Chapter 1035: What Is Behind That Door (2)

Golden sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains. A faint scent of disinfectant lingered in the air. The slightly noisy voice of a broadcast echoed through the room, reporting the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Li Xiaofei slowly opened his eyes as he felt a wave of weakness wash over him. He turned his head and glanced at the phone beside him. The screen displayed the date.

September 17th, 2023. Sunday.

Just an ordinary day.

Oh no, I haven’t taken my meds

, the thought sprang instantly into his mind.

He remembered that he hadn’t taken his medication properly yesterday, which had made his attending doctor, Sun Fei, very angry. So he was supposed to be on a few additional pills today.

Wait? Hold on, what pills? Who am I? Where am I? What was I doing?

Confusion suddenly clouded Li Xiaofei’s mind. He instinctively raised his hand and looked at his hospital wristband.

Oh. So my name was Li Rui. Right.

It all came back to him. He was a patient. A psychiatric patient. He loved writing, often got lost in wild thoughts, and fantasized about becoming a world-renowned author. But in truth, up to the twenty-second year of his life, he had only written a few thousand words in an old, worn-out notebook. It still wasn’t finished.

Li Xiaofei gazed out the window with a touch of melancholy, then picked up the notebook from the small table beside him. The pages were filled with densely written words. The notebook had been tossed aside carelessly, as if it had just been used to prop up a table leg. It looked dirty and worn, with faint marks of water damage.

Golden sunlight lit up the pages, and countless tiny specks of dust danced within the light beam. Li Xiaofei had once imagined that each of those drifting particles was actually a planet, teeming with life; that the countless particles, orbiting and shifting, formed entire galaxies and universes.

His every breath, in the context of this dust universe, might span billions of years. Countless lives would be born and perish, and even the dust planets themselves would undergo cycles of prosperity and destruction.

In the eyes of those lifeforms dwelling on the dust planets, perhaps he was an unfathomable, supreme god. But in reality? He was nothing more than a psychiatric patient in his own world, too weak even to decide what he would eat for lunch.

Could such a being really be called a god?

He let out a wry laugh and reached for the tattered notebook. Flipping open the front page, he began to read.

The story was rough, but for some reason, Li Xiaofei was completely absorbed. The more he read, the brighter his eyes became.

Did I really write this novel myself? It's actually brilliant. And yet, if I had written it, why does it feel like I’m reading it for the first time?

The door to the ward opened. Li Xiaofei turned to see his assigned nurse, Tan Qingying, pushing a cart into the room. She performed the routine checks, from blood pressure and blood sugar to his pulse, and then supervised Li Xiaofei as he took his medication. Li Xiaofei accepted the pills and tablets, raised the cup of water, and swallowed them one by one before taking a drink.

"Good boy. Let me check, did you finish all your medicine?" Tan Qingying smiled gently as she spoke.

Li Xiaofei opened his mouth, allowing her to inspect the inside.

"Very good. You swallowed everything. You’ve behaved so well today," the young nurse praised him, then turned and left.

Li Xiaofei remained lying on the bed, still engrossed in his novel. He was completely absorbed. An hour later, he reached the final page but he was still hungry for more.

All five of his comrades are dead. Li Xiaofei himself is on the verge of burning out. There’s no way he can defeat that demon named Oblivion. A proper novelist must not write recklessly. The plot can’t turn abruptly. The protagonist can’t win without reason. So then... how should the ending be resolved?

He fell into deep thought. But the more he thought, the more muddled his mind became. The medicine he had taken earlier seemed to have a strange effect, making him drowsy and dulling his awareness, as if urging him to forget everything.

For the remainder of the afternoon, Li Xiaofei drifted in and out of sleep. His mind flickered with fragments of countless scenes from the novel. His brain became like a clumsy, third-rate director, projecting scattered and chaotic moments from the story into his head.

Night fell and darkness descended once again.

***

Golden sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, adding a touch of brightness to the otherwise dim room. The pungent smell of disinfectant filled the air, sharp enough to sting the nose. The slightly noisy voice of the radio echoed nearby, reporting the latest updates on the Russia-Ukraine war. A flagship from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet had reportedly been lost...

Li Rui rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up. He stared blankly at the light for a while, feeling as if he had forgotten something upon waking. Beside him, the two fools playing chess had started arguing again over taking back a move.

Li Rui was no longer surprised by this. According to his memory, those two fellow patients, Ye Qing and Hao Ding, were always like this. Oblivious to how terrible their chess skills were, they quarreled and played joyfully every day. Their game never improved, but their arguing and cheating skills had progressed rapidly.

Li Rui had no real objection to them playing chess. The real issue was that their constant bickering was unbearably annoying, often interrupting his train of thought and preventing him from finishing the novel he was working on. Especially when it came to his ending; he had been stuck thanks to the noise from his two roommates, and he could never bring himself to finish it.

What if I just wrote a fresh and unconventional ending? Say the villain defeats the whole protagonist team, then resets the universe and starts everything over?

The idea flashed across Li Rui’s mind, but he quickly dismissed it. He reached for the water cup, then casually picked up the pillbox from the table and swallowed the pills one by one with some water.

A short while later, Nurse Tan came in to do her rounds. A trace of delight appeared on Li Rui’s face. Since the day he had been admitted to the hospital, this young nurse named Tan Qingying had been one of the few small joys in his otherwise dull life.

She was beautiful, well-built, and had a gentle personality. Li Rui had once secretly vowed that once he got better, got discharged, published his novel, and earned some money, he would marry Nurse Tan.

"Huh? You actually took all your medicine today? Writer Li, you didn’t secretly throw it away, did you? Hehe, don’t be mad and let me check. Wow, you really did take everything! You’ve been so good! Doctor Sun is going to be so pleased. As long as you keep cooperating with the treatment, you’ll definitely be discharged soon!"

After confirming that Li Rui hadn’t thrown away his medication, the young nurse beamed down at him like praising a child.

Just as she pushed her cart and was about to leave, Li Rui suddenly couldn’t help but speak up, "Wait."

"Hmm?" Nurse Tan turned around in confusion.

Li Rui asked, "Little Tan, has that door at the end of the corridor always been closed? What’s on the other side?"

Nurse Tan walked over, gently placed her hand on Li Rui’s forehead, and said, "No fever... Did you forget? Behind that door is the critical care area. Some of the patients there are very ill, and a few have violent tendencies. They’ve even injured others before. That’s why the areas are managed separately."

"Oh? Is that so?" Li Rui scratched his head.

He couldn’t remember. He had forgotten many things ever since falling ill. The doctors said it was a side effect of the medication and that things would gradually improve after he was discharged.

After the young nurse left, a strange impulse stirred in Li Rui’s heart. He wanted to push open that door and take a look inside the critical care unit. Maybe those patients with more severe mental conditions could spark some inspiration for his writing? But after thinking it over, he decided against it. If a doctor caught him, they might increase his medication again.

He lay still in bed, not wanting to move, and picked up the worn-out notebook to flip through its pages once more. Suddenly, flickering images began to appear in his mind. The scenes were vivid, like big-budget productions. Each face was lifelike, as if part of a memory that had always existed within him.

Li Rui wasn’t unfamiliar with this phenomenon.

Why did I fall ill and become hospitalized?

It was because he had become too deeply immersed in writing his novel. His mind kept flashing back to scenes from the story until he could no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. That was the reason he had been sent to the psychiatric hospital.

Li Rui closed his eyes and silently observed the flickering scenes in his mind. It was like watching a movie trailer. It was epic, intense, and immersive. He compared those fragments with the contents of his notebook until he exhausted every ounce of energy in his search for the perfect ending for his novel.

Suddenly, a scene in his mind stuttered to life. It was the final battle. Oblivion tore open the void, revealing another battlefield. There, the Sword Immortal Lin Beichen died at the hands of a cloned version of himself, engulfed in purple flames.

Sword Immortal Lin Beichen,

Li Rui fell into deep thought.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

That thought lingered, growing more complex, until night fell. The doctor came to check on the patients before bedtime.

The attending physician, Sun Fei, expressed satisfaction with Li Rui’s condition. He turned to Nurse Tan and said, "Patient twenty-five is showing good progress. Give him one more injection tonight. If things go well, he might be discharged in about half a month."

"Understood." Nurse Tan was genuinely happy for Li Rui.

She administered the injection. After lights-out, the ward sank into calm and silence. Li Rui drifted into a deep sleep.