"Doctor Chen, do you have any other questions?"
In the consultation room, the young man with his head wrapped in bandages and swollen cheeks appeared somewhat impatient.
Across from him, the middle-aged balding doctor flipped through the examination reports, his slightly chubby, greasy face beaming with a smile:
"Son, mental illness is just like physical illness. There's no need to feel ashamed. As long as you actively cooperate with treatment..."
Li Haorui opened his mouth, his eyes flickering. After thinking for a long while, he ultimately chose to throw in the towel.
To be honest, he wasn't sure if there was something wrong with his mental state either.
Anyone who had been peacefully at home doing administrative aptitude test math problems, only to close their eyes and open them to find themselves on an unfamiliar street, would suspect something was wrong with their head.
If suddenly appearing on the street could be explained by temporary amnesia caused by exhaustion, then the yellow vans on the road, the articulated buses, and the gray cement ground left him completely bewildered.
Not to mention the youths wearing baggy shirts and flared pants, the CD shops in the alleyways, and the Little Smart phones in pedestrians' hands.
The world had been turned upside down!
Bewildered, terrified, his emotions a tangled mess—over the course of a few minutes, a stampede of ten thousand alpacas thundered through Li Haorui's mind.
Before he could confirm his suspicions, a middle-aged man had dragged him by the arm to the hospital. After a series of flashy procedures, he was sent from the ER to neurology, and from neurology to the psychiatry department.
Looking at the contents registered on the medical record, Li Haorui was reminded of many memory fragments.
Patient: Gu Xiao
Gender: Male
Date: March 2, 2002
Native of the capital. High school student at Xicheng District No. 13 Middle School. About to take the college entrance exam.
Mother passed away due to illness years ago. Father is a regional supervisor at the Beijing Zoo, responsible for the diet and health of animals under his jurisdiction.
Countless memories surged into his mind.
From these scattered life fragments, his family life had been relatively affluent. Food, clothing, housing, and transportation—all had been more than adequate. It was just that his father was rigid and inarticulate. Their family relationship wasn't good; one could even say it was terrible.
Li Haorui glanced at the middle-aged man beside him, whom he remembered as "Gu Hui." He could roughly guess how the injuries on his forehead and face had come about, but he wasn't in the mood to dwell on these details.
Transmigration!
He had actually transmigrated!
Li Haorui's previous life hadn't been particularly satisfactory, but it had been extremely important.
His parents, relatives, friends, the Black Myth: Wukong he hadn't finished yet, the novels and comics he hadn't caught up on—all of this was an inseparable part of him!
Now, it was all gone!
Tap tap.
Doctor Chen's fingers lightly drummed the desk, pulling him back to reality:
"From the examination just now, your cranial CT is completely normal, and your blood routine and electrolytes show no issues. We can basically rule out physiological diseases. However, your symptoms of memory confusion and auditory hallucinations are also undeniable facts. My personal recommendation is to remain in the hospital for 24 hours of observation and to take a small dose of alprazolam."
"Personal recommendation?" Li Haorui was somewhat puzzled. "Not forced detention?"
This was mental illness—could he just walk around freely? Was hospital management in 2002 too lax?
Doctor Chen said in a gentle tone, "Your head suffered an impact. Memory issues are a normal phenomenon. You haven't displayed any aggressive tendencies, and no antisocial personality was detected. Your current condition is far from the point of forced detention."
Hearing this, before Li Haorui could say anything, the middle-aged man beside him interjected:
"Then he'll rest at home. We're not staying in the hospital."
Li Haorui glanced at him, silently tagging his cheap father with the label "old-fashioned," but he didn't object.
Compared to being isolated in the hospital and subjected to all sorts of messy examinations, going to Gu Xiao's home to gather intel was definitely the better option.
And besides...
"Dying of thirst, dying of thirst, I need water..."
"Don't trust this doctor. The paper he recently published was ghostwritten!"
"Young man, if you're buying medicine, you're better off going to the pharmacy on the next street. The ones around here all take kickbacks."
Li Haorui twitched the corner of his mouth, withdrew his gaze from the hamster cage on the windowsill, and left the hospital holding his medical record.
...
...
Boarding the old-fashioned articulated bus, the *clunk* of the door closing, mixed with the smell of gasoline, made Li Haorui subconsciously furrow his brows.
Ignoring the hesitant expression of his cheap father beside him, he looked through the somewhat blurry bus window, curiously sizing up this unfamiliar world outside.
In his previous life, Li Haorui had been a genuine Southerner. As a post-'00s child, he was completely unfamiliar with this era's Beiping.
Gazing at the bustling streets and the surging crowds walking in groups of twos and threes, fragments of Gu Xiao's memories once again flashed through Li Haorui's mind.
As a child who grew up in a single-parent family, the original owner of this body had started being self-reliant from a very young age.
Buying groceries, cooking, washing clothes—these life skills had long been mastered. He went to the vegetable market more frequently than his cheap father.
Perhaps because of his aloof personality and lack of playmates, he invested more of his energy into his studies. One couldn't call him exceptionally excellent, but he was enough to give his teachers peace of mind.
One should know that this period had already seen the rudimentary form of "chicken-blood parenting." Relevant departments explicitly forbade schools from organizing collective make-up classes during holidays, winter, and summer vacations. Yet schools still circumvented this by organizing classes under the guise of "voluntary participation" and "interest groups."
In this environment, Gu Xiao's life trajectory had been extremely simple—almost a straight line between school and home. The only things that could be called entertainment on ordinary days were listening to CDs and watching movies.
Hm? Watching movies?
Li Haorui's brows furrowed slightly as he reached up to press his throbbing temples.
"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Gu Hui asked with a concerned gaze.
Li Haorui collected himself and shook his head. "It's nothing."
Gu Hui's brows furrowed slightly. After hesitating for a long while, he swallowed the words that had reached his lips.
Li Haorui's expression stiffened.
Feeling like something was wrong with your own mental state and having others feel like something was wrong with your mental state were two completely different things.
Could it be that the price of transmigrating was spending the rest of his life bearing the title of a mental patient? Li Haorui felt infinite sorrow well up inside him. He simply closed his eyes to rest—out of sight, out of mind.
I don't know how much time passed before the vehicle jolted to a stop, and Gu Hui's low voice sounded beside him: "We're here."
Li Haorui followed his cheap father off the bus.
What greeted his eyes was a large expanse of gray cement walls. Inside, rows of slab-type buildings about five or six stories high could be seen.
The building exteriors were a simple cement gray. The balconies were open-air, and many families had hung clothes out to dry.
Gu Hui silently led the way. Before long, they entered the courtyard marked with the sign "Unit Three."
The courtyard ground was cement, somewhat potholed, and many old bicycles were parked in the corners.
Next to the crude reception room at the entrance, an old man in an old army-green jacket was listening to Peking opera on the radio. A dusty yellow dog lay at his feet.
Sensing someone approaching, the yellow dog raised its head, looked around for a moment, its eyes wide and round:
"Hey brat! What happened to your head?"
Li Haorui paused in his steps and looked up at the sky.
Fine then. Maybe I really am mentally ill.