Chapter Three: Mai Minghe · Sweet Illusions in the Hospital Room

In the dizzying whirl, Mai Minghe instinctively grasped at a white shadow beside her, but still couldn’t steady herself. She tumbled down onto the cold tiled floor with a hoarse groan.

Oh no, did she break a bone?

Pain clouded her vision, blurring everything beyond recognition. She couldn’t even tell which bone might have shattered—just one fall could shatter her life into countless fragments.

Surely now, the caregiver would rush her to the hospital; but as she caught her breath, no hurried footsteps came, no one asked, “Are you alright?”

What was going on?

Squinting, Mai Minghe looked around carefully and froze.

…This wasn’t her room.

The dim, gloomy space was barely lit by a thin strip of white light seeping beneath the door. She made out a large room. In front and behind her were narrow, empty beds. What she had been clutching was a corner of a bedsheet.

She released the sheet and glanced left and right.

A row of rolling care beds lined up, each with a small bedside cabinet and a privacy curtain… This was clearly a hospital ward. Having been hospitalized multiple times before, she recognized it instantly.

Strange.

How had she ended up in a hospital ward? The caregivers must have brought her here, right?

Yet she had no memory of how they got her to the hospital; it was as if it never happened, as if a black hole had swallowed that part of her memory.

Suppressing the panic and pain, she tried to recall the last moment she remembered—it was still the moment she had struck the television. She remembered the world tilting in agony, and then the next instant, falling onto the ward floor.

It was as if she had fallen straight from home into the hospital—but that was impossible.

Had she passed out then, and that was why she couldn’t remember?

“Is anyone there?” Mai Minghe croaked hoarsely. “Nurse? I fell…”

In the cold, silent ward, her plea was like a shard of ice, sinking slowly into a cold river, as if it had never existed.

Shivering uncontrollably from pain or cold, she realized that if this continued, something terrible would happen. She had to call a nurse—right, there should be a call button at the head of the bed.

Struggling to lift herself, she tried to stand, but the pain in her leg forbade it; her limbs were weak and slippery, and she nearly fell again.

With no other choice, she crawled inch by inch toward the bedside cabinet, bracing herself on its edge, stretching out her arm, and barely managed to touch the call button.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t press that button,” a sudden male voice startled her so fiercely her chest seemed to explode; blood rushed to her head, threatening to burst her brain vessels.

Steadying herself amid the dizziness, she turned toward the voice and realized there was another bed behind her.

The curtain was drawn but not fully, revealing the feet of the patient in the neighboring bed.

They were bare, perfectly white as if dusted with thick powder, toes slightly curled, utterly still.

Relief flooded her chest—thank goodness, she wasn’t alone.

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