Chen Yi · Chat

At two in the morning, the mountain wind, wrapped in cold fog, scraped against the Santana's rusty body, making a faint, whimpering sound. The battered sedan, having jolted along for nearly an hour, came to a halt right in front of a self-built gray building. Its tires crushed the broken brick rubble on the ground. The moment the engine cut out, its residual heat bled into a stifling stench—a bizarre mix of disinfectant, herbs, and rust unique to the sanatorium on the mountain behind them—spreading heavy and dull. That sanatorium, hidden deep in the mountain valley, had a respectable official name, but the folks in the town down below never addressed it properly, calling it nothing but the madhouse in secret. High walls were ringed with barbed wire, and stifled weeping always drifted through the night. Rumor had it that countless people with nowhere to turn for justice were locked inside, and in those lightless cubicles lay secret abuse and filth that outsiders dared not dig into. Chen Yi's fingers resting on the steering wheel rubbed against it twice absentmindedly. Ever since the second half of the return trip, his beast-like sharp intuition had kept him on edge. The sinking feeling from the trunk when the car climbed the slope felt far too strange—it was definitely not the weight of medicines and restraint belts he usually hauled. He pushed open the car door and stepped onto the cold mud. Instead of approaching the rear of the vehicle, he simply took two steps back, his jawline tense and hard. He tilted his head toward Bo Zai, who was still lounging in the passenger seat. "Go open it." Rubbing his heavy, sleepy eyes, Bo Zai mumbled as he yanked open the door, shuffled his feet around to the rear of the car, hooked his fingers under the trunk latch, and popped it open. The instant it popped open with a click, he recoiled as if struck by a heavy sledgehammer, staggering back two large steps. His heels caught on the edge of the stone steps, nearly sending him flat on his back. His pupils shrank, the hair all over his body standing on end. Pointing stiffly at the open trunk, his voice shook wildly out of pitch, shattering the dead silence of the late night: "Brother Yi, Brother Yi! Inside... there's a lunatic inside!" Chen Yi stepped forward slowly. His pale profile was bathed in the dim, flickering light of the leaking lightbulb outside the building. The unhealed scrape on his face glistened a dark red under the low light, while his lowered eyes held not a single ripple as he gazed heavily into the depths of the open trunk...