Chapter 376: The Patient Named 8

Hearing the voice of the person outside cursing loudly, Laoba hunched his shoulders and shut his mouth, walking forward cautiously; quietly, and trying his best not to make a sound, he arrived at the door and pressed his eyes against the gap in the door's bars to look.

Outside was empty, dark, gloomy, and damp, filled with the fishy smell of algae and soil; from this moment on, it was as if the environment, Laoba's heartbeat, and his breathing were all in sync, completely merged together, and for a moment, one could not tell if it was Laoba gasping or if the silent night had the breath of life.

"Tsk." Laoba rolled his eyes at the outside, then suddenly changed his expression and said eerily: "Hehe, it's as if you aren't just something I'm talking to myself about."

Tap! Creak—

The locked door was suddenly opened; the door moved without wind and was pushed inward.

Laoba grinned and nodded at the empty, gloomy corridor in front of him, said "Thanks again," and then ran and skipped away from his dark and cramped room.

Clang—Clang—Clang—

The bell rang with its usual regularity; the tone produced by every strike was astonishingly consistent, without the slightest deviation.

Laoba acted as if he didn't hear the sound; even as he gradually walked from the trapped basement up to the ground floor, and the bell ringing in his ears became increasingly deafening, he remained completely unaffected, turning a deaf ear to it.

"How on earth did he get out?" The white-haired old man looked at the surveillance feed on the monitor, dumbfounded; he incredulously pushed up his glasses that had slid down to the bridge of his nose and shook his head, "I've watched it back three or four times, and I still don't understand how he opened a door that has no internal keyhole."

The old man was wearing a white coat, and pinned to the coat was a bright, exquisite badge stating his name and his position: Dean—Jia Zhengping.

He was the Dean of this Mental Hospital located in the suburbs outside the bustling city, having been in the profession for nearly forty years; the young man in the video recorded by the electronic eye was someone he had watched grow up, and a full 18 years had passed since the other party inexplicably entered the Mental Hospital.

Because he had lost his memory, there was no name to call him by, but since he had put on the psychiatric uniform of the original patient number 8 who had just died, the surrounding patients saw him and thought the original patient number 8 had been rejuvenated, so they still referred to the boy as "8"; the boy seemed not to resist and accepted this title, and in fact, was dissatisfied with any other form of address, so the other staff in the Mental Hospital simply called him 8.

He was estimated to be a 6-year-old child back then; time flew, and he had now grown into a young man, but the illness that had afflicted the boy showed no signs of improvement, but rather intensified with each passing day; before anyone knew it, the old had gone and the new had come, and 8 had become an "old-timer" in the Mental Hospital, so the other patients in the Mental Hospital simply called him Laoba, and the staff followed suit, calling him that just as they had back then.

When Jia Yuanzhang first saw 8, the shock and pity in his heart were visible to the naked eye.

A boy of about 6 years old exhibited extremely strong symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders; Jia Yuanzhang truly found it hard to imagine what kind of parents this boy had, or what kind of environment he had grown up in.

Thus, Jia Yuanzhang paid special attention to Laoba, not for any other reason, but purely out of the pity in his heart.

But of course, as a normal adult human, feeling heartache and caring for a sick human cub is a moral instinct, but at the same time, as a psychiatrist, he knew very well that this pity must be kept in check, especially for a type of patient like Laoba; getting along with them is like touching a sharp, gleaming blade—you never know when you will be cut by him, and in serious cases, it could cause irreparable harm.

Jia Yuanzhang tried to get along with the young Laoba at the time, but he soon discovered the boy's terrifying talent in terms of being a "patient," with the two characters for "patient" being separated.

First, looking at his talent as a human, Laoba had an extremely strong learning ability; it took him less than a week from not being able to speak to being able to express himself fluently, but keep in mind that this fluent expression refers to being able to speak in twelve different languages; at the same time, it took him less than a year to complete the content of a normal human child's nine-year compulsory education, and he even had spare time to expand into high school knowledge.

Another year later, he was already able to discuss professional fields with excellent university students.

Half a year later, he could even engage in fierce debates with master's degree students in their professional fields and compete with them.

Another half a year later, the height of his knowledge was no longer something an ordinary talented person could reach; he even disdained to argue, because he was definitely right, and if he was wrong, then it must be the other person who was wrong.

Sometimes Jia Yuanzhang also felt deep sorrow for this; such human talent was actually a mental patient, and to such a severe degree, which brings us to the next point: the other party's talent in terms of "illness."

He had no emotions; to be precise, he did not have normal human emotional feelings; although he had emotional fluctuations, they were almost negligible; when he first came to the Mental Hospital, Laoba was as cold as a doll.

But a month later, Jia Yuanzhang was horrified to discover that he had learned to imitate human expressions; by observing the expressions and actions of the people around him, the other party would actively learn and absorb them; although sometimes the imitation was too stiff and mechanical, almost like rote copying, after a few rounds of attempts, he was already able to use expressions extremely skillfully; as long as one didn't observe closely, it was hard to notice the unnaturalness of his facial movements.

Relying on this imitation skill of his, he successfully deceived many people; even though some knew that Laoba was a typical patient with antisocial personality disorder, they still couldn't help but treat him as a normal person, especially when he was just a child, which made it even easier for people to feel compassion for him.

Jia Yuanzhang discovered that Laoba had a tendency to intentionally hurt others and liked to incite and induce others to lose control and go crazy, performing irrational acts.

And he was simply too good at disguising himself; combined with the knowledge he had absorbed, he could basically disguise himself completely as a knowledgeable ordinary person; those test questions used to measure his intelligence and the severity of his mental illness became meaningless; he could fully guess the test-maker's line of thought, and therefore could often give a test score that only a "normal person" could achieve; most of the time when he instigated trouble, he could often keep himself out of it and watch the fire from the other side.

If it weren't for the fact that Jia Yuanzhang had watched Laoba grow up and had never left his position as Dean of this Mental Hospital, Laoba would likely have been released back into society as a "normal person" to wreak havoc on the world.

However, Laoba's talent could only be considered a bizarre part of him; there were other, even more peculiar things about him.

Wherever he was, there would always be phenomena that current human science could not explain at all.