Heart Dust

Chapter 19

Quiet, unusually quiet—if it weren't for the anatomy classroom, this would truly be the perfect hypnotherapy room. Zhou Yifeng slowly walked towards the podium. Yan Hao watched him, his white robes fluttering, like a ghost.

Zhou Yifeng gestured for Yan Hao to sit on the stool at the podium. Just like the previous two times, everything went smoothly, from the relaxing suggestion to taking out the crystal ball for gaze hypnosis. While waiting for Yan Hao to fully enter the hypnotic state, Zhou Yifeng thought to himself that this student was truly an excellent experimental subject, and the current process was even more impressive than the previous two.

Aside from the faint hissing sound of the emergency lights in the distance, there was only Zhou Yifeng's increasingly soft and slow cacophony of cues.

In the office at the other end of the hall, Shen Zihan and Liao Guangzhi sat quietly in the dark—Zhou Yifeng had ordered that the lights not be turned on to avoid unnecessary trouble. The silence made their eyelids grow heavy.

"Hopefully, this will be a perfect hypnosis and desensitization experiment," Zhou Yifeng prayed silently as he worked.

"Okay, now you're completely asleep... asleep. You feel very relaxed and peaceful. Sleep... sleep..." With the final command, Yan Hao's face, under the dim light of the emergency light, was as serene and peaceful as a baby's.

Fifteen seconds later, Zhou Yifeng began to complete the most important part of this experiment.

Tell me, have you ever been here before?

Yan Hao nodded.

“Go now, go to the place that causes you the most pain and distress, find it, find it.” Zhou Yifeng said, his eyes fixed intently on Yan Hao.

Yan Hao didn't react. But a few seconds later, he slowly stood up, his face ashen, as if sleepwalking. He raised his arms and stretched them out, then began to walk off the podium. Although his eyes were closed, he skillfully and nimbly avoided the tables and chairs as he walked towards the outside. Zhou Yifeng picked up the emergency light and quietly followed two steps behind him.

Walking down the dimly lit corridor, Yan Hao arrived at the door of the third specimen laboratory. He quietly pushed open the door and went straight inside. Zhou Yifeng followed him in.

Suddenly, Yan Hao, who was walking in front, turned around abruptly, and Zhou Yifeng was so startled that he almost dropped the emergency light on the ground.

Yan Hao kept his eyes closed, his lips twitching inexplicably, and his breathing became much heavier.

Zhou Yifeng hurriedly hinted, "Quiet... Relax... Okay, you're here... You're here... What's scaring you? Tell me, tell me."

Yan Hao slowly turned around again and walked to a brown-painted wooden board in the corner. Then, he stood on it.

Zhou Yifeng knew that those weren't wooden planks, but the covers of the mortuary used to store corpses! A large number "9" was written on the cover!

Yan Hao turned around and slowly walked down towards Zhou Yifeng.

Zhou Yifeng paused for a moment, then bent down to lift it. The wooden board was too heavy, and Zhou Yifeng gritted his teeth and used all his strength. He didn't see that Yan Hao, standing behind him, suddenly had a cold smile on his lips.

The pungent smell of formaldehyde immediately filled the room, causing Zhou Yifeng to cough involuntarily. The emergency light dimmed—the battery warning light came on!

Lifting the cover, the entire pool of corpses was fully exposed to Zhou Yifeng's eyes. The pool was filled with a light brown liquid.

"Is this the place?" Zhou Yifeng asked in a low voice.

Yan Hao, facing the pool of corpses, slowly nodded.

Zhou Yifeng crouched down. He speculated that the pool might hold the secret that caused the student's inexplicable anxiety and fear. Perhaps one of the corpses inside had a connection to him before its death? As he pondered this, he peered into the pool.

His eyes widened, and he could clearly see the bottom of the cement pool! Then he looked again—it was still empty! It was an empty pool of corpses! Zhou Yifeng breathed a sigh of relief! His hands unconsciously relaxed and hung down.

Suddenly, a hand! A dark brown hand with long fingernails shot out of the water and gripped his wrist tightly! It dragged him towards the pool!

The sound of the water grew louder, a rushing sound as if something was churning inside. Bubbles kept rising to the surface, like water boiling.

"No—no—" A shrill scream echoed in the specimen laboratory. Yan Hao, standing at the edge of the pool, let out a dry, dreamlike chuckle.

Zhou Yifeng instinctively tried to back away, thankfully his other hand braced against the ground. As he retreated, his arm rose along with the hand, along with a body of similar dark brown color, and an indistinct head—it was clearly a corpse specimen!

Suddenly, the hand released him. The entire body sank rapidly. The water became still.

Zhou Yifeng was still reeling from the shock he had just experienced; his body was trembling uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Yan Hao's dry, chuckling laughter never stopped.

"What are you laughing at?" Zhou Yifeng was already incoherent.

Yan Hao's laughter grew louder and louder, and his facial expression became increasingly ferocious and terrifying.

Suddenly, he furiously ripped open his outer garment, then his inner garment. And in his slowly raised hand lay a scalpel with a blade already sharpened.

"You...you, you, what do you want to do?" Zhou Yifeng collapsed to the ground, shuffling step by step toward the dissection table behind him.

Yan Hao, his chest bare, raised a scalpel. He tilted his head back and slowly cut his skin downwards from his jaw. Blood seeped out rapidly from the incision like countless snakes, crawling silently across Yan Hao's pale chest. Zhou Yifeng, his mouth half-open, breathed heavily, too terrified to speak.

He watched helplessly as Yan Hao used both hands to tear the skin and subcutaneous tissue down from the jawline along the incision—his movements were slow and practiced, and the bloody muscles and fascia were gradually exposed to Zhou Yifeng.

Then Yan Hao raised the scalpel again, the sharp blade cutting through the trembling, steaming muscles. Soon, he used both hands to tear apart the pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, and serratus anterior muscles, piece by piece. In the dim light of the emergency lamp, his chest was a bloody mess, a gruesome sight.

Zhou Yifeng trembled on the ground. Then, a series of ear-piercing cracking sounds followed—Yan Hao was snapping his ribs one by one at the joint of his sternum! The broken ribs hung limply like withered tree branches.

Finally, he tore open the thin pericardium. Inside, a bright red heart was beating powerfully. Then he slowly lowered his hands, grinning maliciously as he walked step by step toward Zhou Yifeng.

Zhou Yifeng then remembered the boning knife he had brought. He fumbled for it under his belt and pulled it out. His face filled with terror, he pointed the trembling blade at Yan Hao and said, "You...you...you, don't come any closer..."

The hoarse male voice that Zhou Yifeng had heard during his first hypnosis session echoed in Yan Hao's throat once more. "Look, didn't you want to see? Hahaha, look, look... my heart... my heart..." Yan Hao held a bloodstained scalpel in his hand! He approached Zhou Yifeng step by step—his gait stiff! His expression cold! His chest was adorned with torn skin, muscle, broken ribs, a crumpled pericardium, and that bright red, beating heart! Blood dripped from his feet!

"Help! No—" Zhou Yifeng screamed in despair before collapsing onto the cold concrete floor.

The emergency lights ran out of power, plunging the entire specimen laboratory into complete darkness.

The bright red heart was still beating strongly in Yan Hao's chest. He chuckled dryly—stretched out his arms, and turned to leave. His eyes were still closed—his face was ashen, as if he were sleepwalking.

Zheng Dazhi didn't sleep well all night. He was worried about Zhou Yifeng conducting some kind of psychological experiment in the anatomy lab. "I hope nothing bad happens to this madman."

At 6:30 in the morning, while still half-lying in bed, he couldn't wait to call Zhou Yifeng's house. Zhou Yifeng's wife answered the phone—she said that Old Zhou hadn't returned home all night!

Zheng Dazhi's heart skipped a beat. He quickly dressed and ran downstairs.

The iron gates to both the experimental area and the office area were ajar. Zheng Dazhi flung open the office door—inside, two students were fast asleep, slumped over their desks!

Zheng Dazhi turned around and ran back to the experimental area. In the first anatomy classroom, a student was also fast asleep, leaning against the podium.

"Old Zhou—Old Zhou—" Zheng Dazhi shouted twice, but no one responded.

Zheng Dazhi then checked each of the anatomy classrooms and specimen laboratories. Finally, he found Zhou Yifeng leaning against the dissection table on the cement floor of the third specimen laboratory! There was also a boning knife next to him! The lid of the No. 9 mortuary pool was also open and leaning against the wall.

Zheng Dazhi saw that his face was ashen and his jaw was clenched. He quickly checked his breathing and heartbeat—thankfully, they were normal! After pinching his philtrum for a while and patting and calling out to him, Zhou Yifeng finally opened his eyes.

"You... what are you doing here, Lao Zhou?" Zheng Dazhi asked, supporting his shoulder.

"I...I...he, where is he?" Zhou Yifeng's eyes suddenly became anxious and panicked.

"Who are you talking about? Which 'him'? Are you alright?"

Zhou Yifeng didn't utter a sound, and with Zheng Dazhi's help, he struggled to his feet. He staggered straight to the first anatomy classroom. When he saw Yan Hao sitting neatly dressed in a chair, he breathed a sigh of relief and muttered to himself, "Yes, he's alright, I know he's alright."

Then he stood straight in front of Yan Hao, took two deep breaths, and slowly raised his right hand.

“Alright…you’re waking up, waking up…I’ll count to ten, and you’ll slowly open your eyes. Ten…nine…” Zheng Dazhi looked at Zhou Yifeng strangely as he began to mutter like a spell, waving one hand in the air.

Yan Hao rubbed his eyes and saw Zheng Dazhi, who was teaching them, standing in front of him. He reflexively stood up and said, "Hello, teacher!"

Zheng Dazhi looked at Yan Hao, then at Zhou Yifeng, who looked exhausted, and asked, "What kind of experiment did you guys do all night?"

The campus was shrouded in morning mist, and a biting wind blew. Since it was only 7:15, there weren't many people around. Zhou Yifeng took Yan Hao, and the last two woken up, Shen Zihan and Liao Guangzhi, to get breakfast.

After the four bowls of beef noodles were served, Zhou Yifeng, who had been silent all the way, finally sighed and said, "Last night, we were probably all hypnotized."

Yan Hao lowered his head and said in bewilderment, "I didn't see or hear anything last night. Strange!" He turned to Shen Zihan and asked, "Did you two really fall asleep?" Liao Guangzhi said with a worried look, "Yes, after Professor Zhou left, we fell asleep sometime during the night. I've never slept so soundly in bed before!"

Yan Hao asked, "Professor Zhou, was the desensitization test successful? I haven't seen those things anymore."

Zhou Yifeng forced a bitter smile and said, "It's still too early to say. You didn't see or hear anything because your conscious mind was completely suppressed. Even I—yesterday, I was dehypnotized."

"Anti-hypnosis?" Yan Hao and the other two exclaimed in unison.

“Yes, it’s a special case of self-hypnosis. Both of you in the office fall into this category. But I’ve seen some…” Zhou Yifeng suddenly hesitated. After a moment of silence, he tapped his bowl and said, “Come on, everyone, you’ve all worked hard. Let’s not talk about this now, let’s eat!”

Meanwhile, after seeing Zhou Yifeng off, Zheng Dazhi returned to the third specimen laboratory. Looking down into the opened No. 9 cadaver pool, he saw the body numbered M9967 lying perfectly intact at the bottom. A scalpel, which had somehow fallen in, was also there—probably lost by some technician! As he covered it with a wooden board, he shook his head and muttered to himself, "That old Zhou, why did he have to move the specimen in the pool? Didn't I tell him there was a woman in the preparation room?"

Zhou Yifeng had never been so dejected since he started working.

After parting ways with Yan Hao and the others, he went straight to his office. Before work hours even started, he brewed himself a cup of "Biluochun" tea and plopped down in his high-backed chair, his absent-minded gaze drifting aimlessly to the iceberg drawing on the wall that he had once explained to Yan Hao. The silvery-white iceberg in the picture shimmered in the first rays of morning light, making Zhou Yifeng's eyes sting. Through his blurring vision, he seemed to be transported back to that terrifying night of yesterday.

That incredibly realistic illusion—it was the first time this psychology professor had experienced hypnosis! Moreover, it seemed to have exceeded the third level of hypnosis he could comprehend. That heart, a bright red, powerfully beating heart—had given him an overwhelming visual stimulus. "Why, why did he make me see a heart? Why?" Zhou Yifeng stared blankly at the wisps of steam rising from the glass, muttering to himself, his thoughts as restless as the tea leaves swirling and unfurling within.

What Zhou Yifeng most wanted to know was, "What is he?!"

Now, he felt his mind was stuck in a quagmire, unable to move. What he saw and felt made him personally experience the pain and unease described by Yan Hao. But all of this was clearly beyond the scope of what Zhou Yifeng, as a clinical psychologist, could answer. But he was not giving up; how could he let go of this good opportunity for research! In the thick black fog of mystery, he still tried to see a ray of light—"Yes, if I can solve this mystery, my promotion to full professor, my academic career and future, these headaches might all be solved." The Parker pen began to spin rapidly between Zhou Yifeng's three fingers again.

“Perhaps it’s an illusion created by Yan Hao’s subconscious. Did this illusion materialize and control him?” Zhou Yifeng thought as he scribbled on the paper. “What am I seeing? Is it an illusion from his subconscious?” Zhou Yifeng became more and more excited as he thought about it, feeling as if he was getting closer to the answer.

"But why would he create such an illusion? His childhood setbacks? — But his childhood was clearly happy! His experiences? — But he describes his resume as a simple straight line, from kindergarten to primary school, middle school, and university, all the way through smoothly." Zhou Yifeng made judgments time and time again, only to overturn them again and again.

He felt somewhat at a loss—he seemed to have found an explanation for last night's hallucinations, but he couldn't find the motive or cause of the phenomenon.

"This is truly unbelievable," he muttered unconsciously. Suddenly, he snapped back to reality. He couldn't help but shiver, feeling an indescribable fear—"A ghost?!"—"No, no, I'm a psychologist, I must believe in science." Two voices clashed violently in Zhou Yifeng's mind.

At this moment, his mood, like the cup of emerald green "Biluochun" tea in front of him, had completely cooled down. Zhou Yifeng, leaning back in his chair, stared blankly, as if he had aged more than ten years overnight. He closed his eyes, carefully recalling these experiences, trying hard to sort things out again.

Fifteen minutes to eight, he called Yan Hao's dorm—Yan Hao had already grabbed his books and was heading to class. The first class was "The Physiology of an Old Maid"—being late would only worsen her negative reactions!

Zhou Yifeng asked Yan Hao to come see him alone after the second period. But Yan Hao hesitated for a long time on the phone; three hypnosis sessions had been largely ineffective—perhaps not even yielding a "result"—his confidence in the old man's medical skills had almost completely vanished! But there seemed to be no reason not to go; after all, Zhou Yifeng was the head of the teaching and research office! They would inevitably run into each other again. Finally, Yan Hao hummed in agreement.

It was 9:50 AM. Yan Hao called out "Report!" outside the medical psychology department office—he could have arrived earlier, but the old maid insisted on extending the class by ten minutes. When he entered, he ran into Zhou Yifeng's two female master's students leaving. They were both wearing white coats and carrying textbooks, indicating they had classes for the next two periods. They smiled at Yan Hao in a friendly manner—they seemed to already know him.

Yan Hao sat down next to the enormous desk. Zhou Yifeng, who had been waiting for him, handed him a piece of paper. Yan Hao took it with both hands and saw a hastily drawn diagram on it:

Dream

Corpse pool—corpse—Yan Hao—control—"me"

“I’ve sorted through the dreams you’ve described over the past few days and what you saw during hypnosis, and connected them into a line of thought. Do you think it’s possible to make this connection?” Zhou Yifeng’s eyes were full of anticipation.

Yan Hao nodded slowly. "You mean Yan Hao and I are not the same person? I don't quite understand that."

"You could say that. There's a huge split between your conscious self and your subconscious self, a split I've never seen before! So you could say they're not the same person."

"Then, which one is the real me? For example, is the 'me' that I am talking to you right now, the 'me' that I am aware of, the real me?" Yan Hao used a long string of adjectives, which confused even himself.

"The 'me' I am aware of? The 'me' I am unaware of? Then what is the first 'me' of both?" Zhou Yifeng muttered to himself, arms crossed over his chest. "That's exactly what I want to figure out."

A moment later, Zhou Yifeng buried himself in his writing again. "Take a look, have you ever had any related hallucinations?" He handed another sheet of paper to Yan Hao.

Yan Hao took it and looked at it. There was only one word written on the paper—"Heart!"

When Yan Hao looked up, Zhou Yifeng sensed something was off. He suddenly noticed Yan Hao staring directly into his already dilated pupils.

"You... why are you looking at me like that?" Zhou Yifeng felt a little dizzy. Then he heard Yan Hao's throat make a panting sound. A sound he had heard before, yet it seemed to come from a strange world. "HA—HA—"

"Are you... are you talking about HEART?" Zhou Yifeng's face had turned deathly pale. Yan Hao, expressionless and with a stiff neck, leaned closer to Zhou Yifeng across the desk—as if forcing him to see something in those wide, unfocused pupils!

The chattering of Zhou Yifeng's teeth could be clearly heard. After the two female teachers left, the office was deathly silent!

An invisible pressure compelled Zhou Yifeng to look into those two dilated pupils. "Don't, don't come any closer..." Zhou Yifeng's legs were trembling, and his pants suddenly became damp and hot.

Zhou Yifeng saw what was in his pupils—a deathly pale face! A disheveled face grinning maliciously!

"Have you seen her?" the voice on the other end asked slowly. A strong smell of formaldehyde wafted over him!

"I...I've seen...in...that courtyard..."