Fear of food

Chapter 3: They found food again.

Mom: My dear son, something came up at school, so I can't come see you today. (Patting head emoji)

Chen Qi stared at the message on his phone screen, his gaze momentarily lingering.

The message was sent at 9:08 a.m., shortly after his mother left the hospital.

I saw you in the hospital parking lot.

Chen Qi typed this sentence on his phone, but then deleted it.

He has always had a close relationship with his parents since childhood. In the past, he might have directly exposed his mother's lie and then asked her why.

But this time, he sensed something was different.

His mother had promised to visit him, but she stood him up, which is understandable.

But since they've already come all this way, the fact that they didn't come to see him is problematic.

The fact that they lied and covered it up afterwards further illustrates the seriousness of the problem.

If the mother had decided not to visit him from the beginning, she should have sent this message before coming to the hospital.

In reality, she arrived at the hospital, stayed for at least half an hour, and only sent this message after leaving at nine o'clock.

"My mom was planning to come see me, but she changed her mind after arriving at the hospital."

"So what exactly happened during her time in the hospital that made her decide not to see me and lie to me?"

Chen Qi never doubted his mother's love for him, but that's precisely why he was even more confused.

What could possibly make a mother give up seeing her child?

Chen Qi suppressed his doubts, calmed himself down, and pretended nothing had happened, typing a reply:

"Ms. Zhang, when do you plan to come see me?"

This is the only time of day Chen Qi can use his phone, so unless he has class, his mother Zhang Qin will sit in front of the phone and chat with him for a while, replying to messages almost instantly.

But today was different from usual. Chen Qi waited for quite a while before receiving his mother's reply.

Mom: School just started, and there's a lot going on at school. I'll come see you after I've settled things at work.

Mom: My dear son, you have to keep going, cooperate well with the doctor's treatment, and get well soon!

Chen Qi frowned, increasingly sensing his mother's unusual behavior.

His mother did not answer his question directly, nor did she specify when she would come to see him.

As a mother who is a primary school teacher, I have relatively ample free time.

Even if you come to the hospital after get off work, it's perfectly fine.

Besides, Saturday is the day after tomorrow, so even if I'm busy, I can always find time during the weekend.

But her mother didn't mention it at all.

Chen Qi hesitated for a moment, then replied directly via voice message: "Mom, I want to be discharged and go home. I feel much better now."

Mom: You naughty child, are you being disobedient again!
Mom: You're my only son, and I don't want anything to happen to you. You came home before you were fully recovered, and I've been worried sick every day. I can't even go to work in peace, afraid that something bad might happen to you.

Mom: Listen to the doctor in the hospital, cooperate with the treatment, and recover soon. Mom and Dad will come to pick you up and take you home.

Chen Qi felt increasingly puzzled; his mother's attitude today was completely different from yesterday's.

His mother didn't say that when he asked to be discharged and go home yesterday.

He had no choice but to settle for second best, saying, "Ms. Zhang, I miss you. It's fine if I don't have to stay in the hospital. Could you pick me up and take me home for a couple of days this weekend?"

This is not an excessive request; open-plan wards offer more freedom.

But Chen Qi didn't expect that his mother would refuse outright.

Mom: Mom has to go on a business trip this weekend, so I'll have to wait until next week.

What a coincidence?

In Chen Qi's memory, his mother had only been on a handful of business trips throughout his life, and she had never been on a business trip on a weekend.

With one lie preceding him, Chen Qi had every reason to suspect that this was also a lie.

He scrolled through his phone, reviewing today's chat history, and discovered something that wasn't exactly unusual.

In just a few messages today, the mother mentioned twice that he should "cooperate with the treatment."

This seems normal, but it has never happened before.

"Did the doctor say something to her?"

Chen Qi thought about it more and more and it seemed very possible.

“When my mom comes to the hospital in the morning, she is most likely to come into contact with the medical staff.”

"She said yesterday that she wanted to talk to the doctor about my condition."

"If the doctor says that reducing visits will be beneficial to my treatment, then everything makes sense..."

Thinking of this, Chen Qifa sent a message asking: Ms. Zhang, did the doctor say bad things about me to you?
Mom: That's not true. Why are you asking that?

Chen Qi: Because you've been making me cooperate with the treatment.

Mom: I just want you to recover as soon as possible.

Despite his mother's vehement denial, Chen Qi still felt that his guess was probably correct.

He understands that the hospital won't let him eat spoiled food.

But now they're preventing his family from visiting him, which he can't understand.

An inexplicable anger rose within Chen Qi.

He's just a patient, not a criminal!
At the same time, it strengthened my determination to be discharged from the hospital.

I can't stay in this hospital anymore!
He was hospitalized for treatment, but not only was his illness not cured, he was also placed under house arrest and prevented from seeing his family and parents.

At present, the only purpose of his hospitalization is to obtain nutrition through daily intravenous infusions.

However, as long as he can eat enough wild food, he can completely get rid of his dependence on nutrient solutions.

"The best way to convince my mom to take me home from the hospital is to get my health back."

"Once I recover my health, even if my parents don't help me with the discharge procedures, the hospital has no reason to prevent me from leaving the hospital."

"Therefore, we still need to eat more wild food!"

Chen Qi quickly realized his goal: eating more wild foods was the best way to help him recover his physical condition as soon as possible.

Chen Qi glanced at the IV drip hanging on the stand; there was hardly any left.

He opened the "Passerby" app.

Unsurprisingly, yesterday's post received another "Keep it up" comment from momo.

As usual, Chen Qi replied with "thank you," and then posted his latest update for the day:
"On the 29th day of battling anorexia, I wanted to give up treatment."

He locked his phone and pressed the call button.

A short while later, Nurse Xiaoru came over and removed the IV needle from him.

After Nurse Xiaoru left, Chen Qi got out of bed and quietly slipped out of the ward.

He didn't go out to "find food" in the morning because of his mother's situation, and planned to make up for it now.

If he can't find wild food today, he will go hungry and his body will become even weaker.

Generally speaking, patients are free to move around the entire inpatient building, and as long as they do not leave the building, there will be no security guards to stop them.

But Chen Qi is special because he has a history of "stealing food" several times, so the nurses and patrolling security guards pay extra attention to him.

If he leaves the ward and is spotted by a nurse or security guard, he will be closely monitored. However, Chen Qi chose a good time; it's the afternoon when everyone is using their phones, and usually at this time, he and the other patients are quietly lying in bed playing on their phones.

This is also when nurses and security guards are most relaxed.

Chen Qi dragged his weak body through the corridor as quickly as possible and turned into the stairwell.

He quickly scanned the area, but found no wild food in the stairwell. He then went down to the stair landing between the third and fourth floors.

Through the sealed glass window, he looked at a flower bed about 100 meters away near the back door of the hospital's outpatient department.

The cosmos flowers in the flower bed were in full bloom, but they looked a little wilted in the hot afternoon.

Chen Qi's eyes lit up as he stared intently at something hidden beneath the stems and leaves of the cosmos flowers.

"Thank goodness, it's still there!"

Four days earlier, when he was foraging for food, he was drawn to something in the flowerbed in the distance, even though he couldn't see what it was at all.

For the past four days, he has come here every day to check and make sure the items are still there.

Chen Qi took out his phone, opened the camera, focused on the flower bed, and kept zooming in.

Soon, an extra-large Jianbing Guozi appeared on the phone screen.

It seems someone took a bite out of it and threw it into the flower bed. After being soaked by the rain for the past few days, it has become swollen and rotten, and with the nibbling of insects and ants, it is no longer in good condition.

But this is just how it looks in the camera. As a wild food, it must be an enticing delicacy in Chen Qi's eyes.

Moreover, even among wild foods, this jianbing guozi is quite unique.

This was the first time he had encountered wild food that could attract him from over a hundred meters away.

He couldn't even see what was in the flower bed before, but he was drawn in by instinct, and just looking at it from afar made him feel hungry.

"If I could eat that special jianbing guozi, my body would definitely recover a lot."

Generally, the more you crave a certain food, the more your body is lacking that food.

Chen Qi felt that his body was lacking that jianbing guozi (a type of Chinese crepe), and his intuition told him that eating this special wild food would definitely have a special effect.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a chance to get close to that flower bed.

Even if a nurse takes him out for a walk, she will keep a close watch on him the whole way, so he has no chance to sneak any food.

Chen Qi originally planned to take advantage of his mother's visit today to have her accompany him for a walk, and secretly pocket the jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe).

However, his mother standing him up disrupted his plans.

Chen Qi swallowed hard and took a picture of the rotten jianbing guozi.

We need to find a way to get this jianbing guozi.

He pondered various solutions in his mind, then turned and continued down the stairs.

Over the past week, he has accumulated a wealth of foraging experience, and the stairwell is his top priority for exploring foraging grounds every day.

The chances of finding wild food in the stairwell are actually not high, but it is safe.

Medical staff usually take the elevator to go up and down the stairs and rarely walk in the stairwell.

He can explore this place with relative peace of mind.

Chen Qi went down to the first floor but didn't find any wild food in the corridor.

I could only turn around and go up to the eighth floor, where I had to stop and rest.

The entire hospital building has fifteen floors, and Chen Qi has only ever been up to the eighth floor.

His physical weakness severely affected his stamina; climbing up to the eighth floor in one go left him breathless.

"My luck wasn't great today."

No wild food was found in the stairwells from the first floor to the eighth floor.

After regaining some strength, Chen Qi did not continue climbing to higher floors, but instead chose to risk entering the ward area to forage for food.

It was an adventure, but it wasn't too bad.

He was only well-known on the fourth floor; once he went to other floors, the medical staff might not recognize him.

Upon entering the corridor on the eighth floor, Chen Qi first glanced left and right to confirm that there was no wild food in the corridor before starting to check each ward.

He pushed open the door and walked into the nearest ward, only to find it empty. However, this did not prevent the appearance of wild food.

"Same as always, start by searching the trash cans."

Based on his extensive foraging experience, Chen Qi concluded that, regardless of whether it is indoors or outdoors, trash cans are always the place where wild food is most likely to appear.

Secondly, there are hidden places in various nooks and crannies, such as under the bed, in the corners of the walls, in drawers, and on windowsills.

Chen Qi acted swiftly, quickly searching the entire ward. After confirming that he had found nothing, he immediately moved to the ward next door.

Since someone is staying in this ward, he needs to be careful about his behavior and not be too conspicuous, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the patient or their family.

Chen Qi slowed down his movements, as if he were just a fellow patient visiting. He seemed to be strolling around casually, even smiling and nodding to the other people in the ward, but his gaze quietly swept over every corner of the ward.

Finding no wild food, he staggered into the hospital room's restroom.

A moment later, Chen Qi's sigh came from the toilet.

“What a pity…”

Chen Qi looked at the fresh, thick, greenish-yellow banana floating in the toilet bowl and shook his head helplessly.

Although he scavenge food from trash cans, he still has his bottom line.

For example, when it comes to wild food in the toilet, he only eats the ones on the sink.

As for wild food found in toilet trash cans or toilet bowls, he would absolutely not touch it!
Even in the trash cans outside, he would only pick out wild food with outer packaging.

At the very least, it should be a fruit with a peel, such as a banana or an orange.

He also wouldn't pick up wild food that had come into direct contact with garbage and was contaminated.

Chen Qi moved swiftly and slowly, tensely and leisurely, like a mature predator traversing the eighth floor of the hospital building, the entire building being his hunting ground.

Nurses occasionally passed by him, but none of them noticed anything unusual.

With his skillful technique, he quietly searched most of the wards on the eighth floor.

Unfortunately, there was no harvest.

Having exhausted himself foraging for food without finding any to replenish his strength, Chen Qi was already feeling quite tired.

Just as he was about to force himself to go down to the next floor to continue his search for food, he pushed open the last ward on the eighth floor and soon found something!
There was a triangular rice ball hidden in the gap between the ward door and the corner of the wall!
"I found food again!"

Chen Qi was overjoyed. Seeing that no one was in the ward, he quickly closed the door and picked up the rice ball.

The rice ball was wrapped in a layer of plastic, the packaging was intact, and it was still warm when I touched it!
Although his stomach was growling with hunger, Chen Qi did not eat the rice ball immediately.

Instead, he first locked the ward door from the inside, then went into the ward's toilet and locked the toilet door from the inside as well.

I don't know if it's just my imagination, but every time he sneaked to eat wild food during his week in the hospital, someone would come looking for him.

Even if you're eating an apple while hiding in the closet, you'll still be discovered.

He wanted to take this opportunity to verify it once again.

Chen Qi tore open the rice ball's outer packaging, took a deep breath, and took a bite out of half of the rice ball.

Before he could swallow the rice ball, there was a knock on the door.

"Who's in there?"

"Open the door!"

(End of this chapter)