Chapter 24: The Billion-Year Grand Carnival

This was the psychiatric hospital, and the nurses were making their rounds in the corridor.

“Tomato sauce!”

A sudden shout exploded like thunder from a clear sky. A nurse spotted a white, unidentified object flash past her and nearly dropped the patient’s chart in fright. “Who was that?”

The veteran staff member next to her adjusted his glasses calmly. “No need to panic. That’s a patient from Ward 211. A standard restraint suit can’t hold him—he must’ve picked the lock again. He’s out for a naked sprint right now.”

Before the words had even settled, several burly male nurses dashed by. “Zhao Meiyou! Zhao Meiyou, stop right there!”

The nurse on rounds was a new intern, still shaken. “I think I heard him yelling something. What was that about tomato sauce?”

“Oh, right.” The old-timer scribbled away at the rounds log without looking up. “211’s one of our longtime patients. He’s been like this since day one—spouting nonsense no one understands, or just hollering about tomato sauce.”

“Tomato sauce!”

Zhao Meiyou dove headfirst into a ward, raising his arms triumphantly. “It’s not gold, not syrup—tomato sauce is tomato sauce!”

The male nurses finally pinned him down, wrestled the restraint suit onto him, and jabbed him with a sedative in one smooth motion. Once the young man on the bed had drifted into a stupor, they all let out a collective sigh of relief. Zhao Meiyou was one of the hospital’s trickiest cases—not violent, exactly, but with an unholy passion for bursting into song and dance. He’d turn any corridor into a stage for his naked parade, belting out odes to tomato sauce. The whole hospital staff had developed a collective trauma because of it—even the cafeteria had stopped serving tomato-egg stir-fry.

They locked the ward door with a shiny new padlock and trudged away. As their footsteps faded, the “sleeping” Zhao Meiyou bolted upright on the bed. He shrugged off the restraint suit in seconds, clambered onto a pillow, struck a white crane spreading wings pose, and whispered, “Tomato sauce!”

He leaped to the floor and hopped about like a shaman in trance. “Tomato sauce! Tomato sauce! Not gold, not syrup—tomato sauce is tomato sauce! God of Wealth brings fortune, turning stone to gold, utmost great luck! Tomato sauce! White frost on a woman’s face! It’s a loop—I need a way out! So the question is, where do I go? Tomato sauce!”

He dropped to the floor and crawled, muttering to himself. “Tomato sauce! Set the banquet in Juyi Hall, where I’ll share my heart with my righteous brothers—Dou Er Dun, revered in the greenwood forests—tomato sauce—home and wife waiting at the site for my return—return? Return to what?”

He suddenly threw his voice into a dramatic recitation, but cut off at the crucial line. Like a man possessed, he repeated it over and over: “Return, return, site—Site 000… Tomato sauce!”

Tomato sauce again. Zhao Meiyou flopped back onto the bed. In that moment, the wild madness in his eyes vanished, replaced by utter exhaustion.

“Damn it.” He covered his eyes and cursed. “Screw your tomato sauce.”

He lay there a moment, then gritted his teeth and stood. He fished a marker from beneath the mattress, crawled under the bed, and scrawled a few huge characters on the wooden slats: Site 000.

Looking up from underneath, the bedframe wasn’t large, but it was covered in a chaotic scrawl of words: mission, archaeologist, friends, loop, angel, dream, door…

And a few lines in smaller script:

Your name is Zhao Meiyou.

You’re not crazy.

This is a loop, or maybe a dream.

You need to find a way out.

And a massive “TOMATO SAUCE,” with strokes thick and heavy. Beside it, an annotation: You’re not a man without a past—you’ve just forgotten some things. Want to remember? Shout tomato sauce out loud.

Zhao Meiyou stared at the writing on the bedframe, murmuring under his breath, “Tomato sauce.”

Others had told him he was a patient here, that he’d been locked up for a long time—and part of that rang true, because the place felt strangely familiar. But no one could say where he’d come from, if he had family or friends. He couldn’t escape the hospital or recall his past. He was like someone who’d dropped from the sky. His earliest memory was waking on this bed, unable to speak except for one word: “tomato sauce.”

From there, Zhao Meiyou had slowly recalled a nursery-rhyme ditty: Tomato sauce, not gold, not syrup—tomato sauce is tomato sauce.

Hospital days stretched endlessly. He experimented with melodies to sing it, and one day, new lyrics bubbled up: Tomato sauce, this isn’t real—get out, escape the loop, tomato sauce.

It startled him. His first instinct was to write it down. He chanted the song obsessively, and disjointed phrases began surfacing. Language was a conduit; fragments of wreckage revealed glimpses of another world. Until one day, the pieces formed a truth: I’m not crazy.

This world was fake. He had to get out.

First, remember who he was. Zhao Meiyou—that name didn’t mean he had nothing. He had “tomato sauce,” a key of sorts. Chant it at the right rhythm, and buy-one-get-one fragments spilled out: Metropolis, pork, ER doctor, archaeologist. Sometimes melodies echoed in his mind unbidden; he’d dance to them, march, sprint the halls. The wilder he got, the closer to truth—words flooding forth. Everyone called him mad. Those who can’t hear the music call the dancers mad.

No clocks here. He couldn’t track time. The sun outside the corridor hung eternally, never setting. He never needed sleep.

Zhao Meiyou tucked the marker away, donned the restraint suit, climbed into bed, and sank into dreamless slumber. After an unknowable stretch, the ward door creaked open. The male nurses entered. “Zhao Meiyou, time for yard time!”

He opened his eyes.

Rarely—maybe once or twice—the hospital let patients into the garden for fresh air. Zhao Meiyou’s antics had long since disqualified him, or so he figured.

The nurses didn’t untie his restraint suit. They hoisted him bodily into a wheelchair and wheeled him out.

“Tomato sauce.” Seated in the chair, Zhao Meiyou bobbed his head happily. “March Hare, Alice, the party’s starting—Red Queen, whose head rolls next? Tomato sauce!”

The garden lay at the corridor’s end. The nurses shoved his chair in like herding a white crane among chickens.

Patients milled about in small clusters. Strapped to his wheelchair, Zhao Meiyou could only lounge comfortably and bask in the sun. Soon, drowsiness overtook him.

“Bunny, bunny.” Someone nudged his chair. “Party’s starting—turn into Alice quick.”

Zhao Meiyou opened his eyes. Around him, in a loose circle, sat several others, all in hospital gowns.

His pusher was a little boy who, seeing his eyes open, puffed out his chest. “Greetings, Your Majesty!”

Zhao Meiyou eyed him. “Rise, my minister. Tomato sauce.”

“Behold—!” The next patient bellowed. “By imperial decree, no slacking—daily patrols of Giant Mountain Encirclement, Hell’s Root, Self-Calculating Fengdu, Linked Blood Lake!”

Zhao Meiyou nodded like a superior hearing a report. “Infinite Heavenly Venerable. Tomato sauce.”

The third chimed in. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

Zhao Meiyou burst free of the restraint suit and traced a cross over his chest. “Hallelujah. Tomato sauce.”

The fourth pressed his palms together. “Beings of Jambudvipa, every thought and deed is karma, every one a sin—”

Zhao Meiyou matched the gesture, intoning a Buddhist name. “Amitabha. Tomato sauce.”

The circle around him felt like a ritual invocation, reciting scriptures of every stripe. Zhao Meiyou listened long but grasped nothing—like he was a demon from another realm, and they were exorcising him full tilt. He turned to the little boy who’d spoken first, grabbing him by the collar like a chick. “Minister, what are you all doing?”

Dangling in midair, the boy showed no fear. He blinked at Zhao Meiyou. “We’re encouraging Your Majesty to muster courage and dive in.”

“Dive?”

“Holy water will cleanse your mortal shell. After the baptism, the new king’s soul awakens.” The boy pointed to the garden’s edge—the rooftop’s brink. A plunge from this height meant certain death. Yet he added, “The last two kings died that way. Don’t you await the new king’s birth?”

Zhao Meiyou was utterly lost. “What previous kings? What new king?”

“You forgot? You’re Zhao Meiyou.” The boy gazed at him. “At first you were Diao Chan, then Liu Qijue. Each dive is rebirth. You’re the third.”

Diao Chan? Liu Qijue? An inexplicable familiarity flooded Zhao Meiyou’s mind as the boy’s lips moved. “Cops call you the killer who murdered and dismembered the first two kings. But we know—you just inherited their throne.”

Before Zhao Meiyou could reply, the boy pressed on. “Now we await the final king’s arrival. Your Majesty the Queen, after devouring a million subjects and the flesh of two prior kings, become your true sovereign self at last!”

With that, he raised his arm in a stiff salute, like a Third Reich enthusiast hailing victory. “Tomato sauce!”

“Tomato sauce!” The patients echoed the cry. “Tomato sauce!”

Zhao Meiyou had no clue what was happening. The garden turned into a fervent Flying Spaghetti Monster sermon. Worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its sauce; and the noodles in that sauce; and the meatballs in those noodles; and the wisdom in those meatballs; from wisdom comes the knowledge of flavor; from flavor comes love of pasta; from pasta comes love for our Noodly Master. Ramen. Tomato sauce is the one true salvation.

“To herald the true Buddha’s birth!” The boy intoned gravely. “Citizens! Let us lead by example—dive in!”

His words rang like a starting pistol. Patients surged toward the edge. Walk walk walk hand in hand, walk walk walk, off the roof we go. Nurses and guards mobilized to block them. But the boy produced a fork and knife from nowhere, lunging at a charging guard and slashing open his chest. Blood sprayed everywhere like tomato sauce.

This scene inspired the patients, and both sides erupted into a fierce battle in the garden. In the end, not a single person succeeded in jumping off the building, and yet not one survived. After an unknown stretch of time, Zhao Meiyou gazed at the rooftop covered in tomato sauce, the air so still that one could hear a pin drop. He smacked his lips. “Tomato sauce.”

Zhao Meiyou waded through the tomato sauce until he reached a dead tomato plant. He flipped it over. It was a security guard—one he remembered.

The next second, Zhao Meiyou’s hand froze.

This guard—the man with the scar on his brow from his memory.

Now, he bore Zhao Meiyou’s face.

Zhao Meiyou paused for a moment, then went on to flip over others, picking through them like the freshest tomatoes at a market stall. One, two, three—four bucks a pound, and buy five for a discount.

In the end, he had inspected every last one.

At that moment, they all wore Zhao Meiyou’s face.

What was going on? Zhao Meiyou felt a haze settle over him. Had it all been his mad delusion? Had he truly lost his mind? Inside his own body, he had turned on himself in fratricide. But who had he killed? His memories? His personality? His past? His very self?

What exactly had died?

Right—jumping into the water. Zhao Meiyou recalled the little boy’s final words.

“To welcome the birth of the true Buddha! Citizens! Let us lead the way and dive in!”

Urged on by that voice, like sheep being herded, he walked to the edge of the rooftop and leaped off without a backward glance.

It was as if, in mid-fall, he suddenly hit solid ground. The young man slumbering on the hospital bed jolted awake and slowly opened his eyes.

“You’re awake.”

The doctor by the bed looked at him and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m your attending physician.”

“…You say you’re a doctor.” The young man on the bed seemed to awaken from a long dream. It took him a while to speak. “What illness do I have?”

“A very rare case of split personality. I’ve already met your three alternate personalities. Now, at last, we meet—the primary one.” The doctor smiled faintly. “What’s interesting is that the other three personalities all seemed unaware of your existence.”

The young man pondered the doctor’s words, his expression calm. After a moment, he said, “You killed those three alternates.”

“To be precise, the three alternates committed suicide inside your Mind Palace.” The doctor shrugged it off. “It’s a form of therapy. Once the alternates are fully eradicated, you’ll be cured, Mr. Qian.”

“You’ve got one thing wrong.” Qian Duoduo rose from the bed and suddenly clamped his hand around the doctor’s throat. “I’m not the primary personality.”

He gripped with crushing force, and the doctor soon passed out from lack of oxygen. Qian Duoduo tossed the man onto the floor and quickly scanned the room. There were no mirrors, but the door had a glass panel.

He approached the glass and locked eyes with the reflection in this body.

“Zhao Meiyou,” he said. “I’ve come to save you.”

“I know you can hear me. This is your dream—the fact that it hasn’t collapsed proves the host hasn’t dissipated. You’ve dived too deep into the dream’s loops. Your logic and memories are starting to shift out of place. I’ll help you realign them, but then you have to wake yourself up. Got it?”

It was the first time Qian Duoduo had spoken so much in one go. He panted slightly from the rapid speech and stared at the face in the glass, but its eyes showed no flicker of emotion.

“Listen to me, Zhao Meiyou.” Qian Duoduo drew a deep breath and declared firmly, “When people get injured, they bleed—not spew tomato sauce. Diao Chan and Liu Qijue are your friends. They’re not your mother or your benefactor. Men don’t have uteruses or secrete eggs, so men can’t give birth. The virus from the 23rd Century Great Cataclysm causes bodies to rot and leads to swift death—corpses don’t turn into zombies…”

“You’re you, Zhao Meiyou. Qian Duoduo isn’t your primary personality.” Finally, he added, “I’m just here to save you.”

After some indeterminate time, it was as if misaligned gears were adjusted one by one, finally clicking into the right positions. The clock began to tick once more. Qian Duoduo saw a faint glimmer awaken in the eyes reflected in the glass. He heard the hoarse voice emerge from his own lips.

“…When people get injured, they bleed—not spew tomato sauce.”

“Diao Chan and The Lead Actor are my brothers.”

“I was born in the 25th Century Metropolis. I’m an emergency room doctor at the 33-Story Mental Hospital.”

“Men can’t give birth… no, the Site doesn’t count.”

“The 23rd Century Great Cataclysm doesn’t turn corpses into zombies.”

The correct facts were recited one by one. In the endlessly plummeting dream, Zhao Meiyou’s increasingly disordered logic and memories gradually realigned. “…Qian Duoduo isn’t Zhao Meiyou’s primary personality.”

Zhao Meiyou’s eyes grew clearer and clearer. As the voice sharpened with growing lucidity, Qian Duoduo felt a measure of relief. His temporary self was about to be supplanted by Zhao Meiyou’s restored primary consciousness. Yet before the dream fully dissipated, he heard Zhao Meiyou’s voice ring out strong and clear amid the countless mad delusions soaked in brain-fluid solution, stating a truth plainer than plain.

“Qian Duoduo isn’t Zhao Meiyou’s primary personality. Zhao Meiyou loves Qian Duoduo.”