Clown Game Novel Chapter 152 - 152 147 Numbers One

??Chapter 152: Chapter 147 Numbers One

Chapter 152: Chapter 147 Numbers One

Whenever ntal hospitals are ntioned, the general impression is one of high walls, iron-locked gates, gloom, dimness, strict terror, and an omnipresent sense of being “caged in.”

The patients are often unkempt, disheveled, babbling nonsense, raving mad, while the nurses are burly, wielding electric batons, and the doctors do little more than prescribe sleeping pills and tranquilizers.

Well… this perception, aside from being perpetuated by various artistic and film representations over the years…

Is mainly because ntal hospitals a century ago really were like that, or even worse.

In that era, the ntal health dical system was completely chaotic. People who beca ntally ill or those whose extre behavior made them difficult to convict were sent to ntal hospitals. And once inside, they virtually had no chance of seeing the outside world again. So hospitals even strictly limited family visits, claiming it would interfere with treatnt. Additionally, due to imperfect laws at the ti, “ntal hospitals” were effectively isolated into a lawless domain. So, all those things about patient abuse and using patients for human experints in movies were indeed real.

At the sa ti, the treatnt thods for ntal illnesses were incredibly varied: hydrotherapy, beating, electroshock, and so forth. What’s shown on screen is just the tip of the iceberg; even more absurd treatnts were perford, such as “internal sterilization,” “forced castration,” “solitary confinent,” “extirpation of motor nerves in limbs.”

In short, anything that could be conceived was tried on patients, and society back then believed these cruel thods were beneficial for treating the ntally ill.

Oh, and speaking of which, we must ntion the most infamous surgery in human history—”lobotomy.”

It entails a doctor taking a long, slender ice pick, piercing it “thunk” above the patient’s eye, straight into the brain, and then… “click-click-click” stirring it around. Since there was no “CT” or “MRI” back then, the whole procedure was done

By! Experience!

Continuing until the doctor felt that they had sufficiently mushed up the frontal lobe.

The consequence was that the patient beca as ek as a little lamb.

Because the human brain is only so large; once the frontal lobe was removed, a person lost many functions: no crying, no laughing, no anger, no acting up, no speaking—naturally, they wouldn’t have a ntal breakdown anymore. In plain terms, they turned into a walking corpse, the only thing they had in common with a normal person was the ability to breathe.

In the eyes of their families, however, this ant… the patient was cured.

So, this barbaric treatnt thod actually won the Nobel Prize in dicine. Its nomination was—for the complete cure of “manic depression.”

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Now, let’s talk about the present. Today, laws regarding ntal illness have beco much more refined, and neither dication nor nursing is as brutal as described above. Modern ntal hospitals have long been spruced up, spacious and bright, with garden-style courtyards, beautiful living environnts, doors that are always open 24 hours, and gentle, adorable nurses to help you bathe…

Even the wards are divided into male psych, female psych, geriatrics, pediatrics, psychology, psychosomatics, mood disorder, sleep disorder, addiction departnts, and so on. Different diseases are treated in dedicated departnts, each with their own characteristics and expertise.

Ahem… that’s about it.

And XX City ntal Hospital is a pri example of these modern institutions—clean, orderly, rational, standardized, humanized, and there are even rumors of patients who were cured but didn’t want to leave. Whether true or not, it is highly favored by both “relatives of ntal illness patients” and “the dia,” and without any surprises, it’s likely to be the “top specialized dical unit” by year’s end.

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At 6 p.m. sharp, everyone had already left work, and the entire hospital was eerily quiet, except for the “crackle and pop” of the air conditioner’s cold air vent.

Dr. Zhang felt a bit cold, so he got up to turn off the air conditioning switch and then sat back down by the computer.

He had been on night shift continuously for four shifts now, and all at his own request; the director and his colleagues had all urged him to take a break and go ho, but he had refused each ti. Such behavior was extrely abnormal, but since the man wanted to keep going, no one else said much.

At this mont, Dr. Zhang locked himself in his office, staring at the computer screen with furrowed brows. The reason he kept working overti was certainly not due to a sudden obsession with work. He felt that sothing was amiss in this psychiatric hospital.

This feeling had first surfaced five days ago, when a patient from the “Psychological Disorders Departnt” suddenly beca agitated, attacking people indiscriminately and almost stabbing a nurse with a needle. Although the patient was quickly cald down by an anesthetic, and despite a history of manic episodes, the final decision was to simply increase the dication dosage without much attention being paid to the incident.

But Dr. Zhang found the situation peculiar because that patient should have long been out of the symptomatic phase and was about to be discharged.

As expected, the next day another inconceivable event occurred: a schizophrenic patient who had been hospitalized for nearly ten years… was discharged.

It should have been a cause for celebration, and a few reporters even covered the story. However, the patient’s condition had shown no progress whatsoever after so many years of treatnt, so how could he suddenly be cured? And his psychological evaluation ca back… with a perfect score!

That was definitely not normal!

Following that, yet another strange incident happened yesterday: a patient with what was originally a mild case of delusional disorder suddenly worsened, becoming convinced that the world was fake and that all people were just fignts of his imagination, leading to his eventual diagnosis of “severe delusional disorder” and his transfer to the “Severe Condition Area” for further treatnt.

All of this couldn’t just be a coincidence. Dr. Zhang had ntioned it to others a few days earlier, but most thought he was joking; so even looked at him as if he were a patient himself. So, realizing that approach wasn’t working, he decided to find out for himself what was really happening in the hospital!

That was his reason for working overti.

After several days of observation, he finally started to notice so patterns.

On the screen, there was an individual with a long, pointed face, slender eyes, and two scars at the corners of the mouth – definitely not the look of a good person.

This man was transferred from another hospital five days ago, with a diagnosis of “insomnia.” This condition normally wouldn’t require hospitalization, and even severe insomnia could have been treated at the local hospital. But since a transfer notice had been issued, he had no choice but to accept it.

But ever since this man was admitted into the hospital… strange things started happening.

“It’s this person… These incidents, they’re definitely related to this guy!”

Dr. Zhang said between clenched teeth, and he pulled out a USB drive from his pocket and plugged it into the computer.