“I had a chaotic, absurd dream.”
White walls, A cold desk, and the fading sunlight slanting through the blinds. Vibrant flower petals on the windowsill swayed gently in the breeze, The air was filled with a faint fragrance of begonia.
“In the dream, my name was Liang Ye.”
Xu Wu looked at the well-dressed young man sitting across the desk and pushed up his glasses.
The man had exceptionally handsome features and excellent manners. His voice was gentle, his demeanor refined, Like a young talent torn from the pages of a financial magazine. He spoke calmly and evenly, narrating in a very organized manner with smooth logic, As if telling an inconsequential story, making it difficult to connect him with the diagnosis on his medical record.
He appeared too composed and certain, forcing Xu Wu to push up his glasses again as he gazed into those calm, gentle eyes. “So, Mr. Wang, you now believe everything in your dream was real, correct? When you were Liang Ye, Your parents gave you to Bian Yunxin to raise so you could survive. She often abused you, And after you sought refuge with Cui Yuxian, you were forced to drink a certain soup, which caused your memories to become confused?”
“You could say that.” The man interlaced his fingers and placed them on the table, Leaning forward slightly in a rather intimidating posture, calmly looking at Xu Wu with a slight smile. “Doctor Xu, May I continue?”
Xu Wu broke into a cold sweat at his smile, yet felt there was no need for concern. He straightened his back and nodded.
After a lengthy narrative, Wang Dian picked up a disposable paper cup and took a sip of the slightly sweet water. “I died in Suixue Garden. It was raining heavily that day, with dismembered bodies of officials scattered everywhere. My nostrils were filled with the smell of blood. I could feel the pain of countless arrows piercing my heart, especially the arrow in my chest, shot by a guard named Jian Ling. He smiled at me in the rain, but I didn’t die.”
“I fell to the ground, and a man wearing a gray cloak walked over, reaching for my neck.” Wang Dian’s voice paused briefly as he frowned, crossed his arms, and leaned back in his chair, calmly observing Xu Wu’s reaction. “His fingers pierced through the flesh of my nape. I clearly heard the sound of bones breaking as he removed the third cervical vertebra from my neck, still covered with my flesh and blood. Blood dripped down and fell into my eyes, burning.”
Xu Wu nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
“Then my limbs and neck were tied with thick ropes and attached to horses.” Wang Dian’s fingers involuntarily curled and twitched. “In ancient times, this punishment was called ‘dismemberment by five horses.'”
“And then?” Xu Wu asked.
Wang Dian gave a light chuckle. “Of course, I died.”
“Ah.” Xu Wu pushed his glasses up again. He instinctively felt uncomfortable. What made Wang Dian different from other patients he had encountered was that Wang showed no urgent desire for help, nor resistance toward the doctor. Instead, he seemed to be observing Xu Wu, as if waiting for some kind of validation. “So you mean the dream ended, correct?”
“I suppose.” Wang Dian’s eyebrows twitched slightly. “Last spring, I was hospitalized after working overtime for too long. I slept for half a month and had this dream. But the dream was too chaotic, and after taking anxiety medication for three consecutive months, I couldn’t remember it clearly until this year.”
“What triggered your recollection this year?” Xu Wu asked further. “Did something stimulate these memories?”
“I worked too much overtime this year. In April, I fainted and was hospitalized again. My assistant found me in the winery garage. I had collapsed beside my car with a broken bottle of red wine nearby and a red, swollen bruise on my forehead.”
Xu Wu looked at him with confusion.
“This time, I was in a coma for an entire month and had another dream, which I remember perfectly clearly.” Wang Dian sat relaxed in his chair, looking at Xu Wu with a condescending, scrutinizing gaze. “And personally, I believe it wasn’t a dream.”
His gaze made Xu Wu somewhat uncomfortable. Although Wang appeared very gentle, his demeanor revealed a strong, oppressive, and well-disguised sense of inequality. But remembering Wang Dian’s self-described imperial identity, Xu Wu suddenly understood and decided to give the patient more tolerance and patience.
“What did you dream about this time?” Xu Wu asked.
Wang Dian seemed to see through his thoughts, with disappointment and weariness flashing briefly in his eyes. He picked up his water and took another sip. “Doctor Xu, it’s getting late, and I have a meeting tonight. We’ll talk more next time.”
He had sensed Xu Wu’s disbelief. Xu Wu instantly understood but was still surprised by the man’s perceptiveness, and even more amazed that his enormous consultation fee had gone to waste.
It was as if the man had paid a large sum of money to calmly and dispassionately tell him an intricate and bizarre story.
He began to grow curious about Wang Dian’s second dream—what had he dreamed that could cause such a rational and dominant person to experience a complete mental breakdown?
Wang Dian tugged at his tie, stood up to shake hands goodbye, and took the medical record from the table. The file briefly fell open from his movement, revealing a few lines of text.
Severe anxiety.
Dissociative identity disorder.
“Thank you, the flowers smell nice,” Wang Dian said after shaking hands, then turned to leave.
Xu Wu sniffed hard in the air, looking puzzled at the blooming begonia by the window.
This flower has no scent at all.
****
Wang Dian casually tossed the medical record aside and pinched the bridge of his nose hard. Only then did the lingering coldness of death slowly dissipate.
“Mr. Wang, shall we go to the company?” the driver asked from the front.
Wang Dian, who had been staring at the bustling traffic outside, suddenly came back to his senses. “What?”
“Where should I take you?” The driver couldn’t help but advise, “You’ve just been discharged from the hospital and you’re still weak. You shouldn’t work overtime again. That land in the east of the city has already—”
“It’s fine.” Wang Dian listened to the soothing music in the car and smiled faintly. “It’s a bidding process; may the best man win. If we miss it, there’s nothing we can do. I’ve been too tired lately and should take a proper vacation. Let’s go home.”
He closed his eyes and pretended to doze in the back seat, his mind filled with images of Liang Ye.
He frowned, trying to resist recalling everything about Liang Ye from his memory, telling himself it was just an absurd and bizarre dream.
This dream must have begun with absurdity—there’s no such thing as transmigration in this world.
Then it developed with increasingly real details—a complete but non-existent dynasty and country, vivid and diverse people whose faces and names he could remember, events with clear causes and effects and clean logic, a Liang Ye he could touch and kiss, feelings that gradually became uncontrollable despite his rationality, the struggle between reality and illusion, the entanglement of clarity and obsession.
And finally, it ended in absurdity—mysteriously appearing cultivators, old affairs from three dynasties, the mysterious and terrifying State Preceptor, fantastical and bizarre immortal bones and Taoist priests. It was his subconscious trying to rationalize the concept of transmigration, allowing him to forever remain in the illusory dream world where Liang Ye existed.
Unfortunately, rationality ultimately prevailed, forcing him to wake up.
[I had a chaotic, absurd dream.]
He had used this opening line with many psychologists but never got around to telling the story of himself and Liang Ye.
He could calmly and coldly narrate Liang Ye’s life from birth to death, speaking of being pierced by countless arrows and having bones extracted with apparent ease, but he couldn’t bring himself to describe his first meeting with Liang Ye.
The palace doors had opened with a bang. He stood vigilantly on the cold floor, then watched as the naked Liang Ye strutted out from behind the screen, boldly examining him, arms crossed, lazily uttering his first words.
[Zhen did not know such strange things could happen in the world.]
It was indeed strange.
So strange that he felt suffocating fear faced with countless sympathetic yet tolerant gazes from doctors and their diagnostic reports.
He was the first to define it as a dream, yet he denied it himself, refusing to give details lest the so-called “authorities” brand him with the stigma of delusion.
If he didn’t speak, Liang Ye would remain real.
But he began to uncontrollably, frantically, desperately attempt to prove the existence of reality.
Without exception, all attempts failed.
The modern world of bright lights and red wine was incompatible with Liang Ye. He could find no evidence to support the other’s existence. Even the light coming on with the flip of a switch was a silent rebuttal and mockery.
Wang Dian, you’ve gone mad.
You’re now just a lunatic with a mental illness.
So he smiled at the mirror, stretched his lips, with an imperious expression, looking down from above, just like his Liang Ye.
He reached out, his fingertips touching the cool mirror surface, meticulously tracing Liang Ye’s features inch by inch, then watching as the face in the mirror gradually blurred in the rising mist.
He even began to imagine whether he might “transmigrate” again if he died, and find Liang Ye.
But then he remembered the words “severe suicidal tendencies” on the diagnosis, and frowned in disgust. He and Liang Ye had struggled with all their might to live, not to end it all in the end.
Why should he die?
If everything that happened before was real, there must be a way to find Liang Ye.
If it was real.
Wang Dian sadly discovered his own assumption. The face in the mirror began to twist grotesquely. Liang Ye’s voice, Liang Ye’s scent, Liang Ye’s gasps when aroused, Liang Ye’s tears… everything about Liang Ye rushed towards him like a tide, drowning him.
Wang Dian suddenly gasped for air, coughing violently. He reached out to twist the knob, and the hot water pouring from the shower suddenly turned cold. The mist on the mirror turned into droplets.
He wiped them away, staring directly at the person in the mirror. His black pupils trembled slightly as he revealed a gloomy and twisted smile.
He slowly approached the mirror, seemingly about to touch noses with his reflection, but stopped in place.
The mist from his breath again made the figure in the mirror begin to blur.
“Liang Ye…” he called his own name softly, “Wang Dian…”
The person in the mirror remained elusive.
“Are you Liang Ye or Wang Dian?”
“…Who am I?”
“I trust no one; I only trust Liang Ye.” He closed his eyes briefly, then suddenly opened them, smiling at Liang Ye in the mirror. “I couldn’t bring back a single thing, I can’t even convince myself…”
“One thing.” He gazed at Liang Ye with a sigh and obsession, nearly begging yet also threatening, leaning in intimately to kiss Liang Ye’s lips, parting immediately after contact.
Looking at the lip print on the mirror, he calmly and rationally said to Liang Ye, “Give me one thing that can prove your existence, and I’ll f*cking cultivate immortality to find you.”
Liang Ye in the mirror flashed him a brilliant smile.
