The fifth floor of the hospital was the floor for patients with serious illness. The windows were reinforced with wires and the doors were specially reinforced. “It is now 12. 30 am, our treatment will start at 12. 44 am.” Doctor Gao opened the medicine bottle on the table. “Before the treatment officially started, we need every patient to ingest a single pill. This is for your own good.” There were only 4 pills inside Doctor Gao’s bottle. Minus the two doctors who did not need the pills, the medicine ran out just as it reached Chen Ge. Placing the empty bottle on the ground, Doctor Gao took out a new bottle of medicine from his pocket. From the outside appearance, there was no difference between the two bottles of medicine.

  When Doctor Gao was unwrapping the bottle, Doctor Sun who sat next to Chen Ge took out a bottle of medicine from his own pocket, “I still have some left overs on me.” He shook out a single pill from his bottle. The surface of the pill was pure white in color but if you looked closer, you could discern some very small black lines on the surface. When Doctor Gao saw this, he reached out his hand to stop Doctor Sun, “Chen Ge’s condition has become much better, he only needs half of the pill.”


  “Half of the pill?” Doctor Sun looked at Doctor Gao with confusion, the former should have been notified of the treatment process beforehand.

  “Yes, he only needs half of the pill.” Doctor Gao tried to cover up his hesitation.

  “That is different from what the hospital director wants.” Doctor Sun shook his head without any expression. “Even though you are his main doctor, some decisions are still made by the hospital director.” He stood up and tipped the pill into Chen Ge’s mouth. Chen Ge could feel the pill brush against his lips but the strange thing was Doctor Sun did not force feed him the pill. He only used his hand to cover his mouth, the pill was still squeezed between Doctor Sun’s fingers. Doctor Sun took his hand back and Chen Ge subconsciously made a swallowing motion.

  The pills with the black lines could make people go insane and lose their rationality, Chen Ge was very familiar with that. It appeared like Doctor Sun did not want to feed him that kind of people and even silently pulled one over Doctor Gao and the rest of the patients. This piqued Chen Ge’s interest. Doctor Sun who sat next to him appeared to not want to harm him.

  [From the day I woke up inside the hospital, someone would come to knock on my door every night. The knocking will correspond the amount of days I have spent inside the hospital. As if worried that I might lose count of the amount of day, the person will come to notify me every night. Yesterday night, they had knocked for five times so technically today, they should have knocked six times. Coincidentally enough, when this Doctor Sun entered this room earlier, he knocked on the door six times. Is he using this time of method to tell me that it was him who had been knocking on my door?] Thunder and lightning danced outside the window but the room was eerily quiet. The seven people sat around in a circle. Other than Chen Ge and the two doctors, the other patients had their heads titled downwards, as if they were asleep.

  [They should be given the normal white pills. The medicine bottle that Doctor Gao has placed on the table now should contain the pills with the black lines.] Before the treatment started, Chen Ge already sensed something was seriously off. Based on what Doctor Gao said, if the any of the patient acted up, the other people had to help restrain them and feed them with the pills on the table. But clearly enough the pills inside the bottle on the table were not the normal white pills but the pills mixed with black lines. Ingestion of those pills would only make the patients go even more out of control. If this kind of treatment continued, the final result would most likely be the patient who was force fed the pills would end up killing everyone else in the room in a bloodlust berserk. Chen Ge narrowed his eyes. He was suddenly reminded of a detail. When Doctor Gao entered the room, he casually hung the ring of keys next to the door as if encouraging the patients to reach of it.

  [being force fed the pills with the black lines, the patient will go completely out of control. After the patient kills every one in the room, they will take the ring of keys by the door and leave……] The more Chen Ge thought about it, the more unsettled he felt. If Doctor Sun did not help him, Doctor Gao would have fed him the pill with the black lines, then he would definitely be the first patient to lose control. If that happened, he would get restrained by the other patients and be fed more pills with the black lines which would only make him go even more crazier.

  The end result would be Chen Ge would end up killing all the patients in the room and used the key to start a manhunt of the other patients in the sick hall. If Chen Ge had done something like that, then his humanity would be grinded away, all of his determination would turn into a sin that he would never wash away. He would also lose the version of himself in the past forever.

  “Now that every patient has taken the pills, I need you to remember the number on your own chair, that number will be your name from now on.” Doctor Gao removed his watch from his wrist and placed it next to the bottle of pills. “At 12 midnight 44 minutes and 44 seconds, we will start the treatment.” All the patients and doctors looked at the clock face of the metallic watch. The room was very quiet and the only sound that remained was the ticking of the second needle. Tik tok, tik tok……

  When the needle passed a certain number, Chen Ge suddenly felt an indescribable drowsiness overwhelmed his mind. His eyelids became very heavy. He could not help himself from closing his eyes, but he soon realized he must not fall asleep now, he had to maintain his consciousness. Just as his eyes were about to close, he flipped them open again, the whole process took less than a second but in this one second, a huge transformation appeared to have happened inside the room. He could not pinpoint exactly what the change was, he just felt mildly uncomfortable, as if the room that they were now in was different from the room that they had entered earlier.

  “It is now 12 midnight 44 minutes and 44 seconds, the treatment will officially start now.” Doctor Gao’s voice became even more different than before. It was unfeeling and chilly like it came out of a dead body that had no emotion. “All of you are patients that suffer from serious paranoia. I have called all of you here today because I wish to commit to a collective treatment. Do not worry, I will only play a mini game with all of you, you only need to make the choice that is most suitable for you in your heart.”


  Doctor Gao’s voice carried no emotion. First he turned to Doctor Fang who was seated at the first chair. “On the day of 1st April, you were working the night shift at Xin hai Central Hospital. Over the past few days something has been bothering you, you felt like someone was looking at you. At 12. 45 am, you stood up and walked to the window for the 17th time and looked outside the window.” Doctor Gao suddenly stopped and the silence lasted for a long time. And then he said while pointing at the window in the room. “Go and look what is outside the window.”


  Doctor Fang who was fed the pill and his gaze was not so normal stood up from chair number one. With his hands on the wall, he moved to the window. When he pulled back the curtain, a flash of lightning crossed his face. It lit up the inside of the room as well as the space under the hospital.

  “Ah!” Doctor Fang yelped from shock. His hands gripped the edge of the window tightly as if he was worried that he might fall over if he was not careful.

  “You stood up and went to the window for the seventeenth time, and then what did you see?” Doctor Gao’s tone did not change at all. At this moment, it felt like he was a dead body among a room of living humans.

  “There is a madman who is constantly smiling at me from the ground, he is waving at me! He wants me to jump down the window to join him!” Doctor Fang uttered softly. When he spoke, it felt like he had difficulty catching his breath.

  “Now there two choices placed before you, do you want to jump down to meet him or have him come up to find you?” The two choices given by Doctor Gao were easy choices for Chen Ge. They were on the fifth floor, if you jumped down the window, you would definitely die. Therefore to survive, the only choice was for the man to come up to get you. This was a question that one did not even need to hesitate over but Doctor Fang gave it a serious thought. Drops of sweat slid down his face. His body kept quivering. In the end, he did not make a choice. He slumped down on the ground instead. Doctor Gao did not say anything until Doctor Fang climbed up from the ground and hid behind the curtain to look out the window. The question Doctor Gao asked was, “is the person still outside the window?”


  “No, no, he is gone already.” Doctor Fang said with extreme fear. Then he moved back to chair number one. No one knew where the monster at the bottom of the building had gone. Doctor Gao did not force any more questions on Doctor Fang but Doctor Fang could not keep his gaze away from the door of the room as if he knew that the madman would come knocking at the door at any moment.

  Doctor Gao moved his gaze to look at the second patient. “at 12. 46 am, you have come to Xin Hai Central Hospital to investigate an old case. These past few days you have been searching for clues. In the end, all the information all points to this hospital. You are certain that the killer is hiding inside this hospital. When you arrived at the hospital, you looked up and you saw a doctor pull back a curtain in a panic.”


  Doctor Gao’s eyes wandered between Doctor Fang and the second patient. “Take a closer look, does that doctor look like him?”


  The patient who was seated in the second chair lifted his head. His face was pale and he looked much older than his actual age. The patient in the second chair stared for a long time at Doctor Fang, and then he eventually shook his head. Silence returned once more to the room. The sound of the mechanical watched kept on ticking in everyone’s ears. After who knew how long, Doctor Gao addressed patient number 2 again. “at 12. 47 pm, you have found a letter asking for help outside the hospital lobby. A boy’s big sister was injured by one of the patients, the patient is hiding inside one of the many rooms. The description inside the letter is somehow similar to the case that you have been investigating. He kept the letter and entered the hospital.”


  The emotion of patient number two had started to fray. He shook his head mechanically as if he was unwilling to believe anything. “Reach your hand into your sleeves, see if the letter is still there or not?” Doctor Gao’s voice weaved between the ticking of the clock. The middle-aged man who was the second patient subconsciously reached his hand into his own sleeve and pulled out a crumpled piece of white paper. After seeing the content on the white paper, the patient number two pulled on his hair madly. His eyes were turning red like he could go on a rampage at any moment.

  “What is the thing that is written on the letter?” Doctor Gao did not seem to care about patient number two’s condition. Not even the tone of his voice had changed. Patient number two whose eyes were bloodshot placed the letter on the table. The whole letter was written fully with the two words, save me. The words should be written by a child. When he saw those words, Chen Ge felt a sense of familiarity in his word. He believed the handwriting was similar to his own when he was still a child.

  “Now there are two choices before you, go into the hospital to save him or go into the hospital to kill him.” After saying that sentence, Doctor Gao stopped caring about patient number two anymore. Doctor Gao himself was seated on chair number 3 so now he turned his attention to the patient on chair number 4. A female patient sat on chair number 4. She looked weak and thin, the patient’s garb was hanging loosely off her body.

  “At 12. 49 am, you were attacked by a patient inside your little brother’s sickroom. The person has strangled your neck.” Doctor Gao picked away the butterfly that was folded from a piece of paper from the grasp of patient number four. He pinched on the wings of the paper butterfly. He slowly gathered force and the paper butterfly’s body was gradually being pulled apart. Seeing the butterfly being torn apart slowly by Doctor Gao, the patient number four looked like she was about to suffocate, it was as if Doctor Gao was not pulling on the butterfly but pulling on her neck. Blood drained from her face. Patient number 4 croaked out a desperate cry for help. She waved desperately at Doctor Gao but she did not possess the courage to grab the paper butterfly away from Doctor Gao.

  “You are in extreme pain, you hope that someone will be able to come and rescue you but you do not dare to call for help because the killer said that once you utter a word, he will kill you and your little brother.” Doctor Gao placed the paper butterfly which was about to be torn apart on the table. “Now there are two choices before you, one, you ram into the sharp knife the murderer is holding and call for your little brother to go and get help; or push your little brother against the tip of the sharp knife so that you can escape the room in the commotion.”


  Patient number 4’s breathing became urgent. She was seriously considering this question. Her face spoke of intense pain and difficulty. Caressing the wings of the paper butterfly, Doctor Gao turned to patient number 5. “At 12. 50 am, you stood outside the door of a sickroom. The room was inhabited by the person that you love and his little brother.” Patient number 5 was about at the same age as Chen Ge. He did not like to speak. Both of his hands were callused, it appeared as if he was very good at making things.

  “You hesitated for a long time before you finally decided to enter the sickroom to see her, but once you pushed open the door, you saw a madman holding a sharp knife attempting to kill the brother of the woman you love and the woman you love are pleading at the madman. There are now two choices before you. Grab the woman you love and bring her away; or rush into the room to fight against the madman and die on her little brother’s behalf.”


  Doctor Gao watched the expression of patient number 5 closely. When he was about to move his eyes away, patient number 5 suddenly spoke. “I will choose to go in to fight with the madman.”


  Of all the patients, patient number 5 was the only one who had really made a choice.

  “Are you sure? You might die.”


  “Yes, I am sure because I have done something similar in the past before.” After patient number 5 sat that, he gone back into silence. He pressed his hands closely together and the small wounds on his palms were gradually leaking with blood.

  Doctor Gao finally turned to look at Chen Ge. “At 12. 52 am, you held the sharp knife and pierced it into the heart of patient 5. After killing patient 5, you killed patient 4 and her little brother.” His finger reached out and grabbed the paper butterfly up from the table. Doctor Gao pulled suddenly and tore the paper butterfly into two. “And then you rushed out of the sickroom with the knife still dripping with blood. You encountered patient number two in the corridor. After you murdered patient number 2, you saw patient number one inside the night doctor’s office.”


  The sound of the mechanical watch echoed in Chen Ge’s ears. Chen Ge’s eyes started to blur. His hands gripped tightly at the edge of the table but his body started to stand up like it was out of his control. The mechanical watch on the table was still ticking. The time on the surface of the watch now showed that it was 12 midnight 51 minutes and 44 seconds.