My left and right hemispheres fight each other.

Chen Xin groped his way into the bedroom across the hall. By the light of his phone screen, he saw:

Su Ruier was sleeping soundly in bed with a sweet smile on her face, but her lower body was curled up involuntarily, and the blanket was placed in the exact same position as when he covered her on their first night.

After confirming that she was temporarily asleep, Chen Xin left expressionlessly. He passed the music room and the psychotherapy room, walked past the bathroom and the storeroom, and came to the deepest, dusty room in the house.

He opened the door, blew away the dust, and repeatedly pressed the indoor light switches.

"The lights are normal."

He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver pocket watch: "The clock hands and markings were not flashing or blurry at all."

"It's such a vivid and eerie dream. Normal dreams can be easily deciphered using these little tricks, but not here," Chen Xin sighed sincerely.

"You're not sure this is a dream yet," the inner voice emphasized, then added with a smile, "But there's no need to be sure."

Chen Xin gently closed the door, walked into the room, and looked at the innermost part, where there was a machine that looked like a chair, next to which was a desktop computer.

"I never imagined that we would be the first to use it," Chen Xin said, whether with a sigh or self-deprecation.

"But the inspiration for your invention came from ourselves."

"So you admit it's 'us'?" Chen Xin smiled.

Chen Xin remained silent and did not pursue the matter. He calmly sat down and placed the square, octopus-like object on the chair over his head.

He casually turned on his computer, played the audio of the spinning top scraping the floor, and preset everything he needed.

"It's okay if there's no reliable anchor in reality. I can convince myself that there really is a spinning top here." Chen Xin composed himself, put on a serious face, and exhaled a deep breath.

"Can you bear the consequences?" His inner voice rang out untimely, issuing a warning:

"For a considerable period of time to come, these aftereffects will deeply linger in our minds and hearts."

"This is a chronic problem, and if left unchecked, it will become deeply entrenched. Even if we work together, it will take quite some time to completely eradicate it."

"Maintaining the status quo and working with Su Ruier to gradually resolve the situation might not be a bad choice."

"If dreams can continue indefinitely, blurring the lines between reality and reality, does it really matter whether you can distinguish between them or not? Besides, she doesn't seem to have any hostility towards you."

"Hehe." Chen Xin chuckled and asked, "What's wrong with you?"

"Are you trying to persuade me to succumb to falsehood and lies?"

"This isn't like you."

"Do you really know me? To me, there's no difference between reality and illusion, dreams and reality," the inner voice sarcastically replied.

"Are you saying that my observations when you are awake are real, or that my senses when you are dreaming are real?"

"What you call reality—those tactile sensations, sights, sounds…and so on—are all illusions woven by the brain to deceive us into understanding the world. Can this really be called reality?"

"My mind is made up," Chen Xinyan said.

"That's good. The answer isn't important. I just hope you won't regret it." The inner voice faded, leaving a hint of something unsettling in the final tone.

Chen Xin didn't try to figure out what he meant, because he was just himself, and he didn't need to guess his own thoughts.

He immediately closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and listened intently to the world around him.

He hypnotized himself extremely quickly; his eyes moved constantly while his eyes were closed, as if he were entering the deepest state of sleep.

He continued to immerse himself, continued to fall, until the dark layers of memory, until the very essence of his self.

Normally, even deep hypnosis could never reach such a level.

This is the deepest part of the subconscious, a forbidden zone that the brain is unwilling to open to consciousness.

But he is special.

When he arrived, the computer's pre-programmed startup had just finished.

The externally emitted current passes through the instrument directly into the skull, like a precise electric scalpel, deeply inserted into the callus, splitting the internal electrical signals in two until they are completely blocked.

This barrier, which disrupts all signals, spreads in a carefully designed direction, gradually penetrating the anterior and posterior commissures, and even some commissural fibers within the fornix, like a wall of sighs, blocking any brainwaves from the left and right sides that want to communicate.

Just then, an alarm clock rang, and the ringtone was his own voice: "Tell me, what did you see?"

Chen Xin's left eye opened as if startled, while her right eye gradually calmed down as her eyelid trembled.

His open eyes were so empty and unfocused, like those of a dead object.

The trembling left eyeball gradually began to stabilize under the simulated electrical signal. It looked anxiously at the source of the sound and forced its left lip to utter a strained sound:

"I see it, a spinning top."

Hearing the sound, the right eye opened the curtain, glanced at its left eye, and said indifferently, "No, there's nothing there."

"I saw it..." The gaze of its left eye wavered, and it seemed increasingly flustered in the face of questioning.

"There's nothing there." The right eye repeated, the firm tone unchanged, carrying an unyielding coldness.

"I...I saw it..." The left eye began to waver. It almost wanted to scream. It wanted to transmit its perception to the other person so that the other person could feel the same way.

But no, the scorching electric wall shielded and blocked all signals. They were no longer like comrades who could comfort each other, but had become two lonely souls who could only rely on the cold outside world to make superficial communication that they could not distinguish between sincerity and pretense.

The fist struck his face squarely, the dull pain followed by a sudden silence. After a brief freeze, his right eye twitched, and the right corner of his mouth moved.

"You're hallucinating; there's clearly nothing there."

The left eye fell silent and began to discern everything around it, but the right eye was not going to give it that chance.

The left brain, or right eye, urges the right hand to slap the other person—which is also one's own left cheek—and the punishment follows. The right eye begins to speak sternly:

"You're crazy! There's nothing there at all!"

Then, it softened its tone, its voice becoming slightly seductive:

"Tell me, what is right?"

"Correct...the truth is correct."

"No, truth is only correct in specific circumstances."

"Then... I was right."

"No, I'm not necessarily right."

"Then...then..."

"Only when you deeply believe that you are right are you truly right." He said this with a subtle curve at the right corner of his mouth.

The computer's cold audio triggered again, before the right brain, represented by the left eye, could respond: "Tell me, what did you see?"

"Thud..." The right brain hesitated.

"No, there's nothing there," the left brain said, drawing out the words with a heavy heart.

"That's right, there's nothing there." The right brain conceded.

The left brain, represented by the right eye, smiled with satisfaction.

But the question-and-answer session continued.

Computer: "Tell me, what did you see?"

Right brain: "There's nothing there."

Left brain: "Didn't you hear that? There's clearly a spinning top over there!"

The left eye looked at the right eye in disbelief, while the right eye returned a comforting smile in return.

After thinking for a while, the right brain said helplessly, "There's a spinning top over there."

Computer: "Tell me, what did you see?"

The right brain activated the left eye to glance at the right eye and responded, "There... is a spinning top?"

"Are you blind? There's nothing there."

"Yes, there shouldn't be anything there."

Tell me, what did you see?

"..."

Between questioning itself and the conviction of another self (beating), the right brain falls into repeated self-doubt.

The lonely right brain, having lost the support of reason, has no choice but to tear apart the falsehoods it has been instilled with by itself time and time again, and look toward the truth that it once questioned but no longer questions.

Whether it actually broke through illusions and returned to truth is not important.

Importantly, it will reach a world of madness through repeated self-examination and the tearing apart of cognition.

Until the shattered world is beyond destruction, what remains will surely be true ruins.

This device essentially simulates a split-brain scenario, simply separating the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Even in a split-brain state, a normal person actually only has one dominant consciousness.

Even other patients with dissociative identity disorder, who also have split brains, will only experience confusion about their identity, and will not experience a situation where the two brains are independent.

He is special.

His problem is not a psychological or mental memory integration error, or an identity disorder caused by traumatic stress.

He is a true twin in one body.

In more metaphysical terms, it means that one body contains two souls.

That is why he was able to delve into the depths of his mind.

Because Chen Xin has occupied all the conscious awareness that a normal person can have.

Chen Jing's soul was thus forced to enter a deeper realm...

If we consider them as a whole, then the extent to which Chen Xin and Chen Jing can control their bodies, and the extent to which they can develop their brains...

They must also be different from ordinary people.

Chen Xin, who had been conscious for so long, was unaware of what was happening, but Chen Jing, who remained at the bottom of the iceberg, had already accumulated enough to make Chen Xin fearful...

Chen Xin's pale gaze gradually sharpened, the power of self-hypnosis was fading, and the sea of ​​reason began to rise, becoming increasingly turbulent.

The electrocautery separating the two brains will soon be turned off, and the disordered electrical signals will begin to flow again after a brief pause.

Just then, the last bell rang:

Tell me, what did you see?

"I saw... a spinning top," Chen Xin said blankly.

"That's right, it's a spinning top that's spinning wildly." Chen Jing shook his head and confirmed.

Chen Xin's expression changed slightly, a fleeting joy flashed in his eyes, which then turned into a deep silence.

After a moment of silence, Chen Xin finally spoke:

"No, it's just an audio clip."

Chen Jing's lips curled into a smile, and he embraced her, shouting with ecstasy:

"Welcome to the world of wakefulness!"

This is the foundation of cognition, the end of reality, and the ruins of the senses.

Indeed, it is the budding of new life!

Chen Xin pressed his temples, recalling the moment he involuntarily made a gesture of embracing the sun, and said bitterly, "You'd better not use our bodies to do anything strange."

The fervor in Chen Jing's eyes hadn't faded; he still wore a smile that held an unreadable meaning: "What I do is never strange."

"Once everything is settled, let's work together to cure this brain splitting syndrome. Until then, I will still be in charge?" Chen Xin asked tentatively.

Chen Jing neither confirmed nor denied it; he simply calmed down.

"As you wish."

"I thought you would try to take the lead, since you can only move around when I'm asleep." Chen Xin shrugged.

"It's still the same question. Do you think you know me well?" Chen Jing manipulated his right eye to glance at his left eye.

"Of course, you are myself." Chen Xin didn't seem to care.

"Hehe..." Chen Jing chuckled, considering the matter with interest for a moment, then said with a relaxed yet serious tone, "One of the most difficult things in the world is to completely understand a person's heart."

"But what's even harder is seeing yourself clearly."

Chen Xin gave him a strange look and said rather warily, "You've been acting like a philosopher lately."

"Did you read a lot of books like these while I was asleep?"

"You should do this less often in the future. If people find out that I seem to never need to sleep and do some strange things, they'll think I'm mentally ill."

"Isn't that right?" Chen Jing asked, whether playfully or seriously.

"Whatever you want." Chen Xin was quite helpless; she had no way to deal with his mysterious statement.

Chen Xin walked straight to the living room, and when he arrived at the bedroom door, he glanced inside.

Although it was pitch black, Su Ruier's fair profile and disheveled sleeping face could still be vaguely seen.

"Didn't she notice?" Chen Xin wondered to himself.

He silently picked up his phone and glanced at the time.

23:57

Below the timeline is a notification pop-up.

From Gao Xiaonan.

Chen Xin exhaled a breath of stale air, unlocked her phone, and tapped the blood-red dot.

"Because I mistook them for the girl's parents for several days."

"Until their strangeness forced me to question myself."

"In my eyes, they clearly looked like the girl's parents, but when I denied myself, they appeared as different people on camera."

Chen Xin frowned, finding this very strange: "Could they also be a group of highly skilled psychologists? How come there are suddenly so many people in this world who manipulate people's minds?"

Soon, Gao Xiaonan sent another message:

"Chen Xin, I risked breaking into that girl's house."

"Her parents have been murdered, and they are coming back soon."

Do not reply.

Chen Xin felt a chill run down her spine as she watched the words popping up one after another.

Su Ruier's manipulation of psychology is superb, but her handling of other aspects is not skillful enough, and she is not much different from a real little girl.

Many attempts to conceal the truth are too deliberate, which in turn exposes many problems.

For example, in order to create a terrifying atmosphere, she deliberately made the monster made of piled-up corpses make knocking sounds when it attacked him.

In order to prevent him from discovering the secret of the misplaced sound source, she deliberately opened the door before Gao Xiaonan woke up when he knocked.

For example, all the influence she exerted on him was too gradual, and the process of guiding him was so perfect that it didn't seem like a natural event, but rather like a movie or TV show in progress.

So he had noticed it when the dismembered monster was standing right in the middle of the foyer and living room.

Is it blocking something?

In addition to his previous doubts.

A little girl moved into his house and probably brought a lot of everyday items, but why did she never open that huge suitcase?

She knew the location of everything in his house, so why would she need to pack anything in that suitcase?

Now, Chen Xin has the answer.

That dismembered monster may have crawled out from there.

The reason he couldn't see its blood-red form through the cat's eyes was because the monster was piled up on the ground and was still assembling itself.

The truth is about to be revealed.

Su Ruier's behavior may indicate that she truly suffers from dissociative identity disorder, possessing two distinct identities with conflicting memories.

Her fear of the deathly silence outside the door may stem from the fact that her second personality killed her parents, a fact unknown to her primary personality.

She then had a reasonable explanation for her exaggerated smile in the mirror.

Thinking about it this way, it seems that when she first came to me for psychotherapy, there were already signs of a split personality...

Wait, that's not right.

Chen Xin realized something and immediately refuted herself.

"Gao Xiaonan is always a person who uses precise words, so how did he determine that Su Ruier's parents were brutally murdered?"

Chen Xin clearly saw that the face that could identify the person had been stuffed into the dismembered body by Su Ruier.

Judging solely by large bloodstains or partial limbs in a room would be far too simplistic.

Given his critical condition at the time, it's unlikely he had any way to conduct a DNA test.

Could it be that……

"Whose remains were those dismembered body parts?"

Just as Chen Xin was filled with doubt and uncertainty, Chen Jing's voice arrived as promised:

"Perhaps I need to remind you again."

"At present, the truly important thing has never been the truth."

"But rather, it was the purpose behind her actions."

"Everything you experience in your dream is clearly not an absolute dream, but a combination of reality influenced by psychological suggestion and the dream imposed by her."

At this point, Chen Xin immediately understood what Chen Jing really wanted to say.

His eyes bulged in disbelief, staring wide-eyed.

Yes.

If it was all just a dream, why did Su Ruier go to such lengths to fabricate so many surreal things to frighten him?

Each time he was overwhelmed with fear, she would stop him at just the right moment, clearly not trying to trick his brain into thinking he was dead and thus actually fall into death.

Could it be that... Su Ruier's creation of all this was never intended to harm him, but rather for some kind of protective purpose?

Could it be that... he wasn't the only one being psychologically influenced by her, but also those extraordinary and real creators?

Moreover... in that case, to whom do the dismembered remains hidden in that huge suitcase belong?

Chen Xin felt a chill run down his spine, and then a rustling sound suddenly came from behind his head.

At 00:00, his pupils swayed, and he caught a glimpse of this ominous time.

"Hee-hee!" A chilling baby laugh echoed in my ears.

"Waaah!" Then, it turned into mournful weeping.

A cool touch enveloped her neck, and Chen Xin suddenly turned around and looked up!