Xiao Shu was puzzled. This clinic was utterly unremarkable. Why on earth had the old woman brought her here so mysteriously? Just as she was about to ask, she saw the elder walk up to a refrigerated cabinet, place a finger to her lips with a sly smile, and then point to the cabinet, silently urging Xiao Shu to look closer. Xiao Shu hurried her steps, covering the distance quickly, and gently pulled open the cabinet door. A neat row of ice packs was stacked inside. She took one out and opened it; aside from one still-frozen ice bag, it was completely empty. Turning to the old woman, Xiao Shu pointed at the pack and said, "What's so special about this? It's just a regular ice pack! It has an ice bag inside—perfectly normal."

"Hahahaha, I was just teasing you. You really fell for it." The old woman cackled wickedly, her expression exaggeratedly theatrical. Infuriated, Xiao Shu turned to leave. Suddenly, the old woman clutched Xiao Shu’s sleeve, pointed at a solitary ice pack on the counter, and said, "This time I'm not fooling you. Go see what's inside that bag on the counter."

After that bout of mockery, Xiao Shu felt the old woman was profoundly tiresome and began to question her sanity, unwilling to be led around any longer. With a decisive flick of her sleeve, she pushed the door open and stepped outside.

At that very moment, a figure standing just outside, ready to enter, was startled by her appearance. He reacted with lightning speed, sidestepping sharply to the corner of the street, completely concealing himself. Once Xiao Shu and the old woman had walked away, one after the other, the person watched the familiar receding silhouette, and tears instantly welled up. Returning to the clinic, he was greatly relieved to see they hadn't taken anything. He picked up the ice pack from the counter, undid the clasp, and found that besides a standard ice bag, there was also a pair of eyeballs sealed within a sterile pouch. Perfectly spherical, though they had lost the light of sharp, lively vision, they still appeared utterly vital. After observing them, she quickly resealed the ice pack, cast one last look toward the figure gradually disappearing across the square, and sank onto an armchair, sobbing. Memories flooded back, one after another. Was this some form of retribution, or perhaps just lingering regret? Once the weeping subsided, the person stood up from the chair, carefully lifting the ice pack from the counter, pushed open the glass door, and vanished around the street corner.

Xiao Shu and the old woman had been discussing one thing the entire way: the old woman insisted there was something interesting inside the ice pack on the counter, a notion Xiao Shu utterly dismissed, having firmly categorized the elder as insane. Once one deemed someone a lunatic, further engagement was pointless. Wouldn't it be a farce for a sound mind to be toyed with entirely by a madwoman?

However, the old woman was not giving up. A primary obsession of the truly deluded is their fixed certainty. If Xiao Shu hadn't opened the ice pack according to her whim, she would never have stopped. Even if the next person appeared, she would bring them to the clinic and say the exact same things she said to Xiao Shu. Life, to her, was an endless repetition: observing countless different people reacting in myriad ways to her actions. For her, this constituted a pleasure, a delight only she could experience, one that others could neither comprehend nor share. Xiao Shu was worn out by the ordeal and considered simply leaving, abandoning the old woman alone in the square. Yet, she recalled the several unsolved murders from before, and noted how the old woman refused to remove the ring on her finger, instead parading it around. Xiao Shu suspected that if she left soon, the old woman's old life would end. Because of this thought, she found herself strangely reluctant to depart, feeling compelled to take the elder to a safe place.