Forbidden Land – CH 050

Translator’s Note: Again, there is no Chapter 49. It’s not a mistake.

After Zhang Chao and Chen Rong descended the mountain together, Chen Rong seemed somewhat gloomy. When Zhang Chao asked her why, she simply said she was probably tired from the climb.

Zhang Chao was already physically weak, and after an afternoon of hiking, he was listless on the way back.

They arrived back at school after 6 PM and went to the cafeteria for dinner together.

During the meal, Chen Rong said she needed to use the restroom, took some tissues from her bag, left the bag on the table, and left.

After she left, Zhang Chao didn’t have much of an appetite and could only eat a few bites. Then, he noticed Chen Rong’s bag; the zipper was open, and an identification card was sticking out.

Curious, Zhang Chao picked up the card and saw that it was a doctor’s license from Hangzhou Seventh People’s Hospital (a mental hospital). Zhang Chao exclaimed, “Chen Rong is still pursuing her doctorate, and she’s already a doctor? That’s really impressive. I always thought she was a counselor; I never imagined she was a licensed doctor!”

Just then, he noticed a small notebook in her bag. He’d never seen her take it out before and wondered what was inside. He wasn’t exactly a tactful person, and besides, he’d become very close to Chen Rong these past few days, like friends with a long-standing bond—unlike the polite relationships he had with other girls. Taking a look at the notebook wouldn’t be a big deal.

So, he casually took out the notebook, opened it, and saw the words “Treatment Record of Intermittent Amnesia.” Zhang Chao’s eyes darted down, but after only a few lines, his face changed drastically, and he almost fainted.

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The notebook contained the following:

• On the night of March 4th, the patient witnessed his roommate ‘committing suicide’ by jumping from a building. The psychological impact on him remains to be observed.
• On March 5th, according to Lin Yi’ang, the patient combined the reflected light and shadows from the video of his roommate’s suicide with rumors he saw online about a woman in an ancient costume, seemingly developing a fear of it.
• On the night of March 5th, the patient went to the School of Medicine’s Teaching Building late at night, experienced hallucinations of a woman in an ancient costume, and called Lin Yi’ang, crying for help.
• On the night of March 5th, according to Lin Yi’ang, after returning from the School of Medicine, the patient hallucinated his deceased girlfriend, talking to himself alone. Clearly, his condition was beginning to worsen.
• In the early morning of March 6th, according to the treatment plan, the patient underwent his first fear test in an attempt to evoke memories. Lin Yi’ang knocked on the patient’s dormitory window and placed a coffin prop to stimulate nerve reflexes. However, this didn’t have the desired effect.
• On March 6th, after consultation, it was decided to treat the patient with contact-based psychotherapy. Through conversation with the patient, it was discovered that he was completely unaware of his girlfriend’s death and had completely forgotten that memory fragment. Aside from this, all of the patient’s behavior was normal.
• On the night of March 6th, the patient and I went to the School of Medicine. In the darkness, the patient hallucinated again, saying he saw a woman in an ancient costume, wearing white clothes and black shoes, passing by. Analysis suggests this hallucination was a combination of the reflected light and shadow from the video of his roommate’s suicide and online posts about a woman in ancient costume.
• On the night of March 6th, the patient hallucinated his girlfriend again, talking to himself alone at the window.
• On the night of March 6th, a second fear test was conducted. Lin Yi’ang tried hanging his deceased roommate’s clothes in the bathroom to stimulate the patient’s nerve reflexes. This was ineffective.
• On the night of March 7th, the patient went to the classroom, saying he was looking for his girlfriend. Due to concerns about a worsening condition, the treatment plan was urgently modified; the patient was told that his girlfriend had a mental illness to reduce the frequency of hallucinations.
• On March 8th, I went to West Lake with the patient, which helped him release some stress.
• On March 8th, the patient described experiencing temporary amnesia due to an electric shock as a child. The connection to his current condition remains to be verified.
• On the night of March 8th, in the School of Medicine library, the third fear test was conducted. While the patient was in the restroom, Lin Yi’ang placed a black cloth shoe—a vivid memory in the patient’s mind—to stimulate nerve reflexes and attempt to trigger the forgotten memory. The effect wasn’t ideal.
• On the night of March 8th, in the School of Medicine Teaching Building, the black cloth shoe the patient had thrown away disappeared. Later, a pair of worn-out cloth shoes was found. I also couldn’t figure out what happened; it needs further investigation.
• In the early morning of March 9th, the patient again hallucinated that his girlfriend was looking for him, saying that she told him not to go to the School of Medicine anymore. The patient chased after her in the early morning, and we finally found him in the School of Medicine Teaching Building. The patient insisted that he saw a woman in a white ancient costume and searched all the restrooms. The patient’s condition showed signs of deteriorating again.
• Starting March 9th, I misled the patient into taking tranquilizers to help him sleep and instructed him to take two duloxetine hydrochloride tablets daily to reduce his nervous activity. The effectiveness remains to be observed.
• On the afternoon of March 9th, I went to Beigao Peak with the patient and encountered a fortune teller who said the patient had encountered something supernatural. Was this true or false? For the first time, I began to doubt the cause of the patient’s illness and the treatment plan.
• On the evening of March 9th, the patient said his girlfriend told him to go to the School of Medicine to find Zhu Xiaoyu. He indeed found Zhu Xiaoyu at the School of Medicine. How did the patient know this? I was puzzled by this. At the time, Zhu Xiaoyu was disoriented and made dangerous movements. Could the strange occurrences at the School of Medicine that the patient mentioned be true? I became even more suspicious of the cause of the patient’s illness.
• On March 10th, the patient developed a severe cold.
• On the night of March 10th, the patient again experienced hallucinations of seeing his girlfriend and was seen talking to thin air on the grass by the lake. I began to wonder if the patient had really seen someone he couldn’t see.
• On March 11th, seeing that the patient’s recovery was slow, Lin Yi’ang, following superstitious beliefs, obtained three talismans and a paper effigy from a temple and secretly placed them in the patient’s room. The patient discovered them and mistakenly believed he was being persecuted. His mental distress seemed to worsen.
• On March 12th, the patient went to the School of Medicine during the day to check three storage rooms. Because he didn’t have the key to the third classroom, he remained uneasy about it.
• On March 12th, the patient told me he lacked the strength to hold a pen. After a preliminary assessment, I believed he was experiencing a drug reaction to duloxetine hydrochloride tablets. Therefore, I switched him to loratadine tablets to reduce the drug’s irritation.
• On the night of March 12th, the patient and I saw a wild boar-like animal together, after which the patient experienced a strange “ghost wall” phenomenon. We consulted our supervisor about this phenomenon, but received no answers. This further fueled my suspicions about the patient’s cause and our treatment plan.
• On the night of March 12th, the patient again experienced phantoms of his deceased girlfriend, talking to thin air on the grassy lakeside. His condition showed no signs of improvement.
• On the night of March 12th, a friend hung a wind chime that the patient had given his deceased girlfriend in his room, attempting to awaken his memory of her, but failed.
• In the early morning of March 13th, the friend tried to awaken her memory by hanging a plush toy that the patient had given to his deceased girlfriend outside the bathroom window, but failed again.
• On March 13th, the patient contracted another severe cold, and his condition rapidly deteriorated.
• From March 14th to March 21st, the patient revealed that he saw phantoms of his deceased girlfriend every few days. Clearly, the patient had completely forgotten all information about his girlfriend’s death. During this period, the patient also showed signs of rapid weight loss. It’s very, very strange.
• On March 22nd, I began to believe that the patient didn’t have a mental illness, or at least not one that current academic theories could explain. I decided to take the patient to Beigao Peak to see a fortune teller; perhaps there would be unexpected results. Although this violates academic and treatment principles, I still want to try.

After a cursory glance, Zhang Chao was immediately dumbfounded.

What did “deceased girlfriend” mean?

Bai Qiu was dead?

Then, who had he been talking to these past few days?

No wonder the dormitory aunt said no one lived in Room 216; no wonder the fortune teller said she was gone!

He had amnesia?

Was he the mental patient?

Everyone around him was conspiring to treat him, conspiring to deceive him!

What about his parents? Did they know about this, too?

Zhang Chao took a deep breath, tore a few pages from the notebook, and put them in his pocket. He put the documents and notebook back in their original positions in Chen Rong’s bag.

A while later, Chen Rong returned from the restroom and, seeing that Zhang Chao had only eaten a few bites, asked, “What’s wrong? Still no appetite today?”

Zhang Chao forced a smile: “I’m a little dizzy. I’m going back to the dorm.”

With that, he ignored Chen Rong, stood up, and walked back to his dorm.