# 124
Chapter 124: Jellyfishing
Under Merlin’s barrage of brainwashing, both Lin Qiye and Li Yifei were left dumbstruck.
“You mean… the world we live in isn’t real?” Lin Qiye’s expression turned odd.
“Correct.”
“Do you have proof?”
“All of us myths suddenly appearing in your world—what better evidence could there be?”
“…” Lin Qiye rubbed the corners of his eyes; for a moment he felt Merlin actually made a little sense.
“But if our world is fake, does that make us fake too?” Li Yifei couldn’t help asking.
“Exactly.” Merlin nodded matter-of-factly.
“Then how can a fake being like you question the world’s authenticity?” Li Yifei paused. “Like you just said: fish don’t doubt creatures beyond the ocean, 2-D beings don’t doubt anything outside the plane… So the instant you start questioning whether this world is false, doesn’t that mean your existence itself… can’t be fake?”
The words struck Merlin like lightning; he fossilized on the spot.
Lin Qiye’s gaze at Li Yifei changed instantly.
“You know philosophy?” he whispered.
“Nah, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.” Li Yifei scratched his head.
Lin Qiye gave him a meaningful look, then turned back to Merlin. “You claim you’re a scholar hunting the real world—did you ever find it?”
Light flashed again in Merlin’s eyes!
“Found it!” he declared. “Ages ago I used magic to contact a mysterious plane. I don’t know where it is, but I sensed it—the real world!”
“What’s it like?”
“Seems to be under the sea: little houses of every kind—pineapple-shaped, human-head-shaped, shops selling weird food, and a strange yellow square…”
As he recalled, his eyes bulged wider and wider; his body began to twitch…
Lin Qiye frowned, realizing something was off, and quietly stepped back half a pace with Li Yifei.
“The real world… I saw the real world!!” Merlin flailed in ecstasy, calm intellect gone, replaced by a bizarre madness.
His body twisted violently; moments later he turned into a pink starfish.
He grabbed his staff beside the chair—it became a fishing net—and scampered to Lin Qiye, dancing in circles.
“SpongeBob!!
Let’s go jellyfishing!”
Patrick-Star-Merlin orbited Lin Qiye a few times, then dashed out of the ward, sprinting across the yard, hopping and swinging the net at invisible prey.
Suddenly he spotted Nyx dozing in a rocking chair…
“Plankton! Plankton! You’re here too?” Patrick-Star-Merlin chirped, bouncing over.
Nyx blinked, stared at the pink blob, and fell into deep thought…
After a moment she tremblingly opened her arms, hugged him to her bosom and tearfully cried:
“You… you’re also my grandson?!”
“Plankton!!”
“Grandson!”
“Plankton!!”
“Grandson, Grandma’s here!”
“…”
From the second-floor window the two spectators…
Lin Qiye: (?????)？
Li Yifei: (?????)
“I think I now know what his illness is…” Lin Qiye murmured, watching the scene.
“How to put it…” Li Yifei scratched his head, “in a weird way… it’s actually kind of touching.”
Lin Qiye adjusted his plain-lens glasses and spoke in a doctor’s tone:
“In his long search, the ‘real world’ became Merlin’s inner demon. To find it he cast prophecy after prophecy, until some odd array finally connected to that so-called real world and projected his consciousness there…
Whether that place is truly real I can’t say, but it definitely warped his mind, ending in psychosis.”
“So what do we do?” Li Yifei’s head hurt.
“…No idea.” Lin Qiye shook his head. He wasn’t a real psychiatrist; he could deduce the course but hadn’t a clue about treatment.
Another trip to Sunshine Psychiatric Hospital and pull the same stunt? But it’s New Year’s—psych wards take holidays too.
“As long as no one mentions the real world he stays fairly normal; this episode should be short-term… First let’s sedate him and see if he reverts—he’s too wild like this.”
“Who goes?”
“Take a guess.”
“…”
A certain exploited orderly sighed and trudged to the pharmacy.
Half an hour later Li Yifei was chasing Patrick-Star-Merlin around the yard with a huge syringe, Nyx trotting behind shouting:
“Little Fei! That’s your brother—don’t be so rough!”
After much running Li Yifei finally jabbed the sedative; Merlin calmed, morphed back to human, wobbled, and plopped down.
Li Yifei collapsed too, gasping.
“This job… is freaking exhausting!”
Lin Qiye checked Merlin—just drowsy, no danger. The fits were brief; as long as the “real world” stayed unmentioned he could communicate fine. Treatment could wait.
He patted Li Yifei’s shoulder. “Look after them; I’m off.”
Under Li Yifei’s resentful stare he vanished through the asylum gate.
……
Dawn.
Lin Qiye woke, glanced outside—everything had turned silver-white.
“It snowed that hard last night?” he muttered, stepping to the window.
Streets lay buried; flakes still drifted, melting at the panes. Heavy snow was rare in Cangnan.
As he turned to wash, he paused, eyed the corner, and gave a soft exclamation.
A small gray mouse lay there, motionless.