Chapter 380: Transfer

"Number 8 is too dangerous; he must leave here. I have tried my best for 18 years to take care of him, and facts have proven that I truly cannot save him." Jia Yuanzhang sighed in his heart. After yet another riot by the hospital staff, he made a decision he had actually been prepared for long ago: he was going to transfer Number 8 to another place. That was the most unbreakable, strictly regulated, and inhumane place of confinement in the entire world, specifically designed to exile and detain those heinous and Abnormal individuals; mental patients were merely one type of person among those detained.

Jia Yuanzhang made this decision, feeling that he was truly left with no other choice; he had already done his utmost to discipline and tolerate Number 8, from when he was still young, all the way until now.

He contacted the place where Number 8 was about to go. The people on the other end had long since heard of Number 8 from the Mental Hospital under Jia Yuanzhang's administration and were quite clear about what kind of type and character Number 8 was.

Even the most formidable neuropsychiatrists in the contemporary world were at their wits' end with this subject. They did not doubt the "destructive power" Number 8 possessed in the slightest, nor did they dare to be arrogant, stating that they would prepare for a period of time and expected to send specialists to take over the transfer next week.

"Thank you for your hard work." Jia Yuanzhang sighed in his heart and hung up the phone. He turned the matter over in his mind, a trace of guilt lingering that he could not dispel.

Although those around him might not understand why he had such a profound obsession with Number 8, stubbornly guarding the most dangerous madman for 18 years, he knew that from the very first moment he saw Number 8, he had a feeling and desire to take care of the other person.

This was mostly because he had lost his son back then. Immersed in the pain of losing his child, he only vaguely felt that the Number 8 of that year looked exactly like the "son" who had crawled back from the deep valley of death.

Yes, Jia Yuanzhang was over seventy years old this year. From his appearance, he looked no different from any healthy elderly man in his fifties, let alone his state when he was in his fifties—he was almost no different from a robust man in his thirties or forties. However, he also had an unspeakable secret: he suffered from infertility and had never been able to have a child with his devoted wife.

In the blink of an eye, most of his life had passed. Time, like quicksand, had allowed the couple to bury that thorn in their hearts within the hourglass of time. Yet, unintentionally, they had actually conceived a child in their such late years.

This was both a source of anxiety and good news. With a single glance, the couple understood each other's thoughts, and they resolved to give birth to the child.

But there was a price to pay for the birth. They gave birth to a boy who was not very healthy, and after giving birth, Jia Yuanzhang's wife suffered from the ailments of an elderly mother; her body was no longer healthy. Before the couple could enjoy a few years of happy life with the child, his wife passed away.

Just like that, the child became the center of Jia Yuanzhang's life. He valued and loved his son deeply, doing his utmost to cultivate and dote on his only son, hoping he would become successful and satisfying his desires as much as possible. The child was also very promising; the young child was clever and intelligent, a child sought after by all the teachers and students at school.

Yet fate played a cruel trick. Jia Yuanzhang's only emotional anchor met with an accident. During a primary school spring outing, the cable car his son was riding malfunctioned. The cable car, traveling high in the air, suddenly detached from the cable, resulting in all the teachers, students, and tourists on the entire cable car losing their lives, including Jia Yuanzhang's son.

Jia Yuanzhang would never forget the scene of that accident. That cable car, which seemed not to have been severely damaged, was very sturdy, but the scene inside was already difficult to describe with weak and distorted words like "shocking" or "flesh and blood." It was a sea of flesh and blood, torn apart, indistinguishable, and turbid; the remains of every person were impossible to piece together.

During the time after losing his child, Jia Yuanzhang was always on the verge of a breakdown. He sealed off his emotions, let himself be immersed in work, completely avoided any social life, and could only fall asleep by taking medication.

Until one day, when Jia Yuanzhang was working overtime again and leaving the Mental Hospital late, he vaguely saw that thin, small shadow standing under the moonlight in the mountain scenery he would overlook from the corridor after coming out of his office.

Jia Yuanzhang rubbed his eyes in disbelief, observing repeatedly, and finally became convinced that a child had appeared in that dark, damp, snake-and-insect-ridden summer mountain forest at night.

When he first saw Number 8, Jia Yuanzhang was attracted by the other person's mechanical, stiff, and wooden young face. That emotionless and desireless expression allowed him, who had quite rich experience in dealing with mental and psychological illnesses, to confirm at the first moment that this was not a normal child. This child was very likely, just like the patients in his hospital, someone with huge problems in his brain and psychology.

Looking at such a child who had neither the desire to live nor the heart to die, completely like a puppet, Jia Yuanzhang thought of his own dead son. In a trance, he only felt that the figures of Number 8 and his son overlapped.

Thus, harboring his own selfish desires, he decided to detain Number 8 in this Mental Hospital. Even when Number 8 subsequently displayed various Abnormalities, he stubbornly withstood the pressure and did not let anyone transfer Number 8 to the place where he should have gone.

Jia Yuanzhang had once upheld a firm belief in this way and that, determined to transform Number 8's mental world into the likeness of a normal person's mental world, so that one day Number 8 could also leave this hospital and return to live in the big city.

But he was wrong again. Not only did Number 8's condition not improve with time, but it became increasingly insane as time passed.

Things having reached this point, Jia Yuanzhang could no longer withstand the pressure, and he regretted that he did not have enough ability to treat Number 8. Only then did he finally decide to send Number 8 away.

Switching the perspective to the present, after Jia Yuanzhang had contacted the place of confinement, he decided to talk to Number 8 alone, because he estimated that there might not be such an opportunity again in the future.

"Number 8, have you ever thought about your own name?" The thousands of words Jia Yuanzhang had thought of on the way here ultimately could not be spoken, and he asked this question out of the blue instead.

Whether it was following the mental patients or ordinary medical staff in the hospital to call him Laoba, or like now, maintaining a serious tone to call the other person by the code "8" he inherited, Jia Yuanzhang felt it was inappropriate.

Number 8 was leaving, and there might not be a chance to meet for a very long time, or perhaps this parting might even be for life.

He should at least give the child some memento.

Upon hearing this, Number 8 replied without turning his head: "A name? A proper kind of name? Then I really haven't thought about it."

Immediately, Jia Yuanzhang said: "Then why don't you think of one for yourself?"

Number 8 thought for a while. He wrote the number 8 on a piece of paper, then turned the written number horizontally; "8" became the "∞" symbol, symbolizing an infinite cycle and the endlessness of time.

However, Number 8 was not satisfied with this. Looking at the "∞" symbol for a long time, he suddenly had an idea. He split the symbol apart, and what immediately caught his eyes were two drawings that were nearly 0s.

"Hmm... I want to be called Lin Ling." Number 8 pondered deeply, and after a struggle, he finally had an answer.