The simple, gentle lody sounded like a nursery rhy or lullaby, without any familiar place for Lu Li.
Perhaps the lullaby could calm the living tree?
Lu Li stood beside the girl in the wheelchair who ignored him, listening to her hum over and over again, and softly humd along at the right monts.
The surrounding quickly beca quiet, leaving only Lu Li’s hums.
The girl in the wheelchair took out paper and pen from the blanket on her knees. Lu Li didn’t stop and continued to complete the lullaby that lasted about thirty seconds. Then he looked at the note she raised,
which requested Lu Li to push her back to her ward.
"Where is your room?" Lu Li asked.
The girl in the wheelchair pointed to the corridor where Lu Li ca from.
Lu Li grasped the handles and pushed the wheelchair back the way they ca. Passing room 204, past the nurse’s station and stairs, before reaching the other end of the corridor, the girl in the wheelchair raised her hand towards room 201.
Ka-chak—
Lu Li walked around the wheelchair and pushed the door open. A chill, like late autumn, suddenly seeped out from behind the door.
A woman in a dirty white dress wandered the ward, with swollen intestines hanging down between her legs, showing no sign of another patient.
Lu Li did not enter the ward. This ghostly image was, in so ways, more terrifying than a pure monster. But the woman wasn’t planning on letting him go. Slowly dragging her intestines, she walked to the door and asked him, through the girl in the wheelchair, "Have you seen my child..."
"I’ve been with her the whole ti."
Lu Li answered cautiously, avoiding waking up on the bed the next day.
But the woman only kept repeating, "Have you seen my child..."
"...No."
The direct denial seed to make the woman give up, continuing to emit a coldness as she wandered in the ward.
As Lu Li pushed the wheelchair fully into the room, he suddenly noticed a perfectly proportioned female plaster statue standing by the door.
Is it the third patient?
[Thank you]
Expressed the note raised by the girl in the wheelchair; Lu Li nodded and left room 201, passing the closed room 202, slowing his pace when passing the nurse’s station draped in curtains. Unable to know if there was soone behind the curtains, Lu Li didn’t disturb them, returning to room 204, quietly waiting for night to fall.
But the incomprehensible phenona weren’t limited to the patients... First, the fog outside the window turned yellow, and then dusk unexpectedly descended.
Only in the short span of a few dozen seconds.
Is there sothing wrong with the ti here? Or is the problem with ?
Lu Li knew of a condition called ti perception disorder, where ti could shorten or extend in cognition...
Seaweed-like tendrils danced in the corner of the eye, pulling Lu Li’s thoughts away from the question. He recalled the wheelchair girl’s lullaby and began to humm softly.
The tendrils remained resolutely extending, uninterested in the lullaby for the living tree.
"Cough, cough... Mmm, mmmm ah ah ah mmm—"
But suddenly, a strange crying noise broke out from the bed with the curtains drawn, and because the dimly lit ward was so eerie, the living tree’s roots retracted, and Lu Li stopped humming too.
"Why... why did you stop?" A stickily sobbing voice erged from behind the curtains.
"Because you’re crying."
"I umm... I just rembered my childhood, ah ugh... please continue..."
So Lu Li continued singing a lullaby that was ineffective against the living tree but effective against the Evildoers.
Lu Li sang it over and over again until the Evildoers cried, "You sing so terribly, practice a bit more."
"Why didn’t you say it was terrible at first?"
"Because then you wouldn’t sing again."
Lu Li didn’t respond to such a capricious action. Regardless, the lullaby brought a good start: the Evildoers’ initiative to engage.
He seized the opportunity to ask, "Why did you attack in the morning?"
"Attack? I just pulled you closer to sll you more clearly, there’s an overwhelming sweetness on you."
Lu Li lowered his head to sniff his sleeve.
"Why can’t I sll it?"
"Do flies think shit is slly?"
Not a vivid nor an elegant taphor, but Lu Li understood its aning.
This patient, known as "Evildoers," was sowhat cynical and eccentric, but unexpectedly easy to get along with, like a living person.
But when the living tree’s tendrils suddenly wrapped around Lu Li without warning, the Evildoers fell silent again.
The tendrils tightened around Lu Li’s chest like a python, allowing him only to make aningless exhalation sounds; the suffocation, akin to impending death, surged like a tidal wave.
Lu Li struggled with all his might and suddenly sat up—
A gray misty morning fog lingered outside the window.
A new day arrived.
"Good morning, Mr. Luli... Did you have a nightmare?"
The greeting ca from "Little Linna," who had killed Lu Li twice.
"..."
Lu Li didn’t ask her why, breathing heavily, recalling the death that approached just a few seconds ago... an attack couldn’t always imply lights out for sleep.
Looking outside at the "sunlight" that focused its attention on the living tree, Lu Li, who intended to counterattack, suddenly hesitated.
"Delusions..."
If the living tree was really a girl nad "Little Linna," the cost of his actions was extrely severe.
"Can you keep company for so conversation?"
The Evildoers’ voice erged from behind the curtains, continuing their relationship from the night before into today.
"Alright."
Lu Li needed to calm the shadow of death and understand the asylum, "Do you know about this asylum?"
"It’s the place where we crazies are kept."
"How can I leave?"
"Of course, when you recover, you can leave."
"Do you know the other patients in the wards?"
"Why would you ask such a question to soone who locks themselves in bed with autism?"
"What’s the na of this lullaby?"
"If I knew, I wouldn’t be crying... and why is it always you asking..."
The Evildoers lapsed into a new bout of withdrawal, temporarily unwilling to speak to Lu Li.
Lu Li left the ward and went to the girl in the wheelchair in the corridor, who was still humming that lullaby.
"Can you teach this lullaby?" Lu Li asked.
The girl slowly nodded, her wordless singing slightly clearer and more beautiful.
Lu Li humd along with the girl and observed the nurse’s patrol routine.
Every thirty minutes or so, the nurse would make rounds of the wards. By the second thirty minutes, Lu Li had skillfully mastered the lullaby.
As he did the previous day, Lu Li escorted the girl in the wheelchair back to her ward, asking her so questions on the way back, but she wrote nothing down. Then Lu Li returned to his ward, and as he wished, dusk really arrived.
Lu Li waited until the living tree attacked him again to start humming the lullaby, the Evildoers’ wails temporarily scaring the living tree back.
Afterward, the Evildoers cried like a sorrowful person all night long, but fortunately, the living tree kindly helped Lu Li escape.
In the morning, Lu Li woke up in bed.
He saw the unprecedented sight of the Evildoers erging from behind the curtains, packing their luggage.
"Friend, I’m getting discharged, this is for you." It handed an oil painting to Lu Li, unable to fit inside the luggage case.
"What’s its use?"
Lu Li took the painting, on which an image of a family of three sitting and nestling together on a lawn.
"No use, that’s why I’m giving it to you."
The Evildoers shut the luggage case, went to the door, and waved without looking back, "Don’t give anything, you are pitiable after all."
"I’m liberated, while you still have to stay in this dreadful place."
The Evildoers’ farewell seed imbued with a certain philosophy. But Lu Li’s attention was entirely on the oil painting—because he suddenly realized the painting’s use.
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