Charles's pupils contracted abruptly, and he recoiled violently, pressing himself hard against the wall behind him as though trying to fuse into it.
His teeth chattered, his body trembling ceaselessly, and he babbled incoherently: "It's him... that face, it's you again. The devil's come again...!"
Charles's voice was thick with a despairing, tearful sob.
"Why... why have you come for me again... I really know I was wrong..."
"Charles!" Vanessa immediately stepped forward, anxiously slapping at the window. "Look at me, Mr. Charles, look at me!"
She called out frantically, but Charles had already fallen into a kind of frenzy—worse, even, than the last time.
He clutched his head, letting out a muffled, guttural howl, his pale face written all over with terror.
"Charles, calm down!" Russell shouted. "There's no devil here. Lift your head, look at us—we won't hurt you!"
"The devil's come, he's here!" Charles wailed. "He's come to kill me!"
[Fear from Charles. Malice Points +200]
Russell silently accepted the Malice Points, gazing at the man huddled in the corner beyond the glass—cowering like a startled bird—and let out a helpless sigh.
"Tsk..." Charlotte frowned, glancing first at the out-of-control Charles, then at the two numbers jotted in her notebook, and pinched the bridge of her nose with a touch of exasperation.
"So close..." she murmured under her breath. "Doctor Vanessa, take him to the quiet room."
"Understood." Doctor Vanessa did not hesitate, immediately pressing the emergency call bell on the wall.
Before long, several sturdy male orderlies rushed in, expertly subduing the frenzied Charles, administering a sedative, and then leading him out of the ward.
Once again, the room held only Charlotte and Russell—and a Vanessa whose face was etched with exhaustion and helplessness.
"My apologies, both of you." Vanessa rubbed her aching temples, a deep sense of powerlessness in her voice.
"We're the ones who should be apologizing, Doctor," Russell said with a wry smile. "We've caused you trouble."
"This is our duty in the first place. There's no such thing as trouble." Vanessa shook her head and smiled.
"It's just that I never expected his reaction to be this violent... He'd been perfectly fine before. And I've no idea what set him off this time, when the first half looked so fine to me..."
At these words, all three in the room slipped into thought.
"As I recall, his emotions only began to waver the moment Pilsen was mentioned," Vanessa said, then glanced at Russell.
"Earlier, when Mr. Watson was walking him through his past, Charles's mind remained in a receptive, open state the entire time. That indicates he doesn't resist recalling the past—even memories that could hardly be called pleasant for him.
"Even recalling the days of being discharged from the military and scraping by to survive, he showed little resistance—at most, regret, and some pain.
"But the moment Pilsen came up, Charles's emotions immediately began to grow unstable," Vanessa analyzed.
"During his time in recovery here, we've run several stress tests on him. They centered mainly on keywords like smoke, or masks, or banks.
"Because based on our earlier conclusions, we believed these were the elements—the keywords—that triggered his stress reaction. And in the subsequent tests, the results did indeed confirm our conjecture, so the desensitization therapy that followed was built around those aspects as well..."
"So... you never anticipated that the name 'Pilsen' would turn out to be a blind spot, correct?" Charlotte grasped Vanessa's meaning.
"Yes." Vanessa nodded helplessly. "We didn't foresee this at all."
She pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose, a clear puzzlement in the eyes behind the lenses.
"Because... it's strange, isn't it?" she said.
"Logically speaking, Pilsen was the benefactor who brought him into the fold, the one who lent him a hand when Charles had hit rock bottom.
"At the time, Charles was a man with talent but nowhere to apply it. It was Pilsen who gave him encouragement and recognition—and hope built upon despair is, for an ordinary person, an extraordinarily powerful thing.
"If the two of them had been of opposite sexes, I wouldn't even doubt that Charles would have fallen straight in love with Pilsen because of it.
"So by every measure of reason and feeling, he shouldn't harbor such intense negative emotions toward Pilsen. Unless..."
Vanessa seemed to think of something, but did not voice it.
"Unless what?" Charlotte asked.
"It's nothing, Lady Holmes." Vanessa shook her head.
Hearing this, Charlotte knit her brows, but did not press further.
"So, how long might this course of treatment take this time?" Russell asked, sensing the atmosphere between the two women.
"A month?"
"Perhaps. It's hard to draw conclusions this early," Vanessa said. "We may even have to prepare for the worst."
"You mean... his brain's protective mechanism has been triggered?"
"His condition this time is far more severe than the last," Vanessa said. "We have to get him calm first, then start the desensitization training over again. This whole process... will consume a considerable amount of time."
"It's fine. We can afford to wait," Charlotte said.
"Let's hope so." Vanessa smiled, then lifted her head to glance at the clock.
"It's nearly lunchtime. If you don't mind, why not stay for a meal before you go?" she offered warmly.
"The standard of our cafeteria here is quite good—and very healthy."
At this, Charlotte said nothing, only turning her head to look at Russell, as if leaving the choice to him.
Seeing this, Russell thought it over, then nodded.
"Since we've already come all this way," he said, "and there's nothing else to do today, we might as well give it a try."
"In that case, come with me." A genuine smile spread across Vanessa's face.
The sanatorium's cafeteria was far cleaner and brighter than Russell had imagined.
Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows drank in all the midday sunlight, making the entire space look warm and luminous.
Aside from the sanatorium staff, there were a few quiet patients here as well. Unlike the other patients, they weren't disruptive, and so they enjoyed a relatively greater degree of freedom.
According to Vanessa, before his stress episode, Charles had occasionally been permitted this kind of privilege too.
The food here was self-service—not much variety, but it won out on freshness. In consideration of the patients' health, the dishes leaned toward light flavors, with an emphasis on balanced nutrition.
"The environment here is more than a little better than Imperial College's," Russell couldn't help remarking, tray in hand.
"Well, the fees here are even higher than Imperial College's," Vanessa said with a laugh.
Charlotte didn't join their conversation, merely picking out the food that interested her in silence before finding a seat by the window and sitting down.
Russell soon settled on his own lunch as well, taking the seat across from Charlotte.
Vanessa tactfully refrained from joining them—after a quick greeting, she turned away to reunite with her colleagues.
Russell put a piece of grilled chicken breast into his mouth, chewed, then raised an eyebrow.
"Not bad at all. I'm suddenly a little envious of the patients here."
"If you're interested, I could go ask Mycroft to apply for a spot for you—have you take up permanent residence here. How about it?"
Charlotte shot him a glance.
"I think I'll pass on that." Russell shrugged, then steered the topic back on track: "So, what do you make of what we got out of this trip?"
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