The Great Sage Spoke

"Three of a kind with a kicker!"

"Pass." "Pass."

"Pair of aces!"

"Pass." "Pass."

"Four twos and both jokers, hahahahaha! My dear grandson, you lost again!"

Cheerful laughter rang out in Gods’ Psychiatric Hospital, along with Li Yifei's dejected cries.

"This is driving me crazy! How is this possible?! Winning and losing at cards is normal! But nobody can keep losing forever, right?! Did you cheat again, you god?!" Li Yifei was so angry his pupils were almost turning into slits.

Ever since Lin Qiye had begun formal training at the recruit camp, the training had been extremely intensive, so his visits to the Mental Hospital had been limited.

To complete the task Lin Qiye had given him, Li Yifei had decided to teach Zhou Meng and Nyx, his grandpa and grandma, some new games.

The game the three of them often played was Fight the Landlord.

But although they called it Fight the Landlord, it was really two gods teaming up to bully Li Yifei alone. More precisely, it was Zhou Meng bullying Li Yifei alone.

Whenever Li Yifei became the landlord, he was certain to lose. And often, partway through a game, he would forget which cards he had meant to play, or even wonder whether the cards in his hand were the same ones he had been holding just moments ago.

"I'm done! I'm done! You gods even cheat at cards?!" Furious, Li Yifei slammed down his cards and quit.

"Hey, Grandpa, tell me, why does this child have such a temper?" Nyx asked curiously from the side.

Ever since Li Yifei had come to the Mental Hospital, Nyx's treatment progress had been steadily increasing. However, her belief that Li Yifei was her grandson and Zhou Meng was her husband had remained completely unchanged.

"Hmm, your grandson must have reached his rebellious phase. Most kids go through it, so don't worry. It's normal. I'll have his father teach him a lesson when the time comes!" Zhou Meng cheerfully returned the cards he had just swapped out to their original places, then stood up to return to his ward.

"Huh? What happened to Li Yifei? He ran outside to hoe the ground all by himself?" Suddenly, Lin Qiye's voice came from outside the recreation room.

"Thanatos, you're back! Let Mommy have a look. Oh dear, how did you get so thin?!" Nyx hurried over and looked Lin Qiye up and down.

Lin Qiye reassured Nyx, then said somewhat helplessly, "Sigh, Mother, I've been undergoing intensive training at the camp lately. From morning to night, it's nothing but training. And those ridiculous instructors have given me training targets I don't even know how many times higher than everyone else's!"

"They dressed it up by saying that before a person can accomplish great things, they must first have their mind tested, their muscles and bones strained, their body starved, and their resources depleted. They said that since I'm the agent of two gods, I'm bound to achieve great things someday, so naturally I should train harder than everyone else!" he continued indignantly.

"But I think they're clearly using their positions to settle personal grudges! Especially those few from the Masked Squad. Every time I ran twenty extra laps, I saw them laughing!"

With that, he turned to Zhou Meng and complained, "Brother Meng, tell me, why didn't you just take those guys' masks off back then? Now look what happened. Beating them up felt pretty good, but they're all targeting me now!"

I was wondering what I'd forgotten before. So that was it!

It dawned on Zhou Meng that he had been having so much fun that he had forgotten to take their masks off.

He had actually been curious all along to see how Yuan Gang and the others would explain things away if he really took the Masked Squad's masks off.

But he had forgotten, and that was that. In the end, it was a good thing for Lin Qiye.

After all, this would let him raise his realm rapidly. Once his realm rose, he would be able to accommodate more traits, and Zhou Meng's own psychiatric disorder index would fall faster too.

"Ahem, Qiye, you're in the wrong here. If I had taken all their masks away, it would have been no problem for you personally to skip training. But the rest of these recruits would be another matter. Would you really send that disorganized rabble straight back to their respective homes to become Nightwatchers?"

"That would be irresponsible toward their lives, and it would disgrace your name as Nightwatchers. So, well, if you're bad at something, practice more. It does have its benefits, right?" Zhou Meng suddenly said with some seriousness.

Lin Qiye's eyes filled with suspicion in an instant. "Why does that sound exactly like what those instructors said? You can be this serious? Why do I get the feeling you just plain forgot?"

"Hey, your father finally opens his heart and says something serious to you, and this is how you respond, you ungrateful child?"

"Get lost!"

Nyx watched the two of them joke around, her gaze growing ever more loving. The treatment progress above her head was rising at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Right, you've been using those two purple traits for a while now. It's time to swap them out." Zhou Meng suddenly remembered the important matter.

His current status was more or less as follows:

[Ward No. 0]

[Patient: Zhou Meng]

[Divinity: God of Theft]

[Traits: Petty Theft, Parasitic Doppelgänger]

[Current psychiatric disorder index: 95%]

As for Lin Qiye, his realm had now essentially reached the peak of the Cup Realm. All he needed was an opportunity to break through to the Pool Realm, so he was now capable of accommodating one orange trait.

As it happened, Zhou Meng had also discovered that he could steal these gods' orange traits now!

But which trait should he give Lin Qiye?

Zhou Meng thought it over and decided to let Lin Qiye choose for himself.

"Qiye, although your realm hasn't reached the Pool Realm yet, you can already accommodate one orange trait. So I'll still let you choose: do you want to accommodate one orange trait, or follow the same pattern with lower-ranked ones?"

Lin Qiye didn't hesitate at all and immediately chose the orange one.

After all, a trait's color represented the strength of its ability to some extent. Since he could already accommodate an orange trait, naturally he wanted to test its power first.

This time, however, Zhou Meng didn't let him choose any further. Instead, he went straight back to the ward area and entered Sun Wukong's ward.

The Great Sage was as dejected as ever, sitting cross-legged in meditation with his eyes tightly shut.

But after Zhou Meng finished stealing the trait, he heard the monkey suddenly speak.

"Go fetch me some wine."

Zhou Meng was a little surprised. By now, apart from Nya's room, which he had never entered, he was already very familiar with all the other wards.

He didn't like staying in Merlin's room for long, because Merlin would always insist on discussing philosophy with him.

Bragi's room was even worse. The guy sang every day, and Zhou Meng had to wear earplugs whenever he went in.

Gilgamesh was the most annoying of all. Every time Zhou Meng visited, Gilgamesh insisted that he kneel and kiss the top of his foot.

Only here with the Great Sage had the two of them coexisted peacefully, without exchanging a single word.

So Zhou Meng had always been more inclined to "borrow" traits from the Great Sage. This time, the trait he had chosen was the orange [Seventy-Two Transformations].

But since the Monkey King had made a request, Zhou Meng thought he ought to oblige. Although Zhou Meng couldn't treat his autism, he could at least try to fulfill this small request.

"Will any wine do?" he asked.

But the Great Sage merely closed his eyes and said nothing more.

Zhou Meng didn't ask again. He just smiled and went out.

After coming out, he didn't rush back to give Lin Qiye the trait. Instead, he first went to find Li Yifei, who was hoeing the ground in the backyard.

"Dear grandson, can Grandpa discuss something with you?"