Chapter 1033: That Door (3)

Li Xiaofei was stunned. He watched as Ding Hao held up a crumpled notebook, each page filled from top to bottom with dense handwriting.

"I’ll throw it out for you," Ding Hao sniffled as he spoke.

"No." Li Xiaofei shouted instinctively, "You can’t throw it away."

He struggled fiercely. Startled, Ding Hao immediately tossed the notebook onto the table by the bed. "Fine, I won’t play with you anymore. Ye Qing, let’s keep playing chess."

Li Xiaofei gasped for breath.

Then something clicked in his mind. He asked cautiously, "What did you just call him?"

"Ye Qing," Ding Hao replied without looking back.

"Not Ye Qingyu?" Li Xiaofei pressed.

"Pfft, that’s just a name you made up in your novel," Ding Hao replied.

Li Xiaofei continued asking, "Then what’s your name?"

"I’m Haozi."

"Your surname is Ding?"

"Pah, don’t change my surname. I’m Hao Ding. Surname Hao, first name Ding."

"What?" Li Xiaofei’s mind spun again. He didn’t know whether it was from shock or from the effects of the forced medication earlier, but his thoughts began to blur. Many of his memories were starting to fade.

Ye Qing? Hao Ding?

These two names clashed violently with the names Ye Qingyu and Ding Hao that he had known so well. It was like four nuclear bombs detonating at once in his head, leaving his brain a complete mess.

"Then what’s my name?" He murmured to himself.

"Your delusions are getting worse. You don’t even remember your own name? You’re Li Rui." Ye Qing turned and said sympathetically.

Li Xiaofei’s pupils contracted. He lay on the bed without speaking. His gaze grew distant as if he were lost in thought. After a long while, he fell asleep.The medication he had been force-fed earlier seemed to contain sedatives.

Li Xiaofei woke up about three hours later. The restraints on his body had already been removed, and he could finally move freely again. Nurse Tan stood at his bedside, accompanied by a round-faced, scholarly middle-aged doctor and several medical interns. All of them looked at him with concern.

"This is Director Sun Fei. He’s here to conduct a follow-up. Li Rui, you must control your emotions and stop causing trouble," Nurse Tan spoke gently.

Sun Fei?

Li Xiaofei looked at the refined middle-aged doctor. It was a familiar face, though more aged than he remembered. The youthful, dignified countenance of his memories was now marked with forehead lines and crow’s feet, filled with the exhaustion of overwork and the weariness of adult life.

Sun Fei began asking a series of survey-like questions. Li Xiaofei answered absently, barely paying attention.

"Sigh." Sun Fei let out a long breath and said, "The condition is worsening. We’ll increase the dosage starting tonight."

Li Xiaofei did not reply. He lifted his arm and looked again at the hospital band on his left wrist. Last time, he had only glanced at the other information and not paid attention to the name.

Sure enough, the name Li Rui was clearly printed in the name field. Twenty-two years old. Blood type O. Height: 180 centimeters. Weight: 150 jin...

Aside from the name, every other detail perfectly matched the state he had been in five hundred years ago, before that husky had sent him through time. Li Xiaofei lay back on the hospital bed, mind churning. He had finally calmed down.

"Make sure to take your medicine after dinner, alright?" Nurse Tan turned back and smiled gently at Li Xiaofei before leaving with Dr. Sun and the others.

Li Xiaofei returned her smile and thought,

At least her name is real.

Once the doctors had left, he picked up the notebook from the table and began flipping through it. The densely written pages turned out to contain a fantasy novel. Once he read it closely, it felt absurd in many ways. The logic often didn’t align, and the plot was disjointed, but its contents were clear. It told a story about several human Immortal Emperors waging war against demons and monsters.

The names of the protagonists were none other than Ding Hao, Ye Qingyu, Sun Fei, Li Mu, Lin Beichen... And the story hadn’t even ended yet. It barely spanned a few thousand words. The writing was so poor that it could hardly match the level of an elementary school student.

At first glance, it resembled the mad ramblings of a mentally unstable patient. Li Xiaofei finished reading the notebook carefully and lay back down on the hospital bed.

At that moment, his thoughts felt unbearably chaotic. He began to doubt everything.

Could all the memories he held, traveling through time, battles, ferocious beasts, the twin-spired city of Chongque, the Hundred Thousand Earths Project, the Reapers, the Ancestor Court Star System, the Realm of Ruins, and Oblivion, could all of it have been mere delusion? Just the fevered imaginings of a patient lost in madness?

Are Ding Hao, Sun Fei, Li Mu, and Lin Beichen just fabricated characters, born from the real people around me in the psychiatric hospital. Are they just my fellow patients, the doctors, and the nurses? Is he not Li Xiaofei at all? But rather a deeply schizophrenic patient, lost in wild fantasies, living in an imagined world of absurd xianxia epics?

Are all those vivid memories nothing more than a dreamscape of a mental episode?

Li Xiaofei lay on the bed, his consciousness clouded. He turned his head slightly. Through the glass window of the door, he could see two men standing guard outside. He could not tell whether they were security or doctors. But it was clear they were there to prevent him from escaping again.

Li Xiaofei took a deep breath and his expression gradually calmed. For some reason, the door at the end of the hallway outside his hospital room was strikingly clear in his mind.

He felt an overwhelming urge to open that door and walk through it. But he didn’t attempt to escape again. His body was still far too weak.

Whether it was the effect of the earlier medication or the frailty of this body itself, he couldn’t feel even a trace of Immortal Force. The ability to manipulate laws with mere thought was utterly gone. He tried hard to sort through his thoughts.

My name is Li Xiaofei. I am a human Immortal Emperor. I am not Li Rui. I’m not some delusional, second-rate writer lost in a fantasy episode... My name is Li Xiaofei. Not Li Rui.

He kept repeating it to himself. But to his shock, the memories he clung to began to blur. The once vivid recollections faded as if an eraser was scrubbing away at them.

Li Xiaofei lay quietly on the hospital bed and fell asleep. Not long after, Ye Qing and Hao Ding also dozed off, each curling up on their beds for a nap. Soon, light snores echoed softly through the room.

The afternoon sunlight poured in, warm and intense. Outside the window, the sound of cicadas buzzed lazily in the heat. Even the doctors who had been guarding the door had left, likely off to take their own midday rest.

Just then, Li Xiaofei, who had been lightly snoring, suddenly opened his eyes. He quietly slipped out of bed, slid into his slippers, stuffed the notebook into his chest, and crept out of the room like a cat stealing a bite of food.

The hallway outside was empty. His footsteps were light and swift as he dashed to the end of the corridor and reached out to push the door.

But it didn’t budge. The door was heavy and seemed to be locked from the outside. A sharp alarm blared behind him, followed by shouting and the thunder of footsteps rushing toward him.

Li Xiaofei never did open that door. He was dragged back to the room, strapped down once again, and force-fed another handful of pills before being injected with a sedative. He eventually fell into a deep sleep.

**

Golden sunlight filtered through the gap in the curtains. A faint scent of disinfectant lingered in the air. The slightly noisy broadcast was reporting the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Li Xiaofei slowly opened his eyes as a wave of weakness swept over him. On the adjacent hospital bed, two young men dressed in blue-and-white checkered patient gowns were playing Chinese chess.

Li Xiaofei slowly sat up and leaned against the pillow. He first glanced at his left wrist. The hospital band listed his name, diagnosis, care level, and attending nurse. His assigned nurse was Tan Qingying.

Tan Qingying? Why does that name sound so familiar?

Li Xiaofei felt as if he had heard it somewhere before. He vaguely felt that a girl with that name had once shared a deep connection with him.

Wait a minute. I’ve never met her, so why am I thinking she’s a girl? Couldn’t she just as well be a married woman? Or even a middle-aged aunt?

Li Xiaofei had no idea why, but his mind felt like a mess, like he had forgotten many things... and also somehow gained many memories that didn’t belong. He instinctively picked up the phone beside the bed and glanced at the screen.

September 17, 2023. Sunday.