"I" and I (two in one) [Rule 4]
The caregiver really exists? I stopped cleaning up and felt a little relieved.
"Not only does it exist, it's alive and kicking."
Yan Mo came back with the news and handed me a pad: "The old man lives far away, and it will take some time for our guys to get there, so we just talked first. And the nurse has met our people.
Both of them said that they had indeed taken care of a young man who was suspected of being insane and hysterical. Without any guidance or suggestion, what they said on their own was roughly consistent with what you, the consultant, said. "
I nodded, and then I heard Yan Mo say, "Advisor, look at this."
He clicked on a short recorded video, in which a group of guys of different heights, weights and bodies stood in a row. I heard the familiar voice of the nursing lady, who kept saying that the second to last one with the taller and thinner face looked the most like the guy, but he needed to be whiter and his temperament didn't quite match the look.
Another guy quickly drew a profile picture of me on the spot based on her description.
After confirming this again and again, they gave the nurse a stack of photos and asked her to choose the one with me in it.
The video stops at the moment when a guy takes out a thick stack of photos and waits for the lady to select and identify them.
At this point, there should be no doubt.
But I discovered something very subtle: during the entire confirmation process, the camera was never directed towards the nurse once, as if she was deliberately trying to prevent me from seeing her facial features.
This cautious and somewhat evasive attitude made me feel a little suspicious.
I exclaimed in my heart, thinking that something was wrong. This was clearly following the standard procedure for identifying suspects.
It's strange, Yan Mo doesn't seem to like to complicate things when doing things.
While I was wondering, I watched the second part of the video, which showed a row of older sisters I had never seen before entering an empty room in an orderly manner.
They were dressed like they had come together to dance in the square. They stood in line, looking a little awkward and curious. From time to time, they looked around and asked in a low voice whether the people next to them were really filming and where the camera was.
Now I found out where the problem lies. The second paragraph was probably not for the nurse to identify, but was taken for me to see.
Yan Mo told me that the situation was a bit strange, and now it would be best for me to follow the process to identify which person in the video most resembled the nurse herself.
I took a deep breath, looked carefully back and forth, tried my best to recall the features I had memorized when I was face-blind, and pointed to one.
I actually felt a bit of uneasiness that I hadn't felt in a long time: "Is that right?" For a moment, I also felt a sense of inexplicable novelty.
Yan Mo hesitated for a moment and said to me: "Actually, we are not sure either."
I was very surprised.
"——In short, the person has been found and the situation is roughly in line."
Yan Mo frowned: "But in the nursing records kept by the hospital, she doesn't look like this now."
What do you mean by not being like this now?
I gasped, thought about it, and tried to sort out the truth and falsehood from the simplest point:
"Wait, let's solve a key problem first: Have I really been admitted to that hospital? Do other medical staff have any impression of it? Does my hospitalization record exist?"
Yan Mo raised his eyes and looked at me inexplicably when he heard the words.
We stared at each other for a while, and I felt a little uneasy. I slapped my forehead, suppressed my curiosity, and let Yan Mo finish speaking first.
But he said that the matter was literal.
The nurse's appearance had changed a bit. Of course, it wasn't a distortion, it was just a natural change over time.
Let me recognize the face first to prevent my memory from being vague or wrong, so let me type in a standard style.
I was slightly surprised, thinking that I still had some psychological trauma of "not being able to tell the difference". Could it be that this time it was just a misunderstanding, and the matter was not so gloomy and strange.
Could it be that my so-called "traveling a thousand miles in an instant" was just discovered by Zhang Tianyi in the turbulent and confused state, and he happened to take me away and dropped me off in some hospital for treatment, and this unreliable brother didn't give me the money right away, waiting for me to continue to fleece the Zhang family.
Damn, the more I thought about it, the more it resembled it, and I suddenly felt a little ashamed.
So my sudden "disappearance" might have been seen by the hospital as an attempt to run away from the bill.
It is not uncommon for people to quietly leave the hospital and avoid paying fees due to financial constraints or other life pressures. But when I was recovering from my illness, I was eagerly waiting for the Zhang family to pick me up. I was already used to having someone take care of everything, so I really didn't pay the bill for the time being.
If you really do the math, the only person who received actual money from me was the nurse, the soup-making genius.
I was about to laugh, but Yan Mo shook his head.
"No, in fact, you may not have left the town from beginning to end."
I was stunned, thinking how could this not be right, am I stupid? I said helplessly: "Speak human language."
Yan Mo looked at me with an expression that was hard to describe.
My heart skipped a beat and I started sweating. "What the hell is going on?"
"The hospital exists, the medical records of the treatment exist, the nurses exist too..." Yan Mo seemed to have prepared himself mentally before he slowly said, "But that was all twelve years ago."
"At that time, the town was actually larger than it is now, and it was not too deserted. There was indeed a hospital. There was an old waterway that passed through there, but it was diverted and dried up nine years ago and completely disappeared."
My head buzzed and I said in a lost voice, “What?”
"When we found the nurse, we found that her appearance had changed a lot. She was old and unrecognizable. I couldn't be sure if it was her and I suspected that someone was impersonating her.
But a person's voice is often the last to age, and it will hardly change much in twelve years. So in the video, I avoided her appearance, wanting to see if you can still recognize her.
So far, the voice is fine; the appearance is not completely consistent with the current one, but it is consistent with the photos and images of her when she was young. "
What Yan Mo said next was even more unbelievable.
After repeated questioning, he found that the hospitalization experience that both sides agreed on had major problems in the details.
The nurse did remember taking care of a young man with severe delirium, but there was no bright red peeling of the skin, nor any fatal burns or scalds. If something so horrible really happened, there was no way she, an ordinary person, would have persisted and turned a blind eye.
There was also the incident of the clay pot soup, but the young man just said in a sinister tone, "coarse and bitter", and knocked over the clay pot very rudely, acting neurotic and aggressive.
The nurse was vaguely afraid and couldn't stand the other party's arrogance, so she resigned from the hospital and ended her nursing work early.
My hair stood on end as I realized that in this description, the figure on the hospital bed didn't seem to be me, but another person I was very familiar with.
"The young man she pointed out and described looked very much like you at first glance. But when we gave her the photos, she was surprised and said that none of the people in the photos were people she had seen before."
Yan Mo sighed: "Although it's impossible, I still made a try. I took out the sketch you described when we were discussing just now. As a result, she immediately confirmed that it was him.
"Counselor, do you—understand what I'm saying?"
Of course, I understand.
My whole body was numb, and my buzzing mind was almost as if I had suddenly realized something, saying:
——The person the nurse was talking about was a Taiwanese? Was that the experience of a Taiwanese twelve years ago?
Wait, what happened to my transfer?
Yan Mo gave me an answer that was so simple, so straightforward, and yet so chilling: There was a record of the transfer, but that was about a day ago. I took out my phone in a delirium and typed in the transfer in a daze.
The nurse was very surprised after receiving it, and was terrified for a long time, thinking it was some new form of online fraud trap. She tossed and turned all night, and this afternoon she carefully found a bank deposit machine to return the money, and she also specially selected delayed payment.
"Now let's calculate, the two-hour delayed transfer should be due."
That's well said.
After waiting for about ten minutes, my phone beeped and a record of the money arriving popped up. I scrolled up and found an outgoing transfer of the same amount.
I was shocked, a chill ran up from the soles of my feet to the top of my head, and I stared at the two records in silence.
Only the unanswered questions still supported me, forcing me to squeeze out another sentence: "What else?"
Yan Mo showed some surprise, seeing that I was indeed clear-headed, he thought for a while before continuing, saying that it was true that my injuries had recovered and the bright red parasitic contamination had fallen off, but it also happened in Zhang's Hospital.
Moreover, it happened in just one short night yesterday.
Two guys on shift were not here today, they were just catching up on sleep after staying up all night. They were called in for questioning, they had dark circles under their eyes, they thought for a long time before wondering, it was one of them who witnessed my skin shedding and recovery.
But they did not hide it at the time. They called a doctor to check on my condition and stayed with me until dawn.
There was also a heated discussion about the severe burns and scalds on my body, but that was when I was unconscious. Several residents on duty lowered their voices and discussed it worriedly outside the room.
In fact, what happened to me was:
A few days ago, Zhang the waiter saw Dongzai on the surveillance camera - and found me - I was unconscious due to serious injuries - my injuries improved overnight, but I showed severe delirium, I didn't know what I was saying, and I nervously escaped from the ward - after being awakened by the broker, I seemed to have regained consciousness and told everyone about my dream.
When I was clearly narrating the dream, switching between "I" and my perspective, seemingly without any interference, I was completely unaware that the experience of me being injured and rescued had long been a confusion and misattribution.
My dream actually consisted of two parts, and I kept describing them, but I thought that the first part of the dream belonged to me.
Some silent force confused Taizi and me, like pouring water into juice, so that the two merged naturally like breathing, and all the memories from "me" became mine.
Even this cognition is still justifying itself, and it has also disrupted some of my own experiences and filled them in, so that I still ignore them in repeated recollections. It also makes the bystanders unable to feel anything unusual.
It was at this time that I finally woke up and realized with horror something that had puzzled me for a long time:
——What exactly is the so-called skinning and “clothing” of Taiwanese people like?
Now I have the answer, it's like this.
If this insidious erosion continues, my memories will slowly be replaced and swallowed up by Taizai.
After the two are completely merged into one, I am afraid that in my cognition, "I" will still take it for granted that I am still Xu Ranxing. All the parts that belong to Xu Ranxing will automatically find reasonable self-persuasion for the alien in the core, and finally it will be seamless.
Yes, I am the “perfect heavenly garment” that is being slowly put on and on which no flaws can be seen.
I finally understood why Taizi had such a big split and misalignment in his self-cognition, because this was exactly the process of him putting on "clothes", and the first thing was to completely immerse himself in the prey.
It was just that I had accidentally interrupted him the previous times. So this time he turned his target to me.
No matter how childish, clumsy and ridiculous the Taiwanese may be as a person, as a dresser, this superb skill is almost innate.
I suddenly thought of many things. Those stray cats and dogs or larger tigers and leopards have an IQ no more than that of children, and are equally stupid in our eyes.
But this does not prevent the carnivorous beast from naturally possessing the skill of hunting with ease as one of the top predators. It does not need to think at all, and simply following its instinct is enough to kill its prey.
When it came to Taizai, I paid too much attention to the human part of him and ignored the fact that he was actually a cruel predator.
The reason why he can still be judged as a human being under the rules of moving mice is not because of anything else, just like the pattern on the abdomen of a poisonous spider will appear like a human face to scare away its natural enemies. It is an essential part of its survival instinct to strip off the "heavenly clothes".
There must still be a part of it that is absolutely human in order to wear the cloak that is defined as human.
Those human characteristics or emotions are strange and rare, and seem to lack socialization, precisely because this is not the core to it, but just a protective color of natural camouflage.
Or rather, this is its smooth and not very beautiful personality fur.
Therefore, when hunting, it will not focus too much energy on licking and grooming its fur; nor will it care whether its fur is neat and colorful compared to other creatures.
When I observed from my limited human perspective that it was even ridiculously frightened by a tabby cat, to it it was just like the wind suddenly blowing and ruffling its hair.
Those collapses or madness are meaningful only to humans, but they do not detract from the silent feeding of that thing hidden deep in its core.
And I was lying on the spider web, struggling, but I was proud of having destroyed dozens of spider threads. I didn't know that the huge creature was crawling towards me step by step along the trembling web, stroking its huge claws coldly, and was drooling.
So, what about Taizi twelve years ago?
Does that Taizi, the human part of him, know that he is just a false organ? Will he realize that all his personality traits are just some kind of replaceable scales, or even just a simulated color, and not real?
I suddenly felt a chill to the bone.
Perhaps it is because I am slowly becoming it, a certain understanding of “me” is gradually becoming clearer, giving me more extremely terrifying answers:
Yes, I should have thought about why I had a memory belonging to Taizi, why I could feel everything so immersively, and even see the terrifying shadow that only Taizi could see.
Whether it is comb jellyfish or insect eggs, they are all superficial.
That’s because I was being eaten, and thus gradually became one with Taizi.
Taizai… No, Prophet, I had it completely wrong.
It is a deception, a thief that lingers around strange stories. When a strange story is about to devour its chosen prey, it will spread out the part of the human external organ, which will also be contaminated and parasitized by the strange story.
Whether it is the huge weird head caused by comb jellyfish or the skin peeling similar to that of mud monsters, they all belong to this part of deliberate parasitic simulation.
Through this deception and disguise, only the prey that is also being devoured by the ghost story will realize something is wrong in the excessive pain and fear, and alertly see its presence in the two bites.
Then, it would sneakily try to eat one or part of its prey, but in this process, just as the Oviraptorosaur quietly devoured the eggs in the nests of other dragons, it would inevitably be discovered and driven away.
At that time, it will peel off its damaged and contaminated skin, turn over and escape, and take away new prey to cover itself again. Of course, it is also possible that it will get nothing and be severely injured, and has to escape and find a place to breathe.
I was once in a daze when I was swept away by the turbulent current and felt the insect eggs on my body fleeing in panic. It was at this moment that it caught up and discovered me.
But the eggs did not flee because they were frightened, but because there were too many of them parasitizing on my body and it was oversaturated.
At that moment, when the insect eggs realized that I, the host, was weak and about to drown, and something that exuded human breath and was also defined as a human in the mouse moving rules approached, the insect eggs only felt the other party's strong vitality.
Then, like moths flying into a flame, the eggs immediately abandoned me, their unqualified parasitic place, without hesitation and all rushed towards the prophet.
This is how the insect eggs in my body, which far outnumbered those in other people's bodies, were actually removed.
And when I became the clothing chosen by the prophet, that terrible power was peeling me off, and the bright red color on my body began to peel off.
My recovery and the recovery of others seem to be exactly the same on the surface, but they are completely different inside. But this is also in the mimicry of "Tianyi", and it is also obscured and cannot be detected.
"Twelve years ago..." I murmured, suddenly feeling a strong palpitation, "Where is Xu You? The experience twelve years ago was also confused. Our cognition was manipulated by the decoration!"
There was no time to say more at this point, so I asked where Xu You, who was originally preparing for the trip to Stone Forest, was.
Fortunately, Xu You came over after a while, and brought an extremely terrible news with a grim face.
"When I was preparing my travel equipment, I checked my attendance records from twelve years ago."
Xu You said, cold sweat dripping down his forehead, "In the records at that time, we lost a guy. But I don't remember this at all."
However, the old records written by Xu You himself showed that the fellow not only died, but also died by suddenly falling to the ground at the edge of quicksand, holding his throat and with white sand flowing out of his mouth and nose.
In other words, the first half of my dream, the so-called transfer memory, describes the process of my being preyed on;
The second half, the death of the prophet twelve years ago, actually tells the story of how the fellow was eaten, and that time, it was probably successful. The fellow was eaten, and the prophet left, but in the confusion of other people's memories, it was recognized as the prophet's death, and it ended abruptly.
My mouth suddenly became dry and I had to stop and take a rest before I started to think about a question:
So, twelve years ago, which part did the "Zhang Tianyi" belong to? Did he really appear at that moment? Or was his work with the Zhang family and Xu You in other time periods forgotten, and was instead misidentified and moved to that time point when he could not have appeared?
Going a step further, Zhang Tianyi was accused of having initiated a serious betrayal and remained silent without any excuse.
- Was it really him who did it? Was he stubbornly unwilling to explain, or was he simply unable to explain himself, unable to reveal a prey to someone who was unaware of the "prophet" swallowing so much?
Judging from the targets the prophet has chosen so far, it will even be picky about who has been bitten by the ghost mark, and the more seriously the ghost is contaminated and parasitic, the better. Even if this means that the prey may not be able to be touched by it when it is deeply trapped in the ghost, it will soon catch up and follow.
I don't know if this means it's time to eat, but this selection criteria makes me think of another thing.
Maybe my palms were sweaty, so the phone was a little slippery when I held it.
I clicked on the familiar avatar and started typing word by word.
Just when the words "typing" appeared on the screen, Zhang Tianyi replied to me first.
"——Xu Ranxing?"
I had heard him ask me this brief question many times, always seemingly casually. Only this time, it had a chilling meaning.
"I am."
I replied, my palms still sweating, and typed another line slowly, "I still am."
A long time passed, so long that I almost doubted whether time had stopped. Right next to me, I heard Zhang Tianyi's long, extremely complicated sigh.
My heart skipped a beat and I turned my head stiffly, only to find that my brother, whom I had been complaining about for always disappearing, was standing right next to me, looking at me quietly with a deep gaze.
The next second, a series of memories emerged and were corrected. A sudden voice told me that when I jumped off the foghorn, Zhang Tianyi also jumped off and followed me all the time. But from that moment on, the prophet also arrived.
The tug-of-war between him and the prophet caused him to disappear again from everyone's cognition and memory. All traces of his existence were distorted and confused, distributed to others, and even became meaningless white noise.
Zhang Tianyi ceased to exist. In response, Dongzai came to my side.
Humans cannot touch its eating at the prophetic dimension, so Zhang Tianyi's choice is to touch the personality organ that is still operating by inertia at the level of Taizi, causing it to ruminate in response to stress and temporarily loosen its bite on me.
Humans who are confused by their personality organs cannot do this. Only cats who almost coexist with me, who were once infected by the post together with me and can sense the existence of strange rules can do this.
In the eyes of the stray kitten, I am nothing more than a strange big cat without fur. It is weak and ignorant and cannot accurately recognize what humans are, what Taiwanese are, or the extremely huge and terrifying predator "it" opposite.
Dongzai, as a non-existent cat, is too stupid and blind for the prophet, and too weird and incomprehensible for Taizi. In this way, he can step on the dangerous red line and touch the shadow of the prophet without being seen by Taizi.
So Dongzai was able to save me ignorantly. This instinctive rescue was also ignorant and unconscious. It even had nothing to do with Dongzai's own will, so it would not pollute it.
I subconsciously touched the cat that was still snoring, and the realization at this moment caused some strong and incredible emotions to surge up.
"You finally see me now?" Zhang Tianyi smiled and patted my forehead. "Every time I talk to you, you automatically treat me as 'some guy' in the background, criticizing me in your heart for not knowing how to keep my voice down."
I stared at him blankly, and my breathing suddenly quickened.
“There are many types of [getting lost], and this is one of them. [Getting lost] is not a fixed rule of strange talk, but a general term for the same type of sequelae caused by various rules.
It's just that no matter how many times I explain this part of knowledge to others, it will not be heard or noticed." He said softly, with mixed emotions, "Although this is not what I want, but..."
“Thank you for being here.”
"Ranzi, welcome to the new world."
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Rule 4, see this chapter
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