Li Xiaofei stared at the phone screen for a while, feeling that this day seemed a bit familiar.
"you're awake?"
The young man playing chess turned around, looked at Li Xiaofei, and said, "You got sick again yesterday. You shouted, 'This ending is unreasonable,' and threw away your notebook. Nurse Tan told you to take medicine as soon as you wake up."
Only then can you get better quickly.”
Li Xiaofei turned his head and saw a delicate plastic medicine box on the table. It contained red, blue, and white pills and capsules. He didn't know what kind of medicine they were for.
He didn't speak, but opened the drawer and took out a wrinkled notebook.
He opened his notebook and read...
It is a crude fantasy story. The protagonist's name is Li Xiaofei. It combines time travel, science fiction, fantasy and other styles into one. It is like a hodgepodge. In the end, the protagonist has his destiny, but he still cannot defeat the final villain...
Li Xiaofei rubbed his eyebrows.
I don't know why, but he quite likes this story, as if he has experienced it himself.
Li Xiaofei picked up the pen and wanted to continue writing.
But suddenly my head was empty and I couldn't write a word.
Because the ending reaches a dead end, it is unclear how the protagonist is going to win.
All the protagonist's teammates are dead.
And his opponent seems to be a demon species that can never die.
The protagonist burned himself and was still unable to compete with this terrifying opponent.
Li Xiaofei looked at the notebook and kept thinking about it in his mind. For more than an hour, he still couldn't write.
There is no hope.
Even if it is fantasy and can bring the dead back to life, there is still no hope of the protagonist winning this battle within a reasonable range.
Unless the deus ex machina comes.
But Li Xiaofei felt that the ending of this story should not be like this.
He looked at the notebook in front of him, and thousands of thoughts flashed through his mind.
For a moment, he thought that he could just kill the villain casually. As long as the protagonist wins, it doesn't matter how he wins.
But for some reason, a voice in his head kept telling him, no.
You can't write it like this.
You absolutely cannot write like this!
cannot.
No!
In this natural battle, time passes slowly.
For some reason, even the sound of Ye Qing and Hao Ding playing chess seemed to have disappeared from Li Xiaofei's mind.
Sudden--
The door to the ward was pushed open.
Tan Qingying, a slender and beautiful female nurse, walked in. After a brief round of the ward, she came to Li Xiaofei.
Glancing at the medicine box on the table, the young and beautiful female nurse said softly: "Writer Li, why don't you take the medicine? You must take the medicine obediently so that you can recover from your illness and be discharged from the hospital as soon as possible."
Li Xiaofei still stared at the notebook and did not respond to her.
But Tan Qingying was still patient and gentle, saying: "After you take medicine and recover from your illness, you can write better things."
Li Xiaofei raised his head and glanced at her.
I always feel like I have seen this girl somewhere.
And there is an inexplicable sense of intimacy.
So, he glanced at the pill box next to him, hesitated slightly, opened it, poured all the pills into his palm, and then poured them all into his mouth.
Nurse Tan thoughtfully handed over a glass of water.
Li Xiaofei took the cup, drank it all in one gulp, and returned the water cup.
The two young men who were playing chess opened their eyes wide in surprise when they saw this scene.
"Are you so obedient?"
"Isn't this the first time Writer Li has taken medicine obediently?"
The two looked at each other.
Nurse Tan smiled happily and clapped as if coaxing a child: "Great, come on, if you cooperate with the treatment, you will be discharged from the hospital soon."
After saying that, he measured Li Xiaofei's blood pressure, heart rate, etc., and then pushed the car away.
Li Xiaofei was still leaning on the hospital bed, holding the old notebook and reading the story over and over again. The more he read, the more ridiculous he felt.
He wanted to write a complete ending, but felt that nothing was satisfactory.
He added a line of text to his notes, but quickly crossed it out.
"Or not."
He put down his notebook and turned his head.
When the people next to him were not paying attention, he opened his mouth and spit out the pills, tablets and capsules in his mouth.
Yes.
He did not swallow these medicines just now.
In order not to be discovered, he did not throw the spitted medicine into the trash can, but
He put it directly into his trouser pocket.
"When are we going to let loose?"
Li Xiaofei looked at the two young men on one side.
"Release?"
"No."
"We can only move around in the ward. Walking out of the ward is considered a violation."
"Writer Li, please cooperate with the treatment."
The two of them seemed to be talking to each other.
Li Xiaofei still said nothing.
He lay on the bed and let himself go.
time flies.
He fell asleep.
In the meantime, there were nurses and doctors who stood at the door of the ward and looked at her several times. They found that Li Xiaofei was sleeping soundly with every finger in his hand, and then they left with peace of mind.
Another half hour passed.
The two young men playing chess also fell asleep in bed.
I remembered slight snoring in the ward.
After a while.
Li Xiaofei suddenly opened his eyes.
He tiptoed out of bed without making a sound, barefooted, and left the ward. He looked around in the corridor and saw no one, then quickly walked towards the door at the end of the corridor.
The time is noon.
Through the gap at the bottom of the door, milky white holy light shines through, as if there is a bright sun in the sky shining directly on the door panel.
That golden light attracted Li Xiaofei.
Make his heart beat violently.
He came to the door and pulled it gently.
The door didn't move at all.
Li Xiaofei took out a toothbrush and a thin piece of wire from his pocket, stretched it through the gap in the door, and started tinkering.
If the door is only locked on the outside, it can indeed be opened with this simple equipment.
Li Xiaofei's heartbeat was getting faster and faster.
He didn't know why, but there was an intuition telling him that if he opened this door, all the doubts and mysteries would be solved.
Open it!
Li Xiaofei's hand movements became faster and faster.
But it was at this moment that exclamations, shouts and footsteps came from behind.
"Patient No. 25 ran away again."
"catch him."
"Quick, he's trying to pry open the door."
"I told you to increase the dose of medicine a long time ago. Didn't he take the medicine already?"
A crowd of people arrived.
Doctors and nurses were angry.
Li Xiaofei ultimately failed to open the door before being caught.
The doctors carried him back to the ward, tied him to the hospital bed, and found the vomited medicine from his trouser pocket.
Then, a larger dose of new medicine was put into his mouth, and a nurse pinched his nose, filled him with water, and force-fed him to make sure he swallowed all the medicine before giving him another injection of sedative.
Li Xiaofei fell into a deep sleep.
Quietness returned to the ward.
The two young men on one side looked at Li Xiaofei who was in deep sleep, with smiles on their faces.
"Sleep, sleep. When you wake up next time, you will know your true identity."
"Hey, go to sleep."
…
…
Golden sunlight shines through the gaps in the curtains.
A faint smell of disinfectant filled the air.
A slightly noisy radio came, reporting the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Li Xiaofei slowly opened his eyes.
He felt weak.
He turned around and glanced at the phone next to him, which showed the time——
September 17, 2023.
Sunday.
An ordinary day.
"It's broken, I haven't taken the medicine yet."
An idea suddenly popped into my mind.
He remembered that he didn't take his medicine properly yesterday, which made Sun Fei, the attending doctor, very angry. He seemed to have added a few more medicines today.
Eh?
Wait, what medicine?
who I am?
where am I?
What am I doing?
Li Xiaofei suddenly fell into confusion.
He subconsciously raised his hand and looked at his bracelet.
Oh, it turns out my name is Li Rui.
correct.
I remembered that I was a patient.
psychiatric patient.
I like writing, often have random thoughts, and fantasize about becoming a world-famous writer. In fact, by the 22nd year of my life, I have only written a few thousand words in a worn-out notebook.
Not finished yet.
Li Xiaofei looked out the window sadly, then picked up the notebook on the small table next to him and started reading.
There are densely written words on it.
This is his work.
The notebook was thrown aside casually, as if it had just been placed on the table leg. It looked dirty and had signs of water stains.
The golden sunlight shines on the notebook, and there are countless fine dust particles floating in the beam.
Li Xiaofei once imagined that every moving dust is actually a planet, with countless creatures living on it, and countless dust particles orbiting each other, forming different galaxies and universes...
For this dust universe, every breath and breath of oneself may be tens of billions of years, countless lives are born and die, and even the dust planet itself has experienced countless prosperity and destruction.
Such a self may be the supreme and unimaginable god to the life on the dusty planet.
But what about actually?
In my own planet, I am nothing more than a psychopath, so weak that I can't even decide what I eat for lunch today.
Is there such a god?
He smiled self-deprecatingly, reached out and grabbed the worn notebook, opened the title page, and began to read.
The story is rough.
But for some reason, Li Xiaofei looked at it with gusto, and his eyes became brighter and brighter the more he looked at it.
Did you really write this yourself?
Very exciting.
And, since I wrote it myself, why does it feel like I’m seeing it for the first time?
The ward door was pushed open.
Li Xiaofei turned around and saw that his nurse, Tan Qingying, had walked in pushing a trolley.
Routinely checked blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse, etc., and then supervised Li Xiaofei's medication.
Li Xiaofei took the pills and tablets, held the water glass, swallowed them one after another, and then drank the water.
"Good boy, let me check if you have taken all the medicine?"
Tan Qingying smiled softly.
Li Xiaofei opened his mouth and asked him to check.
"Not bad, I ate it all. Be good, you performed very well today."
After the little nurse finished praising her, she turned and left.
Li Xiaofei was still lying on the bed looking at himself.
He was extremely addicted.
An hour later, he saw the end.
The meaning is still not finished.
"The five comrades around him are all dead, and Li Xiaofei himself is almost exhausted. No matter how hard he looks, he can't defeat the demon called Nirvana."
"A qualified author, of course, can't write randomly, so he can't make rigid twists and turns, and he can't let the protagonist win inexplicably."
"How should we solve the final ending?"
He was lost in thought.
But the more I think about it, the more chaotic my brain becomes.
The medicine he took before had a strange ability to make him drowsy and make him want to forget everything.
In the next half day, Li Xiaofei would wake up and fall asleep at other times, with countless fragments of images flashing through his mind.
That is actually the content.
His brain is like a poor third-rate director, presenting the contents in the notebook in pieces...
Until dark.
Darkness falls again.
…
…
Golden sunlight shines through the gaps in the curtains, giving the slightly dark room a hint of brightness.
A pungent smell of disinfectant filled the air, which was a bit choking.
A slightly noisy radio sound came to my ears, announcing the latest developments in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Big Goose's Black Sea Fleet had lost a flagship...
Li Rui rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly.
He stared blankly for a while, feeling that when he woke up, he seemed to have forgotten something.
The two idiots playing chess next to them started arguing about their chess.
Li Rui was not surprised by this.
In my memory, these two patients, named Ye Qing and Hao Ding respectively, have always been like this. They are lousy chess players without realizing it. They are having fun every day and have not made any progress in their chess skills.
, the level of quarrels and cheating has increased by leaps and bounds.
Li Rui didn't have any objections to them playing chess.
The key is that this guy gets very annoyed when arguing, often interrupting his train of thought, causing the book he is writing to be unable to be completed on time.
Especially at the end, amidst the quarrel between the two patients, it reached an impasse and could never be finished.
"How about writing a fresh and refined one, where the villain defeats the protagonists, then restarts the universe and starts everything over again?"
This thought flashed through Li Rui's mind.
But he quickly denied it.
He naturally took the water glass, then picked up the medicine box on the table and swallowed the medicines inside one by one with water.
a while.
Nurse Xiao Tan came in to check the ward.
Li Rui's face showed a hint of joy.
After coming to the hospital for such a long time, this little nurse named Tan Qingying has always been a small blessing in his boring life.
The little head nurse was beautiful, in good shape, and had a very gentle personality. Li Rui once secretly vowed that when he was cured of his illness and released from the hospital, he would make money and marry nurse Xiao Tan as his wife.
"Huh? You actually took all the medicine by yourself today? Writer Li, didn't you throw away the medicine secretly?"
"Hehe, don't be angry, let me check."
"Wow, I actually finished eating it. It's great, great."
"Dr. Sun will definitely be very happy."
"As long as you cooperate with the treatment in this way, you will be discharged from the hospital soon."
The little nurse made sure that Li Rui had not thrown away the medicine, and praised Li Rui happily, as if coaxing a child.
When she was about to leave with the cart, Li Rui didn't know why, but suddenly couldn't help but said, "Wait a minute."
"kindness?"
Nurse Xiao Tan turned around in confusion.
Li Rui asked: "Xiao Tan, is the door in the corridor outside always closed? What is the place outside the door?"
Nurse Xiao Tan came over, gently reached out and touched Li Rui's forehead, and said, "I don't have a fever either, have you forgotten? Behind the gate is the critical illness area, which houses some very sick patients.
Some have violent tendencies and have injured patients, so they need to be managed in separate areas."
"Oh, is it so?"
Li Rui scratched his head.
He doesn't remember.
Since he fell ill, he has forgotten many things. The doctor said that this is a sequelae of medication and he will gradually get better after being discharged from the hospital.
After the little nurse left, Li Rui had a strange impulse in his heart.
He wanted to open the door and go to the critical care area to take a look.
Maybe those more serious mental patients can bring some inspiration for writing?
But after thinking about it, I decided to forget it.
If the doctor discovers it, he will probably need to add more medicine.
He lay on the hospital bed and didn't want to move, then picked up the worn notebook and began to read the plot over and over again.
Suddenly there were some flashing images in my mind.
The pictures are clear, all are large-scale productions, and the faces are lifelike, as if they are another segment of memory that has existed since birth.
Li Rui is no stranger to this.
Why was he sick and hospitalized?
It was because I was too involved in writing that I kept flashing back some pictures in my mind, making it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction, so I was sent to a mental hospital.
Li Rui closed his eyes and kept observing those clear and flashing images.
It's like watching a trailer for a blockbuster movie.
Combining these flashing images and repeatedly thinking about the contents of the notebook, Li Rui was trying his best to find a possible perfect ending for himself.
Suddenly, the picture in his mind froze.
That was the final battle. Annihilation opened the void, and another battlefield appeared. The scene of the sword fairy Lin Beichen dying in the replica Ziyan version...
Sword Immortal Lin Beichen!
When Li Rui saw this, he suddenly fell into deep thought.
This kind of thinking continued until nightfall.
Before going to bed at night, the doctor came to check the room.
The attending doctor Sun Fei expressed satisfaction with Li Rui's condition, then turned to nurse Xiao Tan and said: "The condition is recovering well on the 25th. I will take another injection tonight and I will be discharged from the hospital in about half a month."
"good."
Nurse Xiao Tan is happy for Li Rui.
Then give him an injection.
After the lights were turned off, the ward fell into calm silence.