Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1351: Banging Heads Against the Sky

When Deng Yilan was in elementary school, the teacher described a girl in her class as ‘naturally rebellious.’

That girl was quite pretty, with big eyes and always unkempt hair. Whenever the class lined up according to head size to go to the cafeteria, she always found an excuse to disappear, claiming she needed to use the restroom. During class, she would lower her head and doodle in her textbooks, criticizing the school education as force-feeding; if she had to participate in group activities, she seemed tortured. Deng Yilan observed her throughout elementary school and heard her repeat countless times: “Why? I don’t want to. Are my thoughts not important?”

“Just you wait and watch.”

When Deng Yilan, as a group leader, went to the office to submit assignments, a middle-aged female teacher said to other teachers, “She’s still young, with such a strong sense of self, so free-spirited. She’ll suffer for it in the future!”

The tone sounded like she couldn’t wait to see the girl regretting her actions.

Was having a strong sense of self a bad thing?

Deng Yilan always felt that she and that girl were completely different people. She must be good if having a strong sense of self was terrible. She would cry at the slightest criticism from teachers, never tardy to class, and obediently followed her parents’ instructions as a cashier—until one day, she suddenly heard herself yelling loudly, “But I don’t want to!”

In an instant, it was as if she had been thrown back over twenty years, back to that stuffy afternoon in the classroom. That girl, whose hair was always messy, was being sent outside to stand as punishment while crying.

She didn’t have time to overthink. The first sentence resounded in the room, followed by a flood of words like a tide: “Even if I’m sick, even if I think there are two suns in the sky, I don’t want to be locked up. What right do you have to restrict my personal freedom?”

The male doctor held his clipboard and looked at her. He didn’t say the words ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to,’ but they echoed loudly in the room.

“If you say I have a tendency to harm others, a tendency to commit suicide, and need protection, fine, you can assess me. But I don’t have these tendencies. Any proper psychiatrist would come to the same conclusion. I don’t harm others or myself, so why are you locking me up? Why? Just because someone casually says someone is mentally ill, and regardless of whether they agree or not, they’re sent to the hospital, and they’ll never see the light of day again. Isn’t this like something out of a horror movie?”

The male doctor lowered his head, scribbling a few lines on the paper.

Deng Yilan stretched her neck, squinting to read words like ‘manic-depressive,’ ‘impulsive,’ and ‘lack of self-control.’ She almost laughed.

But this was how the world worked. No matter who you were or what skin you wore, if they told you to go, you had to go, and if they told you not to, then you didn’t. Whether it was school teachers, hospital doctors, mall security guards, or neighborhood committee meetings… Deng Yilan’s anger, seen by others, only confirmed to them that she was indeed mentally ill—skipping work, the company paying for her treatment, what a great deal she had found, yet only a mentally ill person would be so resentful and hateful.

She secretly spat out all the medication they gave her. After her parents came to see her and advised her to reflect on her mistakes and get treatment, she decided to let go. Since she couldn’t escape the surveillance of the male nurses, and no one was willing to release her from the hospital, she might as well say whatever she wanted without worrying about the consequences. After all, she was a mental patient.

When faced with doctors assessing her condition, Deng Yilan would say, “You know I’m not sick, so why assess me? Why don’t you assess your own professional ethics?”

When encountering rude nurses, Deng Yilan would say, “Am I not an adult? Am I not capable of making decisions? Do I need you to make decisions for me?”

A month ago, she might have been frightened by her own actions, but now she felt liberated. Seeing the unpleasant expressions on their faces, she felt incredibly relieved.

However, a nurse quickly shattered her spirits with just one sentence the next day.