My left and right hemispheres fight each other.

"Thump...thump...thump..."

He stormed into the hall, approaching the heavy security door. As he drew closer to the persistent sound, Chen Xin couldn't help but feel uneasy.

He glanced at the peephole instinctively and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

However, the person who came was indeed different from what he had expected.

"Gao Xiaonan? What brings you here?" After opening the door, Chen Xin looked at the tall, thin man in front of her and asked softly.

The man, known as Gao Xiaonan, wore a black trench coat, had a pale complexion, and his two deep black eyes were slightly raised off the center, revealing a large area of ​​sclera, making his gaze appear chilling.

However, he was someone who admired Chen Xin's psychological techniques and had unilaterally become his student. He was someone Chen Xin trusted.

Most importantly, his current profession is that of a private investigator, and Chen Xin will need his help sometime.

Gao Xiaonan tilted his head slightly. Although he was silent, he understood the purpose of Chen Xin's whispered words. So he simply took out his phone and waved it in front of him, then put down the express delivery box that he had taken from somewhere and hidden somewhere before turning around and leaving.

Chen Xin stared at his retreating figure and quickly turned off the notification sound on her phone.

"Who is it?" Su Ruier asked cautiously as she heard no sound from outside for a long time.

Chen Xin walked over and pressed her head back down, looking at her amusedly and saying, "They're delivering packages, not your parents, so don't worry."

"Hmph!! What does it matter to me whether it's them or not?" Su Ruier said angrily.

……

After lunch and drinks, adhering to the principle that every moment is precious, the second treatment was conducted in the afternoon.

"Ugh! This is so troublesome. If only someone could invent a hypnosis software that could instantly put someone in a deep hypnotic state just by shining it on their face, I wouldn't have to rack my brains to figure out what techniques to use every time." Chen Xin complained after eating and drinking her fill, feeling lazy.

"Hypnotic software?" Su Ruier tilted her head, thought for a moment, and smiled with a complicated expression. She said meaningfully, "I didn't expect Brother Chen to have such a naughty idea."

"What's wrong with you?" Chen Xin smacked Su Ruier on the head with the pen, who was grinning and leaning her head closer. He rolled his eyes at her: "You're so young and you're already doing bad things. You know more than I do."

Su Ruier covered her 'injury' but did not cry out in pain. Instead, she endured the pain and still looked down on Chen Xin with an air of superiority.

"That's enough, sit up straight! When you talk about Huang, you seem to forget your family of origin and physical pain, and your mind is full of self-indulgence." Chen Xin said sternly, scolding Su Ruier and glancing at her sideways.

Su Ruier pouted and obediently sat down opposite Chen Xin, her gaze fixed intently on Chen Xin's face.

"Close your eyes." With his soft voice, Su Ruier closed her eyes as instructed.

"Don't pay attention to the noise in your mind; imagine what you are seeing right now."

"Let your breath become long and steady, relax your shoulders, that's right, you have nothing on your mind right now, just enjoy this moment of peace."

Listening to Chen Xin's gentle voice, Su Ruier's mind calmed down quickly. In the peaceful and tranquil state, everything seemed to pass slowly, yet also very quickly.

Her breathing gradually softened until Chen Xin uttered two abrupt words: "Open your eyes."

The world seemed shrouded in a thin veil, a place of comfort and peace, yet it was pierced by these two deliberately compiled words.

The sound was so abrupt, yet the moment it entered this world, it was instantly touched by gentleness, carrying a serene and beautiful ending.

But it clearly represents an order.

Su Ruier's eyelids trembled slightly, and her expectant eyelashes twitched. She instinctively resisted, but out of trust in the owner of the voice, she finally opened her eyes gently.

Like a chicken egg being peeled from its shell, the chaotic world is revealed to be clear, and a glimmer of light brightens the view, but her seemingly newborn gaze is still briefly blurred.

Her pupils involuntarily contracted because a sharp needle was hovering in front of her eyes.

It turned out that the sharpness of the energy was drawing attention away from the scenery, blurring it. Su Ruier struggled slightly, but Chen Xin's next words eventually calmed her thoughts.

"Now, as my pen moves further away, your mind will gradually become empty."

Chen Xin's voice was like that of someone caring for an infant, and his movements were like gently drawing a bowstring. Su Ruier's attention, which was hovering over the tip of her pen, was involuntarily drawn away.

Lengthen... widen...

Empty... quiet... still...

"It looks like it's going smoothly," Chen thought with satisfaction.

"Have you decided what to ask?"

"Not for now, but I'm not in a hurry." Chen Xin thought for a moment, then almost silently found the sleep-inducing incense and placed it on the table.

Then, in order to keep Su Ruier's attention from wandering due to the silence, he turned on an audio file on the computer.

It was a continuous, relatively peaceful spinning sound, suitable for briefly capturing one's attention.

He made sure everything was ready, then quietly left the room, closed the door behind him, and went to the dining room.

"As expected, there is no such thing as a small creature in this world that can climb to the 13th floor." Chen Xin looked at the window, where there was no handprint from the dream, but a clean and spotless surface.

"So, have you ever cleaned windows?" The inner voice still rang out with a hint of sarcasm.

"No, but perhaps others are interested."

"Who?"

"Is that even a question?"

"Heh, you think she was faking the shadow on the window?"

Chen Xin remained silent. He looked around the window several times, both inside and out, and kept turning back to make sure the monster from his dream hadn't appeared.

"No trace, which at least proves that the strange and supernatural thing doesn't necessarily exist." After confirming, Chen Xin finally had some free time to look at his phone.

He immediately opened the chat window with Gao Xiaonan.

"For the past three days, I haven't been keeping a close watch on the girl's house that you asked me to keep an eye on."

"Because there are only five strangers coming and going there frequently, and they are very vigilant, which is very strange. I almost got caught several times."

"I have a feeling that if I'm discovered and clash with them, there will be bad consequences."

"So I deliberately kept the monitoring distance and only observed their movements in and out, without paying attention to the situation inside."

"Do you need me to take any risks?"

Chen Xin frowned and typed a reply: "Thank you for your help."

"Okay." The other end quickly agreed, very concisely.

They also sent five images that had been processed with AI and were barely recognizable. These images were almost all taken from sleeves or clothing, filled with numerous black circles, and the angles were strangely odd, with terrible focus. It was clear that the photographer was being very careful.

"A silver-haired woman, a burly man with a red face, a hulking man in a suit, a slovenly man with glasses, and a silly guy with an afro." Chen Xin suddenly had a bad feeling. He thought to himself, "This kind of bizarre combination is really strange no matter how you look at it."

"Do you think Su Ruier's parents' decision to entrust her to you is related to them?"

Chen Xin scoffed, "What era are we living in? There are still loan sharks coming to your door to collect debts at exorbitant interest rates?"

After a moment of silence, Chen Xin spoke again: "Besides, the timing doesn't match up. That girl has been pestering me for a week, and she only moved into our house last night. Even if her parents knew beforehand that she was coming, where was she staying the day before yesterday? And why didn't you just call the police? You could have even just had Su Ruier explain it to me directly."

Chen Xin remained silent, her attention lingering on the word "only" in the chat history.

After a moment's thought, his expression changed, and he typed out the message again: "So why are you only telling me today?"

The chat ended abruptly without a reply.

"I've always jokingly called Gao Xiaonan 'the efficient man,' so it's impossible for him to forget something so important. What exactly is this matter...?" Chen Xin's face darkened, her mind filled with doubt and uncertainty.

"Clang!" Just then, a loud noise startled Chen Xin, disrupting his thoughts.

Having been frequently frightened in the past few days, Chen Xin was jolted awake and lunged forward, nearly twisting her neck with the force of turning her head to look back.

"Is that sound coming from the therapy room?"

Despite the fact that the room was supposedly completely soundproof, Chen Xin was unfazed; her expression simply showed understanding.

He strode forward, passing without pausing the soundproof door that he should have closed but was inexplicably open, his gaze following it into the room.

Su Ruier sat frozen in place, still in a deep hypnotic state, but her eyes darted around restlessly, as if she had been greatly stimulated, and her whole expression was one of extreme terror.

The two eyes, though unfocused, were frantically shifting their gaze up, down, left, and right, as if trying to avoid something, but that thing was omnipresent.

Her lips were bluish-purple, trembling uncontrollably, and her jaw clenched and snapped in shock, clearly indicating that she was in a state of extreme panic. However, her body was unable to move, and her consciousness had not yet returned.

Chen Xin stared intently for a while, then looked back at the source of the loud noise.

The window he had locked was now gaping wide open, blasting out a draft that swept through the entire room.

Frayed papers flew everywhere, and the potted plant on the windowsill was smashed to pieces, with mud and broken orchids mixed together. The loud noise must have come from it.

Chen Xin lifted her stiff legs and slowly walked to the windowsill to examine the soil scattered all over the ground.

"There's absolutely no way it could have been blown away by the wind, unless it was a typhoon." Chen Xin felt heavy-hearted. He couldn't see any trace of foreign interference in the messy mud; it was as if it had really fallen naturally.

"Being startled during deep hypnosis can easily damage the brain, yet you showed no concern whatsoever. You have absolutely no professional ethics."

The sarcasm in his heart did not affect his actions. Chen Xin got up, looked out the window at the streets with few vehicles and the buildings as usual, and faced the cool breeze.

He braced himself, stuck his head out the window, and looked downstairs.

There were still no abnormalities.

Chen Xin looked away and was about to close the window when something hanging on the pipe under the window sill immediately caught his attention.

It was so tiny that if the wind hadn't blew it around, making it flutter and dance, it would have been impossible for the human eye to see it.

Chen Xin paused for a moment, then finally reached out and caught it.

Holding it in my hand and examining it closely, I realized it was a silver-black, curved, curly hair.

To be honest, looking at the way that hair twisted and turned, if it weren't for the recent strange occurrences, his first thought would definitely be that it was someone's private hair.

"What is this thing?" Chen Xin asked, puzzled.

"have no idea."

Unable to find an answer, he heard a girl gasp behind him.

Chen Xin turned around in response and saw Su Ruier with a terrified expression.

"Rui'er, don't be afraid. It was just an accident," Chen Xin comforted her with a smile.

However, Su Ruier was still terrified. Her voice was barely audible, as if she was afraid of disturbing something. Chen Xin listened carefully for a long time before she understood what she was trying to say.

"Up there."

The moment Chen Xin understood, his body stiffened. However, the mental suggestion he had given himself earlier, "believing in common sense," eventually overcame his fear. He realized something and hesitantly looked up at the window.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he suddenly stepped forward, twisted his body, and peered out the window at the sky.

Got nothing.

"As expected." Chen Xin breathed a sigh of relief, turned around, and locked the window tightly.

But soon, he thought of something else.

Even if there's a one in a million chance that the wind might blow the potted plant over, then what opened the door?

It can't be air-dried either, can it?

Why? Why did he subconsciously ignore this matter?

Chen Xin turned around, and there was nothing behind him except Su Ruier.

But the terrified girl stopped cowering.

It was at this moment that he understood.

It turns out that the girl had never escaped the state of deep hypnosis.

Her warning to him just now stemmed from the fear of a memory deep within her mind.

Now, the girl's pupils are unfocused, but the corners of her mouth are curled up in a crazy way.

Just like the last time she was hypnotized, she looked out the window with a wicked grin.

Chen Xin felt a slight chill. He slowly approached and tentatively asked, "Rui'er?"

Shockingly, Su Ruier, who clearly lacked the ability to think, actually responded. Her smile grew even more exaggerated, but she let out a venomous wail:

"you……"

"How come he's still not dead!"

Before Chen Xin could react, he suddenly felt a heavy weight on his neck. He immediately knew that something had fallen from the top of his head onto his shoulders and neck.

Two tiny, blood-red hands, even more delicate than a baby's, burst into view from behind his head. Before Chen Xin could react, those two little hands pressed into his eye sockets.

The infant's handprint contained terrifying power. Chen Xin's eyes were immediately destroyed, and blood and pus seeped into his brain, causing him to cry out in pain.

He tried to struggle and resist, but beneath those two small hands was a pair of iron clamps that squeezed his throat and burst it, while those short fingers simultaneously pierced his brain and churned it wildly.

In the deep darkness, his piercing screams ceased, or perhaps, having lost his throat, he had no right to scream at all; all those wails were merely a dreamlike fantasy woven by his dying brain.

……

"Uh!" Chen Xin woke up with a start. He realized that it was nighttime and he was lying in his own bed.

Chen Xin, who was suffering from a migraine due to phantom pain, covered his head and suppressed the urge to howl. He simply lay back down on the bed.

Sweat soaked the sheets and blankets. Chen Xin took a while to recover, but finally succumbed to her obsessive-compulsive disorder and crawled out of bed.

"What time is it now?" he seemed to be talking to himself. Then he turned on his phone and realized that it was the night Su Ruier had just moved in.

"Damn it, is all of this a dream?" Chen Xin gritted her teeth, her voice filled with hatred.

"Take a look at your chat history with Gao Xiaonan." The voice sounded coldly, seemingly devoid of emotion.

"No need to look anymore, someone just changed my calendar." Chen Xin rubbed his temples, utterly baffled: "Such a clumsy cover-up, what is she trying to do?"

"You finally understand." The thought chuckled inwardly.

"Why are you always so hung up on who's giving you hints? It's totally obvious."

"You don't want to know her identity, you just want to be sure of it."

"The only place that can create sound in a psychotherapy room is your music room."

"And among those who heard your piano playing in the therapy room and knew about this, there were only a few patients who had been hypnotized and soothed by your piano playing, and she was one of them."

"She quietly opened the soundproof seal between the music room and the treatment room, while the door to the music room was open. This created a misleading illusion that has been her way of influencing you all along."

"The discord hidden beneath the surface of normalcy is disguised as harmony by her manipulation of your psychology, thereby weaving one illusion after another, each deeper than the last."

"The most fundamental question has always been the same: what exactly is her purpose?"

"No," Chen Xin denied outright, a hint of helplessness in his voice. "There's a second problem."

How am I supposed to know that we're not in a dream, but in reality?

"This is the most urgent problem to be solved, and also the most difficult one."

As he spoke, he said with a wry smile, "If only there were a spinning top that never stops spinning."

After he finished speaking, he suddenly paused.

A voice from the heart resounded at just the right time:

"After all this time in such a sorry state, don't forget, we are..."

Chen Xin and Xin Sheng spoke in unison:

"The world's best psychologist..."