Inside a private psychological clinic on the top floor of a high-end office building in Yanjing, a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache and a fitted turtleneck sweater stood beside a cold-brew coffee machine, quietly waiting for his coffee to finish brewing.
A crisp "tap-tap-tap" sounded outside the open office door, approaching from a distance.
When the footsteps stopped outside his office, "Wundt" let out a faint sigh.
"'Nineteen'... did the 'Diviner' send you here?"
A fresh-faced, sunny-looking boy, like the male lead's friend in a school idol drama, poked his head through the doorway.
He wore a gray-and-blue plaid jacket over a slightly loose white shirt, sky-blue casual trousers, and brightly colored trendy sneakers. A pair of bone-conduction sports headphones hung around his neck.
"Oh my, Teacher Wundt, listen to you," the boy named Nineteen said, his Tianjin accent hitting them head-on. "It's not like A'yu, who treats Brother Zhan like her master. It's just that my aunt opened a dumpling shop in southern Yanjing, so I came to mooch a meal and drop by to see you, Teacher Wundt—this is called proper etiquette. We can't forget our roots!"
"Cut the crap, kid. Even if your boss didn't send you, you're probably here because of Lacan, right?" Wundt took down his mug and tapped the coffee machine. "Want some coffee? These are newly arrived beans. The quality's pretty good."
"I don't like drinking that foreign-devil bean broth. It keeps me awake half the night, and it gives me the runs," Nineteen said, waving his hand. "I only drink tea, and only the finest black tea—Chinese people drink Chinese beverages!"
As he spoke, he pulled a one-liter bottle of iced black tea from inside his coat. Tiny droplets of condensation covered the plastic bottle, as if it had just