Noticing Zinnia’s furrowed brow, Lydia said soothingly, “Zinnia, it’s okay if you can’t find a cure.”
Lydia held little hope. If there were a cure, it wouldn’t have dragged on for over ten years.
Zinnia turned to Lydia and said, “Lydia, Ms. Hollis doesn’t seem to have a mental disorder. It looks more like poisoning.*
Lydia froze. “What?”
Zinnia said, “When we came here, I observed other patients. Their eyes showed a kind of simple–mindedness, sometimes manic, sometimes melancholic.
“But Ms. Hollis is different. Her gaze is vacant and unfocused. Her hands tremble slightly if you look closely, and sometimes her pupils seem lost.
“You said there are times when her eyes turn wild and bloodshot. That’s different from typical mental disorders.”
Zinnia’s brow still furrowed.
Lydia took a deep breath and asked, “What kind of poison?” She didn’t doubt Zinnia’s words.
Lydia couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Has the treatment approach been wrong all these years? No wonder Mom never got any better. Poisoning? I can’t believe this could happen in real life.‘
Zinnia explained, “It’s mind–eroding powder. Once someone is poisoned, it gradually consumes their mind. At first, they experience mental fog and memory loss, and would forget what happened just seconds ago.
“If they go too long without the antidote, they’ll begin to descend into madness, violent headaches, wild eyes, uncontrollable urges to hit people or smash things, and desperation to destroy everything around them.
“If the antidote is never given, they’ll eventually lose all reason, get reduced to an empty shell, and get lost in their own world.
“The symptoms are similar to mental illness, so doctors misdiagnosed Ms. Hollis.
“But in reality, she was poisoned.”
Mind–eroding powder was typically used to control people. This vicious drug ate away at the mind bit by bit, until the victim became a madman, completely unable to care for themselves.
When Zinnia was a child studying medical books with her master, she had learned about this very poison.
Her master had said, “This poison was developed by an organization to control its members. If anyone betrays them, they are forced to watch themselves go mad, step by step.”
It was psychological torture, crueler than death itself. Zinnia never imagined she would actually encounter such a poison in real life.
“Can this poison be eliminated?” Lydia asked with a hoarse voice.
She felt everything Zinnia had said matched Bonnie’s condition perfectly.
Bonnie was never one to wallow in self–pity. She had once been the most dazzling lute virtuoso.
Lydia heard neighbors recount how Bonnie comforted them even after Lydia’s father disappeared, insisting she could raise Lydia perfectly well on her
own.
But after Lydia was born, Bonnie’s personality started to change bit by bit, and her sanity gradually slipped away.
When Lydia was young, she often saw Bonnie clutching her own hair, writhing in agony as she curled up in a corner, and ordering Lydia to hide in her
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Chapter 268
room.
As Lydia grew older, Bonnie’s condition deteriorated. Hei mood swings became more violent, and she would often smash their Belongines to pieras
Sometimes, Bonnie’s eyes would turn completely bloodshot as she lost control. She would strangle her own neck, desperately trying to restrain berdel from hurting Lydia.
Terrified Bonnie might fatally injure herself, Lydia would step closer and offer herself as a target
The neighbors all claimed that Bonnie had been driven insane by depression.
t for Bonnie to vent her rage.
The worst time, Lydia was beaten within an inch of her life and left lying on the floor. When the neighbors found her, they called the police, and Bonnie was declared mentally ill and committed to a psychiatric hospital.
None of them had ever imagined that Bonnie was actually poisoned. Lydia wondered why that was possible.
