Forbidden Land – CH 036

The following evening, Chen Rong invited Zhang Chao to study together. They seemed to have something to hide regarding the School of Medicine; although neither mentioned it, they tacitly agreed to study in the East Campus Teaching Building.

Walking down the street, Zhang Chao recalled Bai Qiu’s words from the previous day and said to Chen Rong, “Bai Qiu came to see me again last night. She still told me not to go to the School of Medicine. I forgot about her illness and ended up asking her what happened at the School of Medicine, and that scared her so much she cried. Do you think… this might worsen her condition?”

Chen Rong thought for a moment, then smiled and reassured him, “Probably not. People with dissociative identity disorder are very sensitive and easily agitated. Perhaps what you said reminded her of something, which is why she cried. Don’t mention these things again; it might upset her. I believe she’ll get better.”

Zhang Chao nodded, then suddenly felt a pang of anxiety. “But yesterday Bai Qiu said there was a woman singing opera at the School of Medicine. I heard the opera singing too. What could that sound be? Did something frighten her, causing her to act like this?”

Chen Rong thought for a moment and shook her head. “It’s hard to say for sure. I think you shouldn’t think about it for a while, and don’t mention it to her again.”

Zhang Chao nodded, lost in thought.

The two arrived at the classroom. After sitting down, Zhang Chao took out his notebook to do his homework, but as soon as he picked up his pen to write, he gripped it tightly a few times and found he couldn’t hold it.

Chen Rong noticed his unusual behavior and turned to him softly, “What’s wrong?”

Zhang Chao looked at his hand strangely, hesitated for a moment, then gripped the pen tightly again, and said hesitantly, “It seems…it seems like I can’t feel anything in my hand; I can’t hold the pen.”

“Ah?” Chen Rong frowned slightly, then asked, “Do you take the sleeping pills I gave you every day?”

Zhang Chao said, “Yes, I have trouble falling asleep at night, so I take them almost every day. I’ve already finished half.”

Chen Rong asked, “How many do you take each day?”

Zhang Chao said, “Sometimes I take three, sometimes two. I think it works quite well.”

Chen Rong thought for a moment and said, “It seems you’re taking a bit too many. Maybe you should reduce it to one or one and a half pills from now on.”

Zhang Chao asked, “Why? Does taking sleeping pills make my hand weak?”

Chen Rong said, “It’s hard to say. Sedatives work by calming the nerves. If you take too many, it’ll naturally reduce nerve sensitivity. I guess that’s why you can’t hold a pen. It isn’t that your hand is weak, but that your nerve reflexes are lowered.”

Zhang Chao said, “I never knew sleeping pills could lower nerve sensitivity.”

Chen Rong smiled and said, “Are you more professional than I am? From now on, just do as I say; take one pill a day. If one pill isn’t enough to help you sleep, then take one and a half. Don’t take more. As the saying goes, every medicine has some toxicity. Taking too much medicine is always bad for your health.”

Zhang Chao nodded. Chen Rong seemed to remember something and took out another kind of small red pill from her bag. It was also unpackaged, in a small transparent plastic bag like those used in hospitals, containing dozens of pills, and was handed to Zhang Chao.

Zhang Chao asked, “What is this?”

Chen Rong said, “This is a different kind of tranquilizer, with Chinese herbal ingredients, so the side effects are much fewer. I suddenly remembered it. Why don’t you switch to this kind of tranquilizer starting today? This one is two pills a day, so just take the dosage of two pills. Don’t take the kind of tranquilizer I gave you last time.”

Zhang Chao laughed. “It seems like I really am sick, taking both white and red medicine.”

Chen Rong said, “If you can sleep, then naturally it’s better not to take medicine. But I see you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and so many things have happened, so I’m giving you a little tranquilizer because you can’t sleep. But don’t make it a habit; otherwise, it’ll be very difficult to correct the drug dependence later.”

Zhang Chao nodded and smiled. “I also wanted to stop taking them, but I’ve never taken sleeping pills before. I always thought sleeping pills were for suicide, but I didn’t expect them to be so effective. Lately, I think I’ve become addicted to sleeping pills.”

Chen Rong looked at him with a little worry.

Zhang Chao felt a warmth in his heart and smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I can sleep, so I’ll resist taking it. It’s just for now; I’ll definitely adjust after a while.”

Chen Rong nodded in satisfaction.

After their self-study session ended, Zhang Chao returned to his dorm. As soon as he opened the door, the black cat he called “Beibei” ran over, meowing incessantly around him.

Zhang Chao laughed. “Don’t be so clingy. You’re just here to freeload and sleep, aren’t you? Okay, I bought you canned fish at the convenience store today. You’ve been hanging around for so long; you’ve never enjoyed this kind of treatment before.”

Saying this, he took out a can of fish from his bag and poured it into the food bowl for the cat.

Beibei ate happily, finishing both fish in no time. Taking advantage of the black cat’s fullness and perhaps gratitude towards its owner, Zhang Chao boldly picked Beibei up for the first time.

Beibei didn’t resist. Zhang Chao looked at its lower body and laughed, “So it’s a male.” He put it down and was about to get up when he suddenly caught a glimpse of something stuck under his bed.

His bed was the upper bunk, about 1.7 meters high; bending down, one could easily see under the bed.

Zhang Chao’s curiosity was piqued. He bent down and peered inside. What was it?

Upon closer inspection, he was immediately shocked.

Talismans! There were three talismans stuck under the bed!

The three talismans were the kind of yellow paper from temples, with red cinnabar ink imprinted on them, along with characters like “Heaven and Earth,” “Ghost,” “Body,” and “Mind” written in calligraphy. There were also many smaller characters in old handwriting that he couldn’t recognize.

A thought instantly formed in his mind: “Damn it, someone’s playing tricks again!”

Could this be what people call casting a curse?

And it was stuck under the headboard!

Could someone have made paper effigies to curse him?

Zhang Chao frantically searched through drawers and cabinets, and sure enough, he found a small, palm-sized figure wrapped in gold paper in an empty desk drawer. It had some kind of acupuncture point drawn on it. Turning it over, he gasped.

On the back of the figure, the words “Zhang Chao” and his birth date and time were written!

Damn it, who could be so cruel!

Although he didn’t believe in these paper dolls from novels and TV shows, the fact that this was actually happening to him made him panic.

Who did this, and when?

Had it been sitting there for a long time?

Did these things really have some kind of curse-like power? Could all the strange things he’d seen and heard recently be the result of a curse?

The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. He pulled out all four beds and carefully examined them. The other three empty beds didn’t have any strange talismans pasted on them. He searched under the beds, in the cabinets, drawers, and various corners, but found nothing else.

He tore off the three talismans, clutching the golden paper figure in his hand. He sat blankly in the chair, as if someone had struck him on the head; he felt dizzy and utterly dazed.

Who did this?

Why?

Did they have a grudge against him?

Was everything he had seen, heard, and thought lately manipulated by someone else?

Silence, utter silence. He sat there, lost in thought, his mind a complete blank.