“Shi Lei?”
A young boy’s image immediately appeared in Liu Xin’s mind—a boy who had left a profound impression on him.
Despite trembling uncontrollably with fear, he had gritted his teeth, hoisted the elderly man onto his back, and sprinted towards the camp.
Very few individuals could achieve such a feat, especially when their minds had been shattered by Void Energy.
This was particularly true for ordinary people without any special talents.
“His mind was shattered by Void Energy, so he has been sent to the Administration Bureau for psychiatric treatment,” the man stated calmly.
“What? His mind was shattered?! Why?”
Huang Xiu’s voice suddenly rose two octaves, “Will there be any lingering after-effects?”
She was already a bit silly; if she acquired any after-effects, she might truly become Ying City’s very own Morpheus incarnate!
“Are you truly unaware of this?”
Liu Xin glanced at the young woman.
“Void Energy is, in essence, a manifestation of mental power.”
“When non-specialized individuals are exposed to excessive Void Energy at a touchpoint, they can easily have their mental defenses broken during moments of extreme joy or sorrow. As for after-effects, as long as treatment is administered promptly, there shouldn’t be any major issues.”
“No after-effects, that’s good, that’s really good!”
Hearing this, Huang Xiu finally felt reassured, but an awkward silence fell between them.
Liu Xin busied himself scrolling through his tablet, seemingly inundated with countless messages to reply to.
It made sense, considering the magnitude of the Void Realm’s descent; merely coordinating various official departments and suppressing information from all sides was an immense hassle.
To say nothing of the headache-inducing aftermath.
Even just contemplating it gave Huang Xiu a headache, so she simply drifted off, staring at the camp.
The people within the camp were bustling about, with nurses and soldiers constantly moving back and forth.
They resembled diligent worker ants meticulously building their nest, Huang Xiu inexplicably thought.
****
At that moment, a high-pitched scream, clearly a girl’s, suddenly erupted from a tent easily twenty meters long.
Immediately, a flurry of crashing and smashing sounds followed.
“Another person has suffered a mental breakdown.” Liu Xin, at some point, had put away his tablet.
He turned to Huang Xiu, “Would you like to go see? See the girls you rescued.”
*****
The incandescent light swayed with the rustling of the green canvas, and the shadows danced along with it.
A girl huddled in the furthest corner, clutching her knees, her face contorted with terror, her body trembling uncontrollably.
A circle of helpless nurses surrounded her.
“Is that her?”
As the tent flap was pulled open, Huang Xiu immediately recognized the girl in the corner.
It was the very same girl she had saved from the monkey pack’s ambush.
“Don’t come closer!”
A nurse attempted to approach and soothe her, but the girl brandished a sharp pair of surgical scissors, forcing them back.
Her soul, it seemed, remained trapped within the Void Realm.
In her eyes, nothing had changed; everyone was a grotesque monkey with a ferocious expression.
Tears streamed from her bloodshot eyes, mixed with the warmth of her body and her profound terror.
“Is this what a mental breakdown looks like?”
Though unable to truly empathize, a grave expression settled upon her face, and a silent worry began to stir within her.
Would the optimistic Shi Lei also end up like this? She couldn’t even begin to imagine such a scene.
“This is merely one manifestation of a mental breakdown, and it’s also the mildest condition,” Liu Xin explained.
He waved his hand, and soldiers surged in from behind him, forcibly subduing the girl.
“Let go of me! Let go!” The girl struggled wildly, the scissors snatched from her grasp.
Liu Xin watched everything with a detached expression.
“Sometimes, the most terrifying collapses are those that lie dormant, only to erupt when everyone has lowered their guard.”
The girl shrieked as soldiers bound her in a straitjacket used for psychiatric patients, forcibly pressing her down onto a bed.
She was clearly terrified, her body trembling, yet she was inexplicably aggressive.
Even with her body restrained, she attempted to bite.
A nurse, her face etched with fear, approached, picked up a syringe, and administered an injection into the girl’s neck.
As the blue liquid entered her bloodstream, the girl’s eyes grew hazy and vacant, and she quickly lost consciousness.
“To protect her, and also to protect the doctors, allowing her to sleep is the safest option,” Liu Xin explained.
“Time is the best medicine.”
He seemed to have encountered many patients suffering from mental breakdowns, possessing a thorough understanding of various emergency situations.
“Let’s go. Let her get some proper sleep.” Liu Xin gestured with his eyes for Huang Xiu to follow, and the two exited the tent in single file.
“How will you handle tonight’s events? Will you erase everyone’s memories?” she suddenly asked on their way back.
Professor Yuan had mentioned that memory erasure was a very mature technology.
“More accurately, it’s memory alteration,” Liu Xin was quite willing to answer Huang Xiu’s questions.
In truth, he didn’t have such ample time.
However, he was genuinely curious as to why Huang Xiu was worth Yuan Fei specifically traveling from the provincial capital.
Thus, he used the opportunity of answering her questions to observe her.
As for the results of his observation… he could only say she was naive; he discerned nothing else.
“We replace the experiences of those involved with a false memory, block all related information, and dispose of all traces at the scene. Then, everything will be as if it never happened.”
Perhaps it was Huang Xiu’s misconception, but she seemed to detect a hint of mockery in Liu Xin’s tone.
“What about those who died?” she asked.
The real world wouldn’t be as wonderful as a fairy tale, where a hero could appear and save everyone.
Death was always unavoidable.
After all, even that Pirate King had people die on his watch.
“We will arrange for their deaths to be classified as accidental, diminish their presence in the minds of others, and then, under the guise of an insurance company, we will compensate their families with a large sum of money.”
“How are you so adept at this?!” Huang Xiu almost blurted out.
A vibrant life, just yesterday active among friends and family.
Yet, overnight, they became a statistic of accidental death, their very existence in memory to be weakened.
Even knowing that this was the best method for maintaining stability, Huang Xiu couldn’t help but feel a chill in her heart.
‘If I join Tiandu University, will I one day also become one of those accidental deaths…?’
The young woman inexplicably felt a sense of, ‘The wind sighs, the Yishui River chills’ (TL Note: A classical Chinese poetic line evoking a solemn, fateful departure with no turning back.).
But by now, she had embarked on a perilous, one-way path, with no turning back, only forward.
As they spoke, the two returned to their starting point—the tent where Huang Xiu was to sleep.
Liu Xin pulled open the flap, gesturing for her to enter, “Alright, tonight’s Q&A session is over. You should rest.”
“Mm!” Huang Xiu nodded and stepped inside.
This night had been so arduous, so long, yet it seemed to be the final stretch of darkness before dawn.
So she intended to fast-forward through the night, eager to greet the good news of dawn.
Slipping off her shoes and lying back on the bed, she realized she had sweated profusely; her clothes felt sticky and smelled.
Huang Xiu tossed and turned for a long time, unable to sleep, when a thought suddenly popped into her jumbled mind.
‘You cannot rest now; monsters are lurking nearby.’
Damn it!
That statement, infuriatingly, was entirely accurate.
Huang Xiu had suffered from insomnia before and knew a little about how to handle it.
The most crucial point was to get out of bed.
Standing or sitting was fine, just don’t lie down until sleepiness returned.
The young woman reluctantly climbed out of bed, sat on a chair, and stared blankly out the window.
After an unknown amount of time, sleepiness began to creep back, and Huang Xiu prepared to return to bed.
Suddenly, a series of sharp, cracking sounds, like bones snapping, resonated with abnormal clarity from within her body.
Intense pain surged from deep within her flesh and blood.