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Chapter 45 I'm Sick

Jiang Yu's mind is in a mess right now.

He recognized every single word Lin Wei said individually, and he could understand them when they were put together.

But he just doesn't want to understand.

Because understanding this means that his past twenty-two years of life were all a lie.

What he saw was fake, what he heard was fake, what he smelled was fake…

Everything he experienced from childhood to adulthood was actually his brain playing a movie for him that only he could see.

He was the screenwriter, the director, and the lead actor…

He was the only audience member.

Moreover, what Lin Wei just said was indeed correct.

The symptoms she's describing now were indeed mentioned to him by the doctors at the mental hospital back then.

I can't remember the name of that middle-aged male doctor who wore glasses.

What was her surname again... I think it was Xu?

Yes, Dr. Xu.

Dr. Xu persuaded him even more earnestly and repeatedly than Lin Wei.

I have three therapy sessions a day, each lasting one hour, without fail.

"Xiaoyu, this is a typical case of delusional fabrication, accompanied by fabrication memory disorder."

"You need to face your illness squarely and not run away from it."

"The more you avoid it, the more serious your condition will become."

"The more you treat fictional things as real, the less your brain can distinguish between reality and imagination..."

"This is a vicious cycle."

Jiang Yu nodded vigorously each time.

He made the request with such sincerity that Dr. Xu once thought he was the most cooperative patient of all.

"But don't worry, this disease isn't a terminal or rare illness."

"As long as you take the medicine and cooperate with the treatment, you will get better soon."

"You are young, have strong recovery ability, and high neuroplasticity, so your prognosis is more optimistic than that of older patients."

"Six months, a year at most! I guarantee you'll be back in school in a year at most."

"Come on, stick out your tongue, let me see if you have any hidden medicine."

Jiang Yu always obediently opened his mouth to let the other person check.

The tongue was raised, revealing an empty space underneath; the cheeks had also been examined with a cotton swab.

There are no pills hidden between the gums and lips.

Dr. Xu examined Jiang Yu very carefully, shining the flashlight into his mouth and illuminating every inch of the mucous membrane inside.

After reading it, Dr. Xu nodded in satisfaction and wrote a few words in the medical record.

It's probably something like "patients have good medication adherence".

Actually, he didn't eat anything.

He swallowed the medicine down to the back of his throat.

It's roughly in the area at the deepest part of the root of the tongue, where the soft palate and epiglottis meet.

When the pill is moistened with saliva, it becomes sticky and can stick to that mucous membrane.

You won't fall in or choke.

But that foreign body sensation can cause a strong urge to gag.

It's like the spasm of the uvula that occurs when the toothbrush goes too deep while brushing your teeth and touches it.

Jiang Yu specifically practiced this skill so he wouldn't have to take medicine.

In the first few days, he practiced in front of the bathroom mirror every day.

With his mouth open, he stuffed a vitamin tablet into the back of his tongue and held it in, not letting it come out.

Even when their eyes turned red and their nose started running, they didn't give up.

Later, his tongue muscles learned to relax and his swallowing reflex was reprogrammed.

The pill can adhere precisely to the deepest part of the tongue without triggering the vomiting mechanism.

Jiang Yu thus escaped the daily medication routine.

Because he knew very well that he wasn't sick at all.

Why take medicine if you're not sick?

Hysteria?

Paranoia?

fart!

I'm not sick!

During the entire year he was treated for mental illness, he used all the medication Dr. Xu prescribed to feed his dogs.

He did not abuse small animals.

Instead, they were treating the small animals.

The teddy bear that Dr. Xu at the mental hospital keeps never barks at anyone; it's very docile.

It only howls when it sees Jiang Yu.

Isn't this just plain crazy?

Jiang Yu thought the dog had bipolar disorder, and the mental hospital had prescribed him medication to treat it.

So he fed all the medicine to the Teddy.

It's strange...

After a year of feeding and treatment, the Teddy's condition improved.

It stopped howling at Jiang Yu.

It barks at everyone it sees now.

After being "released" from the mental hospital, Jiang Yu still felt that many things around him had suddenly appeared.

But he never felt that it was his problem.

From that moment on, Jiang Yu became convinced that something was wrong with the world.

People around him told him about some things that had suddenly appeared, and he pretended to accept them calmly.

But pretending is one thing, believing is another.

He never thought he was sick.

Not even once.

He can choose not to take those medications, not to listen to those words, and to selectively forget those diagnostic reports…

He firmly believed that he was the only one awake.

It was as if everyone else had been hypnotized, but he was still wide awake.

The world is a giant werewolf game.

Is it dark and you should close your eyes?

He never closed his eyes.

He kept his eyes open, observing everything around him.

This feeling is both lonely and arrogant, both a curse and a privilege.

It was a clarity he didn't want but had to bear.

This belief accompanied him from adolescence to adulthood, from high school to university, and from university to graduation.

He relied on this belief to get through countless sleepless nights.

After waking up from nightmares of Tan Shilin swinging on a swing, I stared at the ceiling in the early morning, waiting for dawn.

Just two days ago, something happened that made his Dao heart unstable.

Suddenly, a younger sister appeared in our family.

He wasn't the only one who saw this younger sister.

Everyone saw it.

Zhang Guiqin knows Jiang Ning and says they have a close sibling relationship, having grown up together since childhood…

The neighbors in the community all know her, and every time they see her, they praise her for being beautiful and sensible...

The barbecue restaurant owner was so touched by her that he gave her two free pancakes…

My phone is full of her photos, my notes are filled with her daily life, and our apartment has gone from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom…

His entire world was filled with this younger sister, but his memory remained a blank.

This feeling is completely different from before.

A tree, a bridge, a basketball court... these things wouldn't call him "brother".

His younger sister would actively approach him, infiltrate his life, and gradually absorb his rejection and indifference...

Then, in a moment when he wasn't paying attention, he blurted out in a choked voice, "Don't you want me anymore?"

Jiang Yu first felt wavering because of this sentence.

From that time on, he already had some doubts in his heart.

The famous botanist Liu Huaqiang once said...

When you doubt whether a melon is ripe or not, you've already decided in your mind that it's not ripe.

So whether you split it or not is irrelevant.

Once suspicion arises, the charge is already established.

Until now, after he personally experienced the "Yushan Incident"...

He finally developed a desire to stop doubting.

To be precise, it's about facing reality.

"So...am I really sick?"

"Those things that suddenly appeared in my life, did they actually already exist?"

"Once I have an episode, that mental string in my head goes awry, I can't distinguish between reality and fiction, so I feel like they don't exist?"

"The items and location are fine."

"Whether it's trees, bridges, or basketball courts..."

"These things have no feelings."

"They're all dead."

"But people are different."

"If that's the case..."

"Were Liang Zhichao and his sister always there?"

"Is it just because I have mental problems that I don't recognize them?"