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墨書 Inktalez
I couldn't help but retort, "What about you? Hiding in this place, are you afraid of something too? You could easily go outside, but it seems you actually enjoy being in this environment. Or is it that you're simply afraid of too many people? You prefer to face one person at a time; when there are too many, you become inexplicably anxious."
The old man looked at me with a gentle expression, raising an eyebrow as if encouraging me to continue.
Naturally, I seized the opportunity and said, "You like solitude; you have social anxiety. That's why you've created a space where you feel in control. So before anyone can ask anything, you prefer to reveal their secrets first. You've been hiding here studying psychology, sociology, and criminal psychology, probably for this very reason."
He remained silent, but I wasn't about to relinquish my advantage. I continued, "So you've hidden away thinking you're orchestrating everything, but in reality, you're just afraid of facing it all. Am I right?"
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
After a long silence, he finally broke it: "You're quite young and have read a lot of psychological literature. In just a few minutes of interaction, you've deduced many things about me, and I admit they are true. Your observational skills are sharp; no wonder you can be a police officer."
"But so what?" The old man fixed his gaze on me. "I do have these issues, but I can face them. I can see my flaws clearly and recognize my strengths. That's why I've found a place like this; you see, it's my way of confronting myself."
"However," he shifted his tone, his eyebrows arching sharply as he emphasized his words, "you're different. You can't see yourself clearly. Perhaps you have a vague understanding of who you are, but you can't confront it head-on. Ask yourself honestly: is your current life truly what you want?"
Suddenly, I felt as if something had struck my heart—a part of me that was both the hardest and the softest. In that moment, I realized how utterly exhausted I felt.
The old man casually picked up a pen and began drawing circles on a piece of paper.
As he drew circles, he said, "You clearly don't trust anyone yet pretend to be familiar with everyone. You're afraid of loneliness but also fear getting too close to others. Because you understand one thing: extremes lead to reversals. When you get too close to someone, separation inevitably follows."
"Then why can't you admit it?" The old man handed me the pen and a blank sheet of paper. "We're actually the same kind of person. Don't go crazy socializing just because you're lonely; we should enjoy solitude instead. What's wrong with being abandoned? If we are cast aside, then so be it? No, we must resist."
"Draw a house and a tree," he instructed.
I casually sketched a tree and, after some thought, drew a house in the center of it. This way, the image presented a tree breaking through the roof and extending outward.
The old man looked at it and said, "You are this tree, merely still inside the house, while your heart has longed to break free. Don't you feel it?"
"You simply don't belong bound by this framework." The old man lowered his voice and continued slowly, "Do you understand what I mean? Putting on that outfit won't set you free. Life is just a brief hundred years; some live to be a hundred yet achieve nothing, while others, though they may only live twenty or thirty years, leave their names in history. Even if they are remembered for infamy, it's far better than living an inconsequential life."
"What do you want to ask me?" The old man straightened up, looking serious.
I paused for a moment, took out my phone, and showed him the English Letters: "It's this. We suspect that Murderer is also mentally ill and twisted inside. We searched online for these sentences but found nothing significant. This might be Murderer's original work. Since you study psychology, do you know what kind of mindset he has?"
The old man continued to twirl his pen while reading the sentences on my phone aloud.
Once he finished reading, he said, "Don't you think there's something wrong with your translation? Who translated this Chinese sentence?"
"You don't need to worry about who translated it," I replied. "I want to know his mentality."
The old man was silent for a moment before saying, "It's quite simple; can't you see how obvious it is? He left so many traces merely to prove his existence. It's like a tourist writing their name in a scenic spot; it's all about seeking their own Presence. If someone dies and you can't find any trace of Murderer, then his Presence is too low."
Suddenly, the old man leaned forward and said earnestly, "I've told you before: the more someone lacks something, the more they want to express it. He lacks Presence. This Murderer must have never been noticed by anyone; he certainly has no Presence. Think carefully—who exactly is this Murderer?"
Listening to the old man's words, I suddenly felt an unusual emotion rising within me; my head buzzed and throbbed intensely. I gently pressed my hand against my Temple, hoping to alleviate the pain.
"Abandoned by others, unloved." A voice floated softly into my ears—disjointed yet clear: "He is out of sync with this world; he has never been accepted by it. Everything he sees is an illusion. The friends around him, those he likes, and those who like him are all fake."
The voice grew more intense: "This world is false; therefore, you must break through it to find your own world. Remember, your key phrase is..."
In the haze, I heard the blaring of police sirens outside, unsure of what had happened.
Suddenly, I snapped awake, and the old man who had been sitting at the table was now standing in front of me, still clutching a pen in his hand.
At that moment, I was jolted by the frantic banging on the door behind me. I turned to see that the door had been locked from the inside, but I distinctly remembered not having done that. So when exactly had it been locked? I glanced back at the old man, who was staring at me with a dark expression, his eyes filled with an unsettling chill.
He looked completely different from the old man I had seen earlier.
He charged at me with the pen in hand, but how could his frail body compare to mine, a twenty-something? Although I was somewhat slender, I could at least handle him.
The old man desperately grabbed my collar, muttering, "Do you remember? You're an orphan. You’re going to die. You don’t want Alive, do you? Do you remember?"
His face twisted into a monstrous expression, veins bulging and his complexion flushed as if he were expending all his strength. But then he suddenly released me and began to mumble to himself, "No, no, this isn’t right. I’m not that kind of person, am I? But what does it matter? No, what’s happening?"
It seemed as though the old man was trapped in some sort of loop, no longer paying attention to me as he paced and talked to himself.
I quickly opened the door and ran outside.
Outside, several people looked at me with expressions that spoke of Survival After Disaster.
"What on earth happened?" I asked them.
The Head Nurse looked anxious and said, "I told you not to go in there! You insisted on entering. You were almost like those who had gone in before you. But I've never seen him like this; I don’t know if it’s something special about you. It seems those previous individuals were all hypnotized by him—just completely unresponsive..."
I was left feeling confused and bewildered.
Guan Zengbin spoke up, "You really scared me. We were waiting outside, and just as we were in the middle of a conversation, you suddenly came over and locked the door. No matter how much we called for you, you wouldn’t respond. Then we saw that old man standing in front of you, as if he was saying something to you."
I furrowed my brows, finally realizing the seriousness of the situation. Suddenly, I recalled how the old man had repeatedly picked up his pen and spun it on his fingertips. It dawned on me that this was not a mere idle gesture; he was giving me a signal. Each time he spun the pen, he reinforced that signal.
At the same time, the old man used his words to guide me, drawing me into his atmosphere. Unbeknownst to me, I had been hypnotized. What was frightening was that if the alarm hadn’t gone off in time, I would have already heard the old man’s crucial phrase—the most important step in hypnosis: setting a keyword.
As Captain Shao had mentioned before, without a keyword, a person might never be hypnotized. But once a keyword is established, that person would fall into a hypnotic state. These keywords are generally not everyday language; they are words that people would never use under normal circumstances—usually no more than five characters long.
If the old man had set a keyword for me, whenever he used it in the future, I would slip into a hypnotic state without knowing what he had said during my hypnosis.
The Head Nurse said, "Fortunately, if someone hadn’t quickly pressed the alarm button and set off the surrounding sirens, you might not have had much longer to live—either ending up in a mental hospital or harming yourself. I've seen it before; these people are all mentally unstable. Never engage in normal conversation with them; anyone who can talk to a mentally ill person is likely mentally ill themselves."
"Then who pressed the alarm?" The Head Nurse looked at several people and asked, "I need to commend them."
After a moment of silence, everyone exchanged glances, and no one spoke.
The atmosphere around us became eerie and quiet.
"If it wasn't us," Gu Chen slowly said, "then there was no one else in the hallway."
"Could it be?"
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