Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 100 Ninety-Nine: Mid-Term
Su Ge approached Ruan Qiuheng's illegal clinic, where the Buddha and Bodhisattva statues on the wall gazed down at passersby.

This place is always teeming with patients. The dim light is thick with the smells of rusting metal and evaporating sweat. Against the backdrop of graffiti painted with crimson flames and a deep blue sky, these deformed lives resemble the lowest demons in the six realms of existence. Yet, they seem more excited than usual, somewhat mitigating the deathly atmosphere.

"You need to use some good medicine." The intern was examining a patient's shoulder at the door. "This illness will only get worse if you delay."

"I don't have much money," the patient said pitifully, his voice tinged with a hint of defensiveness.

"We just got a new narrow-spectrum antibiotic in the store; it's incredibly effective against iron-bacterial infections." The intern hesitated for a moment, then stated the lowest price within his authority: "One hundred and thirty-two yuan a box, one tablet every six to eight hours..."

“It’s too expensive.” The patient interrupted him. “I heard they’re distributing medicine over there for free.” He seemed reluctant to disturb others, speaking very softly and emphasizing only the word “free.”

Suger took a deep breath; the atmosphere here made his chest feel tight. He took out an aluminum medicine box and lit the last dose of inhibitor. The intern looked up, released the patient's shoulder, and stood up. "This way."

Suger nodded to him and went into the examination room. Ruan Qiuheng sat among a pile of prosthetics, her blue compound eyes examining a prosthetic hand painted with blue and white porcelain. Surrounded by those bionic limbs and eyeballs, she looked more like a butcher.

"How are you feeling lately?"

“Is there a more effective drug?” Soger countered, his voice completely altered through the holographic mask. As he spoke, he inhaled a dose of suppressant; a cool sensation spread from his respiratory tract, reaching deep into his brain, making him exceptionally clear-headed. But after the coolness subsided, a dull ache rose in his head. It felt like chewing a mint and then gulping down several mouthfuls of ice water; his body sent out clear signals of resistance.

"Has your condition worsened?" Ruan Qiuheng looked Su Ge up and down.

Socrates didn't speak. He coughed lightly, removed the inhibitor with his finger, and pressed it into the glass jar on the table. Looking down, he saw the reflection on the glass—some colorful images. This made him momentarily disoriented. This was the first time he had experienced such obvious symptoms after taking the medication.

“You are quite ill,” Ruan Qiuheng said.

Su Ge snapped out of his daze and realized that the colorful images were reflections from the nearby advertisement. He breathed a sigh of relief, looked at Ruan Qiuheng, but did not deny it.

"Let's do a scan first."

Ruan Qiuheng turned his head slightly, and Su Ge walked into the room on the left and skillfully sat down in the scanner.

A milky-white seat enveloped his body, and countless suspended microelectrodes covered his scalp.

He used the method of meditation to try to calm his mind. He had been somewhat inexplicably restless and unable to calm his mind. The glaring yet cold white light from the ceiling seeped into the gaps between his slightly closed eyelids, but it helped him visualize a bright moon.

The moon hung high in the sky, bright and cold. The tides surged in the darkness. He heard a faint hum, and a massive shadow rose from the darkness. Blue bioluminescence mingled with seawater flowed down its surface, outlining its enormous body crawling with barnacles and shipworms. Through the shellfish reflecting the cold moonlight, he could glimpse its hard, smooth, metallic shell…

Just as he was about to see the true form of this imaginary creation, the buzzing stopped.

The microelectrode disconnected, and Suger's head suddenly felt lighter. His scalp felt a little numb and itchy. He looked up at the light and breathed a sigh of relief.

When Su Ge left the room, Ruan Qiuheng and Chiba Ryoko were talking to a holographic projection of a brain.

“This is the last course of treatment,” Ruan Qiuheng said. “You won’t need to come back after this.”

“You are the best doctor here.” Chiba Ryoko deliberately avoided saying “black doctor”.

“Even the best doctor needs the patient’s cooperation in treatment.” Ruan Qiuheng turned his head and looked at Su Ge, who was walking out of the room. “Moreover, the conditions here are limited.”

Socrates approached the holographic projection of the brain. Some bright red veins spread between the folds of the cortex, looking alarming; these were locations of abnormal nerve potentials. He didn't understand modern medicine, but the red area was clearly larger than before.

"How is the situation?" he asked.

“You’re starting to lose sight of reality and illusion,” Ruan Qiuheng said.

“I can tell the difference.” As he said this, Suger recalled the reflection on the glass earlier.

“The symptoms of phallus disorder are beginning to enter the middle stage.” Ruan Qiuheng ignored Su Ge’s words. “In the early stages, only some neural circuits are affected, but it quickly affects mental health.” “You mean I’m about to go from being a neurotic to a psychotic?”

"The two are mixed together."

"I am mentally sound, I am very certain of that."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later." Ruan Qiuheng's tone was tinged with pity, not for Su Ge's illness, but for his stubbornness. She had seen this kind of foolish stubbornness in too many patients.

“The ‘fleeting light’ you often see will become more and more concrete, even accompanying you like a real person,” she said.

These words stirred a ripple in Su Ge's heart, and in that ripple, he saw the shattered image of Shen Ke. A terrible conjecture arose: could Shen Ke be just a hallucination? He looked to his side and saw Chiba Ryoko, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"Have you experienced phantom limbs recently?" Ruan Qiuheng asked again.

Suger shook his head, the words of denial stuck in his throat, but he only managed to say, "I'm not sure."

"Give."

Ruan Qiuheng took the prosthetic arm from the table and handed it to Su Ge.

Suger instinctively accepted it.

"What?"

“Not bad.” Ruan Qiuheng observed Su Ge’s movements. “At least you didn’t catch it with your imaginary phantom limb.”

“How is that possible?” Sog found it somewhat ridiculous.

“There was a patient who was completely paralyzed and unable to move, but the functions of his limbs were all intact. What trapped him were phantom limbs, dozens of phantom limbs. He could clearly control these limbs, but he couldn’t move them. This was a patient in the middle stage of levitation,” Ruan Qiuheng said coldly. “There was another patient, also in the middle stage of levitation, whose condition had been stable for six months, but one day he jumped off a building. From the replay of his death, he suddenly felt that he had grown a pair of wings that did not exist.”

Su Ge didn't speak, and some images flashed through his mind. He was standing on a ventilation duct high in the sky, jumping to the rooftop on the other side, a distance of more than ten meters. However, at the moment he took the leap, he suddenly realized that he wasn't wearing the Gu Diao armor.

“How can we prevent this from happening?” he asked.

“I can’t cure your illness,” Ruan Qiuheng said. “I already said that…”

“Each course of treatment costs 3,200,” Chiba Ryoko said. “The reason we came to you is because you’re not a gossip, Dr. Ruan.”

Ruan Qiuheng and Chiba Ryoko looked at each other for two seconds, then shook their heads and looked at Su Ge.

"I can only say I'll try my best to help you control it."

She went into the pharmacy, and a moment later, she placed the refilled aluminum medicine box in front of Suger.

“We added some new drugs that can inhibit the formation of new neural circuits.” She paused, “and the effects are very strong.”

"Are there any side effects?"

Suger picked up the medicine box and put it in his pocket.

Ruan Qiuheng's answer made his arm stiffen slightly.

“Brain atrophy,” she said.

(End of this chapter)