QT: Scum Gong System: I Became the Male Leads I Hated!? - Chapter 79

“Cicallina bella e blanca

vola vola mai si stanca

vola qua, vola la:

mai nessun la fermera!

Vola, vola ore ed ore

poi si posa su un bel fiore

vola qua, vola la:

mai nessun la fermera!”

He repeated this again and again, still maintaining that spread eagle stance. Captain Clerval noticed that Stein stopped following him, and stepped back to see what this meek snow giant was looking at. The panda inside him was not really interested since he knows what is happening already, it was all an act, including his emotions and reactions.

Just like his surprise upon singing what Stein was watching. As well as his sneer and chuckle.

“I did not know someone as innocent-looking as you could be so depraved to peep at a poor insane man…” He joked, causing to break Stein from his trance and further blush.

“I was not being depraved! I got curious and his song…” He tried his hardest not to look or listen at the naked man again. “It sounded familiar.”

Captain Clerval frowned, face becoming serious. “I see. You could understand Italian?”

“Yes, but that’s not it. I was not raised there, so I could not know any songs. I was merely taught by… Master Franklin.” He rubbed his chin. “Yet the song feels known to me, somewhat.”

“I only know enough to recognize some words, but not enough to understand the song fully.” Captain Clerval also took a glimpse at the man from the glass window by the door that allows the officials to watch the patients from outside. “Something about cicadas and flowers?”

Stein nodded, and translated the song for him.

“Little cicada beautiful and white

flies, flies and never gets tired

flies here, flies there:

no one will ever stop her!

Flies, flies hours and hours

then she stops on a beautiful flower

flies here, flies there:

no one will ever stop her!”

“I see.” Captain Clerval nodded. “But aren’t cicadas brown or green?”

“The original song was about a butterfly.” Stein explained. “i do not know why he changed it, or why he is singing it in the first place.”

“Ah, now that makes sense. But I suppose only he will know, for he lost his mind after all.” He tugged at Stein’s sleeves. “Come along now, we still have some business to do in here. After that, you can stare at naken men all you want and I’ll just tell Franklin about it—”

“Don’t you dare, Walter!” He exclaimed, cheeks puffing.

Captain Clerval found the reaction adorable, but Panda did not, finding it irritating. Still, he maintained his emotions well, both outside and inside. “Haha, alright then! Just stop staring at some stranger. I look far more appetizing than that man anyway…”

“Walter!” Stein hit his shoulder, but not that hard.

Over these seventeen days, Panda managed to have the relationship between the MC and the 2nd Male Lead to change from bitter enemies with some confusing one-sided love mixed in, to a more playful and chiding frenemies type of relationship. A major improvement in his standards.

It was not out of deliberate efforts thoug. Stein suddenly softened up to him when he showed compassion towards the comatose Franklin Storitz. Perhaps the guilt helped ease him up and make him a ‘good guy’ in his books. He will never know…

Nor could he care. If they did become successful on managing to change the ML, then that’s good for them.

But he is also prepared for the worst to come. He is doing all his best to slowly improve this budding friendship, but for it to turn into something more, a mah=jor intervention is needed.

And such intervention is easy to achieve with how th eplot will develop eventually. He just trusts that Zhe Chouhen would not do something so rash to ruin that again.

All he needs is concentrate on lowering his Scum Meter. Earlier, his remarks and concern for Mrs. Fleury had lowered the Scum Meter by 15%. They need to strategize and think of more ways to lower this, and make a redemption arc where Captain Cleerval would take over his end game ML position.

He wondered about this while Stein and him reached Mrs. Fleury’s room. The reports from his inside source in this asylum were correct. She is still shouting and banging her head on the wall, and the staff had pacified her with some kind of injection and put her to rest.

“Can she take any visitors?” Stein asked with a frown.

“Not yet.” The man responded, putting the syringe in his pocket. “Perhaps return in a few days.”

So they have no choice but to leave basket behind and visit again after a few days. It was a futile quest even when they had the liberty to go inside because of Franklin’s status. But it is still progress, they can watch her from outside and see how the officials are treating her for a short amount of time.

“Well, want me to inquire about that Italian bell’uomo of yours?” Captain Clerval teased as they went downstairs, his hands behind his back.

This made Stein make his thin, pretty rose pink lips into a thin line. “Walter….. Drop it already. And don’t dare say any of it in front of Franklin. I was just momentarily intrigued by his condition.”

“And I am as well. I am not just doing this for the sake of your ‘intrigue’, you know. I’ve been asking around about some of the cases here. I have already have heard something about the Singing Madman, it must be him.”

“Singing Madman? He’s not possibly the only one singing here, right?”

“Yes, but that is all he does. They say the Singing Madman never shows outright symptoms of insanity besides singing day until night, and weeping when he gets tired. That is all he ever want to do, yet he can still be coerced to eat, bath or talk to. And he is actually said to be stable enough to talk to.” Captain Clerval recalled. “Therefore, he was diagnosed with hysteria for all his  years staying here, as the doctors are still baffled by his condition.”

“That is not the only symptom of lunacy he is showing.”

The two blondes jolted in surprise as an old man suddenly cam behind them, overhearing their conversation. He was wearing a staff uniform.

“Oh…. Are you his doctor, Herr?” Stein asked politely.

“Yes. Well, used to be.” The old man frowned at this. “Until a younger doctor took interest in him and tried his darndest to take over my position on overseeing Cecilio Rossi. Now, he is off treating him at night to calm down his singing, it’s repulsive, really!”

“Night treatment? Like sleep hypnosis and sort like that to help destress him?” Stein asked.

The old doctor frowned. “No. You know what I mean, young man.”

Stein blinked. “But why would you allow…….”

“You do not know the background where Cecilio Rossi came from. The whole management agreed to such treatment because of his past record before going insane. Saying that it helps take away his immense loneliness and desire to give his body to service to others. Pah! It’s all lunacy as well, if you ask me! They are further degrading the boy by letting him succumb to animalistic desires!”

Captain Clerval butted in, asking bluntly. “Is Cecilio Rossi a prostitute, then?”

Stein elbowed him again, hissing. “Walter, watch your mouth……”

“What? That seems to be what the doctor is implying.” Captain Clerval rubbed his arm that was elbowed.

“That is correct.” The old doctor said. “We have been called to take away Mr. Rossi from a brothel after receiving a report that he mutilated his arm with a butcher’s knife.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Stein said, remembering that one of his arms only reached to slightly above where his elbow should be.

“Well, you could ask him yourself. His answer will be the same, just repeating and repeating.”

The two blonds asked at the same time. “What?”

The old man spoke only one word in Italian:

“Amore.”

Both of them know very well what that means. Love.

“His other symptom is that he would sometime clutch the arm of the nearest man that is near his age, someone past his youth, and asked again and again,  ‘Amami! Amami!’. ‘Love me! Love me!’ He would desperately call out.” The old man scratched his beard. “And so, this led me to believe that the bringer of his insanity…..”

“Must be one of his customers, who he had fallen madly in love with.”

This does makes sense. But there is also an inkling in the pit of Stein’s stomach that kept on churning at the mention of ‘love’…….

That this Singing Madman is not really asking people to love him in the guise of the man he waited for.

But instead, repeating the words someone said.

“Love me, love me.”

He was mimicking this person.

“Love me for a single night, and I shall love you for a single night. You and I.. Let’s fool ourselves that we love each other.”