[I watched through the window as people arrived, all happy and cheerful. Then I captured them, killed them, dissected them, and kept them as mementos—proof that I'd added another piece to my collection. It was wonderful.]
[I've had a wonderful week, but I think someone's keeping an eye on me. Who is he? A doctor?]
[The doctor said he was going to start psychological intervention with me today. What gives him the right?... I know I can't let anyone find out what I've done. I can't let him discover it.]
[Dammit, he found out anyway!]
[This doctor is such a pain. He actually said I have delusions. Does he even know what he's talking about? I'll show him just how wrong he is. From now on, I'm going to follow him. I'll definitely kill him.]
[It's been half a month. I finally found an opportunity. His birthday is April 19, two days from now. He'll drink a lot, so I'm planning to wait until he's drunk and then...]
[The plan failed. He's too vigilant. But it doesn't matter. I can tell he's been getting paranoid lately, and his mental state is getting worse and worse. I'll have another chance.]
[Hahahahahaha, I did it! I killed him today! No, wait—why isn't he dead? (A flurry of frenzied scribbling.) I get it! So... so that's how it is! (A flurry of frenzied scribbling.) Then I'll change my method and kill him forever! Forever! Either I die or he does!]
The diary filled almost half its pages. The entries often jumped around, so it didn't look like he wrote in it every day.
Yu Xing ignored the entries bragging about how good the writer was at dissection and went straight to the more important pages.
After he finished reading the diary, a small slip of paper fell from its last page.
[Do you know how much I hate you? So many people celebrated your birthday, and you wouldn't let me kill a single one of them. On my birthday... You won't be around to see my birthday. I bet you don't even know when it is. Why won't you die already? In a little over two hours, you'll be dead forever. Hahahahahahaha.]
"Oh, you hate me." Yu Xing looked at the note, his smile growing wider and wider. "How pitiful."
The books in the bedroom couldn't be opened, and he hadn't found any clues about the numbers. The diary couldn't have been there just to show off the killer's twisted inner world. The clue had to be in the diary.
Yu Xing, who had already guessed the relationship between the killer and the doctor, fixed his gaze on the words "birthday."
"The front door's passcode is four digits, so the answer should be..."
He flipped through the diary once more, then softly read out a set of numbers:
"0324."
He set the notebook down, turned around, and opened the bedroom door.
He met no resistance on his way to the front door. It was only when he entered the numbers on the keypad and it displayed [Password correct] that the atmosphere around him suddenly turned icy.
The door could be opened now.
Yu Xing reached out—
Ding—
The instant he touched the handle, he heard something whistle through the air behind him. He immediately recognized the sound and didn't move. A surgical scalpel that had appeared from nowhere grazed his ear and plunged into the metal door with a sharp clang and a quivering ring.
Yu Xing turned around. A blurry black shadow stood behind him, gripping a bloodstained scalpel.
He casually leaned against the door and smiled as he pulled the blade out. Along with the one he'd taken from the operating room, he now had one in each hand. He twirled them in a pair of pretty little flourishes. "It's no use, buddy. You're the one who's doomed."
"How did you know my birthday?" The shadow looked incredulous. Bloodshot veins filled the only visible part of his body: his eyes. "There's no way you could know!"
"You're an idiot." Yu Xing's smile faded. "I don't like talking to idiots. It's a waste of breath. I'm leaving now."
Just then, a new message appeared in his mind.
[Deduction Tip: Explaining or writing down your deduction process in any way can increase your deduction rating.]
The words at the tip of Yu Xing's tongue abruptly changed course. He flashed an especially sunny, radiant smile. "But I suppose we have plenty of time. I could show some mercy and tell you~"
The black shadow stared at the man whose expression changed without warning, and who had stolen both his scalpels. The blood in his eyes deepened.
"Where should I start so you'll understand..." Yu Xing was actually thinking, Where should I start so the system gives me the highest score?
"I'll start at the root of it.
"You and I share the same body.
"We're actually two separate personalities.①
"—You know that, and so do I."
Yu Xing had figured this out from the details. He wasn't unfamiliar with the subject, so he'd caught on quickly.
The killer didn't kill the doctor but insisted on breaking him mentally. It made sense if this was a struggle between two personalities.
The inconsistencies in the spatial logic, the bodies that appeared and disappeared, and the notes that kept updating in real time—all of them had an explanation now.
It was all a world the killer personality had imagined: the bodies, the operating room, the jars lining the walls. None of it existed. Perhaps only this bedroom had some connection to reality.
He'd wanted to check whether the closet held clothes suited to the doctor, but the system hadn't given him the chance. Fortunately, after reading the diary, he was completely certain.
"This so-called secret garden isn't in reality. It's in 'me'—or rather, in this body's mind, in a region you imagined." Yu Xing smiled at the killer personality. "You're not only a secondary personality who appeared recently; you're a mentally ill one who was sick from the moment you came into being. Every day, you look through this window and see the real world outside. That makes you think you're real, so you imagine killing people and dissecting them over and over again.②"
Yu Xing paused. He'd been thirsty since he first came in, but hadn't found any water. Now he had to say so much. "Dissociative identities usually don't know about each other. As luck would have it, your primary personality—that's me—is a psychological counselor. It took me a week to realize something was wrong with me. After I learned I had dissociative identity disorder, I decided to find you and try some initial treatment—"
"The first step was psychological intervention: correcting your distorted thinking and encouraging cooperation. Then I'd slowly integrate you, gradually blurring the conflict between the two personalities. In the end, you would disappear.③"
The killer personality became so agitated that his black body seemed about to evaporate. "I knew you were up to no good!"
"You weren't exactly up to any good either. I'd say we're even." Yu Xing had no idea what the doctor in this role had originally been thinking, so he tossed back a retort.
"And as for today, you tried to kill me while I was mentally exhausted. When you realized I couldn't be killed, the problem that had been buried in your subconscious finally surfaced. You realized you were only a secondary personality, and that made you even angrier. So you decided to bring the primary personality into the world you imagined. That, too, is your greatest weakness.
"There are only two possible outcomes to such an extreme approach. First, I suffer a mental breakdown and shatter into nothing, or I spend three hours here and you assimilate me. Second, you fail to keep me here, and I find the weakest part of your mind. With my skills as a doctor, you'll be the one to disappear in no time. Until then, no matter what you do, you can't hurt me.
"Because I'm the primary personality, and you're just a delusional patient."
Yu Xing grinned. Suddenly, he flicked his wrist. The scalpel in his right hand shot straight through the killer personality's heart before he could react.
"See? I can't hurt you either, because this is your mental world."
The killer personality touched his chest where the blade had passed through, though it hadn't left a mark. He paced around in a rage, his hoarse voice grating on Yu Xing's eardrums. "No! I admit I'm a secondary personality, but I don't have delusions! These—these! They're all my collection!"
He was probably referring to the bodies and the organs in the jars, but Yu Xing had no interest in discussing them.
"Your birthday is even simpler. The day you came into being is your birthday." Yu Xing idly played with the scalpel he still held. "You wrote the first entry on the day you were born, so... elementary-school arithmetic?"
"7+1+1+15+2. That's 26 days. Count back 26 days from my birthday, and that's your birthday: March 24."
After explaining that, Yu Xing felt he'd been clear enough. All he'd done was read the diary closely, work out the number of days that counted, and add them up. It was simple.
That should be enough to get a good deduction rating...
With his goal accomplished, and knowing the killer personality couldn't hurt him, Yu Xing turned around, opened the door, and strolled out into the pitch-black fog.
The black fog blinded Yu Xing, making it impossible to see even with his hand right in front of his face.
He wandered forward a few steps, felt his eyelids grow heavy, and succumbed to sleepiness.
"Doctor Zheng... Doctor Zheng!"
A clear, gentle voice sounded beside him. The darkness before Yu Xing's eyes gradually receded, and he felt his connection to his body return. He opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was an arm wrapped in the sleeve of a white hoodie. He tried moving it, then realized it was his own, only numb from having been pinned under him.
"Ah..." He straightened up and rolled his arm, his eyelids heavy and his body exhausted.
"Were you too tired? You fell asleep right here in the office... Everyone went to get lunch earlier. I saw you were asleep, so I didn't want to disturb you, but you can't skip lunch. You still have patients to see this afternoon."
A woman in business attire stood beside him. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore light, friendly makeup. Her pencil skirt showed off her figure.
She looked at him with concern and set a freshly brewed cup of coffee on the desk.
Yu Xing opened his mouth, but before he could think of what to say, words spilled out of him in a voice that clearly wasn't his own. "All right. You can go ahead. I'll get something to eat in a little while."
Ugh?
I can't control myself anymore?
Yu Xing realized what was happening. After a brief moment of surprise, he calmed down.
The deduction game was more or less over. This was probably the stage where they explained what happened afterward or filled in the remaining details.
He watched the woman nod and leave, then sighed despite himself.
His gaze swept over the desk. A business card lay on it, reading:
[Amrolan Psychological Counseling Center Physician, National Second-Class Psychological Counselor, ACI International Psychological Counselor: Zheng Song]④
Yu Xing watched himself open the drawer on the right side of the desk and take out a paper file.
The document was inside a transparent folder, with the first page visible.
"Zheng Song. After a series of tests, he has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder."
"Secondary personality Xu Jian. Diagnosed with delusional disorder. Treatment is recommended as soon as possible."
"..." Yu Xing just wanted to see what the doctor would do next.
The doctor fell silent, probably deep in thought. About two minutes later, he took out his phone and sent a message to a contact whose name started with N.
—Are you free to talk?
Two minutes later, the other person replied: I'm free now.
So Doctor Zheng called him.
The other person picked up. A somewhat lazy voice came through in Yu Xing's ear. "Well, what brings you to me today?"
"I have a question about a mental health issue."
"Oh? That's unusual. What question could you possibly have for someone who had his psychological counselor's license revoked ages ago?"
"Ning Feng, maybe... I understand you a little better now. I can't make sense of this myself, so you might be the only one who can explain it. Have you ever experienced... being controlled by another consciousness in a dream, then waking up and finding that your second personality had disappeared?" Zheng Song hesitated, but finally asked.
Another consciousness? Does that mean me? Yu Xing raised an eyebrow in his mind.
On the other end of the call, the man named Ning Feng fell silent for a moment, as if taking in what Zheng Song had said. Yu Xing could even feel Zheng Song's hand trembling slightly with nerves.
"Interesting." After a while, the other man finally spoke. Then he said, "You know what happens when something like this occurs..."
"I'll resign." Zheng Song sounded resolute. He raised a hand and rubbed his brow. "There are things I need to confirm, and I'm clearly not in a position to keep working. But I still want to understand why this happened—"
"Come see me when you get the chance." After hearing Zheng Song's answer, the other man seemed to chuckle. His tone was still casual, with an air of ease.
The conversation ended. A new prompt appeared in Yu Xing's mind.
[Deduction Tip: The Persona Mask Evaluation Game has ended]
[Evaluation in progress]
[Evaluation complete. You have obtained official Deducer status]
[Case truth reconstruction: 93%]
[Increase in Personality Assimilation Degree: 0]
[Rating: S]
[Title obtained: Terrifying Newcomer]
[Deduction points obtained: 233 (Fast Clearance) (Full Plot Comprehension) (Rating Bonus)]
[Persona Mask generated]
[Persona Mask • Xing]
[Holder: Yu Xing]
[Basic Information: Male, height 185 cm, weight 65 kg, age *#€*# (Error)]
[Identity: Junior Deducer (233/1000)]
[Persona proportions: Calm 18%, Madness 20%, Kindness 10%, Gentleness 10%, Indifference 10%, Evil 8%, Easygoing 2%, Lazy 1%, Resilience 7%, Chaos 13%.]
[Holder description: There's definitely something wrong with you.]
[Personality Assimilation Degree: 50% (A Personality Assimilation Degree above 20% will negatively affect a Deducer's personality. Your Personality Assimilation Degree is too high. Please suppress your sins.)]
[Deduction Mall: Select to enter]
[Wish List: Awaiting entry]
[Deduction Game Direction Selection Market: Select to enter]
[Tip: You have not yet played a main storyline game. Click here to learn more]
P.S.:
① I read the chapter comments from the past few days. One reader came up with an amazing theory and guessed it right away. How annoying Ծ‸Ծ
② Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are different. What most people consider symptoms of dissociative identity disorder actually belong to schizophrenia. Dissociative identity disorder is not currently considered a mental illness.
③ This method is based on real treatment for dissociative identity disorder. The main approach is psychotherapy, focusing on resolving conflicts in how the personalities perceive one another.
④ The National Psychological Counselor certifications, Levels Two and Three, were discontinued in 2017. The current certifications are the ACI Registered International Psychological Counselor and the ACI Registered International Senior Psychological Counselor. Readers interested in the subject can look into them.
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