Diana ran the fastest, staying about ten meters ahead of the other three. From behind, all they could see were her red ears, and no one knew what she was thinking.
When Su Ming called her name and told her to go upstairs, the big woman took several seconds to react. She even moved her arms and legs in sync as she climbed the stairs, looking a little adorable.
They encountered quite a few patients along the way. Their activity that evening seemed to be a social gathering in the first-floor lobby, where music could be heard—if a Music Box counted as a source of music.
Yet that tiny Music Box, with its faint melody, had many patients dancing gracefully in the brightly lit lobby, spinning with their eyes closed while suffering from incontinence. The sight was profoundly strange and disorienting.
After having Strangle extend a tendril to take a look through the lobby entrance, Su Ming confirmed that Reggie Long was not there. There was basically no one else on the first floor, so they needed to search the second.
The target's features were obvious: the broad cheeks distinctive to Black people, and he was only in his early twenties, making him the youngest among the inpatients.
They encountered a middle-aged man at the staircase. He sat on the steps, staring fixedly at the wallpaper pattern on the wall. As they passed him, he showed no reaction at all.
Su Ming looked into the man's eyes and saw a clarity untainted by any human knowledge. In other words, the man before them was intellectually disabled.
Strictly speaking, intellectual disabilities were more commonly caused by brain lesions or deformities. They were organic disorders, not mental illnesses. He should not have been here.
But perhaps his family had abandoned him here.