While the RZ Unit worked out of doors in the wind and rain, the next day, Su Qing returned to his previous life. 

He only fell asleep in the small hours of the morning and didn’t sleep long—Cheng Weizhi was elderly and slept little. He got up first thing in the morning. Before, Su Qing had been the type who could sleep through a thunderstorm, but now for some reason he could be startled awake very easily. The slightest movement could make him jumpily open his eyes. 

They arrived at the main hall on time, and Su Qing found that there were some new faces there, including even a little boy six or seven years old. 

Cheng Weizhi sighed. “It’s a sin.” 

Su Qing didn’t respond. He was a little dizzy. The feeling he had had at night of not feeling like speaking hadn’t passed yet. He self-diagnosed low blood pressure from not sleeping well. He followed Cheng Weizhi, passed a group of guards, went into the mail hall, and waited for breakfast.

As soon as he came in, a number of unfriendly eyes fell on him. Because they were so unfriendly, Su Qing sensed them. He frowned and glanced over, and saw the little team of Type 4s, missing one member, standing in a corner glaring savagely at him.

Su Qing’s sleepy vagueness turned to anger. He thought, We’re all here, all of us in a state of uncertainty, and all struggling to survive. But never mind ganging up and having a nice talk about our future, you’re here being shit-stirrers who only want to make trouble. Damn it, so many people have been traumatized, what makes you guys so special? If you need to vent, why not go take it up with the blue seals? Why do you have to go for the soft targets and make life miserable for a bunch of little greys? 

He returned their glare expressionlessly and quietly asked Professor Cheng, “Have they been making trouble for you?”

Cheng Weizhi was silent. 

“Fine, I get it.” 

As he said this sentence, Su Qing lowered his eyes and stuck a hand in his coat pocket. There was still a bandage around his neck. His messy hair covered his eyes. He was a completely different person from the trembling, nicely cleaned-up young man he had been when he had first arrived. 

Cheng Weizhi acutely sensed the ferocity in his words and quickly held him back, quietly saying, “Don’t cause trouble.” 

Then Cheng Weizhi pushed him towards the food table and shoved tableware into his hands. He found that Su Qing’s attention was still on the Type 4s. The old professor frowned. “Su Qing…Su Qing!” 

Hearing his two calls, Su Qing somewhat absently turned his head. “Huh?” 

Cheng Weizhi put some vegetables into his bowl and quietly asked, “What are you thinking of?” 

Su Qing lowered his head, ate a leaf, then once again began to chew his chopsticks out of habit as he indistinctly said, “Nothing…” 

Cheng Weizhi said, “Don’t try to fool me! Not at my age. My students were all the same age as you. Do you think I can’t tell what you’re thinking? You’re…” 

Su Qing looked up and seriously asked Cheng Weizhi, “Teacher Cheng, do you think it would be a crime to kill someone here?” 

“…” Cheng Weizhi stared at him, dumbstruck. 

“Su Qing.” Lu Qingbai’s voice suddenly came from the communicator, and Su Qing remembered that he also had the government watching him. He laughed quietly. His laugh made Cheng Weizhi even more fearful. He thought that there was an unspeakable coldness to the young man’s laugh; it was even a little sinister. 

Lu Qingbai’s voice sounded a little stern. “Captain Hu told me about your condition yesterday. Have you noticed that your mental state is a little off?” 

Cheng Weizhi said, “Child, what’s the matter?” 

Su Qing drew back his smile and drank a mouthful of the congee in his bowl in silence. “I’m doing fine.” 

Lu Qingbai coldly interrupted him: “You aren’t doing fine at all. You haven’t noticed it yourself, but you’re displaying some of the symptoms of manic depression. This is different from ordinary depression. Simply put, under the influence of stressors, the patient’s mental state switches between the extremes of mania and depression. Don’t contradict me. Since returning, you’ve had insomnia every day, and you’ve even had direct confrontations with blue seals you know perfectly well are dangerous. Think carefully, have you been different from before?” 

Su Qing’s hand holding his chopsticks paused. 

Lu Qingbai continued: “Calm yourself. You were the one who said you wanted to go back to rescue this person. If your mental state is unstable, who can you save? Let me tell you, if it’s severe enough, manic depression can make you cruel and callous. The symptoms are the same as those despicable Type 4s you’re looking at. If you let it get to that stage, what do you think your prospects will be?”  

Su Qing couldn’t resist asking, “What…should I do?” 

Lu Qingbai said, “Take a deep breath. Don’t think about anything.” 

Su Qing did as he said, then immediately felt as though an electric shock went through him. He couldn’t hold on to his chopsticks and dropped them on the table. He lost sensation and couldn’t find his strength. He swayed and fell over, scaring Cheng Weizhi, who propped him up and quickly asked what was wrong—fortunately, while this grey house lacked for so much, it didn’t lack for abnormal people. The white coats thought nothing of it, only took a glance and went back to their work. 

Someone else also reached out to support Su Qing from the other side, propping him up along with Cheng Weizhi. Su Qing took a glance out of the corner of his eye and found that this was Tian Feng. 

He was numb for about ten seconds, then slowly regained feeling. First he waved a hand at Cheng Weizhi and swayingly stood up on his own. 

Lu Qingbai then explained: “That’s the blocking device Captain Hu injected for you. I used it to adjust your hormone levels. Do you feel a little more clear-headed now?” 

Su Qing leaned one shaking hand on the table, removed the other hand from Tian Feng’s shoulder, and pressed down on his forehead, gasping as he felt strength returning to his muscles. 

Lu Qingbai slowly asked, “Back to normal?” 

Su Qing shook his head. He felt like a drunk who had been splashed in the face with cold water. A little astonished, he found that he really had wanted to kill those Type 4s just now. 

But this was his first time learning that psychological problems could be resolved this violently. Didn’t other people sit on a couch and talk, take medicine, get hypnotized or something? Why did he have to nearly get knocked sideways? 

Su Qing concluded that this was a charlatan with no regard for human life. 

Lu Qingbai said in satisfaction, “Well, it’s a little rough, but you get the desired effect quickly…though it hasn’t gone through clinical trials yet—” 

Su Qing’s arm went weak, and he nearly fell over again. 

Lu Qingbai cleared his throat. This time, in a more serious voice, he said, “Remember, all your symptoms are the influence of external emotions from the feast. Ignore them. You were the one who gave up on the path of returning to safety and getting treatment. You chose your responsibility, so you have to go on to the end. You look like a useless pretty boy, but you should take care how you conduct yourself.” 

As Lu Qingbai said, Su Qing took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. Then he raised his head and smiled at Cheng Weizhi. As though nothing were the matter, he said, “It’s nothing. I just got up with low blood pressure and low blood sugar in the morning, all sluggish. I was grumpy about getting up and got dizzy. I’m fine now.” 

Cheng Weizhi sighed. Tian Feng quietly patted him on the shoulder. Su Qing only then remembered to ask after his health. “Well, how are you doing?” 

A smile more painful than tears appeared on Tian Feng’s face. Su Qing knew his question had been pointless. Then, he saw that Tian Feng was leading a child, the new six- or seven-year-old little boy with a ridiculous bowl cut. He had his head raised, looking at him with big, wide, dark and liquid eyes. 

So Su Qing bent down and squeezed out what he thought was a “kindly” smile. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?” 

Tian Feng pushed the boy in front of Su Qing. The boy looked at Tian Feng a little fearfully, saw him nod, then crisply said to Su Qing: “My name is Tu Tutu!”

“Huh?” Su Qing thought he had heard wrong. “Tootootoo?” 

What were his parents thinking? Were they raising a child or a machine gun? 

The boy pursed his lips, looking at Su Qing. The two of them stared at each other for half a minute. Then the kid suddenly burst into tears loud enough to shake the heavens. Pointing to Su Qing, he lodged a complaint against him with Tian Feng: “Wah—this uncle is a bad guy—wah—he gave me a nickname!” 

The little thing’s voice hadn’t broken. His wails were ear-piercingly sharp, covering up the noises made by the rowdy lunatics jumping around all over the room. Su Qing drew back his lips blankly, rubbed his ears, and bitterly thought, Oh, good grief…

Cheng Weizhi took a candy from the dining table, put it in front of little Tu Tutu, and pulled an exaggerated funny face. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Look what grandpa has for you, look.” 

The child stopped crying. He stared at Cheng Weizhi with big reddened eyes, then let himself be fobbed off with a piece of candy. Tian Feng then quietly said to Su Qing, “He’s like me. A Type 3.” 

Su Qing stared. “And…his parents?” 

“His whole family were ‘prey’ this time. His parents weren’t grey seals, so they…” Tian Feng’s voice came to a halt. He tilted his head and looked at Tu Tutu with his mouth open, letting Cheng Weizhi feed him. “Su, Su Qing, can I…ask you for something?” 

Tian Feng was a man with guts smaller than a grain of rice. No matter where he was, he seemed to be quivering. Even now, as he was speaking to Su Qing, occasionally someone would make a noise dropping a piece of tableware, and it would scare him into a jump. Su Qing looked at him acting like a dead leaf in the wind and was a little impatient. “What do you want to say? If I can do it, I will.” 

“The child is young, and he doesn’t take up much space. He’s normally pretty well-behaved and doesn’t cause trouble. Can you take him to sleep in your room tonight? Look after him?” 

Su Qing stared. “Aren’t you taking care of him?” 

Tian Feng smiled bitterly. “I have nightmares every night. I scream during them, in the middle of the night, and the child isn’t getting enough sleep, I…I heard someone say once that a child won’t grow up tall if he doesn’t sleep enough…” 

Su Qing hesitated. He thought, how could he take care of such a young child? 

Tian Feng implored him in a whisper: “Please help me out. Someone needs to look after the child, or else how will he survive in this place? I have no one else to ask. In, in this place, there are only a few clear-headed people, and then there are the Type 4s, and then…” 

Seeing that Su Qing still didn’t speak, he drew closer to him and bent his knees, quietly saying, “Take it-take it that I’m begging you…” 

Seeing he was about to prostrate himself, Su Qing quickly held him up. “Fine, brother, I said it’s fine. We’ve ended up here together, and that’s fate…though it’s an ill fate—I’ll take your place…take his parents’ place looking after him for a few days. Then maybe we’ll be able to get out of here!” 

Tian Feng stood up, wiping away tears. “Can there be such a day?”  

“Yes, absolutely.” Su Qing patted him on the back and sighed. He had just received violent treatment from Lu Qingbai, and now he had become someone else’s spiritual counselor—he really had a lot of hats to wear. 

“Really? Don’t deceive me.” Tian Feng’s little nose and little eyes crumpled together. He rubbed his face with his sleeve, snot and tears smearing together. “You can’t deceive me!” 

Su Qing laughed. “Why would I deceive you? No one’s paying for it.” 

That day, Tian Feng parted from them with his face bathed in tears, and Su Qing took the little baggage Tu Tutu back to his room. Tu Tutu and Teacher Cheng got along very well, but Su Qing had misspoken once and earned himself eternal enmity. The child rolled his eyes at him all day. 

At night, Su Qing made a bed for the little devil and flicked him on the forehead. “Little ingrate, sleep well.” 

The child with the bowl cut stared at him, then suddenly said, “Uncle Annoying, when will my mom and dad come pick me up?” 

Su Qing was stifled, not knowing how to respond. After thinking about it, he could only say, “I don’t know, either. I’m not familiar with them. How about we ask Uncle Tian tomorrow? They may come in a few days.” 

Tu Tutu nodded and gave a tiny yawn. “I hope they come soon. I don’t like it here.” 

At 2:30 AM, Su Qing once again woke up promptly. This time he didn’t sit up, only lay face-up in bed, gazing at the ceiling by the faint light. He thought of what Lu Qingbai had said, what Cheng Weizhi had said, then closed his eyes again. In his mind, he imitated Hu Bugui’s voice telling stories last night, trying to calm his emotions and get himself to sleep—these aren’t my thoughts, aren’t my emotions. I can’t be influenced by them. I can’t lose control…

Then, slowly, a voice sounded in his ear. Su Qing found that this wasn’t his imagination. It was Hu Bugui, who had noticed that he had woken up again and continued his great undertaking of One Thousand and One Nights of bedtime stories. 

Su Qing turned over and thought that while this Hu was unlucky, he was actually all right. 

The next day, little Tu Tutu in the end didn’t get a chance to ask his Uncle Tian the question that was crucial to him, because in the black night, Tian Feng had torn up his blanket, tied it into a rope, and hanged himself from a bathroom pipe. 

He had finally become so scared that he no longer dared to live.