"What I need you to do is simple. If a doctor or caregiver comes to make rounds after I leave, just pretend you're asleep." Zuo Han didn't have much faith in Chen Ge. "Don't say a word. Whatever he asks, just say you don't know."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. Also, remember to open the door for me when I get back." Zuo Han lay down on the hospital bed and stopped paying attention to Chen Ge.
A little over ten minutes later, Zuo Han glanced at Chen Ge, then got up and walked to the ward door.
He quietly cracked the door open and, seeing no one in the corridor, slipped outside.
"This guy's so suspicious. His symptoms really do sound a lot like persecutory delusions." Chen Ge sat up in bed. "Should I help him?"
Without having to think hard, Chen Ge could already tell that Zuo Han hadn't left that night simply to investigate the hospital. He was testing Chen Ge, too.
Chen Ge didn't trust Zuo Han, and Zuo Han didn't completely trust him, either. In the eyes of someone with persecutory delusions, the whole world was dangerous, and everyone was a potential enemy.
Chen Ge stayed in the same position, sitting beside the bed for over ten minutes, but Zuo Han still hadn't returned.
He looked at the door, still ajar, then dragged his leg, which was in a cast, slowly toward the ward entrance.
He opened the door and looked outside. The hospital corridor wasn't completely dark; lights were on at the far end of the hallway and at the nurses' station.
"This is nothing like the hospitals I remember. Could that gloomy, dark Midnight Hospital really have been something I imagined?"
Chen Ge had learned to keep himself in check. He didn't dwell on anything.