Knock knock knock!
"Come in."
Lin Qi Ye pushed open the door and entered the clinic.
Sitting across from him at the desk was a middle-aged male doctor, wearing a white coat and sporting a noticeably sparse receding hairline, clearly a symbol of wisdom.
Lin Qi Ye sat down in the chair, and the doctor leisurely spoke:
"Well, tell me, what's wrong with you?"
"I don't have any problems."
"If you don't have any problems, why are you here?"
"I don't have problems, but I have a friend with a serious mental illness."
Upon hearing this, the doctor's expression turned strange, and he smiled while brushing a few remaining hairs from his balding head:
"Your friend, it's not you, is it?"
Lin Qi Ye replied seriously, "No, it's really a friend."
"Alright, then tell me, what's wrong with... your friend? What are the symptoms?"
Lin Qi Ye thought for a moment. "This might be a bit hard to describe..."
The doctor smiled, "Then just pretend you're that friend and show me your actual symptoms."
Lin Qi Ye gave the doctor a strange look, hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly nodded.
So, Lin Qi Ye slowly stood up from his seat and walked straight in front of the doctor, under his watchful gaze.
He reached out and buried the doctor's head into his chest, using his other hand to gently stroke the few remaining hairs on the doctor's scalp, his eyes filled with tenderness as he softly spoke:
"My dear son, daddy finally found you!"
The doctor: "..."
For the next ten minutes, Lin Qi Ye used all his rhetorical skills, passionately explaining to the doctor that it really wasn't him who was ill, thus avoiding being forcibly hospitalized.
"So, your friend sees everything as if they're seeing their own child?"
"Yes!"
"And she cried for a long time?"
"She cried all the time."
"Likes to sit in the garden and tell stories to vases and chairs?"
"Exactly."
"How's her sleep?"
"She doesn't sleep."
"..."
The doctor furrowed his brows. "Your friend is really ill! I strongly suggest you bring her to our hospital for inpatient treatment."
"Her situation is quite special, and she doesn't have the conditions for hospitalization," Lin Qi Ye said helplessly.
He obviously couldn't tell the doctor the truth—if he mentioned that Nyx, the Goddess of the Night, was the patient and she lived in the mental hospital inside his mind, he'd probably receive his own admission notice.
The doctor thought for a moment and began typing on the keyboard with both hands. "If she can't be hospitalized, then we can only rely on medication. I'll prescribe some for you. Give them to her, and if there's no improvement, you must bring her to the hospital."
Lin Qi Ye looked a bit troubled.
Could the medication from the real world be brought into his mind?
He wasn't sure, but he felt that even if he did bring it in, ordinary medicine probably wouldn't be effective on a goddess.
"Doctor, besides medication, is there any other way to treat her?"
The doctor thought for a while, then slowly said, "Your friend's condition is a severe case of delusional disorder. I've seen a lot of patients like this. There was a man who loved his wife very much. After she died in a car accident, he often talked to the air, imagining his wife was still by his side."
"This illness is mostly caused by a huge psychological trauma. The patient subconsciously rejects reality and creates a false sense of 'she's still here.'"
"If we can approach the problem from the angle of its cause and provide some psychological treatment, there's a possibility of improvement, but without medication, it's very hard."
"Medication and psychological therapy—these two work together. Do you understand what I mean?"
Lin Qi Ye nodded thoughtfully.
Approaching the issue from the cause... but he knew nothing about Nyx's past. He had no idea where to start.
Looks like he needed to do more preparation.
Lin Qi Ye took the prescription but didn't go to pay for the medication. Since the real-world medicine probably wouldn't be effective in his mind, there was no need to spend the money.
Besides... those medications were expensive!
After leaving the mental hospital, Lin Qi Ye got on the bus back.
This trip to the mental hospital was still worth it. At least it gave him a breakthrough.
To help Nyx psychologically, he needed to understand her better.
So, at a certain stop, he got off the bus and walked into the Cangnan City Library.
...
At the second high school, outside the school gate.
"Hey, who is that old man?"
"I don't know. Probably a parent."
"I saw him when I entered the school gate around seven this morning."
"I saw him too. He was wearing sunglasses and a shirt, holding a cup of coffee, leaning against the wall. At first, I thought he looked pretty cool."
"Why does he look like a beggar now? His eyes are all red."
"Do you think he's been here since early morning?"
"No way, it's almost ten now."
"Who knows. Oh right, have you heard? Two students were murdered last night!"
"Seriously?"
"Of course! I heard..."
...
On the sidewalk across the street from the school gate, a dejected man was sitting alone, surrounded by cigarette butts. His back under the streetlamp looked unbearably sad.
Zhao Kongcheng flicked the cigarette in his hand. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't figure out what went wrong.
He had been waiting since six in the morning, all the way until ten at night, and under the sun no less. Yet, he still hadn't seen that kid.
Had that kid figured out he was being targeted and decided not to show up?
Damn it... his ass was sore from sitting.
Zhao Kongcheng pushed himself up from the curb, patted the dust off his pants, and began stretching his limbs.
At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a young man in casual clothes strolling across the street, holding a few books... walking leisurely.
That guy, he kinda looked like that kid...
Hmm?
Zhao Kongcheng froze, blinked hard.
Holy crap!
Whoosh—
Without another word, Zhao Kongcheng rushed forward like a gust of wind, his eyes bloodshot, looking like a fierce beast.
However, when he was about twenty meters away from the young man, the kid seemed to sense something, and with a sudden shudder, he turned and ran!
The two of them sprinted down the street, one chasing the other!
Lin Qi Ye really wanted to slap himself. Why did he have to choose this road out of all the others!?
Now, after ditching the guy yesterday, he was being chased down again!
Lin Qi Ye wasn't slow, but compared to Zhao Kongcheng, he was still far behind. In a few seconds, Zhao Kongcheng had caught up.
Zhao Kongcheng grabbed Lin Qi Ye's shoulder with a vicious grin.
"Kid, we meet again!"
Lin Qi Ye stiffly turned his head, tilted it slightly:
"Who are you?"