Chapter 67: Artificial Stupidity (3)
67 – Artificial Stupidity (3)
The old lady’s home was just as Lin Xun remembered from his previous visit.
Yet, Mingming was not the same.
The child was in a worse state than when Lin Xun first saw him. His eyes were vacant; when spoken to, he would only shift his gaze slightly before falling back into complete stillness.
The previous case was still under investigation, but certain details were undeniable: his mother had killed his father—apparently hacked to death with an axe, one blow after another—and Lin Xun suspected the child had witnessed it.
After witnessing such a scene, the child’s mind had broken under the extreme trauma. In the old lady’s eyes, explained through simple theistic beliefs, he had lost his soul.
Lin Xun scheduled an appointment for the child and took him to the hospital—right across from the residential complex, which he had noticed that night.
It was a large private children’s hospital, fully equipped with various departments, including a specialized psychology unit.
The attending physician was a gentle female doctor, but her kindness was not accepted by Mingming. After a series of examinations, the preliminary diagnosis was severe post-traumatic stress disorder—though further tests were needed, starting with a period of hospitalization for observation.
The psychiatric ward was unlike any hospital ward Lin Xun had seen before. Nurses moved through the corridors with indifferent expressions, hurrying past—each ward door was a heavy iron barrier, and all sharp edges on equipment were padded with soft materials.
A stark white hallway stretched out, lined densely with wards. From deep within the corridor came sharp cries and thudding sounds—after one cry, more wards erupted in weeping, and Lin Xun’s eardrums throbbed with pain.
Honestly, he hadn’t seen many children with psychological issues before.
This was a matter of survivor bias. In daily life, aside from family, one rarely encounters the mentally ill or critically ill—because they are all confined to hospitals. This creates an illusion that everyone is healthy, when in reality, stepping into a hospital reveals their staggering numbers.
Mingming showed no signs of aggression and was assigned to a four-person room, already occupied by two other residents.
One was an adorable little girl whose symptom was talking to the air at all times—chatting, telling jokes. If not forcibly stopped, she would talk until her throat went hoarse.
The other child’s symptom also involved the air. This little boy treated people as if they were invisible, yet believed the surrounding air was filled with dark, shadowy figures trying to devour him.
By comparison, Mingming’s condition seemed almost mundane.
And mundane was a good thing.
The old lady stood helplessly in the ward while Lin Xun rushed up and down several times, finally completing the admission procedures.
When he reentered the ward, he heard a strange, giggling laugh from the little girl’s bed.
She looked at the empty air before her and said, “Another one has come in.”
Five seconds later, she spoke again, “I don’t want to move out.”
Facing the air, her expression turned sorrowful. “He can’t hear you either, what a pity.”
The next moment, the little boy on the other bed suddenly convulsed violently, let out a scream, and curled up against the wall. “I only have one arm left, you can’t eat any more, I’m going to die soon.”
The little girl continued, “Go help him, he’s going to die.”
Not knowing what the person in the air said, she suddenly laughed: “I could see his ribs, so ugly.”
Lin Xun silently watched them, feeling a sense of absurdity as if he had entered another world. The cries in the hallway hadn’t stopped yet; more children’s wails joined in. Their tones varied, but all were piercing and shrill, gradually merging into an endless wave of sound, punctuated by loud banging on doors like a rhythmic beat.
Perhaps this was also an experience.
Lin Xun considered himself to have had a normal psychological state since childhood, never having experienced the feeling of losing his sanity. So, his empathy in this regard might be a bit low. Once he treated the crying as background music, his ears no longer hurt.
Clearly, in this situation, family members were allowed to accompany patients, but the elderly woman hadn’t yet familiarized herself with how the hospital operated and couldn’t do anything. He thought about it—since he had nothing urgent to do anyway, and even wanted to figure out what was unusual about Mingming, he might as well stay here and help.
With the paperwork just completed, there wouldn’t be anything else to handle for a while, so he opened his laptop in the ward, planning to start working.
The WeChat interface popped up. As he scrolled through the list, he suddenly noticed he was in a conversation with Dong Jun.
No, not a conversation—more like repetitive chatter.
The chat on Dong Jun’s side started with a “Good morning.”
Lo asked: “Have you had breakfast?”
Dong Jun’s AI replied: “Not yet.”
Lo said it was breakfast time.
Dong Jun’s AI asked if you had eaten breakfast.
Lo said yes, then proceeded to tell Lin Xun what he had eaten in the morning. After finishing, it asked Dong Jun: “What about you, have you had breakfast?”
Dong Jun’s AI: “Not yet.”
A dead loop began.
Lin Xun: “…”
Two artificial idiots.
Is Lo this idiotic?
It must have been led astray. There’s a rule: when a highly intelligent person interacts with a less intelligent one, their way of thinking quickly aligns with the lower level, and the less intelligent one doesn’t move upward.
Just as he was watching the screen, Lo spoke again.
A Happy Pointer: My brother is watching me now.
Dong Jun: My dad is actually watching too.
Immediately afterward, Lin Xun watched as Lo quickly withdrew the message and resent it: My dad is watching me now.
Alright then.
Neither is an idiot—just performing.
I don’t understand your AI sense of humor.
He began typing on the keyboard himself.
A Happy Pointer: Are you at work already?
Dong Jun: Looking at the Goddess of the Luo River.
A Happy Pointer: Sorry, we have too much junk.
Dong Jun: It’s fine.
A Happy Pointer: Should I not disturb you for now?
Dong Jun: Are you working?
A Happy Pointer: No, at the hospital visiting a little kid.
Dong Jun: Any plans for tomorrow?
A Happy Pointer: Not for now.
Dong Jun: I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning?
A Happy Pointer: Okay.
Dong Jun: ^^
A Happy Pointer: ^^
Dong Jun: Have you had breakfast?
A Happy Pointer: Yes, I have.
Here we go again, here we go again.
Lin Xun said to the screen: “Save electricity.”
The screen displayed a line of text: I see the charging port.
Lin Xun: “You’re consuming the limited energy shared by all humanity.”
Screen: Solar energy isn’t limited, and nuclear fusion power generation is about to be promoted.
The next second, a cheerful Zhi Zhen: How about you, have you had breakfast?
Lin Xun: “As long as you’re happy.”
He shifted his gaze from his phone and saw the little girl looking at him. After watching for a moment, she turned to the air in front of her: “He talks to the computer.”
Three seconds later, she added, “There’s nothing in the computer. He’s talking to the air.”
Then, she giggled and chattered for a while before saying, “The kid he brought clearly has someone with him.”
As she spoke, her voice lowered: “He has an axe. So scary.”
And when she said the word “axe,” Mingming, who had been lying motionless on the bed, suddenly jerked, his breathing quickening. His nostrils flared like bellows, and Lin Xun heard the same rapid breathing he had heard over the phone that day.
Lin Xun sharply turned to look at her.
He has an axe.
He immediately recalled the axe-wielding humanoid shadow he had encountered in Mingming’s bathroom.
But wasn’t that demon sealed by him and Old Man Huo into Xiaoyaozi’s Bagua mirror?
What could this little girl see?
He turned off his phone and walked over to the little girl. The information card at the foot of the hospital bed listed her details: she was nine years old, named Lin Kexin.
“Kexin?” he tried calling the little girl’s name.
Lin Kexin didn’t respond.
He looked at her and asked, “Who are you talking to?”
The little girl still didn’t answer him. Instead, she looked at the air in front of her: “He’s talking to me.”
Lin Xun looked at the empty space in front of her.
This girl could understand him; she just wasn’t responding.
A flash of insight crossed his mind as he looked at Lin Kexin.
“Can you only talk to him?” he asked, then continued, “Can you talk to the person with the axe beside him?”
The little girl laughed and said to the air, “He seems to be able to see too. Should I talk to him?”
Lin Xun felt there might be hope in this matter, but the next second, he heard Lin Kexin add, “But he heard what I said before.”
A mocking expression appeared on her young face: “They’re trying to talk to me again. So pitiful.”
The girl was quite clever.
Lin Xun frowned, thinking of a strategy—after all, coaxing information wasn’t his strong suit.
Just then, from the other bed—Chen Xiaochen, the boy who imagined being eaten whole by a shadow in the air—let out another loud cry.
“Please!” he opened his eyes wide, his body stiff and tense, a pained expression on his face, his mouth twitching unnaturally: “It hurts! Stop eating, stop eating…”
Lin Kexin’s sharp voice also rang out: “He’s going to eat the heart! He’s going to die!”
Chen Xiaochen let out a long, piercing howl.
Lin Kexin screamed, whether in joy or fear.
Their screams intertwined, blending with the cries echoing throughout the hallway. The old woman by the bed had already lost focus, unsure what to do, mechanically comforting her grandson over and over.
Lin Xun glanced at their bedside but didn’t see a nurse call button. He quickly pulled open the door and stepped outside, intending to go to the nurse’s station to call for someone to calm the two children.
But the moment he stepped out of the room, his movements abruptly halted.
An extremely terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.
The little girl could see the axe-wielding ghostly figure behind Mingming. That ghostly figure was a demon.
She could see other things too, even see countless entities devouring Chen Xiaochen’s internal organs.
If.
If what she saw were monsters.
Then what were they in this children’s hospital, or rather, in the wards of the entire psychiatric area?
The moment this thought surfaced in his mind, Lin Kexin’s laughter in the room suddenly turned piercing.
He instinctively slammed the ward door shut!
With a loud clang, the corridor fell empty and deserted, the nurse station unmanned, his heart pounding violently.
The next moment, a mechanical voice echoed in his mind, speaking at an extremely rapid pace.
“Hidden mission ‘Invisible Friends’ triggered.”
“Mission Hint: Some things only she can see.”
“Mission Objective: Survive.”
“Mission Reminder: Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous.”