Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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One month later.
S University Affiliated Hospital
“Mr. Xing, psychological therapy requires confidentiality. Could you please ask your bodyguard to leave temporarily?”
The vice president politely inquired of the man in the wheelchair.
The man looked to be in his early twenties, with delicate and handsome features that exuded a captivating beauty, yet his complexion was almost sickly pale. Even in a wheelchair, with bandages wrapped around his arms and forehead, his air of nobility remained undiminished.
“Xing Shi, will your master allow you to leave?”
Xing Cheng turned his head and asked the man in black behind him.
“The chairman told us to follow the young master’s orders in everything.” Xing Shi bowed.
“Fine, then take your men and get out of here,” Xing Cheng said.
With a single, casual remark, he sent all the bodyguards who accompanied him flying out.
“……Yes.”
After leaving the dean’s office, Xing Shi did not dare to go far without permission and silently waited at the elevator entrance with his underlings.
A dozen pairs of eyes were fixed on the office door at the end of the corridor, fearing that the young master might cause some more trouble.
A month ago, it was because of their incompetence that they lost track of the young master, which led to his car accident.
With visibility extremely low due to the heavy rain, the bodyguards were frantic with their search, turning the entire city upside down without finding him. Finally, Chairman Xing dispatched a helicopter, which led them to the location of the young master at the overpass leading out of the city.
This wasn’t the first time the young master had a seizure, but it was the first time he’d gone so mad that even his bodyguards didn’t recognize him.
If it weren’t for the pre-placed roadblocks acting as a buffer, the young master might have driven the car straight into the river.
Once all the bodyguards had left the office, Xing Cheng sat up straight in front of his wheelchair, looking at the middle-aged man in front of him: “Shall we begin?”
The person who received Xing Cheng was the vice president of the affiliated hospital of S University, who was also a highly respected associate academician in the field of psychiatry in China. He and Chairman Xing were close friends, and he had already heard about the situation of the eldest son of the Xing family.
Chairman Xing specifically instructed that his son was in great danger and told his old friend to prepare himself mentally in advance.
Seeing the junior’s lack of interest, Dean Qiu skipped the formalities and spoke directly:
“Mr. Xing, based on the medical team’s analysis and observation report, we believe that you have developed empathy for Xu Jian.”
“You want to be Xu Jian, but you can’t be him or even replace him. This is perhaps the source of your inner anxiety.”
Upon hearing Dean Qiu’s opening remarks, Xing Cheng’s eyes turned colder, but his smile remained unchanged.
They were right, this old guy really does have some skills.
“…Those doctors before,” Xing Cheng said calmly after a long silence, “all said that Xu Jian is my split personality.”
“No,” Dean Qiu denied decisively. “It’s just a character in a movie, it’s all fake, how could it be your split personality?”
Dean Qiu was unfamiliar with the entertainment industry and didn’t follow the domestic film and television scene. Only after accepting Chairman Xing’s request did he buy the Blu-ray disc and watched “The Bad Dog,” starring Xing Cheng, several times.
“The Bad Dog” was a dark horse among domestic films last year. With its explosive word-of-mouth popularity and the superb acting skills of the lead actors, it won many awards at international film festivals. Xing Cheng, the idol star who played the lead role, also won the Golden Peak Award for Best Actor for his role in this film.
The protagonist of the film was named Xu Jian, a normal person confined to a mental hospital. The eight years he spent in the mental hospital allowed Xu Jian to gain precious friendships and romantic love.
Later, Xu Jian’s lover dies tragically in the hospital, and everyone suspects Xu Jian of being the murderer. After all, the more normal a person seems, the deeper the evil they may be hiding inside.
Having lost his beloved and become a murderer condemned by everyone, Xu Jian is eventually driven insane.
At the end of the film, while being chased by the villains, the protagonist Xu Jian suffers a mental breakdown, drives his pickup truck out of the mental hospital, steps on the gas, and jumps off the bridge.
The director gave Xu Jian a close-up shot. Outside the car window, wind and rain raged, with lightning and thunder. Xu Jian, covered in blood, turned his head and stared intently at the camera.
It’s as if he was looking across the screen at the audience outside the frame.
The camera zoomed in, finally focusing on Xu Jian’s left eye. The mole at the corner of his eye resembled a tear stained with blood.
Upon seeing Xing Cheng for the first time, Dean Qiu finally understood why Xing Cheng’s acting skills were so highly praised by fans.
How could a mentally ill person playing a mentally ill person not look convincing?
After secretly observing Xing Cheng, he had to admit that the title of Best Actor was truly well-deserved.
The eldest son of the Xing family was a very good actor in public.
When Xing Cheng smiled, the corners of his eyes slightly turned upwards, his eyes sparkling with light, making him appear radiant. Especially striking was the beauty mark at the corner of his eye, which moved with every change in his facial features. It was as if a casual stroke of God had sketched a vivid, flesh-and-blood soul into the world.
But his smile never reached his eyes; it was a very high-level, insincere smile.
Dean Qiu turned the iPad on the table around, gesturing for Xing Cheng to look at the surveillance video on the screen:
“Mr. Xing, in that accident a month ago, when did you begin to realize that you were not Xu Jian?”
The final scene of “The Bad Dog” was filmed on an overpass in the western district of S city. The footage playing on the iPad was taken by a Bugatti’s dashcam at the same location.
After comparative analysis, he discovered that the route Xing Cheng took to speed out of the city was roughly the same as the route Xu Jian took to his death in the film.
In the movie, Xu Jian drove his car straight into the river, but Xing Cheng, at the last moment before falling into the river, suddenly turned the steering wheel and crashed hard into the wall of the overpass.
“I don’t remember.” Xing Cheng’s expression was somewhat listless. “Does it matter when I wake up?”
“It’s very important,” Dean Qiu said. “It’s your brain’s self-defense mechanism, and it saved your life in a critical moment.”
Xing Cheng didn’t say anything.
That rainy night, the instant he crashed his Bugatti into the overpass, he suddenly felt an unprecedented clarity.
This was the human world he inhabited, not hell.
He was Xing Cheng, not Xu Jian.
All of that pain belonged to Xu Jian, not Xing Cheng.
Xu Jian died in the chase at the end of the movie, while Xing Cheng was still living in agony, day after day, without end.
“Mr. Xing, you never had any suicidal thoughts, nor do you have a split personality. You identify with Xu Jian because Xu Jian has something that you don’t.”
“Xu Jian is a tragic character with strong emotions. He dares to love and hate, and his emotions often fluctuate greatly. He can fully empathize with the outside world and therefore feels endless beauty and pain.”
“You want to find an emotional connection with the outside world through him, to fill the void in your emotions, am I right?”
Dean Qiu knew very well how to strike the right balance in communicating with patients, and he stopped there.
The time that followed was all up to Xing Cheng. Only when he had thought things through could the treatment continue.
A brief silence fell over the office.
Soon, Xing Cheng placed his uninjured right arm on the wheelchair and frankly said, “That’s right.”
Although Dean Qiu’s description of his condition was largely accurate, Xing Cheng was not surprised.
This was precisely why he was forced by the Xing family to come to the hospital for treatment.
He didn’t care what the doctor said.
The entertainment industry was rife with gossip and scandals, and negative news about him was rampant online. He remained indifferent to both the slander and abuse from his haters and the fervent love from his fans.
Or to put it another way, it was not that he didn’t care; he simply couldn’t discern, experience, or respond to other people’s emotions.
He suffered from severe alexithymia[1].
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[1] Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by severe difficulty identifying, processing, and describing emotions, often termed “emotional blindness”. Symptoms include a limited imagination, an, externally oriented thinking style, and difficulty distinguishing bodily sensations from feelings. It is not a mental illness, but often co-occurs with autism, depression, PTSD, or trauma.
