"I worked overtime until very late yesterday," said Shiller. "I need to go back and get some sleep. Delice, could you arrange for someone to check on the patients we've come into contact with recently, inquire about their conditions, and leave the records on my desk? I'll be back before dinner."
Shiller took the pen out of the pocket of his white coat and nodded at the "Eldest Sister", a girl with black hair who smiled at him and made a hand gesture promising to complete the task.
"Overtime until very late?" Charles looked at Shiller's retreating back with a hint of confusion. "Didn't we all leave around 10 o'clock last night?"
"The doctor's schedule is very regular, to be precise, disturbingly regular," said Delice as she put away her pen, her gaze flicking back and forth between Charles and David. "Your eyes are very similar; are you brothers or relatives?"
David shook his head silently, and without pressing further, Delice said, "We're short-staffed lately because a lot of people are out on trips. Due to the nature of our department, most of the patients we deal with are not hospitalized in our sector—some are as far as the fourth hospital building. Who is willing to go?"
"I'll go," said David as he stood up. "Distance doesn't matter to me; just give me their room number, and names."
"Oh, that won't do," Delice shook her head and said, "I'll make an appointment for you in the system, then you can check at the front desk. The nurse will tell you which ward they're in. When you enter, call out their names first. If they don't respond, go find the on-duty nurse and the resident doctor."
"Is it to prevent identity fraud?" asked Charles.
"It's to prevent those with ulterior motives," Delice sighed. "There are always some weirdos posing as doctors and nurses, you know, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and such."
After David left, Charles turned to her and asked, "What about me? Where should I go?"
"I heard from Doctor Shiller that you're more inclined towards academic research, so I figured I'd save you some time. Just go to the nearby obstetrics department and check on the lady who received an intervention yesterday."
"Lisa ma'am?"
"Yes, but be careful. Her husband is very emotional and prone to tears. The nurses in that ward are tired of trying to console him. It'll be good if you could help out."
Charles nodded and left without a word, Doctor Mela's gaze following his back, but the urgent need to see Lisa meant Charles did not notice.
Charles came to the same corridor corner as yesterday and, having listened for a while and hearing no sound, stopped a nurse to ask about it, learning they had gone to the garden for a walk.
Patients in their hospital gowns were gathered around the fountain, watching the water in small groups, some accompanied by their families on walks. Charles found Lisa, sitting in a wheelchair under a large tree at the far corner of the garden, with her husband Aux.
Lisa cradled a cat in her arms, a long-haired Ragdoll, continuously stroking its ears and head while Aux grinned from ear to ear.
But the pleasant scene did not last long. As soon as Charles approached, a wind picked up. It was early fall in New York and despite the weather not being fully cold, the wind had a chill to it.
The nurses began to usher people back inside. Lisa was reluctant to go because once she did, she would have to leave the cat behind. Leaning against the tree, she was visibly resistant, but the nurses lacked the patience and told her husband to quickly persuade her to return.
The truth was, Aux also wanted Lisa to go back quickly. For her to be able to sit in a wheelchair outdoors was a miracle by itself. Following a call to the Women's Federation after learning of Lisa's severe condition, Aux had acquired a special approval for a dose of "healing serum," which allowed her surgical wound to heal quickly.
Lisa's physical condition, however, was still not good. The healing serum was depleting her energy, but her psychiatric condition was tormenting her, causing her to spend several sleepless nights. Now, her complexion was pale, her body frail, as if she might faint at any moment.
From Charles's perspective, Lisa seemed even more pitiable, hunched over in her wheelchair, clinging desperately to her cat, tears streaming down her helpless face, blinking incessantly from the wind, her lips nearly colorless from being pressed together.
Although the push from Lisa, who was, after all, a patient, had no real strength behind it, Charles still stepped back several paces, then tried to use textbook methods to talk her down.
"Ma'am, stay calm, take deep breaths. You're currently in the obstetrics department of the New York Elderly Association Hospital. This man is your husband, and I am an intern. We are all taking care of you; you are safe," said Charles.
"Your cat is fine too. It is healthy and being held by you. No one is going to hurt it, and no one wants to take it from you."
"We just want to…"
"You have taken everything from me," Lisa screamed. "My child's heartbeat, his life and soul, and my body, my family, my everything. Give them back to me."
Lisa started to screech incoherently, her voice sharp and frantic, completely drowning out Charles, who realized she could hear nothing he said.
"Has she taken her medication?" Charles asked Aux.
"Obviously not," Aux shook his head, "We have no way to make her take the medicine. The nurse said, considering transferring her to psychiatry once her health improves a bit more."
"I'm not going anywhere," Lisa began to murmur, "My children are right here, all my children, Donna, Doo-doo, they've all come, I'll stay here to guard them, and won't let you take them away again…"
The grammar was chaotic, parts of speech unclear, and the pronouns kept changing, making it confusing as to whom she was referring to—signs that the language system was starting to break down, which was an extremely bad omen.
Charles became somewhat at a loss, he truly could analyze others' brains well while writing papers, and combine those analyses with various psychological theories, but none of those theories included how to use words to comfort a patient experiencing an episode.
As Lisa became more agitated, Charles still invaded her brain. Then, he was almost knocked over by the chaotic and disordered thoughts.
He had studied the inner worlds of the mentally ill before, but it was always when they were in a more stable mental state. Suddenly accessing the mind of a patient during an episode was also quite a shock to him.
It was too painful, Charles felt deep empathy for Lisa at that moment.
One perspective accurately recognized the world, she should have handed the cats over to her husband, who definitely would take good care of them, she felt cold and should return to the warmth and comfort of the ward to get a good sleep, everything would pass.
But another perspective wasn't like that, her children had been crying loudly as they were born, looking at her with faces purple and bloody, their expressions contorted, asking why she let them be taken away, and then the faces of the cats gradually merged with the children's, they kept asking, over and over again, repeating endlessly.
"Enough."
With a swoosh, the second kind of illusion vanished completely. When Charles exhaled, he realized his forehead was ice-cold; he had sweated a lot from the scare he received while adopting Lisa's perspective.
Lisa calmed down.
Of course, she did. Charles had directly deleted that second illusionary perspective, now only the normal one remained.
The woman looked very confused, yet slowly handed the cat to her husband.
Aux, both shocked and delighted, received the cat, gently placed it back in the carrier, and then helped Charles push Lisa back to the ward. She even drank some water and took her medicine, soon falling asleep.
"My God, I had no idea this therapy was so effective," Aux said gratefully to Charles outside the hospital room. "In a way, you're the key, Doctor, you convinced Lisa."
In fact, I didn't, Charles thought. From Aux's perspective, Charles had said a few words to Lisa, and she meekly went back to the ward to take her medicine and sleep, like a miracle worker.
As he watched the sleeping Lisa, Charles immediately realized something; if he was to do this, it had to be thorough; otherwise, they would definitely become aware that something was amiss.
Charles's deletion earlier could not be called gentle; it was more about his own self-preservation. Although the deletion was clean, it was a bit too clean for an ordinary person. He suspected that when Lisa woke up, she might not remember losing a child at all.
If she did have amnesia, the hospital would definitely investigate, and he could not escape blame. Should it trace back to Doctor Schiller, his plan to get closer would completely fall through.
Charles sighed and once again invaded Lisa's brain to modify her memories and emotions, then he tweaked Aux's memories, making them more reasonable.
However, the medical staff and the nurse he had stopped earlier to ask about the situation also held real memories, so they had to be changed too, and in the same direction, without any contradictions.
Standing in front of Lisa's room door for a long time, he finally finished the changes and Charles breathed a sigh of relief. Then, turning a corner, he saw a figure waiting for him by the window.
"Doctor Mela?" Charles asked, looking towards Mela.
"Yes," Mela turned to face Charles, her expression gentle, which allowed Charles to breathe a sigh of relief. He felt somewhat guilty, as though he had just been caught by the principal right after committing a misdeed.
"You're a psychic, aren't you?" Mela cut to the chase.
Charles nodded without too much surprise because Schiller had hinted the day they met that Mela might have similar abilities to his.
"I come from a monastery at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains. My ability is telepathy, no, not mind-reading. You can understand it as a kind of meditative magic, not innate but acquired through practice," Mela explained.
Charles's brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't object; he knew such a possibility existed, as some magicians could also read minds.
"Just sensing?" Charles asked, focusing on whether Mela could intervene and manipulate a person's mind as he could.
"No, far less than you," Mela shook her head. "Even with focused concentration, I can only understand so much. It requires prolonged meditation and entering a deep meditative state to delve deeper."
Then she looked up at Charles and said, "I wasn't a very devoted person when I was young. I took too many detours. That's why I chose to dedicate all my energy to practicing this ability."
"I know you must have the best intentions to relieve people's suffering, thinking this is God's will. You're just carrying out a mission that humans are unable to complete," Mela continued.
"But if only the human race were so simple that it could be easily interfered with and transformed. They are too complex, not easily fathomed. If you plan to do something, think thrice before you act."