After being confessed to for the 101st time, Chen Liren brought out the same spiel for the 100th time:
"As you can see, I'm not very capable, not very young, not well-off, and not shy. If we dated, you'd clean my place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and take me out to eat on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I'll pick the places, and you'll pay for everything. Knowing that, do you still want to be with me?"
Then came the 100th nearly identical reply: "But... Director Chen, you own a hospital..."
He sighed and kept reciting his script. "That's right, a psychiatric hospital. The wards get checked at three every morning, and every patient has to be in their room for exactly two minutes and fifty-nine seconds. No making a sound when you walk, and no laughing while you eat. Not a single mirror can be left around, and every trace of red has to be erased. You must never use the last stall in the bathroom, and it's best to have someone with you when you shower..."
"Stop!" The confessor hurried away, looking troubled. "If you're rejecting me, just say so! Why say all this creepy, crazy stuff? Are you sick or something?"
Chen Liren nodded solemnly. "I really must be seriously ill if I'm telling ordinary people things like this."
He returned to his ward, a place perpetually shrouded in a deathly chill.
Patient 101, with pica, chewed on pale, waterlogged tissue with an eerie smile. Patient 203, with obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiously ground his five fingers down until they were all the same length. Patient 305, with multiple personalities, argued with the several heads growing from his neck...
And he, the ward's director, had only one job: open the doors to each room and cure the patients in the span of two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.
Oh, right. Except for Room 601 on the top floor.
That young man with delusions so severe he was beyond help gazed at him tenderly and said, "Even if all this is fake, my love for you is real. You must love me just as deeply."
Chen Liren replied coldly, "A toad dreaming of eating swan meat. Your delusions are acting up again."
The young man said, "You can't call yourself a toad!"
He sneered. "You'll never be discharged."
The young man grew excited. "That's wonderful!"
He: "..."
He forgot to mention that the very first person to confess to him had been this guy.
P.S. Beautiful, strong shou, with a rough-and-tumble look; the gong is a beautiful simp.
[Screenshot taken on 5/20.]
I'll think some more about the title and blurb.
Theme: A healer's compassion, treating the sick and saving lives