The man sitting on the rock slowly turned around. There was a sickly tiredness on his expressionless face. But when he noticed Ji Xun approaching, the movement of his eyes proved that he was awake. At least for the moment, he was neither in a drug-induced trance nor in a hallucination caused by an attack of illness.
That whole set of stories about boats and old people recently added a black-haired girl. Since his illness, Ji Xun has been paying close attention to the details in his delusions and trying to find their correspondence in reality. Jing Huang is obsessed with the sea. Maybe that's because a fragment of the past manifested itself in the house. In the near future, Ji Xun plans to find him a docile long-term pet and observe how it will appear in Jing Huang's narrative.
He left Toba outside the door while he walked through the waves and climbed up the wet rock. During this process, he tried to make his movements soft and steady, while his brother, who suffered from dissociation disease, always looked at him blankly.
Ji Xun is very familiar with the manifestations of this disease, because Jing Huang is neither the first nor the last. Compared with those patients in the late stages, Jing Huang's symptoms were quite mild and not aggressive, so he did not need to be reshaped.
He knew there were many more serious cases in the city. They get sick because they are too obsessed with the past in history or simply fabricated fantasies. Some people regard it as a simulation or role-playing game, and then become obsessed with their role all day long. Although they must be back before midnight, some seriously ill patients forget their identities. They still answered the questions well and went back to their rooms. But some patients are so irredeemable that they play roles that don't even make it past Q&A, and so have to move toward reinvention.
That was very rare, but Ji Xun still maintained a cautious attitude and tried to prevent Jing Huang's condition from deteriorating to that point. He still believes recovery is possible.
He climbed onto the rock and sat down next to Jing Huang. The other person frowned and looked at him, but said nothing. The hem of the light gray hospital gown was wet with sea water. Ji Xun speculated that he had been sitting here before the tide ebbed.
"This is the place you often dream about." He said in a gentle tone, "Is your ship also docked here?"
"Give it away." Jing Huang replied.
This is a new story. Ji Xun still maintained his convincing, harmless and concerned demeanor. He searched in his mind where this change came from.
"So," he said with a slight smile, "it looks like you can't wander anymore. Maybe you'll stay ashore longer this time?"
Jing Huang's black eyes turned to him. They look very similar and are about the same age. But in terms of appearance, Ji Xun is even smaller. That's because he ate a bird egg that grew in reverse. Toba accidentally mistaken it with the bird's egg that improves eyesight. Ji Xun was not in a hurry to correct this mistake. He wanted his body to grow slower. It was not without benefit, and when he looked smaller than Jing Huang in appearance, it seemed to slightly alleviate the patient's depression.
But that only helps a little. His younger brother still looked at him gloomily, as if there was an invisible layer of fog between them. A common symptom of dissociation, he thought, is that part of the patient's consciousness remains in the fragmented past.
"Who did you give the boat to?" he asked patiently, "that girl with black hair?"
Jing Huang shook his head and stared at the distant sea again. The boundary between water and sky is smoothed by clouds and mist. There are chaotic and dark currents everywhere. A dark water dragon rolled in the waves in the distance. Its cry mingled with the thunder from heaven. The strong wind blew from the sea to the land. Ji Xun held her hair and smoothed it behind her back.
"The ship has left." He said still slowly and restrainedly, "Perhaps you would like to talk to me for a few words?"
Jing Huang quickly turned his face back. He looked at Ji Xun, with the typical patient eyes, as if he was staring at Ji Xun's face, and as if he had already penetrated the skin in front of him, staring at some imaginary past.
"The time has not come yet," Jing Huang said.
Ji Xun calmly picked up a small piece of gravel and threw it into the waves. He'd gotten that answer countless times, but he wasn't disappointed. Healing injuries takes time. A disease caused by the past may take a lifetime to contend with. Fortunately they still have plenty of time - infinite time, to put it cunningly.
"No matter what," he promised, "I will always be here waiting."
Jing Huang shook his head again. For a moment, Ji Xun had a strange premonition. He felt that Jing Huang would open his mouth to persuade him to give up. But in fact, the other party said nothing, but was lost in the echoes of endless history alone.
Ji Xun sat with him on the rock for a while, mentally calculating the success rate of drug treatment. The conclusion is not optimistic, because strictly speaking, dissociation disease is not a disease, but more like a substitute for natural death. But that was too early for Jing Huang, who was still a child mentally. It would be wiser to hope for a natural recovery.
In just a few minutes, the sound of thunder gradually faded away, and the sound of tide also became quieter. Ji Xun looked at the ancient black dragons in the distance that had disappeared in a certain period of history. He knew that this was not the first time that Jing Huang looked back at this place, this gray sea that swallowed up a certain great city. Most of the city's inhabitants have been killed, and the rest have transformed into mindless ichthyosaurs, patrolling the ruins of their former homeland.
Jing Huang likes to review all kinds of seas. Once there was a colorful body of water. The clear blue water was filled with colorful crystal plants, and the flowers and fruits they produced were sweet and juicy. The fish in the sea are all docile, with golden-brown silky fins. The gorgeous and colorful sea quickly merged into Jing Huang’s fictional narrative. In that fantasy boat there is a gorgeous and gentle female passenger with golden brown passionate eyes. Beyond that there are cities made entirely of sugar, run by fish with gorgeous skins.
The darker tones of the sea create a shadowy girl. Jing Huang mentioned that she traveled through the colorless world. But that is an unfriendly character, perhaps because the dark sea is full of violent weather and dangerous undercurrents.
There is another sea area that Ji Xun has seen twice recently. Its water is emerald-colored, filled with algae rich in fluorescent proteins, and even the tides and waves are bright. But the animals in the water are extremely diverse. Some are crystal clear and extraordinarily beautiful, feeding on luminous algae; others are gray and ferocious, in order to facilitate hunting for meat. These two types of creatures often fight fiercely, causing blood waves to form on the sea surface. The unique artistic conception of this sea caught Ji Xun's attention, and he guessed that he would be able to find a counterpart in Jing Huang's fantasy soon.
Maybe he shouldn't let too intense elements enter Jing Huang's imagination. Ji Xun thought about it this way. He can put limits on the room's expressive power because he is the only fully capable person in the room. Jing Huang has become the center of his own imaginary world, and too many dangerous factors will poison the patient's physical and mental health. Those imaginations will also become part of the history, and although they are unlikely to be present in the house, they can still lead to worsening of the condition.
But he also looked at the problem from another perspective—that shock therapy might be beneficial in improving symptoms. He is planning to add a new character to Jing Huang's story, a character who can improve his gloomy temperament. If necessary, he will try to insert himself into the situation so that he can communicate within it.
They sat for a while longer, until Toba came to the foot of the ledge. It reminded them: "It is now two-quarters of an hour to midnight."
"Let's go." Ji Xun said. He stood up and handed his hand to Jing Huang. The patient stared blankly at his palm. He still persisted until Jing Huang reached out to him. He led the patient down the slippery rock surface, and Toba promptly spread a layer of soft, coal-black mushroom dough under their feet to prevent Jing Huang's feet from being cut by the gravel.
They walked through the door and walked together to the front hall.
