Visiting the Sick

Kong Rong left the shop.

The oddities emerged.

Chen Miemie looked at the address Kong Rong had left behind.

“This is going to be a little troublesome. If I go out, I’ll be entering Kong Rong’s era. I can use this address to find Xia Chong, but I don’t know how to treat him. None of you can come out with me, and Mengzha certainly can’t.”

The only one capable of crossing time and space was Huangyi, and the oddities had no solution to offer.

Qinghua suggested, “Why don’t you go find out what’s going on? Get as much information as you can, then come back and ask Mengzha how to solve the problem?”

“That’s all we can do for now. What worries me is that I may only be able to go out once. Even if Mengzha can find a solution after I return, by the time they come back next time, several years may have passed for them. It could already be too late.”

Black Hole muttered from the side, “That idiot Xia Chong. Why doesn’t he come to the shop himself? He already asked for help last time, and now he’s practically bedridden, yet he still doesn’t know enough to come back. Hmph~”

Black Hole was merely complaining.

But its offhand remark suddenly made everyone’s eyes light up.

“Exactly! Miemie, you can find Xia Chong and have him come to the shop himself!”

Seeing that Black Hole seemed intent on betraying the “Roast Chicken Group” and infiltrating the think tank, Bobo panicked. It hurriedly forced itself to come up with a counterargument.

“But the shop rules say that we can’t have people come to the shop of their own accord.”

That was already an extraordinary effort from Bobo, but devising strategies was not its area of expertise.

Qinghua picked it up. “That doesn’t count. Xia Chong is already a customer of the shop. He came here of his own accord the first time, and requesting help with his nightmares was his own decision as well. This is simply part of handling his commission.”

Bobo shook its head, the pineapple leaves atop it swaying back and forth. It seemed to understand, but not quite.

It didn’t matter if Qinghua got to be clever. As long as Black Hole wasn’t the one stealing the spotlight, that was good enough.

The Chen Miemie wearing Huangyi stepped out through the Gap Between Doors, and the street on Fairy Tale Road changed again.

Neither the Four Seasons Tea Shop nor the Four Seasons Café existed anymore. At Number 16 Fairy Tale Road now stood a flower shop, which had already closed for the night.

The Health Preservation Hall.

Seventh floor of the inpatient building, Department of Psychiatric Treatment, Room 707.

Chen Miemie gently pushed open the hospital-room door.

It was a double room with two beds, and someone was lying in each of them.

Chen Miemie had moved quietly, but he had not used his abilities to conceal his presence or his movements.

The man sleeping in the bed nearest the door immediately became alert.

“Who is it?”

Chen Miemie looked at him. He wasn’t Xia Chong, but a young man.

“I’m a friend of Xia Chong’s. I heard he was ill, so I came to see him.”

The young man was somewhat suspicious.

What normal person would visit a patient after midnight, empty-handed, and wrapped from head to toe in a yellow cloak?

Still, he didn’t suspect him too much. Xia Chong was no important figure, nor had he offended anyone. There was no reason for someone to come to the hospital in the middle of the night to murder him.

“Oh, hello. My name is Fei Liang. I’m also a friend of Xia Chong’s. His condition has gotten pretty serious these past few days. The doctor said someone needs to stay with him at night, so I came to look after him for a couple of days.”

“Hm? So you’re not a patient?”

“Haha, no. No one was using this bed, so I borrowed it to sleep for a while.”

“Has Xia Chong’s condition become so serious that he can’t be left alone at night? Has he lost the ability to move?”

“Not exactly. He’s already gone more than ten layers deep in his dreams within dreams. He can no longer tell dreams from reality, so someone has to forcibly wake him from time to time.”

“More than ten layers? The highest recorded cases only reached seven or eight.” Chen Miemie had done some research before coming.

“That’s right. He’s in extreme danger now. Sometimes, even when I shake him awake, he treats me as someone from his dreams and doesn’t believe that he’s really awake.”

“He told me before that he was constantly having nightmares. Is it still happening?”

“You actually know about his condition? Yes, it’s still happening. The nightmares and dreams within dreams have begun appearing together, and it’s tormenting him. When he wakes up, his eyes are often bloodshot.”

“All right. Please wake him up.”

“Now? He only just fell asleep.”

“Fei Liang, my introduction just now may not have been entirely accurate. I’m not actually his friend. I’m more like his therapist. He came to me for help before.”

“Is that so? I understand.”

Fei Liang shook Xia Chong awake.

When Xia Chong opened his eyes, he looked at Fei Liang and Chen Miemie. His first words were, “Another new trick? Is this another layer of the dream?”

Fei Liang gave him a hard slap on the shoulder. “You’re awake. Feel this. That’s pain!”

“Ah—it does hurt. But, Shopkeeper, what are you doing here? You can leave the shop?”

Chen Miemie was speechless. “I have legs. I run a shop; I’m not in prison. Of course I can leave.”

“So the last time I entered your mysterious shop wasn’t a dream?”

“Xia Chong, whenever you see me, you can be sure you’re in reality, because your dreams can’t contain my existence.”

“Shopkeeper, have you found a way to treat me this time?”

“More or less. I don’t know how to treat you myself, but I found a dream expert who should be able to. The problem is that the expert can only stay in my shop and can’t come out. You’ll have to return to the shop yourself.”

Xia Chong hesitated.

Fei Liang, who clearly cared deeply about his friend, spoke up from the side. “Shopkeeper, where’s your shop located? Set a time, and I’ll take Xia Chong there.”

Chen Miemie shook his head. “You can’t go.”

Xia Chong looked troubled. “Shopkeeper, I’ve always felt that you were someone from my dreams. One important reason is that I tried to find your shop again, but the crack wasn’t there anymore at the place where I first found it.”

Chen Miemie had already received quite a few customers and had learned a great deal about the shop.

“Your condition has worsened, and your problem hasn’t been resolved. By all rights, the confusion in your heart hasn’t disappeared, so you shouldn’t have lost the way completely.”

“I really couldn’t find it. I’m certain of that. I searched for it more than once.”

“What happened to you since then?”

Xia Chong fell silent.

Afterward, Chen Miemie did his best to learn as much as he could about Xia Chong’s symptoms.

Before leaving, he called Fei Liang out into the corridor.

“Fei Liang, you’re able to stay here and take care of him. You two must be close friends.”

Fei Liang didn’t hesitate. “Of course. We’ve played together since we were kids. Back in school, people called us the Three Musketeers.”

“The Three Musketeers? Was there someone else?”

“Yeah, Shi Buyi.”

“Have you been the one taking care of Xia Chong these past few days?”

“Yes. Xia Chong has no family, and we brothers don’t often get a chance to help him out.”

“All right, Fei Liang. There’s something very important I need you to make sure Xia Chong does.

“Although he agreed just now to look for my shop, you and I both know that once he wakes up, he may decide everything that happened tonight was a dream. You’ll need to keep reminding him to follow through.”

Fei Liang scratched his head.

“Shopkeeper—I suppose I’ll call you that too. Forget Xia Chong; even I feel like this is a dream.

“If you gave me an address, I could take him there. But you’re saying I can’t go, and Xia Chong himself says he can no longer find the place. In that case, how am I supposed to force him to go alone to some place whose address he doesn’t even know?”

Chen Miemie had always deliberately obscured his features. In Fei Liang’s eyes, he was a man shrouded in a yellow robe.

At that moment, Chen Miemie slowly lifted his head, revealing for the first time the two Eyes of the Eternal Moon beneath his hood.

The instant their eyes met, Fei Liang was struck as if by a bolt of lightning.

“[Mystery] has never been bound by reason. You know very well that [Health Preservation Hall] can’t cure him. So, can you do it?”

Fei Liang’s teeth chattered. “I... I can.”