Chapter 313: 309 Exhaustion

Heavy! So heavy!

Pain! So painful!

Ji Jian felt as if his eyelids were stitched together with glue, making them difficult to open. His whole body felt as if it had been filled with lead; he felt as though he were locked inside an oil drum filled with poured concrete, unable to move a muscle.

"Is, is a hangover really this miserable?" As soon as Ji Jian woke up, he felt parched. He struggled to get up, but immediately rolled off the bed. He crawled forward like a maggot, made his way to the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of mineral water, used all his strength to twist off the cap, and poured the water into his mouth like a bottomless pit.

He was like a survivor who had just trekked across the Gobi Desert, unwilling to let a single drop of moisture go to waste, treating it as the source of life.

Ji Jian stared at the ceiling, drenched in sweat as if he had just come out of the gym. He looked at the ceiling, yet the whole world seemed to be spinning around him. He muttered, "That's not right. I didn't drink that much yesterday, and I definitely didn't come back drunk... Oh no, did I drink fake alcohol?"

Thinking of this, Ji Jian hurriedly braced his body and crawled back to the bed to grab his phone, wanting to send a reminder to the colleagues he had dinner with last night and express concern for their physical state.

But when he unlocked his phone, he saw the screen showing that a video had finished playing. Ji Jian was momentarily stunned as a series of bloody, terrifying images flashed through his mind. His hand shook, and he dropped the phone onto the floor.

He clawed at his messy hair, every pore on his scalp trembling until it felt itchy and sweaty. He wore a look of terror. "What was that? What the hell did I experience last night..."

He could not recall the full memory, but the fragments he could remember were enough to plunge his spirit into a cold abyss, his body feeling as if it had fallen into an ice cellar, shivering all over.

"I... I must be sick." Ji Jian hurriedly climbed up from the floor, quickly used his phone to book an outpatient appointment, and rushed out to see a doctor.

As an excellent contemporary young wage slave, Ji Jian possessed a sound concept of health, which was: fear of death... If he felt sick, he would immediately go to see a doctor; not even the King of Heaven could stop him from seeking medical attention.

Ji Jian booked an internal medicine appointment, randomly picking a deputy chief physician's slot. The other doctors' slots had almost all been snatched up early in the morning, so he could only book wherever there was an opening; as long as he could get a consultation that day, it didn't matter.

One hour later, the preliminary results of Ji Jian's consultation came out.

Zeng Lao Zhongyi, with his graying beard, took Ji Jian's pulse. His expression was solemn and grave, and the time and space in the entire consultation room seemed to have frozen.

Ji Jian looked at the old doctor with anxiety, his back soaked with sweat. He wanted to speak but hesitated, wanting to ask but not daring to.

Zeng Lao Zhongyi glanced sideways at Ji Jian, his eyes revealing no emotion. He then lowered his head, appearing lost in thought. A moment later, he looked directly at Ji Jian and said with a very serious face, "Are you married?"

"... No."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Ji Jian's expression changed wildly. "... Doctor, is there something wrong with my kidneys?"

Zeng Lao Zhongyi coughed a few times, looking very serious. "Indeed, it is a bit serious."

Ji Jian instantly turned pale. "No... that shouldn't be. I... I am usually very restrained. Aside from staying up late, I rarely even touch alcohol, and I never smoke."

Hearing this, a trace of sympathy flashed in Zeng Lao Zhongyi's eyes. He then said meaningfully, "Don't be afraid. I will prescribe you a few doses of herbal medicine to regulate your body. Make sure to get plenty of rest. Once your vitality recovers, you must pay attention to maintaining some exercise to nourish your body."

Afterward, Zeng Lao Zhongyi gave Ji Jian a slip to go use the equipment for further testing, then told him to bring the test results back for a follow-up visit to reach a final diagnosis.

Thus, Ji Jian ran up and down the hospital. With all the back and forth, Ji Jian, who already felt exhausted and unwell, felt even more drained. Furthermore, after a round of tests, his already meager savings suffered further financial loss, making him groan inwardly in heartache.

During the follow-up, Ji Jian couldn't help but say to Zeng Lao Zhongyi, "Doctor, I've had a few terrifying nightmares recently. Does this have anything to do with... with my poor health?"

"It does. Only when your health is poor are you prone to nightmares. You should develop good sleep habits, watch fewer strange things, and don't stay up late. You will slowly get better. Oh, by the way, the prescription I gave you also has sedative and sleep-aiding effects, which will be beneficial for your situation and help you sleep better." Zeng Lao Zhongyi comforted him, typed away on the computer keyboard, clicked the mouse a few times, and printed two pages of prescriptions for Ji Jian. "Go on, young man."

Ji Jian remained silent. Recalling those overly realistic memory fragments, he felt that the dreams he had were not as simple as the doctor described, but he didn't dare to explain it directly; after all, he wasn't a doctor.

Carrying the bags of herbal medicine back home, Ji Jian couldn't hold himself up any longer the moment he saw the bed, and he collapsed onto it with a thud.

"So tired... so sleepy... I don't want to do anything, I'm too lazy to think about anything." Ji Jian could no longer restrain his fighting eyelids and closed them, throwing his body and mind into the endless darkness he saw after shutting his eyes.

When he woke up again, Ji Jian found that the sky had already turned dark. He had slept for over ten hours in the position he had collapsed in.

Although his chest felt stifled from sleeping face-down, Ji Jian felt his body was much lighter.

The soreness throughout his body was still there, but it wasn't as life-numbing as it had been during the day. Ji Jian rolled over, facing the ceiling, and felt a chill run through him. He vaguely felt that the ceiling was deforming again, as if some demons or monsters were about to escape from within it. That imagination appeared almost real before his eyes, as if it would truly manifest the next moment, which made him fearfully avert his gaze.

"Something must be wrong with me..." Ji Jian looked at the dim, dark sky outside the window, where the lights of a hundred families were shining bright, his heart feeling complicated.

After staring blankly for a while, Ji Jian got up to make himself a simple dinner: instant noodles with an egg and some greens, plus a can of luncheon meat. He dealt with dinner easily like this; his current body could not support him in making more elaborate dishes.

After finishing dinner, Ji Jian felt his physical strength had recovered a bit more. After taking a hot bath, he felt as if his disconnected body had almost returned.

Before going to sleep, Ji Jian drank a packet of the herbal medicine the doctor had prescribed. The bitter taste lingered after drinking the entire packet, and even rinsing his mouth couldn't alleviate it in the slightest; he could only wait for it to slowly dissipate over time.

Hiss!

It was already near midnight after finishing the medicine, yet at this moment, Ji Jian received a new message notification on his phone.

Ji Jian trembled violently as if electrocuted, shaking like chaff. He picked up his phone and saw the message that caught his eye: "The Sleep Aid Video blogger you follow has updated." His breathing became heavy, and his eyes emitted intense fear.

Ji Jian knew very well who the culprit was that had turned him into this state. The root of the problem, the starting point of the evil spirits... was the series of Sleep Aid Videos posted by this blogger.

Those Sleep Aid Videos were full of tangible Abnormalities!