Chapter 7 Evening

The seventh day, evening.

"Dinner's ready." The caregiver outside the door knocked twice, then pushed the food tray in.

Feng Bujue silently went to the door, glanced at today's meal, picked up the tray, and went to the squat toilet.

He didn't rush into action. Instead, he first confirmed by sound that the caregiver outside the door had left, then took out the prepared toilet paper, wrapped up all the rice, and threw it into the drain.

Then, he returned to the door and began to eat.

Before long, he finished the rest of the food on the tray and placed the empty tray and utensils back behind the door.

So far…

Everything was going according to his plan…

Half an hour later, someone retrieved the utensils through the meal slot.

A little over an hour later, finally… accompanied by four "beep beep beep beep" sounds of the combination lock being pressed, the door to the ward opened.

At this moment, Feng Bujue was pretending to be asleep.

He chose to lie face down, burying his face as much as possible to avoid others seeing through his trick by the slight trembling of his eyelids.

Of course, normally, people wouldn't pay attention to such details unless there was a more obvious sign that made them suspicious.

"Should we turn him over?" A familiar voice sounded after a few seconds.

Jue-ge could tell that there were two people who entered the room, and the one speaking was the caregiver who often interacted with him.

"No need, just leave him like that." The voice that responded, Jue-ge also recognized; it was Doctor Yuan.

After a brief exchange, Doctor Yuan came to Jue-ge's side and sat down on the floor.

Seconds later, Feng Bujue felt… the other party raised his arm and wrapped something around it.

"They're taking my blood pressure…" Jue-ge made the correct assumption immediately.

Indeed, Doctor Yuan was doing just that; while busy with what he was doing, he chatted with the caregiver, "By the way, has 3232 had any abnormalities recently? Has he made any new violent moves?"

"Uh… not in terms of violence." The caregiver replied thoughtfully, "But there have been some abnormalities…"

"Oh?" Doctor Yuan looked up at the caregiver, gesturing with his eyes for the other to continue.

"These past few days, when I patrol his room, he often looks exhausted and out of breath, as if I interrupted him doing something very strenuous…" The caregiver wore a slightly pained expression as he replied, "And… recently he's been using toilet paper exceptionally fast." As he said this, he seemed afraid the doctor wouldn't understand his meaning, so he raised his right hand and made a "back and forth stroking" motion in the air.

"Heh…" Doctor Yuan chuckled, "That's all…" He shook his head, "Oh well… self-entertainment is better than causing us trouble."

"Hehe… yeah." The caregiver also laughed, "I just don't know… how this kid can play all day without even a magazine."

"His imagination is quite rich…" Doctor Yuan said, already finished taking the blood pressure, and picking up his hearing aid, directly listened to Jue-ge's breathing and heartbeat from his back, "... beyond the reach of us ordinary mortals."

In this joking atmosphere, the two casually completed this routine checkup.

Then, the two closed the door and left the ward.

Feng Bujue was a little worried that his heartbeat and breathing would expose his "pretending to be asleep", and he had deliberately tried to control them; but judging from the actual situation… he had worried too much.

For the doctors working here, as long as they measured the patient's blood pressure and confirmed that the other's breathing and heartbeat hadn't stopped, that was enough, no one would seriously diagnose anything.

In fact, if they could, they would really like to directly fabricate a high or low blood pressure value and fill it in on the form, and then fill in "normal" in the "heart rate" and "breathing" sections, so they could skip the checkup altogether.

"So… the sleeping pills are mainly put in to make these checkups easier to carry out…" Even though the doctor and caregiver had already left the room, Feng Bujue still maintained his sleeping posture and pondered, "In that case, it doesn't seem to matter if I eat the medicine…"

Here's an explanation – after several days of testing by dividing the meals, Feng Bujue had confirmed that the "ingredients" in the lunch and dinner were both mixed in the rice; after that, he planned tonight's "observation" to find out the specific situation after dinner.

"Hmm… but this is only one time, not enough to be a complete basis for judgment." Feng Bujue was cautious after all, "I'll observe for a month first, then draw a conclusion…"

…………

The twenty-third day, morning.

"Huff… alright, I'm pretty clear on it." When Feng Bujue came back to his senses from the "blackout", he sighed and said with a relieved expression.

Since Jue-ge could say such a thing, it meant… he was at least ninety percent sure that he had truly grasped the information he needed to investigate.

So, what exactly was this "information"?

The answer can be divided into two parts, first: the complete breakfast recipe.

This "complete recipe" doesn't refer to what the breakfast consisted of on "a certain day", but what the breakfast consisted of "every day".

In the past three weeks or so, Feng Bujue had been trying to record the types of food he ate each morning; even if some foods couldn't be stuck between his teeth, he would find a way to leave a trace.

For example… pretending to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, and taking the opportunity to get food residue on his sleeve, and then rolling up the sleeve of his patient gown to preserve the residue inside the rolled-up sleeve; similarly… the trouser leg could be used in the same way; and once, he even hid a small piece of *ci fan* (sticky rice ball) in his ear…

In short, in order to find out the situation of the "missing memory", Jue-ge could be said to have used every trick in the book. If he was pushed hard… he wouldn't rule out stuffing food into the rear of his body.

Fortunately… the supervision of breakfast time wasn't too strict, the caregivers just left him there and let him finish eating quickly, they weren't interested in watching Jue-ge the whole time… to see if he was stuffing food into his mouth or his nostrils. Therefore, Feng Bujue didn't need to resort to that final measure yet.

Next, let's talk about the second point: which food specifically contained the amnesia drug.

Obviously, to find out this information under the premise of "memory loss" was even more difficult than checking the recipes…

As mentioned earlier… Feng Bujue and the caregivers ate the same meals, the only difference was that his portion had the drug added.

And putting the drug in breakfast was different from putting the drug in lunch and dinner… the latter two, the drug was uniformly put in the rice, because no matter how picky the patient was, they would still eat a couple bites of plain rice; if there were a few extreme cases who didn't eat rice at all, the hospital would naturally take special measures.

But breakfast… was different.

Take Feng Bujue's *baozi* (steamed bun) and soy milk on the third day as an example. It wasn't difficult to figure out that "what he ate was *baozi* and soy milk". If there were ingredients he really couldn't figure out, he would forcibly stick his fingers down his throat to vomit it out, and then smell the flavor… he could probably tell what it was.

However, to find out "whether the drug was put in the *baozi* or the soy milk" wasn't something everyone could do.

Generally speaking, Feng Bujue used three methods to deal with this problem…

The first method – "time reasoning", this was an idea he had already thought of on the third day, that is, "to think about the order of eating in the morning of the day, and to judge which food was drugged according to the time node before the blackout". This trick was a relatively reliable method, and it was even more effective after knowing the "complete recipe".

The second method – "self-reserved information", this trick was simpler and more effective than the previous one, that is, "if, when eating, he has already judged through taste, smell, or sight which food was drugged, then he would directly use the 'leaving fingernail marks' method to mark below the food type on his leg which number he had eaten that was drugged". Similar to the first trick, after knowing the complete recipe, he could find the target very accurately using this trick.

Finally, the third method – "logical reasoning", there was nothing much to say about this, Feng Bujue also did this on the third day, that is, "according to the food he ate that day, he would simply judge by deduction which food was most reasonable for the drug to be put in". This trick usually couldn't be used as a complete basis for judgment, but it could be used as a supplementary basis and used in combination with the first two tricks.

In summary, Feng Bujue used these three methods to test out the "drugged food" in breakfast combinations including "*ci fan* balls with tofu brain", "flatbread with fried dough sticks and sweet soy milk", and "pancakes with salted vegetables".

Honestly… it wouldn't be easy to handle this even for someone who hadn't experienced memory loss; but Jue-ge only spent three cycles (the breakfast menu cycled every eight days) to find the truth from this "segment of memory that was erased every day", and he himself still thought that this progress was already slow…

"So… the next step is to find an opportunity to find out 'what happens during the time after breakfast'." After Feng Bujue went over the recipes in his mind, he decided on a suitable day and began to draft the plan for that day.

…………

The twenty-fifth day, the day to implement the plan arrived.

In the morning, Feng Bujue still left the room with the two caregivers at the usual time, and completed his washing at his usual speed (in order to better test the information on food and medicine, Feng Bujue controlled the time for washing very precisely every day).

Then, he was taken to a room of more than sixty square meters.

The room had good lighting, and there were many windows on the wall to the left after entering the door; although those windows were also fitted with metal bars without exception, the morning sunlight still poured in abundantly.

In the middle of the room, there were eight sets of special tables and chairs connected to the ground; Feng Bujue was led by two caregivers to one of the tables and sat down, then the caregivers fixed his waist in a ring-shaped metal hoop attached to the back of the chair.

The design of this thing was very clever, like a seatbelt tied around the waist that couldn't be removed; once fixed by this metal hoop, the person sitting in the chair couldn't stand up, and could only make limited movements with their upper body.

Not long after Jue-ge sat down, four more caregivers brought in two people wearing patient gowns like Jue-ge.

The one who came in first looked to be in his forties, with a buzz cut; although his figure looked quite thin, his eyes… seemed to be constantly telling the story of "I'm going to dismember you into eight pieces".

The one who came in later looked like a skeleton, walking unsteadily, with empty eyes, and constantly muttering words in his mouth.

Feng Bujue also listened carefully, and the one seemed to be repeatedly chanting words related to fingernails such as "square nails… round nails… flat nails… sharp nails…", which was really meaningless.

"This place should be specially provided for patients who are kept in solitary confinement…" Feng Bujue thought to himself as he sat there waiting, "Looking at these two… they are obviously not good people either…" Thinking of this, he thought again, "Heh… speaking of which, when I sit here every day, I'm probably thinking about the same thing as I am now… but I don't remember it afterwards."

After all three patients arrived, the six caregivers gathered together and chatted idly.

About five minutes later, a staff member wearing an apron came in from the door pushing a cart: "Alright, you guys come and serve the three masters their dishes."

After the staff member's joke, the caregivers went over one after another, brought three breakfasts to the table in front of the three patients, then… they gathered to the side and continued chatting.

Feng Bujue looked down, and today's breakfast was consistent with the information he knew – a bowl of *re gan mian* (hot dry noodles), plus a small bowl of clear soup.

Why choose to execute the plan today? The reason is that today's medicine… was put in the *re gan mian*.

Because the clear soup had a very light color and a very light taste, and the amount wasn't a lot; if the medicine was put in the soup, the taste would undoubtedly be more obvious, so… the medicine could only be put in the *re gan mian*.

What did the *re gan mian* look like? Simply put, a bowl of noodles, topped with a pile of sauce, and sprinkled with diced spicy radish, crushed peanuts, chopped green onions, pickled cowpeas, and other ingredients.

I believe everyone understands after seeing this… the powdered medicine was mixed in the thick sauce.

Normally speaking, *re gan mian* should be mixed before eating… this is common sense. Even if someone has never eaten it before, they will immediately understand this point when they see this bowl of noodles – it's unlikely that someone would deliberately separate the sauce and ingredients and eat the plain noodles underneath.

However, today's Jue-ge… was prepared to do just that.