I Run Away with the Earth to Save the World [Unlimited Flow] - Chapter 138

Jing Qizhen, amused and exasperated, said in his mind, “No one dares let you die. If anyone gets hurt, it better not be you.”

Hearing Jing Qizhen talk like that for once, the Earth froze up a little and even seemed a bit shy. Still, it proudly mumbled, “I knew it. No human could resist loving a cute ball like me!”

Jing Qizhen nodded perfunctorily. “Mm-hmm. Totally.”

Caught up in its own excitement, the Earth didn’t notice Jing Qizhen’s half-hearted tone at all. Like a puffed-up little chick, it puffed out its imaginary chest and chirped, “Little Jing, flip the page! I’ll keep translating!”

Jing Qizhen nodded, obediently flipping another page. “Thanks, Babyball.”

The Earth hummed twice and, squinting at the chaotic scrawl, continued reading aloud, “…Those doctors must be conducting terrifying human experiments, but I couldn’t do anything about it. They kept lying to me. I could only pretend I didn’t know.”

Jing Qizhen: “…” Yep, this guy really is a schizophrenic. That imagination is vivid.

The Earth grumbled, “The rest of this page is all random scribbles again.”

Jing Qizhen remained calm. “He’s a patient. We have to be understanding.”

The Earth piped up, “I saw so many patients just now!”

Jing Qizhen went quiet for a moment. Honestly, it was a relief that this dream space was built from just one patient’s mind. If multiple dreamscapes had overlapped, even with all their preparation, it would’ve been an unimaginable nightmare.

Shaking off that chilling thought, Jing Qizhen confirmed with the Earth that there was no other useful information on the current page and flipped to the next.

Jing Qizhen: “Babyball, take a look at this one.”

The Earth quickly scanned the chaotic writing and picked out a few scattered words. “Human experiments… the operating room lights are always on… the doctors in white coats are all devils.”

Jing Qizhen frowned slightly. “These sentences are getting fragmented.”

The Earth said bluntly, “The handwriting’s also getting more chaotic. If I weren’t so knowledgeable and wise, no other ball could read this!”

Jing Qizhen: “…” Says that like I have another ball I could call in.

However, there was no need to argue. He still needed Babyball to work, after all. So Jing Qizhen exaggeratedly praised it, “Babyball, you’re amazing!”

It wasn’t often Jing Qizhen complimented it so many times in a row. The Earth was utterly delighted and quickly declared, “Flip the page! Hurry! I’ll translate the rest!”

Jing Qizhen cooperated enthusiastically. “Okay!”

Many pages had been torn from the diary and what remained held only scraps of writing. But with the Earth’s fast reading speed, Jing Qizhen finished flipping through the whole thing in no time. With the Earth’s help, he finally pieced together the likely relationship between the schizophrenic patient and the deceased traffic accident victim in the morgue.

While Jing Qizhen was talking with the Earth, the others knew what he was doing and continued eating heartily, unaffected. Only Yun Shuanghua kept glancing at him from time to time.

Wang Feizhou, although confused, didn’t interrupt and kept his questions to himself.

When the exchange with the Earth came to a pause, Jing Qizhen took a few quick bites of food before setting his utensils down again and explained to the others, “Just as we suspected, the person who tragically died in the traffic accident was connected to the survivor. And the fact that he was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment after the accident was clearly a major trigger for the survivor.”

Manman sorted out the logic and analyzed, “Let’s lay out a simple timeline. First, the survivor was already being treated for schizophrenia at Binhai City’s Second Municipal Hospital, but the treatment wasn’t going well. On top of that, the survivor had a deep distrust of the doctors and nurses. Then, someone close to the survivor got into a traffic accident and was brought to that very same hospital for emergency treatment.”

Jing Qizhen suddenly thought of something and asked the Earth, “The patient you found at the psychiatric hospital, the one who somewhat resembles the survivor and was sleeping the whole time, do you know his name?”

The Earth, silent: “…”

It had been too focused on checking appearances. Plus, the survivor inside the erosion area didn’t even have a name to compare with, so the Earth hadn’t paid attention to the details.

Understanding what the silence meant, Jing Qizhen gently said, “Babyball, go back and check the name, okay?”

Without a word, the Earth rushed off. It wasn’t long before the ball zipped back and crisply reported the name of the slumbering patient. The surname and the second character matched perfectly. Only the third character was different but it shared the same radical.

Jing Qizhen exhaled softly. That was enough of a match.

He immediately wrote down that name, along with the name of the deceased in the morgue, onto the tattered pages of the diary, and then showed the two names to the group. “Take a look.”

The name the Earth found and the one belonging to the morgue victim both used common surnames, but sharing the first two characters strongly suggested the two individuals were from the same family and generation.

These days, younger generations often don’t follow generational naming customs, but back in the 1950s or 60s, such traditions were still quite common.

Grandma Fang glanced at the names and instinctively said, “These two are probably relatives from the same clan.”

Jing Qizhen agreed. “I think so too. And they likely knew each other.” He paused and then said seriously, “Under normal circumstances, if someone gets into a traffic accident, the people at the scene would call the police and emergency services. Unless someone had the local hospital’s number memorized, they’d usually just dial ‘110’ or ‘120,’ right?”

Everyone nodded.

Even the March Hare’s ears twitched. In its mind, the first number it had remembered was ‘911,’ but when it actually dialed that once, the recorded voice had redirected it to ‘110’ and ‘120.’ The March Hare had remembered that lesson well.

Jing Qizhen added pointedly, “Everything I’m about to say is still just speculation.”

Manman remained calm. “Go on, Little Jing.”

Jing Qizhen didn’t hesitate any longer. “Normally, the ‘120’ emergency hotline would send patients to the city’s First Municipal Hospital, just by habit of prioritization. Unless the traffic accident occurred very close to Binhai City’s Second Municipal Hospital. That would mean, for the sake of time and treatment, the injured person was rushed to the nearest hospital, Binhai City’s Second Municipal Hospital.”

“I suspect,” he continued, “that the accident victim ended up near Binhai City’s Second Municipal Hospital because he was on his way to visit the survivor, his friend or relative with schizophrenia.”

And in a cruel twist of fate, the one who came to visit the patient ended up hurt far more severely than the patient himself. Given that the survivor already didn’t trust medical staff, his hospitalization probably felt more like imprisonment.

Jing Qizhen said, “Under those conditions, his friend or relative gets into an accident and is brought in for emergency treatment. We don’t know if there were other relatives present, but the survivor definitely learned about it and was deeply affected.”

Old Xiao suddenly understood, “If the accident victim had been saved, that might’ve served as a positive emotional stimulus. The doctors and nurses could’ve gained his trust.”

Jing Qizhen nodded. “Exactly. But instead, the opposite happened. The only person the survivor trusted died during treatment. That became the biggest emotional blow and it severely deepened his suspicion toward the doctors.”

Si Jiayang was still holding his chopsticks when he said gravely, “If the survivor had previously only suspected that the doctors and nurses were conducting some kind of dangerous human experimentation, then after the death of someone he knew, those doctors and nurses in white coats have become ghosts in his eyes.”

Jing Qizhen added, “There’s a difference between surgical scrubs and the white lab coats doctors wear daily. The survivor’s hostile attitude toward us probably stems from this distinction in clothing.”

When a paranoid schizophrenic patient experiences delusions of persecution, he may distrust medical staff but his subconscious, his instincts, still tell him that only the surgeons in the operating room can save lives. Those two conflicting beliefs make his thoughts and perceptions even more fragmented and confused.

Recalling earlier details, especially how Grandma Fang had seen the hospital entrance in Snow White’s Magic Mirror, Jing Qizhen continued, “To the patient, the hospital is a place of fear, but it’s also a relatively stable environment. In contrast, the outside world, where his loved one died, feels far more dangerous, something he wants to avoid.”

Lu Lingxi raised an eyebrow, guessing, “So the survivor only sees doctors and nurses as ghosts? And if he were to leave the hospital, he’d just see normal people, like the police?”

Jing Qizhen replied, “He’s been hiding in the hospital for so long, completely trapped in his fantasy world. If he were suddenly confronted with the ‘real world’ outside, it might cause a complete mental collapse.”

That’s why, earlier, when Jing Qizhen asked those survivor fragments why they didn’t call the police or escape the hospital, none of them could answer, because the patient himself couldn’t face reality and was avoiding those questions entirely.

The March Hare, thoroughly confused, still managed to ask the key question. “So what exactly are you planning to do?”

Jing Qizhen answered crisply, “Battle wits and willpower with a schizophrenic patient.”

Everyone else: “…” That was way too accurate. They had no rebuttal.

However, the March Hare had indeed touched on the core issue. What were they supposed to do about the intangible erosion core?

Lu Lingxi offered, “If nothing else works, should we just tie up those survivors and bring them back here?”

Jing Qizhen: “…I don’t think that’s feasible.”

Jin Guijuan asked curiously, “Why not?”

Jing Qizhen frowned. “Those survivors all have extremely distinct personalities and it’s obvious they’re emotional manifestations of a single person. The one muttering ‘We’re all going to die’ is the pessimistic one, while the one insisting doctors and nurses are monsters and the one who keeps urging the others to run are clearly driven by a stronger survival instinct…”

Manman guessed, “If we really did tie them all up, wouldn’t that just trigger the creation of even more emotional fragments?”