At Officer Xue's words, Doctor Gao stopped, turned around, and took a bottle of pills from his pocket. He tipped a few out and handed them to Officer Xue.
"You think I'm sick too?"
"There's no need to think." Gao Ming pressed the pills into Officer Xue's bandage-covered hand. "If everyone needs a faith to live by, then I'm science's most devout believer."
With that, Gao Ming mounted Old Ma and prepared to head home.
He had not gone to the hospital that day. He was simply too exhausted.
"Doctor Gao, do horses have souls?"
"If people have souls, then horses certainly do too."
"Then do you think my soul looks like a person or a horse?"
"It should look like whatever you're striving and longing to become."
It was not dark yet, but every streetlight along Autopsy Avenue was already on. The crowds standing packed together like sardines had thinned a little more. Nobody cared where they had gone or what they had experienced. More sardines would be swaying along the streets the next day anyway, repeating the previous day's scenes.
Back at the Strangled-to-Death Community, Doctor Gao emptied all the food in his backpack in front of Old Ma. "Call me if you get cold. My living room is big enough for a horse to rest in."
Doctor Gao opened the front door and heard an argument before he even stepped inside. His grandfather was pounding desperately on the bedroom door, berating Doctor Gao's father for doing nothing but drinking all day.
His youngest uncle stood nearby trying to intervene, but nothing he said helped. When he saw Doctor Gao return, he waved frantically as though he had spotted his savior. "Nephew, come talk some sense into your grandfather! I don't know what's gotten into him today. He's