The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 352 Back to the Culvert
“There’s something else that makes me uneasy,” Zhong Kui continued. “That’s the main reason I asked you to come here.” The howling wind forced them to stand very close to hear each other. The sea breeze blew horizontally, slapping against Qi Fei’s face, but even the salty smell of the sea couldn’t mask the fragrance of flowers in his hair.

The ambiguous atmosphere made Qi Fei dizzy and confused. Zhong Kui's voice was warm with her breath: "Do you remember when we first met, you didn't know the way to the cabin on Zizai Mountain?"

Qi Fei nodded and smiled helplessly, "That was because you were messing around in my head. It really made me furious back then."

Zhong Kui's next words shattered the bubble of tenderness: "That was a psychological technique Zhong Xiaoyu left me, a method of using hypnosis to disrupt a person's cognition, especially visual attention. After seeing You He's mask, I've been thinking about this issue. Back then, we were in the culvert, and no one noticed anything amiss. I don't believe it was entirely due to the mask and the environment."

Although I call myself a fortune teller, I know there's no such thing as magic; there are only illusions. Like what I did to you, someone preemptively redirects our attention, and this happens when we're completely off guard. It's like using a wind chime as a trigger in the cabin—provided you don't know I'm using it to hypnotize you. This means this person can be someone we're completely unsuspecting of, and we don't even know what the trigger is.

Qi Fei felt a chill run down his spine upon hearing this: "Are there people from Xihe lurking among us?"

The sound of the waves rose and fell, heavy as Qi Fei's breathing.

He suddenly realized why Zhong Kui had brought him here: "You suspect Shan Qiu and Dr. Jiang?"

“It’s not just them, it could be anyone we know,” Zhong Kui said. “I don’t understand. I can understand you being hypnotized without your knowledge, but I, so far, no one has been able to fool me.”

"I need to report this to the bureau immediately," Qi Fei said, reaching for his phone to make a call.

But Zhong Kui stopped him: "This person must have connections with both of us at the same time, and the most likely scenario is that he's infiltrating your police station."

"Then..." Qi Fei's mind went blank for a moment. He had a lukewarm relationship with his father, Qi Dongjun, since childhood. The police officers had essentially taken on the role of family members; they were no longer just ordinary colleagues. Zhong Kui was referring to the people he trusted or relied on most, and he found it difficult to direct his suspicions at them.

Zhong Kui noticed his confusion and said, "Let's verify something first, see if the mask alone can fool our eyes in that culvert environment. At the same time, we can observe the reactions of the other two. If one of them is the one who tampered with us, they might give themselves away."
-
The lush reeds that flourished in summer are now withered and fallen, and the entrance to the culvert is much easier to find than last time.

Due to seawater erosion, this so-called site is actually of little value for the investigation.

Unaware of the situation, Wu Shanqiu and Jiang Tianyi assumed they had returned here to search for evidence related to You He.

Just like before, everything had to be explored in the dark when entering the culvert. However, this time everyone was much calmer, after all, the unknown is the source of fear.

The sound of the power switch being turned on was heard, and the dazzling light shone for the first time. A man appeared in the light, like the male protagonist of a drama making his entrance.

The blinding light made everyone instinctively raise their hands to shield their eyes. After their eyes adjusted, a person who looked remarkably like Xi He in both figure and face appeared before them.

"Xi He?" Qi Fei pretended to be nervous and drew his gun, pointing it at the person. The first to speak was Wu Shanqiu: "Huh? Is this an imposter? This mask is too obvious! Was it transferred from Yuanxi Police Station?" As she spoke, she boldly stepped forward to take a closer look, and even reached out to pull at the edge of the silicone mask.

"No way, this looks so obvious. It's different from what we saw last time," Jiang Tianyi said immediately. "They didn't tell us about this. Was it arranged by the Yuanxi Police Station?"

"Is it a problem with my eyesight? How did you all notice it so quickly?" Qi Fei said, feigning surprise.

"Hmph, it shouldn't be the same mask, otherwise we were all blind last time," Zhong Kui said sarcastically from the side.

However, the person wearing the mask spoke, with a heavy Yuanxi accent: "This was a 100% replica made by professionals based on the evidence. The effect when worn on the face should be the same as what you saw back then."

Xi He's handsome and arrogant face suddenly turned into a dialect, a strange and funny scene that made Wu Shanqiu laugh out loud: "If Xi He knew you guys were playing like this, he would be so angry that he would come to Yuanxi to settle accounts with you."

"Don't curse our brothers in Yuanxi," Qi Fei said irritably. "Let's get down to business. Everyone, recall what happened back then and see if anything doesn't add up. Why didn't we see through such an obvious disguise back then?"

“The difference might be that You He completely captured the essence of Xi He, plus everyone was under a lot of tension at the time.” Jiang Tianyi frowned. “However, that’s not enough to completely mislead people. If this scene is a 100% recreation…” He couldn’t help but look at Zhong Kui and asked, “What’s your opinion?”

Zhong Kui raised an eyebrow and said, "I told you, the only explanation is that we were all blind back then. However, as a psychologist, you should know that our eyes can lie many times."

Jiang Tianyi seemed lost in thought, his brows furrowed in contemplation. The strong light from the culvert reflected off his gold-rimmed glasses, obscuring his eyes. After a long silence, he finally uttered a single sentence: "How did he do that?"

Zhong Kui stared at Jiang Tianyi with a scrutinizing gaze. Jiang Tianyi looked up unexpectedly, and their eyes met.

"How did you do that?" the two asked in unison, then both showed expressions of surprise.

Zhong Kui first approached Jiang Tianyi, observing and scrutinizing him, making Jiang Tianyi very uncomfortable.

“Zhong Kui, it wasn’t me,” Jiang Tianyi said calmly. “It seems it wasn’t you either.”

Qi Fei was even more nervous than the others. Yesterday, when Zhong Kui presented his deductions to him at the beach, his suspicions pointed to Jiang Tianyi—a person who could freely approach the other three and possessed hypnotic abilities.

However, he was Jiang Tianyi, the doctor who accompanied him through those darkest times.

(End of this chapter)