he flipped the wok. “What?” Casual.

“…like he’d just had a messy romp after a silver party. Used up and wrung out.”

Clang!

A gut slipped; the wok crashed onto the stovetop.

Lin Jianyuan jumped. “What!”

Roommate: “…Nothing. Go on.”

The duodenum slowly wrapped the handle again; the peristaltic colon squeezed and twitched.

Lin Jianyuan watched, suspicious, then realized—his roommate was holding in laughter so hard even his intestines were shaking.

Lin Jianyuan said, deadpan, “What, not true? He had classic kidney-deficiency face.”

“That’s kidney deficiency?” His roommate’s voice held a smile. “Wouldn’t know.”

Lin Jianyuan: “Sure looked like it. Weak knees, floating steps, vacant eyes, pale and hazy…”

Roommate: “Haha.”

Lin Jianyuan: “Haha.”

Roommate: “Hahahahahahaha!”

For some reason he was cracking up, laughing too hard to cook—the duodenum clutching the spatula, the whole digestive system trembling like flower-stems—flowering guts quivering.

Watching him laugh, Lin Jianyuan suddenly found it hilarious too.

“Hahahahaha!”

They laughed and laughed in the kitchen.

The lovely weekend ended; the unlovely Monday arrived.

Morning. The alarm rang. Lin Jianyuan muttered, “squish toy, do your thing,” hit snooze with his eyes closed, and planned five more minutes.

Before he could drift off, the squish toy thief said, “My home needs vitamin D, didn’t see that coming osteoporosis, my little world holds all human history. Mom. I’m awesome!!!”

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

What the hell???