The lust-filled staffer’s face went pale as if he had been drenched in a bucket of ice-cold water.

“Of course, I do, sir. Don’t worry, I know how to handle such things.”

“I know, which is why I’m here.”

“Of course, sir. You’re always here for ‘H-’”

The employee, who had been speaking in a rushed tone, fell silent at Dr. Madison’s behavior. Dr. Madison held his index finger over his lips.

“Shhh.”

Slowly removing his hand, Dr. Madison’s long, thin lips curled upwards.

“There’s no need to say anything unnecessary.”

“Shit, excuse me.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Yes, yes!”

The staffer bowed as Dr. Madison left, his white coat fluttering behind him.

***

“May I speak with you for a moment?”

Top Dog’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected Won to approach him this way.

It was a reasonable interaction. According to the original plan, Won was to stay away from Top Dog as much as possible, but when Target is involved, it’s a different story.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Top Dog’s stance screamed “arrogance,” chin raised as he sat in the best seat in the main hall like he was the king.

He looked like the King of the Underworld, which was a problem because the King of the Underworld is a dangerous beast. He is the king of the most dangerous specimens in this world, gangsters who play, kill, and eat without concern around them.

“You told me to watch out for snakes.”

“I did.”

“Who is the snake?”

Top Dog didn’t answer and only stared in her direction. Won returned his gaze, trying to see who would win.

“If you tell me…”

They were so close to one another that it was possible for Won to see beyond the chiseled bridge of his nose, the shadowy depths of his eyes, the unusually long eyelashes, and his angular features. She had roughly counted the number of eyelashes he had by the time Top Dog parted his lips and spoke up.

“What are you going to give me?”

Won furrowed her eyebrows. Top Dog grinned like he was trying to put her in a corner, and continued.

“Think about it. Unless I’m your oppa or something, we are strangers, so you shouldn’t expect anything for free.”

Won silently bit her lips as she thought about how much sense he just made.

‘How can I even refute that argument…’

She didn’t hesitate for long. If she can figure out the identity of this “Snake” that might be the stumbling block to escape, it’s a cheap price. Once she finds out who “Snake” is, it becomes much easier to deal with any future incidents.

Goosebumps rose all over Won’s body, but she kept her face as indifferent as she could.

“Let me know… Oppa.”

Top Dog was dumbfounded for a moment like he didn’t understand the situation, but then his eyes slightly lit up. Won was still at least nine percent frozen from spitting that out.

“You’re fucking adorable,” Top Dog muttered to her, still in disbelief.

Won wished she didn’t have to say that out loud and just kept it in her head because she didn’t want to hear him say that.

“You said you would help me for free if you were my oppa. Please tell me.”

“You are one crazy bitch. A fox-like bitch who will pretend she’s innocent, but then she’ll eat a man whole.”

Top Dog chuckled and grabbed Won by the arm. She was caught off guard and ended up on top of him on the couch. Won could have avoided being caught if she wanted to, but she’d rather not have it seen on the CCTV, so she let herself be pulled.

Top Dog was frighteningly toned all the way down to the lower half of his body. It was all muscle, and not the typical, decorative-type muscles you get from weight training, but hard, compression, real muscle. In other words, he didn’t get it from lifting and dropping weights. He got these muscles from beating the hell out of other people.

Satisfied with Won on top of him, Top Dog looked at her as if he was a well-fed animal.

“Just this once, I’m going to go out of my way to teach you something special, sweetheart. You asked who the ‘Snake’ was, right? The Snake is…”

A low, cool voice reached her ears. Won’s eyes snapped upwards.

At the same time, the guards appeared and pulled Won away from Top Dog.

“What are you doing to her? She’s never given you any trouble before, so why are you suddenly like this?”

“It’s probably a sense of security. There’s the nurse.”

Won looked in the direction one of the guards had pointed with a gesture. A female nurse was stomping over, a mixture of anger and jealousy on her face. The nurse brushed past Won as if she were invisible and nervously announced to Top Dog.

“You’re going to spend two hours in the stabilization room to clear your head.”

As soon as his punishment was announced, the guards grabbed Top Dog from the left and right and hauled him away.

“What the hell did you do that for? You’ve been so good this whole time.”

“You’re asking because you don’t know? Because I was seduced.”

“You’re talking like you want to get into trouble. Go into CR and come out like a pure man.”

Won could hear the security guards and Top Dog bantering back and forth. She surmised that they had known each other for a long time and were quite comfortable with one another.

‘What a way to talk.’

Won shook her head and turned away from the scene, only to find the nurse glaring at her as if she would kill her.

‘What is it?’

As Won stared in confusion, the nurse snorted and walked away. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the nurse was blatantly showing her dislike.

‘Aren’t I the victim in this situation?’

It was an objective truth who the perpetrator was because even the CCTV would show that Top Dog grabbed her. The nurse seemed more upset with Won than Top Dog, even though Won was dragged on top of him.

It was an unpleasant development for Won. The doctors are in charge of the asylum, but the nurses are the ones who actually put patients into the CR. The nurses don’t have the authority to decide whether or not to sedate the patient, so slightly irritating them wasn’t a big deal. However, if one got on the nurses’ nerves, as Ju-hee said, you could be hauled off for making a scene, even if it’s just dropping chopsticks.

While Won may have to go to the CR a few times to find out the layout of the nurses’ station, she didn’t want to be unwillingly trapped there.

‘I guess I’ll just stay in my room for now and pretend I’m not here.’

It was only until the nurse’s unilateral resentment had abated.

“Just this once, I’m going to go out of my way to teach you something special, sweetheart. You asked who the ‘Snake’ was, right? The Snake is… not a person.”

Walking back to her room, Won pondered Top Dog’s response.

“Next time you want to know more, be prepared to pay with your body,” He leaned in, lips close enough to touch the lobe of her ear, and whispered the obvious.

‘Crazy.’

He was barely able to keep his voice right above a whisper as he was dragged off to the stabilization room. He entered there because he simply grabbed her wrist and sat her on top of him, so how does he expect anything more when they were under 24-hour CCTV surveillance?

However, that wasn’t what Won was concerned with at the moment.

Top Dog said that the Snake isn’t a person. She’s now forced to ask if it really is a monster.

‘Is he serious? He’s not joking, right?’

If he was joking, Won would play along, but if he isn’t…

‘This is an asylum.’

There is no guarantee that Top Dog is sane, even if he seems so on the outside.

This is a place where even sane people can become psychotic if they stay long enough. It’s not like a normal hospital where the goal is to cure. In fact, it may be working in the opposite direction, turning sane people into real, unstable patients to please those who keep other troublemakers here. Won refused to take the medication they gave her for that reason.

After dinner, around 9 P.M., the nurses check her date of birth and give her some unidentified medication. They make sure she swallows by telling her to open her mouth. Luckily, it isn’t hard to fake swallowing the pills with some dexterity. As the movie saying goes “The hand is faster than the eye,” the human eye really is surprisingly dull. No one would know if a magician or gambler switched cards right under their nose.

The time had come.

“Say ‘ah’.”

Won obediently opened her mouth. She had already hidden the pill inside her sleeve.

After a careful examination, the nurse looked away.

“You can go to your room and get some rest.”

“Good night.”

With a ceremonial bow, Won stopped by her room, grabbed her shower kit, and went to the bathroom. She turned on the hot water and set the pill aside, wanting to dispose of it without a trace.

In order for a drug to be marketed, it must pass a disintegration test. The disintegration test is done in water at 37 degrees Celsius, which is close to the temperature of the human body, and shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes for capsules and 30 minutes for tablets to dissolve. However, this is only a minimum threshold and most medications dissolve faster than that.

For example, a tablet of aspirin has a disintegration time of one minute, while an ampicillin capsule is about nine minutes. In fact, the capsule itself, whether hard or soft, usually dissolves in less than 10 minutes. Gelatin, the raw material of the capsule, is highly soluble in water. Naturally, it dissolves faster in water that is hotter than 37 degrees. The water in everyone’s bathrooms is usually between 40 and 60 degrees, so it dissolves significantly faster.

A bonus piece of information is being able to guess what the medication is based on how quickly it dissolves.

Pills designed to dissolve quickly are those that need to be immediately effective like painkillers or sleeping pills. Slow-dissolving formulas are those that need to stay in the body for a longer period of time. This would include something like the antidepressant Furoxacin Weekly Extended-Release Capsules. Painkillers can be formulated this way if they are used to treat chronic pain.

Sometimes the formulas are half fast-dissolution and half slow-dissolution for both immediate and long-term relief. This is the formula of the Tylenol 8-Hour Extended-Release Tablets.

Today’s pill dissolved quickly.

‘A simple sleeping pill… Zolpidem.’

don’t even bother asking me if all this info is true i am simply just the translator who would be happy if you donated to her Kofi 🙂