Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Wen Yan closed his eyes again and focused his mental energy on the direction of the signal.

The accuracy of wide-area perception drops significantly at such a distance, only receiving blurry emotional outlines, and failing to see specific images and sounds clearly.

He needs to be closer.

Wen Yan put on his coat, pushed open the door, and walked into the corridor.

The hotel was quiet late at night, and he was the only person in the elevator.

He pressed the button for his floor in the lobby and, while the elevator was descending, used his phone to book a ticket for the next train to the city where the signal was located.

The destination name pops up on the booking page on the phone screen.

Shanyang City.

He had heard of this city.

The westernmost prefecture-level city in Jeolla Province ranks at the bottom of the province's economy. Its main industries are coal mining and chemical plants, and the smog is so severe that the sky is obscured for half the year.

But I've only heard about it.

The elevator doors opened, and he walked out of the hotel lobby, hailing a taxi to the train station.

In the early morning, the streets of Zhaoming City were almost deserted. Streetlights illuminated the empty streets, and occasionally a garbage truck would slowly drive by.

Wen Yan sat in the back seat of the taxi, looking at the blank seed of soul in his spiritual world.

The seed rolled, like a glass ball waiting to be colored.

He could feel the emotional signal from hundreds of kilometers away becoming clearer and clearer, and as he actively locked onto the target, the signal strength began to gradually increase.

That was a person.

A person who is experiencing some kind of extreme pain.

When the taxi arrived at the station, Wen Yan swiped his ticket to enter and boarded the slow train bound for Shanyang City at 3 a.m.

The train traveled slowly, passing through large abandoned coal mining areas and chemical plants that had been shut down for many years. The wild grass on both sides of the tracks was taller than a person.

There were only a few passengers scattered around the carriage, all of them dozing off.

Wen Yan leaned against the car window, keeping a close eye on the signal.

The signal began to strengthen dramatically two hours after the train started moving.

Because the target individual's emotions are experiencing some kind of intense fluctuation.

Despair turned into anger.

Anger turned into pain.

From pain, one falls into even deeper despair.

Like riding a roller coaster, it goes up and down, with each rise and fall more intense than the last.

Wen Yan understood.

He was very familiar with the frequency of this fluctuation.

Everyone who is driven to the brink of despair goes through this process.

First they tried to resist, then they were suppressed, then they resisted again, then they were suppressed again, until finally they found that all their ways out were blocked.

The final plunge in emotional fluctuations is often the moment when the seed is most easily accepted.

As dawn approached, the train finally pulled into Shanyang City Station.

Wen Yan got out of the car. The sky over Shanyang City was hazy, and there was a faint smell of sulfur in the air.

He hailed a car without specifying his destination, simply instructing the driver to head towards the city center.

The car bumped along the potholed road. Wen Yan closed his eyes and concentrated his mental energy to the limit.

Target locked.

The Third Mental Illness Prevention and Treatment Center of Shanyang City.

He gave the address to the driver, and the car turned a corner and headed towards the northern suburbs of the city.

The Third Mental Illness Prevention and Treatment Center is located in the northernmost part of Sanyang City, nestled against the mountains and surrounded by an abandoned mining area. The nearest residential area is two kilometers away.

The hospital's exterior walls were painted a ghastly white, the iron gates were rusty, and a uniformed security guard was sleeping on a table in the guardhouse.

Wen Yan asked the driver to stop on the hillside opposite the hospital, paid the fare, and got out of the car.

As dawn broke, the hillside was covered with waist-high wild grass, and dew soaked his trouser legs.

He found a relatively flat rock to sit on, and looked past the iron gate and the wall towards a building deep inside the mental hospital.

The old three-story building had mottled walls and iron bars welded to all the windows, with a few windows illuminated by stark white fluorescent lights.

The target is in that building.

Wen Yan closed his eyes and transformed his mental energy into an extremely fine thread, passing through the iron gate, the wall, the corridor, and the walls, precisely probing into the last ward on the second floor of that building.

Then he saw that person.

a woman.

In the corner of the ward, a woman was curled up on a metal bed frame, wearing a blue and white striped hospital gown.

She was in her early thirties. She might have been a gentle-looking person, but now her cheekbones were high, her eyes were sunken, her skin was sallow, her lips were dry and cracked, and a few strands of dry yellow hair were stuck to her forehead. She looked like a flower that had been trampled into the mud.

Her wrists and ankles were tied to the bed frame with wide canvas restraints that were tied very tightly. The edges of the straps had chafed her skin, revealing the red, swollen, and inflamed flesh underneath.

The woman's eyes were open.

Those were eyes that you could never forget after just one look.

His eyes were bloodshot, the whites of his eyes had turned a cloudy yellow, and his pupils were dilated.

His eyes were clear.

She's not crazy.

The owner of those eyes was more clear-headed than anyone else.

Wen Yan pierced her consciousness with his mental energy.

The mental hospital was eerily quiet at 5:30 a.m., with only the occasional footsteps in the corridor and the low sobs of a patient in a distant ward.

The woman lay in bed, staring at the constantly flashing fluorescent light on the ceiling, her mind replaying certain images.

Wen Yan closed his eyes and took over her perspective.

------

Li Su lay on the hospital bed, staring at the water stain on the ceiling.

The water stain is shaped like an open palm, with yellow mold spots around the edges.

She had been staring at this water stain for two whole weeks.

The water stain has been there since the first day she was put in this hospital room.

Two weeks.

Fourteen days.

Three hundred and thirty-six hours.

She was conscious for less and less time.

Chlorpromazine felt like a thick fog, completely enveloping her mind.

Thoughts become slow, memories become fragmented, and even anger and fear become dull and distant.

But she remembers everything.

She must remember.

Because if she forgets, her child's death will have been in vain.

Her husband died in vain.

The intern who spoke the truth for her died in vain.

She can't forget.

------

Six months ago.

Delivery room, obstetrics and gynecology department, Shanyang City First People's Hospital.

"It's a boy! Weighing 7.2 pounds, mother and child are both safe!"

The midwife's voice came from the delivery room. Zhao Yuan, who was sitting on a bench in the corridor, suddenly stood up, dropped the plastic bag in his hand, and scattered apples all over the floor.

He didn't even bother picking up the apples; he rushed to the delivery room door and peered inside through the glass.

Li Su lay on the delivery bed, covered in sweat, her hair sticking wetly to her forehead.

She turned her head to look at the baby in the nurse's arms.

Tiny, wrinkled, eyes closed, fists clenched, crying loudly.

"Let me hug you."

Her voice was so weak it was almost inaudible.

The nurse placed the baby on her chest.

The baby's body temperature was higher than she had imagined, like a small furnace pressed against her heart.

She lowered her head and gently touched the baby's forehead with her lips.

"Zhao Yuan! Come in!"