Former colleagues

Ji Tan had never expected a subway ride to be so fraught with peril, with the risk of social death lurking at every turn.

Rationally, Ji Tan reminded himself that his brother was mentally unwell now, and he should avoid talking to him in crowded places. But looking at the brother he had not seen in three years, back from the dead, he could not help talking to him.

This led to a serious consequence-the middle-aged man beside them missed his stop.

Through their intermittent conversation, Ji Tan learned about the original body's life with his brother in City A.

The Ji family used to have a little money and a fairly comfortable life, with a nice apartment in central Xili District. But then Ji Tan's father became addicted to gambling. He sold the apartment and the car, and in the end even wanted to sell his wife. Ji Tan's mother could not take it anymore and ran away with the last few valuables. Their father then set his sights on Ji Tan, who had only been sixteen at the time.

The rest of the story came to an abrupt halt with an "Oh, fuck!" from the middle-aged man listening in rapt attention.

By the time they watched the man rush out of the eggplant train like the wind and turned back, Ji Sinan refused to continue.

"He won't be coming back. Stay out of it." At the mention of their father, who was worse than a beast, Ji Sinan's expression turned cold, and he seemed lucid for a moment. Then he refused to communicate and began concentrating on wiping the seat beside him. After wiping it seven times, he told Ji Tan to sit.

Ji Tan could roughly guess what happened next. Ji Sinan, who had still been in college then, had also run away with his younger brother. They had moved to the slums and worked while attending school. Later, Ji Sinan graduated and found a good, respectable job. Just as the brothers' lives were looking up, his older brother suddenly went mad.

"What exactly happened?"

Ji Tan did not believe a medical student capable of keeping himself and his younger brother alive and well in the slums would suddenly lose the will to go on and go mad. And what was this sanity value Sister Xu had mentioned? It did not sound like an ordinary mental illness.

Ji Sinan adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, which had a broken arm held together with tape and a missing lens. After giving it serious thought, he said, "From a professional standpoint, asking a psychiatric patient why he developed a mental illness is unreasonable."

Ji Tan: "..."

"From a personal standpoint, I don't remember." Ji Sinan handed his younger brother his crack-covered phone, indicating that he could look through it as he pleased.

The phone had no password, nor any useful information. The notes were empty, and the most frequent contact in the call log was "Little brother." The records only went back three months.

In other words, this phone had been replaced three months ago.

The phone apps in City A were truly bizarre. Having no messaging apps was one thing, but there were not even text messages. That made no sense at all!

Suddenly remembering the sole social media app, Ji Tan hurriedly opened it to check... No private messaging feature! The app developers seemed terrified of residents communicating privately. The internet could only be used for gossip.

Ji Sinan's account contained some photos taken during college. Probably afraid that his gambling-addicted father would follow the clues and find them, he had stopped sharing his life after graduation and only occasionally posted academic questions.

[Do mechanical hearts affect the stability of sanity values?]

[An analysis of irreversible drug-induced memory loss]

The comments were also all medical discussions, with hardly any casual inquiries about Ji Sinan's personal life. His classmates and colleagues probably knew about his family circumstances too and avoided mentioning anything about real life on social media.

After scrutinizing it for half an hour, Ji Tan finally found an everyday greeting.

[Xia Wanqing: You're amazing, Dr. Ji. I'll come find you in a bit to discuss this topic.]

Ji Tan's eyebrows slowly rose. He looked at Ji Sinan, who had his head down and was repeatedly taping the good arm of his glasses, and nudged him with his elbow. "Who's Xia Wanqing?"

"A colleague." Ji Sinan put his glasses back on.

"Really? I don't believe you." Ji Tan pursed his lips. What ordinary colleague would speak so suggestively? There was definitely something going on.

The subway announcement sounded. "Kill Me? reminds you: we have arrived at Chengming Life Center Station. Please let passengers exit before boarding, ride courteously, and refrain from fighting inside the station."

Ji Sinan pointed at the station sign. "A colleague from here."

Ji Tan shot to his feet. "What did you say? You used to be a doctor at Chengming Life Center?"

"Didn't you know?"

"I..."

After changing buses twice and spending nearly an hour on the subway, they had ended up at his brother's former workplace. Ji Tan was utterly despairing. He circled his brother in agitation. "Let's go to a different hospital!"

No one would want to face former colleagues with an embarrassing illness or injury. Suppose he developed a mental illness one day and returned to Xie Zhi's company. What would the director of the neighboring department, who had always been at odds with him, think of him? What about the rival who had once spread rumors that he had slept his way to the top, or the subordinates who admired and respected him so much?

His lifelong reputation as the youngest director, his accumulated achievements as an industry heavyweight, his dignity, his beauty, his fine character-all of it would go up in smoke!

Standing before Chengming Life Center's building, which resembled a gigantic version of the Louvre's glass pyramid, Ji Sinan calmly adjusted his broken-armed glasses, not understanding what his younger brother was worried about.

"If you've developed a mental illness, that's all the more reason to visit your former workplace." Ji Sinan said it as a matter of course in his warm, gentle voice.

This made Ji Tan begin to wonder whether he was too vain, afraid to face former colleagues just because he had developed a mental illness. He took out his phone and called Xie Zhi's Western District number, intending to ask him about Chengming Medical Center.

The call connected, but when Ji Tan spoke, he could not help asking, "If you developed a mental illness, would you still want to go somewhere you knew people?"

"Of course," Xie Zhi answered without hesitation. "If you don't take advantage of being mentally ill to beat the crap out of people you hate, when else would you do it?"

"..."

"Hey, hey, hey!" In the moment Ji Tan stood stunned, his brother had already strode through Chengming Life Center's entrance on his own and collided with two doctors coming toward him.

The two doctors, a man and a woman in white coats, had been walking downstairs, chatting and laughing. When they spotted Ji Sinan striding in, they immediately came over.

Then the male doctor collided with Ji Sinan, whose glasses were missing a lens.

"Well, if it isn't Dr. Ji?" The man took the opportunity to shove Ji Sinan, lifting his chin high.

Ji Sinan staggered and carefully made out the face before him. "Oh, it's you, Zheng."

The female doctor said with a grin, "Dr. Ji, here's some good news for you. Your position belongs to Dr. Zheng now."

Ji Sinan straightened and slammed his shoulder hard into Dr. Zheng. "Congratulations."

Dr. Zheng stumbled from the impact, his eyes instantly widening. "Ji Sinan! You've got some nerve!"

Ji Tan hurried over, caught hold of Dr. Zheng, and said with an apologetic smile, "Sorry, my brother has a bit of OCD now. Any action that happens has to be repeated seven times."

"Huh?" Before Dr. Zheng could react, the tall Ji Sinan rammed into him again like a bear slamming into a tree. The powerful arms he had built up repairing mechanical limbs at Quickblade Clinic drove solidly into his former colleague's chest.

The female doctor beside them watched dumbfounded. Only after Ji Sinan finished the last blow did she react, throwing herself over with a shriek. "Dr. Zheng, are you all right?"

"Cough, cough, cough. I'm fine, Wanwan. A weakling like Ji Sinan, cough, cough... I don't... cough... take him seriously at all... urgh!" By the end of his coughing fit, Dr. Zheng could not help retching.

"Sorry about that, Zheng." Ji Sinan stood there innocently and apologized three times.

Dr. Zheng straightened, his face livid, and shot Ji Tan a vicious glare.

Ji Tan sheepishly released Dr. Zheng's arm and stood beside his brother, wearing an identical innocent expression. "Sorry, Mr. Former Colleague. You're a doctor. You understand, right?"

"Ji Sinan, throwing a tantrum like this is all you can do now." Dr. Zheng straightened his clothes and regained his confidence. "Here's something else for you. All those lunches you brought Wanwan back then? I ate them. Hahaha!"

The female doctor beside him gave him a bashful punch.

Wanwan... That must be Xia Wanqing from my brother's social media account!

Ji Tan understood.

Ji Tan was disappointed.

Ji Tan was deeply shaken.

I thought she was my future sister-in-law, but she turned out to be a scammer! A scammer mooching academic help and lunches.

Ji Tan gave his brother an "I'm so disappointed in you" look and hissed furiously, "Ji Sinan, you've been out here being someone's doormat! Don't tell anyone you know me!"

Ji Sinan said, "Didn't you say you wouldn't look down on me no matter what I did?"

Ji Tan said, "Being a doormat is where I draw the line!"

Brotherly affection was paper-thin, and the cold, fickle world wounded a devoted dog's heart. Ji Sinan sighed and could only explain, "I only gave her food because she was poor. It was all your breakfast leftovers."

It was not actually food left in Ji Tan's bowl, but extra food made in the pot. Ji Sinan took the same food for his own meals. But phrased that way, it sounded a little strange. His voice was neither loud nor quiet, just enough for the medical staff passing nearby to hear.

Xia Wanqing and Dr. Zheng stood rooted to the spot.

And that was not the end of it. Ji Sinan had not wanted to get entangled with them, but once he said something, he had to repeat it twice more. Helplessly, he could only pull his younger brother away, saying as they walked, "I only gave her food because she was poor. It was all your breakfast leftovers..."

His gentle, unhurried yet resonant voice carried along their path, echoing through the hall beneath its lofty glass ceiling. The lingering sound wound around the rafters, refusing to fade.