Mai Minghe rescued from a hallucination?

"You live alone."

The social worker opened a little brochure for her to see and said, "If you fell, no one would know. That's too dangerous. It would be best to wear one around your neck. It wouldn't get in the way, either. What do you think?"

That had been several years ago.

Mai Minghe still remembered the illustration in that brochure. The product's name was straightforward: "Life Alert."

In the picture, a white-haired woman lay on the floor, accompanied by two lines of small print: "Help me! I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Her older cousin had fractured her pelvis in her eighties and never gotten out of bed again. Once a person became bedridden, they didn't have much time left.

What year had she died? Mai Minghe couldn't remember.

The legs that had once supported her as she leaped onto rooftops, ran around, and roughhoused now, in the blink of an eye, had to be guarded against betraying her even when she merely got out of bed to walk.

The body that had been with her all her life was gradually becoming something unfamiliar. She was like a stiff wheel, turning more slowly with every revolution, powerless to reverse it.

"The emergency support system operates twenty-four hours a day, all year round," the social worker explained, worried she couldn't make out the print in the brochure. "Whatever the emergency, you just press it, and someone will come... Let me see. Oh, they guarantee no more than half an hour. There are participating hospitals nearby."

Mai Minghe took the brochure and looked at the pictures for a while.

She had scrimped and saved all her life, yet now money had suddenly lost its weight. Prices were merely curving symbols.

"This one, then," she said, pointing at the third model. "This one looks nicest. Like a necklace pendant."

The social worker chuckled. "All right. I'm sure it'll look lovely on you."

Although it looked different, she wore it as a necklace, too. She had worn it that way for years, but it wasn't until the thief went into the living room to make a call that she pressed the Life Alert for the first time.

The thief probably hadn't imagined that the "necklace" on her chest was an alarm. Young people and old people lived in two almost entirely separate worlds. Unless they needed to interact with the elderly frequently, few people knew what their lives were like, let alone the things they ordinarily saw and used.

Ever since she had asked the thief to find the poetry... she had tried everything she could and stalled him for more than ten minutes.

No one had come yet, but she couldn't hold on much longer.

For some reason, the cold tube defied gravity. Even without anyone holding it, it could stand straight up on her chest. The machine hummed, the poetry reading grew more and more distant, and she sank into wave after wave of dizzying darkness, deeper and deeper.

From the depths of the darkness, fragments of dreamlike hallucinations surfaced.

Strange. People said that when someone was dying, they would see their whole life's memories. Yet Mai Minghe saw only another version of herself, with a tube likewise connected to her chest, walking toward the television step by step before suddenly throwing herself at its screen.

Her own actions startled her, and she faintly heard a muffled sound inside her chest.

With her eyes half-open, hallucination overlapped with reality. Her hallucinatory self crashed into the old television in the corner again and again, and spiderweb cracks spread across its screen each time.

At last, a sharp demand shattered the hallucination. An unfamiliar, deep voice shouted, "What are you doing? Who are you?"

Mai Minghe gave a start and opened her eyes a little.

In her blurred vision, a glossy, inky-black tube stood on her chest, seemingly more alive than she was, pinning her heavily to the bed.

The next instant, the tube abruptly vanished.

The thief gripped the tube behind his back. Even in his panic, he had the presence of mind to counter the two people who had just burst into the bedroom. "Who are you? Why did you suddenly barge into my grandmother's house?"

Two people strode in through the doorway and switched on the light, driving away the night. The room blazed white, revealing a bedroom filled with decay, the smell of medicine, cracks in the walls, and the whirring of an oxygen machine.

Both wore blue-and-white uniforms. They were care workers.

"Your grandmother?"

The male care worker looked at Mai Minghe, then eyed the thief suspiciously. "Her? She's your grandmother?"

"I'm second-generation mixed-race. It isn't so obvious anymore." The thief seemed to realize the difference in their skin colors and races, too. He reacted quickly, immediately adding, "Look, I have black hair. Who are you?"

"We're emergency response care workers. We came because we received an alert and thought she had an emergency," another, female voice explained. "Our records say she lives alone."

The thief had regained his composure completely.

"Yes." He gently patted Mai Minghe's arm as though comforting her and told the care workers, "You responded promptly and got here very quickly. Thank you. But there's been a misunderstanding. I'm in Blackmoor City on business and staying with my grandmother temporarily. She's old and confused. She forgot I was here and probably mistook me for a stranger and pressed the alarm. She's fine."

The female care worker approached the bed, lifted Mai Minghe's eyelid to check it, and asked softly, "Ma'am, are you all right?"

Mai Minghe opened her mouth to say something, but only a wisp of air escaped her lips. The female care worker had seen plenty of such cases and wasn't surprised that she couldn't speak. She began listening to her heartbeat.

"Would you mind showing me some identification?" the male care worker asked the thief, still a little doubtful.

"No problem," the thief said. Right in front of the care workers, he openly kicked the black machine with its attached tube under Mai Minghe's bed, muttering, "Why is the vacuum cleaner here... Hang on. I'll get my wallet from the next room. My driver's license is in it."

She was now lying in a hospital-style care bed with four wheels. The space beneath it was empty, perfect for storing things.

"Oh, my phone." The thief had taken only two steps before turning back. He smiled at the female care worker, who was still examining Mai Minghe. "I completely forgot. Sometimes my grandmother gets scared for no reason. I have to play some poetry or music to calm her down."

The female care worker looked past Mai Minghe at the phone screen, and her expression relaxed another degree, softening considerably.

Mai Minghe thought, Who would believe that a thief who broke in to kill someone would play poetry for the homeowner? He looks much more like a good grandson.

Since she wasn't dead yet, that meant the thief hadn't successfully taken whatever was inside her, right?

Right. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be here pretending to be my grandson.

But if the care workers had arrived a few minutes later, he would have succeeded.

No one knew that death had just been sitting beside her, leaning over to gaze at her. She had never been so close to death, and this was the first time she had experienced a dying hallucination...

That's right, the television!

Even Mai Minghe herself hadn't expected that, the moment she recalled the hallucination, an impulse would suddenly rise from nowhere to roll off the bed and touch the television.

I have to get over there. I have to hurry over and look...

Driven by wave after wave of urgency inside her, Mai Minghe was so anxious she nearly cried out.

The pitch-black television screen had become the only thing in the world with any weight, pressing heavily into her field of vision and drawing her toward it. The room, the care workers, and the thief were little different from scraps of paper, seemingly about to float away.

Mai Minghe strained to raise her hand toward the television.

"Ma'am, what is it? What do you want?" Following her raised hand, the female care worker glanced back and asked, "Do you want to watch television?"

The door to the storage room next door opened and closed, just as though the thief really had gone inside to fetch something. He happened to return as the female care worker asked her question and handed his identification to the male care worker. After examining it, the latter's tone and manner were both more relaxed when he spoke again.

Mai Minghe made a sound of denial through her nose, her hand still pointing at the television.

"I'll turn it on for you." Although puzzled, the female care worker was kind enough to turn on the television without waiting for Mai Minghe's answer.

A daytime news commentary program was being rebroadcast. The host was going on and on about the sudden death of Blackmoor City tycoon Wei Xilai the day before, enumerating his business miracles and charitable endeavors.

"No... no." Mai Minghe finally managed to speak again, inwardly sighing with relief. Good, I can speak again. It looks like my strength is returning.

The thief shot her a quick glance.

Then he turned back to the male care worker and continued where he had left off. "...My grandmother is getting on in years. The more confused she gets, the more stubborn she becomes. She has no family in Blackmoor City who can take care of her..."

So young, and already spinning one lie after another.

Telling them that this man wasn't her grandson probably wouldn't help. An ordinary thief wouldn't stay at the scene to talk things out. From the care workers' perspective, rather than him looking like a thief, she looked more like someone with dementia.

Forget it. The television is more important than him now. More urgent.

"Help... help me over there." Mai Minghe pointed at the television and told the female care worker quietly, "Please."

The thief glanced at her again, then at the television.

Before he could speak, the male care worker's question caught his attention. "When we arrived, you were bent over holding a tube. What were you doing?"

"You don't have to go over there. You can watch television from here." The female care worker looked a little troubled.

The thief was explaining, "Grandmother cried out in the middle of the night. It woke me up, so I came to check and found the vacuum cleaner hose had fallen onto the bed."

"Please." Mai Minghe gripped the female care worker's hand tightly, staring into her brown eyes as she pleaded, "Help me over there, please. I... I want to sit over there for a while."

She was acting even more like a confused old woman.

"All right, I'll help you." The female care worker surrendered. "Can you get up?"

"Yes, yes."

The thief glanced at Mai Minghe again and, looking very concerned, volunteered to help support her, conveniently escaping the male care worker's questioning as well. "Grandmother, what do you want to go over there for? Just a quick look, then you have to come back to bed, all right?"

Mai Minghe ignored him. Such a nice-looking boy. What sort of things is he doing?

Supported by the two of them, she tottered over to the television. Half of her pale, ghostlike reflection floated on the screen, disappearing as the image switched to the Wei Family Manor.

She understood.

Mai Minghe thought, There really was a reason I had those hallucinations.

No wonder I was so desperate to come over here. Ah, I should have thought of it earlier. At this age, my mind isn't what it used to be.

"I'll get a chair," the female care worker said, letting go of Mai Minghe.

Only the thief was supporting her now. He held Mai Minghe's withered arm loosely, seemingly afraid to use any force.

"If everything's all right, we'll be going." Standing in the doorway, the male care worker asked the thief, "You can help her back into bed by yourself later, can't you?"

The thief sighed with relief. He nodded repeatedly. "Of course. Thank you for coming all this way..."

While he was speaking, Mai Minghe suddenly pulled her arm free and tipped backward, falling toward the television screen.

She should have realized it earlier. Her hallucination had been reminding her how to save herself.

If she fell onto the television in front of the care workers, they would have to take her to the hospital, no matter who the thief claimed to be, right? Once she was at the hospital, with so many people around watching, she would be safe.

In her peripheral vision, the thief whipped his head around, but he was a step too slow. It was too late. Mai Minghe heard the heavy, dull thud of her skull striking the television, followed by startled cries and footsteps in the room.

The female social worker seemed to shout something from very far away, but Mai Minghe didn't understand-

"Where did she go?"

I posted the first chapter yesterday, so it was a grand opening, of sorts (?), and all my family came to show their support. I was really so happy!

But I never expected to owe a new big spender a chapter right from the first chapter. Little Kitty Leaves a Paw Print, you've left far too many paw prints. I'd be a bit heartless not to post an extra chapter... Who could have imagined I'd already be in debt right after starting the book!

We're only two chapters in. There's no hurry to start lending me anything. Let's wait and see. What if it stops being good later? Qidian won't refund your tips, right?

The same goes for 95, Autumn Waters Untouched by Dust, Crosstalk Fujin, Wan Jin, Ying You, A Tree Named Chestnut in the West, 039 Chasing Nüwa?, Kafka, and everyone else. Are you all angel investors? I'm so overwhelmed...

To tell the truth, I started the book on the 12th, and I'm going on a long trip on the 14th... My little stockpile of chapters definitely won't survive the rigors of travel plus extra chapters for tips. I'll be tapping away on the plane again.

PS: I saw someone asking why this is on the men's channel when it's also in the female-lead feature. The editors have their reasons, too. A large portion of the readers on the men's channel are women who don't visit the women's channel, so the female-lead feature on the men's channel is meant to attract those readers. You could say it's funneling traffic to the women's channel and stealing readers (?) for it.

(End of chapter)