Time device

The stairwell‍⁠‌​​‌‍‍​‌​‌​​‍‌⁠​​‌‍⁠‍‌ was also filled with people. Men and women, young and old, sat on the ground, occasionally scratching themselves as if at invisible lice.

The corridor only returned to silence when they reached the fourth floor.

An Yu walked down the length of the hallway, passing by the wards one by one.

In one room, an old man was erratically tapping the bed rail with his chopsticks, muttering vacantly, “One second, ten seconds, eight seconds…”

A hysterical scream came from the next room. A burly man was tearing at the festering sores on his feet. Several nurses held his limbs down, strapping him to the bed frame with restraints. The man bucked upwards on his back, making the entire bed frame jump on the floor. “Didn’t you say I was the one who tore my wounds open! I’ll tear them for you to see! Are you satisfied now!”

The sound of the iron rails crashing was startling. An and Lumen unconsciously quickened their pace. In the next room, a little girl with pigtails was practicing her smile in front of a mirror. She took a deep breath and abruptly stretched her mouth into a grin, letting out a “Hee,” but immediately after, the smile vanished from her innocent eyes. She stared blankly through the mirror at the people in the doorway.

An decisively turned around. As he walked, he forcefully tugged on his hood and smoothed down his sleeves.

An Yu watched everything from beginning to end, calmly observing the mentally disturbed patients—there was one counting grains of rice, another pressing his face against his broken skin to examine it, one lying on the floor writing in a diary, painfully recalling his past, and a “poet” loudly reciting just that one line, over and over.

As they reached the last door, Qin Zhilu asked, “What are your thoughts?”

“The super-aberrant’s behavioral logic is simple,” An Yu said, his eyes lowered to the ground. “The grocery store owner’s rope analogy was very apt. It plunders happy times and resets painful experiences. That thing hates everyone in District 34 equally.”

“Not everyone,” Lumen suddenly turned back to look at him. “Those people in the corridor queuing for the dermatology department, a few of them had injuries, but they had already scabbed over. Although everyone has lost their sense of time, not everyone has to endure additional torment.”

Qin Zhilu let out a soft “Mm.” “According to the information retrieval, the people who have developed severe mental derangement were all critical patients from the plague three months ago.”

An Yu confirmed, “The plague?”

“The seasonal plague in District 34. A wave hits every six to nine months on average. The last one was three months ago. With improved medical resources in the past year, very few people die from it anymore.”

An Yu hummed in understanding. “Did the Main City provide medical support?”

“Not entirely. The Main City was responsible for supplying medicine, but the key was an old doctor in District 34. He had figured out how to handle it and could quickly prescribe the right treatment even when the pathogen mutated.” Qin Zhilu paused, tapping his keyboard twice. “That doctor is in the room right in front of you. He was the first person to be hospitalized for mental abnormality.”

It was quiet on the other side of the door.

In this unnerving corridor, a room that was too quiet was easy to forget. If Qin Zhilu hadn’t mentioned it, An Yu would have almost missed it too.

An Yu glanced through the glass window. This was the only patient who was properly wearing his hospital gown. His hair was gray, and his back was slightly hunched. He sat on the bed, staring blankly out the window.

An Yu asked, “What is his condition?”

Qin Zhilu browsed through the files. “He came to the hospital on his own. He said he felt he was losing his mind and hoped to live here for the rest of his life to recuperate.”

Flame sneered. “Sounds like he’s faking it.”

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An Yu glanced at Ning. Ning squatted down in front of the old man and looked up with a smile. “Are you Doctor Lao?”

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A nurse came in to deliver a meal. Yan asked, “Has he been chanting like this the whole time?”

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There was no trace of confusion in his sunken eyes; on the contrary, he seemed more lucid than most of the people An Yu had seen in District 34.

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The nurse shook her head. “He doesn’t want chopsticks, says they’re too sharp. He doesn’t want metal spoons either, only wooden ones.”

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Flame stared at Doctor Lao. “It seems you’ve found yourself a sanctuary for the latter half of your life in advance. Did you know what was going to happen in District 34 all along?”

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He froze for an instant. The air in the ward seemed to ripple slightly. He looked at his hand in astonishment and then, staring at the empty bedsheet, cried out frantically, “Where are my things!”

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An’s head suddenly jutted forward unnaturally, as if something had struck him on the back of the head.

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The moment they were outside, An yanked off his hood in frustration. His white hair was a mess. He stared resentfully at An Yu. “Take it out!”

“Don’t be angry,” An Yu placated. “I was going to fold it into my pocket, but the pockets on these clothes the Commander bought are very thin, and the outline would have shown.”

As he spoke, he reached into An’s hood and fished out a heavy object.

An Yu opened his palm. It was an old-fashioned metal pocket watch. The round brass face was mottled with rust, attached to a delicate chain. It was old but exquisite, possessing a unique character under the dim streetlight.

But its hands had stopped.

An froze for a second after seeing it. Ning said in surprise, “This is the first time-keeping device we’ve seen in District 34, even though it’s not working either.”

Lumen merely glanced at it. “Solid copper? No wonder An’s neck almost snapped just now.”

An immediately shot another hateful glare straight at An Yu.

To block out his anger, An Yu also pulled his hood over his head and flipped the watch over.

On the back was a small merchandise tag with “Antique Pocket Watch” and “540 yuan” handwritten on it. Below was the printed logo of “Zhong’s Antiques.”

The recording drone circled around it twice. Qin Zhilu explained in the channel, “Zhong’s Antiques is a small shop in District 34 that buys and sells old items. The Zhong family has run it for several generations, tracing back a hundred years. When human society was still functioning normally, business was quite good, but now no one goes there anymore. The Zhong family members died one after another due to aberration disasters. The last generation’s owner was named Zhong Ke.” He paused to continue his search. “Unfortunately, while the city-wide infection rate in the last plague was as high as 60%, only about twenty people died. He was one of them.”

A woman leading her daughter came out of the back door. Judging by their clothes, they seemed to be from a wealthy family.

The little girl was scratching her arm while shaking a small, radio-like box. A piercing music emanated from it, making it impossible to tell if it was a human voice or electronic synthesis. The music switched back and forth between different speeds, completely distorted.

An’s brow furrowed tightly as he stared at the ear-splitting machine. Lumen also tensed up for a moment before he couldn’t take it anymore, saying irritably, “What is going on?”

Only An Yu was calm. He rarely listened to music and didn’t have much of an aesthetic sense for it. He tried listening for a bit and felt that the distorted voice sounded somewhat familiar.

A few seconds later, he looked at Lumen in surprise. “Can you say something else?”

Lumen’s face was a mask of indifference.

Flame stepped forward and glared down at the little girl. “What did you do to this song?”

The little girl slowly raised her head. Her gaze traveled upward, and upon seeing his tattoo-covered arms, she immediately hid behind her mother.

The woman said warily, “What do you want?”

“This is a song I like very much,” Yan explained. “But it has been completely ruined.”

The woman hugged her daughter, turned, and walked away, spitting back over her shoulder as she quickened her pace, “What’s wrong with you? Isn’t all music a chaotic mess like this nowadays?”

An Yu asked a few more people and learned that all the audio and video that the people of District 34 encountered daily had the same anomaly: a distorted rhythm. It was likely another way for the super-aberrant to disrupt their perception.