Is it normal to eat hotpot in a reception room?

Chitanda had doubts about this, which was quite natural, but seeing Banai and Duanmu Huai acting like it was perfectly normal, she couldn’t say anything.

"Hmm, this meat is so delicious! Is this the so-called wagyu?"

"I don’t know, I just bought it randomly."

"That’s nice, we only enjoy such luxury when the supermarket has a big discount..."

Watching the two leisurely eating hotpot in front of her, Chitanda didn’t know what to do, while Banai smiled and handed a plate of meat to Chitanda.

"Come on, Ai Liu, this is really good."

"Ah, um, thank you..."

To be honest, Chitanda was very worried about what to do if the hospital staff found out they were eating hotpot, whether patients or doctors, seeing this would make them very angry, right? However, Duanmu Huai and Banai’s nonchalant reaction left Chitanda very confused. After all, people are like this. When you see others casually doing something that shouldn’t be done here and looking so justified, you start to doubt if there’s something wrong with your own mind.

That’s exactly how Chitanda feels now.

"By the way, Chitanda."

As she started to taste the hotpot, Duanmu Huai casually talked to her.

"Do you think what we’re looking for here is fact? Or truth?"

"Eh? Is there a difference between the two?"

Faced with Duanmu Huai’s question, Chitanda was a bit surprised.

"Of course, there’s a difference."

Duanmu Huai took a sip of his drink and snapped his fingers at Banai.

"Banai, tell the story of this Western-style house again."

"Oh, okay, um..."

Banai ate a piece of beef and tilted his head in thought.

"One day the mental hospital suddenly caught fire, when people nearby noticed it, they immediately reported it to the fire department. Firefighters came to put out the fire, and then found corpses inside. According to police identification, the doctors and patients in there seemed to have died in mutual killings, since there were no survivors or witnesses, nobody knew what really happened."

"That’s how it is."

Duanmu Huai nodded, looking at Chitanda again.

"Do you understand now?"

"............?"

Frankly speaking, Chitanda didn’t understand at all.

"Fact refers to what happened here, truth refers to why these things happened."

Duanmu Huai shrugged.

"Given the current madness of the mental hospital, we can almost never learn the latter, but finding out the former is quite simple."

"Ah, I get it now!"

Banai’s IQ doubles after she’s full, and this time it’s the same.

"As long as we stay here and keep watching, we’ll know why this place caught fire back then, right?"

"Exactly."

Duanmu Huai nodded.

"Truth isn’t really important. You see, like how police arrest criminals: they find the criminal’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, he has no alibi, and his DNA is left at the scene. That proves he killed the victim, but why did he do it? Maybe the criminal doesn’t say, and we never know. But does that matter? No, it doesn’t. What’s important is to find the criminal and arrest them."

"Uh... I still feel like things shouldn’t be like this."

Chitanda was a bit sulky, and Banai chuckled.

"Ah, I understand. It’s like reading detective novels; if the criminal motive isn’t mentioned at the end, it feels like something’s missing, right?"

"Exactly."

Duanmu Huai nodded.

"Isn’t this often the case in detective novels? Police arrest someone based on the clues at the scene, then the detective realizes they’ve caught the wrong person and starts reasoning to save them. It makes the police seem incompetent, but the issue is that this is their duty. Evidence, testimony, witnesses—once these are in place, the suspect can be identified. As for the motive behind killing, that’s something to be asked later."

"But motives could be false too, maybe stemming from some trivial matter, or just made up. The term ’truth’ has different interpretations in various contexts. Like this incident, what’s the truth? Who attacked whom? Or why did someone attack another?"

"Uh..."

Faced with Duanmu Huai’s seemingly roundabout puzzle, even Banai with her food-induced intelligence boost frowned in thought, not to mention Chitanda.

"Normally, it should be patients attacking doctors, right."

After a moment, Banai gave her answer.

"Because aren’t doctors the ones keeping them in the ward? Patients must resent the doctors, so they attack them."

"Is this your thought?"

"No, I saw someone say this online. They mentioned that mental treatment back then wasn’t formal, and doctors would often inflict inhumane corporal punishment on patients. So the patients hated the doctors, killed them, and then became bloodthirsty undead and so forth..."

I see.

"But it’s quite convincing, isn’t it?"

Indeed, generally when people hear a story, there’s a tendency to sympathize with the weak. In a mental hospital, patients are naturally weaker compared to doctors. Even lower than ordinary patients, because doctors can easily use impulsiveness or dangerous behavior as reasons to restrain or imprison them. Against such actions, patients can’t even resist.

"I have a conjecture too."

Duanmu Huai ate his last piece of meat and leaned back comfortably on the sofa.

"What do you think is the boundary of normalcy?"

"............?"

"What makes a normal person, a normal life? For instance, if I asked you, do you consider yourself normal high school girls?"

"............?"

Banai and Chitanda exchanged a glance.

"I suppose we are?"

"What’s your reason?"

"We attend classes diligently every day, participate in club activities, and hang out with friends?"

"So, you mean a person who doesn’t attend classes, doesn’t participate in club activities, and has no friends is not a normal high school girl?"

"Well... this is..."

Banai was momentarily unsure how to respond.

"What’s your reason?"

"Maybe because... everyone is doing it?"

"Exactly."

Duanmu Huai snapped his fingers.

"What defines normality? What is normal? The consensus of the majority? Or, as you said, because everyone is doing it. Then let me ask you, if you went to a school where most students loved studying, didn’t join club activities, and were engrossed in books and homework from 8 AM to 8 PM, would you do the same as them? Or would you stick to your way?"

"I......"

Banai and Chitanda exchanged another glance.

"Probably do the same, after all, if nobody joins club activities there..."

"Then, what would the standard for normal be at that time?"

"Ugh..."

"Alright, let’s not stray too far, back to this hospital. What do you think the standard for normal here is?"

"???"

"You think the patients here are patients, and the doctors are normal, right?"

"Isn’t that so?"

Chitanda seemed to catch the hidden meaning in Duanmu Huai’s words, her eyes wide open as she stared at him.

"True, think about it. If you were a doctor and spent all day with a group of mentally incoherent patients, like... hmm, they imagine themselves as teapots and consider you as a teacup, trying daily to pour you full of tea."

"Hey, hey... Xiao Ai, isn’t this topic a bit inappropriate?"

Banai commented, and Duanmu Huai chuckled.

"But surely you won’t consider yourself a teacup."

"Of course not."

"Yet, if you spent every day with them, always considered a teacup by them, wouldn’t you start thinking you’re a teacup too?"

"..."

"Assimilation."

Duanmu Huai pointed at the room in front of him.

"You’ve seen it, this place is isolated, far from others. After work, the doctors can’t interact with normal people. And you might have noticed that many of the patients’ words are quite beguiling. If you spend every day in contact with such individuals and can’t return to normal society, do you think you could still discern where the boundary of normal lies?"

"...So, Xiao Ai, you mean these doctors are genuine doctors, but because they spend too much time with the patients, they themselves become abnormal?"

Chitanda found it increasingly incredible.

"But... aren’t they doctors, professionals?"

"Isn’t it common? Respiratory doctors who smoke aren’t rare. Don’t they know smoking is harmful to health? They’ve probably seen more lungs damaged by smoking than we’ve seen horror films. If you spent twenty-four hours a day with these psychiatric patients, lived for a year or two, can you assure yourself that you’d still be normal? Not at all influenced by them?"

"..."

Chitanda wanted to say yes, but remembering the ambiguous, half-true words the patients said to her moments ago, she lacked confidence.

These people are too good at making things up, and their logic is all very coherent, everything seems reasonable no matter how you think about it! What’s scarier is, you can’t distinguish which parts they’re making up or which they’re serious about.

"Emotions are contagious: sadness, anger, you know, doctors and nurses wear masks, gloves, and protective clothing to avoid infection from patients. But that’s for physical viruses; mental infection can’t be solved with protective clothing."

Duanmu Huai took a sip of cola, then looked up at the painting hanging on the wall of the reception room. It was a Western oil painting depicting a Demon and an Angel. The demons were below, reaching out to grasp the angel, while the angel spread its white wings, extending a hand towards the demons as if trying to save them, but the inner side of the angel’s wings was turning pitch black.

"Psychiatrists are also prone to psychological issues because mental infection is hard to isolate and treat with physical means, so you can imagine the situation here. Patients infect each other, then infect the doctors, and then the doctors infect each other... yet none of them are aware..."

"Ugh... it seems a bit frightening."

"By the way, we’re the same, do you think a normal person would eat hotpot here?"

"Huh? Probably not!"

Chitanda was startled, while Banai remained calm.

"But hotpot is delicious?"

"Anan, I think it’s not about whether it’s delicious or not..."

"But it is delicious, right?"

"This... it is delicious..."

Chitanda conceded in front of Banai.

"If it’s delicious, that’s right!"

"Of course, that’s not important."

Duanmu Huai yawned.

"This is the memory of the dead, so we don’t need to do anything."

"What does that mean?"

"It means they’ll voluntarily tell us what happened."

As Duanmu Huai finished speaking, suddenly, a piercing scream erupted from outside the door.