Chapter 1 Return to Zero
Luocheng, autumn.

In the empty office, under the pale incandescent light, the middle-aged doctor pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Hello Chen Ji, I need to ask you some questions now. After you answer, I will rate you according to my judgment according to the five levels of 'none', 'very mild', 'moderate', 'severe', and 'very severe', is that okay?"

"can."

"Do you want to end your life?"

“…Whose life will be ended?”

"Your own."

"That's not the case."

The middle-aged doctor hesitated for a moment: "Do you hold grudges? Do you find it difficult to forgive those who have hurt you?"

"I don't hold grudges."

"Do you tend to forget things? What memories do you have of being twelve?"

Opposite the doctor, the eighteen-year-old Chen Ji's gaze drifted to the darkness outside the window: "Twelve years old? That summer, my deskmate Ma Kai secretly took an eraser from me. I liked that eraser very much because it had a picture of Uchiha Itachi on it."

The doctor's gaze returned to the previous question about holding a grudge, crossed out "1 point, none", and re-wrote "5 points, very serious".

He looked at the boy opposite him carefully. The eighteen-year-old Chen Ji had a handsome appearance. It seemed that because he had not been out for a long time, his skin was clean and his eyes were clear and sincere.

"Next question, can you stand being alone?"

This time, Chen Ji finally stopped to think about the problem seriously. After a long time, he replied, "Yes."

……

……

The questioning lasted for half an hour. When the hands of the quartz clock on the wall jumped to ten o'clock at night, the doctor said, "One last question. Do you feel that someone wants to harm you?"

Chen Ji: "No, my family treats me very well."

The doctor's eyelids twitched slightly, and he quickly wrote down in the notebook: 168 points for positive symptoms, 67 positive items, factor score 3.8. After the patient's parents died in a car accident, he suffered from severe 'post-traumatic stress disorder' and had violent tendencies.

"Student Chen Ji, the diagnosis shows that you have severe post-traumatic stress disorder. You need to stay in the hospital for observation. The nurse will take you to the ward on the sixth floor later. You need to give me your cell phone. External information will interfere with you and affect the treatment effect."

"Oh," Chen Ji didn't seem surprised.

"Please sit here for a while. I have to inform your family of the result," the doctor stood up with the diagnosis.

"Wait!" Chen Ji called out to him.

"What's wrong?" the doctor turned around and asked.

"I haven't given you the phone yet," Chen Ji took out a phone from his pocket and handed it to the doctor.

"I'm just keeping the phone for you temporarily," the doctor put the phone in his pocket, turned around and went out, closing the door tightly behind him before leaving.

In the empty and dark corridor outside the door, there was only a middle-aged couple, both of whom looked nervous.

The man went forward and said, "Lao Liu, is everything going well? Did he...find anything?"

"No, he thinks you are good," Doctor Lao Liu nodded, "Here is the diagnosis. You can go to the court and apply to have him designated as 'person with no civil capacity'."

The middle-aged woman smiled awkwardly: "Thanks, Lao Liu, I'll treat you to dinner later."

Doctor Lao Liu said with a fake smile: "Forget about the meal. I don't know why you want to label him a mental patient, and I don't want to ask. But when the court comes to review, I can also overturn my diagnosis."

Chen Ji's second uncle, Chen Shuo, quickly took out a bulging file bag from his black leather bag and said, "Count it."

Doctor Lao Liu opened the file bag and took a glance: "Okay, you guys go back, I'll arrange for him to be hospitalized. I don't think he has any intention of resisting, but to be on the safe side, I'll call two male nurses over."

"Okay, I'm leaving now," Chen Shuo and his wife Wang Huiling walked towards the elevator.

In the dim corridor, Wang Huiling walked while lowering her voice and asking her husband: "How much money did you give him?"

"fifty thousand."

"Give so much? He just sat there and asked a few questions, why should he get so much?" Fatty Wang Huiling widened her eyes.

Chen Shuo said impatiently, "Do you really think that treating him to a meal is enough? It's just 50,000 yuan, which is nothing compared to Chen Ji's house! Let's go to the court to file an application tomorrow, and when he becomes a person with no civil capacity, transfer the house to our names first, so as to avoid any more trouble."

Wang Huiling whispered, "Is Lao Liu reliable? Don't let Chen Ji escape from the hospital."

"Don't worry. I heard that the sixth floor of Qingshan Hospital is like a prison. You can't escape. Let's not talk about things in this ghost place. I always feel that this place is gloomy."

When walking out of Qingshan Mental Hospital, Chen Shuo looked back as if possessed by a ghost.

In the night, the twisted and dense ivy was winding around the building, almost blocking the windows. When he looked over, he saw shadows swaying in the gaps between the ivy, as if there were many "people" watching him.

……

……

Chen Ji was supported by two male nurses, one on each side, as they walked in the dark corridor on the sixth floor. Only the emergency passage sign on the wall provided some faint light.

There was no nurse station on this floor. There was only an iron door at the end of the corridor that required a password to open. A male nurse covered Chen Ji's eyes while another entered the password.

With a click, the door opened.

Inside the door was an empty hall, with single beds placed every 1.5 meters. In the dim light, the single beds looked like coffins, and there were hundreds of them.

The next moment, black figures sat up on the beds, turned their heads, and stared silently in the direction of Chen Ji.

The male nurse whispered, "Don't worry about them, just finish your work and get out."

The two of them pressed Chen Ji flat on the bed and tied his hands and feet with restraints.

"Wait!" said Chen Ji.

"What's wrong?" the male nurse asked impatiently.

Chen Ji: "Don't you need to change into hospital gown?"

"…Are you sick?" the male nurse cursed in a low voice, then turned to his colleague and said, "Hurry up and leave."

With a clang, the iron door closed and the room fell silent again.

Chen Ji turned his head and looked around. The windows of the ward were all welded with stainless steel anti-theft windows.

rustling.

The sound of clothes rubbing against bedding could be heard in the ward, followed by the sound of footsteps.

Chen Ji heard the voices approaching him, and the voices became more and more numerous and closer.

"No..." Chen Ji opened his eyes helplessly and stared at the ceiling: "Just kidnap me alone? How presumptuous."

With the faint moonlight outside the window, he saw five or six heads sticking out like turtles, crowding out the ceiling in his field of vision. Each of them had a weird smile on their dark cheeks. Chen Ji: "It's so fucking scary. It can even cure my mental illness..."

Someone whispered, "Do you think he usually poops before or after meals?"

"Let me call the United Nations," a middle-aged man said as he took out a calculator and quickly pressed a series of numbers. The crisp sound of a woman counting was particularly abrupt in the ward.

Before he could finish pressing the button, an old man pressed the calculator.

"Return to zero."

All sounds disappeared and the patients made way for the old man.

The old man came to the bedside, bent down and looked down at Chen Ji: "You are really here."

Chen Ji: “What do you mean?”

The old man took out a piece of paper and said, "Someone once said that you would come here today."

On the piece of paper, his appearance was clearly drawn in pencil, and it looked very lifelike.

Chen Ji stood in awe: "Very reasonable."

……

……

People who are admitted to a mental hospital are either too stupid or too smart.

They are just dealing with themselves in a paranoid world, endlessly and with no way out.

Chen Ji has some respect for the mental hospital.

So when he saw the sketch, he suddenly felt that the world began to become mysterious: "My head itches, as if a brain is growing! Old man, did you draw this?"

"It's not painted by me, but I can take you to see the person who painted it," the old man undid Chen Ji's restraints, and all the patients made way for them.

At the end of the corridor, a young man was sitting stupidly on the bed, staring blankly out the window.

"What's his illness?" Chen Ji asked.

"He had severe paranoia. He always said that he lived in another world and that this world was his dream. Later he developed dissociative symptoms and became completely demented," the old man replied.

"When did he come in?"

"Went in a year ago. He said you'd show up today to prove he wasn't lying."

Chen Ji looked at the old man in surprise: "What's wrong with you? Your thoughts are exceptionally clear."

"I'm not sick," the old man said.

"He seems a bit like a mental patient..."

The old man said angrily: "I'm really not sick. I just hid here because I did something wrong before. If you don't believe me, ask me with the paranoid thinking scale."

Chen Ji: "Do you like dad and mom?"

Old man: "I like my mother."

Chen Ji: "..."

He came up to the delusional young man and asked, "Hello?"

But the young man just stared out the window in the dark without saying anything.

Old man: "He hasn't spoken in half a year."

"What's his name?"

"Li Qingniao."

Chen Ji felt a little regretful. He looked at the dazed Li Qingniao carefully and asked in a low voice, "Grandpa, has he ever mentioned what the world he lives in is like?"

"No," the old man shook his head.

Chen Ji asked again: "Grandpa, has he received any treatment since he entered the hospital? Is there any way to restore his consciousness?"

"Why bother with treatment? Living on the sixth floor means you've given up on treatment. Just staying alive is enough."

"Ah? Don't try to save him? What if he is cured?"

"It can be cured," the old man touched his chin.

"How did you cure it?"

"There was a little girl with severe depression who lost more than 30 kilograms in more than a month. Later, her father bought a lottery ticket and won more than 20 million yuan to take her out of the hospital, and she recovered."

what?
Chen Ji slowly turned his head and looked at Li Qingniao: "I will give you 20 million too."

Li Qingniao, who had been silent for half a year, suddenly said, "You are going to that world too."

what?
The old man's eyes widened.

Chen Ji hurriedly continued to ask: "How do we get to that world?"

Li Qingniao remained silent again.

Chen Ji: "I'll give you another 20 million!"

Li Qingniao: "The people of Northern Juluzhou will be responsible for the smuggling."

Chen Ji: "I'll give you another 20 million...what is that world like?"

Li Qingniao paused for two seconds: "You only have over 40 million in your card."

Chen Ji: "???"

Brother, are you pretending to be sick?
He reached out to pinch Li Qingniao's cheek, but no matter what he did, Li Qingniao stopped talking.

The old man, with his back hunched and his hands behind his back, asked, "Young man, why did you come in?"

Chen Ji responded: "My parents passed away, and I have been a little autistic for the past six months, so my second uncle and second aunt sent me here."

The old man narrowed his eyes slightly and said, "Young man, how much inheritance did your parents leave you?"

Chen Ji: "A villa worth more than 20 million yuan and tens of millions in savings."

The old man seemed to be thinking: "Then you have to be careful of your uncle and aunt. If they ask the court to rule you as 'incompetent', you won't be able to keep your property."

Chen Ji's expression was drowned in the darkness of the ward: "How could it be? They are my relatives."

The wind blew outside the window, making the ivy sway. The shadows of the leaves shining through the moonlight swayed and danced on the ground like black flames.

(End of this chapter)