Doomsday Asylum Chapter 11

The owner of the hand was also startled, staring blankly at her.

She called for about ten seconds, suddenly realizing that the other person seemed to be Nie Ran.

“Why… why aren’t you lying in bed? What are you doing in my room?”

Still crawling like that, like Sadako, she’s lucky she doesn’t have heart disease, otherwise, she would have fainted directly.

Nie Ran’s eyes showed a look of grievance.

“Sister, I’m in pain…”

“Pain? Let me see if the wound is split…”

Ning Xin got down from the bed, suddenly raised her head, and asked in shock, “What did you just call me?”

Nie Ran blinked in confusion, “Sister.”

So her little shadow is back? No need to constantly cater to that “master” anymore?

Ning Xin couldn’t help but feel happy, her mouth even curved up.

“Okay okay okay, it’s nothing, lie down.”

Nie Ran stretched out on the floor, since he wasn’t wearing clothes, she could easily see his wound, and some things she shouldn’t see.

“Um… it seems like it’s a bit split, are you feeling dizzy?”

He carefully felt it, shaking his head, “Not dizzy.”

“Then wait here, don’t move, I’ll go to the warehouse to see if there’s anything for stopping the bleeding.”

Ning Xin said, her face flushed, as she walked out of the room. The corridor was covered in bloodstains left from his crawling, it looked horrifying, like a scene from a murder.

Gonna have to clean the floor again, so annoying.

In the warehouse, she found a large box of medicine, but unfortunately, it was all band-aids and alcohol, or stuff like Isatis root syrup and cough syrup.

In the farthest corner, however, she found a small sewing kit. The needles inside looked strange, they were curved, and the label on the thread said “absorbable suture”.

Could this be what doctors use to sew up wounds?

Ning Xin thought of the huge wound on Nie Ran’s body, almost splitting his entire upper body open. It seemed like it should be stitched up to heal faster.

But who would do the stitching?

She was neither a doctor nor a nurse, the only sewing she had done from childhood to adulthood was sewing buttons for herself.

Holding the sewing kit, she was torn. Nie Ran’s calls for her sister came from upstairs incessantly.

Forget it, desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if the stitching is bad, it’s better than leaving the wound gaping like a torn pocket.

Ning Xin returned upstairs, Nie Ran had already crawled to the door of the room, stretching his neck to look at her.

She hurried to his side, helping him lie down, saying, “I told you not to move, any movement and the bleeding will only get worse.”

“I want to stay by your side…”

“Don’t talk nonsense, lie down properly!”

“Do you want to stitch it up?”

A flash of terror crossed Nie Ran’s face, his pupils trembling, but he didn’t object, closing his eyes resignedly and saying, “Go ahead.”

Ning Xin couldn’t help but chuckle, “Why make such an expression? I’m not going to kill you.”

“Sister, be gentle,” he couldn’t help but plead.

“I know, I know… Oh, wait a moment.”

She thought of something, ran downstairs, and came back with something she handed to Nie Ran’s mouth.

“Here, eat this.”

Nie Ran looked at the ice-like thing in confusion and asked, “What is this?”

“You don’t even recognize this? It’s rock sugar, hurry up and eat it.”

Ning Xin said and directly stuffed it into his mouth. He gingerly tasted it and exclaimed in surprise, “It’s sweet!”

“Yeah, eat something sweet, and it won’t hurt as much.”

When she was a child, whenever she fell or got into fights and cried incessantly, her older sisters who took care of them would always stuff a piece of candy into her mouth.

If luck was on their side, they might encounter kind-hearted individuals who donated supplies, and they could even get to eat milk candies.

That was almost the sweetest part of her childhood memories.

This method seemed to work quite well for Nie Ran too. He stopped whimpering and focused on licking the candy.

Ning Xin disinfected the needle and his wound, threaded the needle, held it in her hand, took a deep breath, aimed at the spot, and pricked it.

An hour later, Nie Ran fell asleep on her bed, his body occasionally trembling due to excessive blood loss and his body temperature dropping.

She wiped the cold sweat off his forehead with a towel, cleaned the floor, changed the dirty sheets and blankets in the adjacent room where he had stayed, replaced them with a new set, and then hugged another blanket before returning to her own room, sleeping on the floor.

The next noon, Ning Xin made a meal that could be called sumptuous.

Stewed potatoes with preserved meat, stir-fried salted fish, and stir-fried radish with Chinese sausage.

After preparing it, she couldn’t resist sneaking a few bites, then she was about to go and serve them. But when she looked up, Nie Ran was actually holding onto the stairs, walking to the living room by himself, and he even had on a pair of pants.

She exclaimed, “How did you get out of bed? Can you walk?”

Nie Ran assured her he was fine, his eyes fixed on the food.

Ning Xin didn’t believe it, so she carefully checked his wound.

This guy was like a reincarnated earthworm, his healing speed was astonishing. The wound that was still gaping yesterday had already scabbed over today.

It seemed like not only was he not going to die, but in another month at most, he would be fully recovered.

She carefully touched his wound and asked, “Does it hurt?”

Nie Ran was about to speak when his stomach made a rumbling sound, making his face flush with embarrassment as he awkwardly said, “I’m a little hungry.”

“Well then, let’s eat.”

Food had to be eaten, and things had to be clarified.

Ning Xin served him a bowl of rice and asked as she set it down, “What crazy thing were you doing yesterday, running up to the mountaintop to self-harm?”

“Self-harm?” he looked puzzled, “I didn’t do that.”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I really didn’t.”

Nie Ran said with a look of distress, “I was wondering myself, how I woke up covered in wounds. Could it be that assassins attacked us in the middle of the night?”

Hearing the word “assassins,” Ning Xin remembered his “prince” identity.

If he wasn’t lying, wouldn’t that mean that the memories between the two personalities didn’t communicate with each other?

“Um, well… I’m not sure.”

Nie Ran’s expression turned serious, “Then we need to investigate carefully. Otherwise, if I get hurt, it’s fine, but what about you next time?”

She nervously laughed, “Haha, it’s not that serious, let’s eat, let’s eat.”

Midway through the meal, she slipped away first, going upstairs to deliver food to the old lady. She also wanted to ask her about what she said yesterday.

This old lady must know Nie Ran, otherwise, she wouldn’t have spoken so confidently. And since she admitted to being the director, she must be very clear about what’s going on in this world.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in.”

As usual, Ning Xin placed the food on the bedside table, walked to her side, and said, “Grandma, thanks to you yesterday, he can now go downstairs by himself.”

The old lady nodded, “Hmm, that’s good.”

“But I can’t understand, do you know him?”

The old lady chuckled.

“You know my situation very well, I stay in my room every day, how could I know people outside of the room?”

“But I remember you mentioned before, there used to be patients in the asylum, but they all escaped. And you warned me before about him possibly being mentally ill, so I thought…”

She bent down, looking into her eyes, “Was he one of the escaped patients?”

The old lady restrained her smile and asked calmly, “Do you really want to know?”

“I not only want to know that, but I also want to know many answers.”

It had been almost a month, and she didn’t want to continue living so cluelessly.

“I can tell you, but not now.”

“When do I have to wait until?”

The old lady lowered her eyelids, looking at the patterns on the thin blanket. After a few seconds, she said, “When he gets better, I will tell you everything, including what you want to know the most.”

What she wanted to know the most… How to return to her original world?

Ning Xin’s eyes lit up and she asked, “How can he get better?”

“This is something you need to figure out on your own. I can only tell you that the remedy for a sick heart must come from within.”

She walked out dazedly, standing in the corridor, suddenly wanting to ask the old lady more questions, but when she turned around…

The door she had just closed with her own hands had somehow… disappeared?

Behind her was only a wall with patches of lime, covered in moss and mold in the corners.

Ning Xin’s head was spinning. She touched the wall inch by inch, but even after checking the entire wall, she couldn’t find any trace of the door.

The second floor had once again turned into three rooms: one for her, one for Nie Ran, and one empty.

The old lady she had been living with for so long had vanished just like that.

Nie Ran was still eating when he noticed her coming down in a daze, sensing something was wrong, he nervously asked, “Sister, what’s wrong?”

“Do you… remember the old lady on the second floor?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“She’s gone.”

“What?”

Putting down his chopsticks, Nie Ran went upstairs with her support to check. But no matter how they looked, they couldn’t find that room. The old lady, along with her room, had disappeared without a trace.

Ning Xin had initially thought that Nie Ran might know something, but he seemed even more astonished than her, staring wide-eyed and murmuring, “Sister, did we encounter a ghost?”

She was shocked to the extreme, but now she was surprisingly calm.

“We’ll forget about her. You go back to your room and rest, I’ll go wash the dishes.”

After saying that, she walked downstairs alone.

As she washed the dishes, she pondered over what the old lady had said.

She had to make Nie Ran’s illness better before the old lady would tell her everything.

The illness referred to was obviously a mental illness, not his physical injury.

But how could mental illness be treated?

The wife of the old man who guarded the orphanage was mentally ill. Their only method of treatment was to tie her up with ropes when she became violent and started to hurt people.

Ning Xin was completely lost. Sighing with worry, she caught sight of a figure out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw Nie Ran coming down again.

“Didn’t I tell you to rest properly and take care of your injury?”

He timidly said, “There’s a ghost upstairs, I’m scared…”

“…Then you sit here.”

Nie Ran obediently sat on a chair, waiting for her to finish washing the dishes, then immediately following her wherever she went.

Ning Xin’s mind was in turmoil. She wanted to lie down alone in bed and calm herself, but as soon as she lay down, he crawled into bed too.

She raised her hand to push him away, wanting him to roll off.

Nie Ran immediately cried out, “Ouch, it hurts! My wound hurts!”

She quickly pulled back her hand, saying irritably, “Go back to your own room to sleep, there’s a bed there.”

Nie Ran looked pitiful, “But I’m afraid of being taken away by ghosts. Sister, can I sleep with you just for one night?”

Ning Xin didn’t believe the old lady was a ghost, but encountering him was truly like encountering a ghost.

Sometimes she wished to be far away from him, and other times she stuck to him like glue, almost driving herself to the brink of madness.

Seeing her silent, Nie Ran seized the opportunity and hugged her, falling asleep.

The two of them squeezed onto the narrow hospital bed. She could barely endure it, but his legs were so long that they hung off the bed and almost touched the ground.

Ning Xin touched his thick eyebrows and suddenly had a vague premonition.

This world was so strange. Could Nie Ran really be some prince from the Xia Kingdom?