Cauchemar

Chapitre 15

July 10 sunny

I no longer have the strength to struggle. I just throw Zhu Su's head into the toilet every day, and then go about my business, even though it will still appear wet on the floor the next morning.

Upon reaching this point, Su Yang dared not scroll any further. He could imagine the immense mental pressure and terror that would ensue if the first thing someone did upon waking each day was to see the severed head of the person they had killed and disposed of "standing" in their room. He could even feel the stench of the rotting head wafting into his nose, making him want to vomit uncontrollably.

Seeing that Su Yang's expression was unusual, Zhao Lirui asked with concern, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Su Yang waved his hand weakly, "It's nothing. I just think Zhang Chengting's records are too terrifying. Is Zhu Su really a devil, whose heads can walk back on their own?"

Zhao Lirui thought for a moment and said, "I suspect he suffers from multiple personality disorder."

"Multiple personality disorder?"

"It means that he has several incarnations at the same time, or that multiple souls are hidden in one body, each soul is independent and unaware of each other. What one personality does, another personality has no idea. It's like a normal person and a sleepwalker, each not remembering the other's actions."

"Then they won't exclude each other?"

"No. In fact, you could say that different personalities are a way for people to compensate for their dissatisfaction with themselves. The more inferior and repressed a person is, the more split personalities they may have. Psychoanalysis has identified up to dozens of different personalities in a single person, each playing a different role or identity."

"So you mean that Zhang Chengting developed multiple personalities due to long-term mental repression? One of his personalities, the one who writes the diary, is also normal and conscious, and is responsible for throwing away Zhu Su's head every day, while the other personality is responsible for finding the head and putting it on the floor?"

"Possibly. But we can't be sure. If it's multiple personality disorder, then there would definitely be some clues if he ran such a long way every day to retrieve human heads, such as mud on his shoes or being extremely tired. Most importantly, Zhang Chengting wrote in his diary that he used a camera to monitor, but found no clues. This means that it's possible that he didn't do it himself, but that someone else or some other force was secretly carrying it out."

"What kind of power could that be? The self-power of Zhu Su's soul?" Su Yang exclaimed.

Zhao Lirui smiled wryly, "I don't know either. I can only try my best to analyze each person's subconscious and the situation at the time from a psychological perspective, but the specific answer is not in my control."

Su Yang remained silent and continued flipping through Zhang Chengting's diary.

August 15 sunny

The nightmare continues. I finally realized it must be Zhu Su's dying curse at work. She said everyone in the world had betrayed her, wanting to take away all she had without offering anything in return. So she cursed everyone who entered room 602 to die a horrible death. Now the curse has taken effect on me, and next up will be the Pig-Headed Couple, and many more people entering room 602. So how can I break her curse and escape this daily nightmare?

August 20th, cloudy

I used Zhu Su's QQ account online today, and someone quickly took the bait. Unfortunately, he wasn't my ideal target, so I had to give up. I'll continue waiting.

August 26 sunny

I suspect I'm about to be driven insane by Zhu Su. I received her call in the early hours of the morning. Although she didn't speak, I knew it was her, it was her! No one else would call me from that number! If I hadn't dismembered her, I would have doubted she was still alive. But she is dead, dead, completely and utterly gone, except for a rotting, stinking head in my toilet.

Sunny on September 11

I've finally figured it out. Someone like me shouldn't have to live in this world, much less endure this torturous life of constant fear. So I have no reason to fear Zhu Su's revenge. However, at the very end of my life, I want to play one last game, a cat-and-mouse game, with Zhu Su's murder as the bait. I believe it will be very interesting; at least the police will never uncover the whole truth. Thinking about this makes me so happy; I've rediscovered the joy of life.

The first step of the game is to find the right person to discover Zhu Su's death. Who will be that lucky person?

October 3rd sunny

The lucky one has finally appeared; the nightmare is nearing its end. I need to do something, lure him into the vortex of Zhu Su's murder case, then transplant Zhu Su's mysterious power into him, and further obfuscate the truth. Through calculations, I've discovered that I might be the ultimate winner, escaping Zhu Su and the law's punishment.

Apartment 602, the Man-Eating Apartment, Part 18 (1)

Su Yang breathed a sigh of relief. "So I was the lucky one he chose. I really don't know what his criteria were?"

"I just like you because you're handsome," Zhao Lirui teased.

Su Yang, however, was not in the mood to laugh. Instead, he was caught up in the perplexing situation Zhang Chengting had created. "Just who is this Zhang Chengting? Is he a talent or a devil?"

"In my opinion, he is just a guy with a deep childhood trauma. If I'm not mistaken, he was sexually assaulted in his childhood or adulthood, and the perpetrator was a man."

Su Yang nodded. "I suspect so too, otherwise he wouldn't hate men so much and use castration as a way to escape. But I don't quite understand why he set up the final game."

"I wonder if you've studied the psychology of eunuchs? In ancient palaces, eunuchs, having had their male sexual organs removed, often fell into a state of confusion about their gender. To compensate for their loss, they were prone to resorting to extreme measures to conceal their identity, such as becoming obsessed with power, greedy for money, and some even developing into sadists. Simply put, they hoped to demonstrate their strength and prove their abilities by seeking success in life and controlling the fate of others. If that didn't work, they would simply castrate the self-esteem of others. This is also an important reason why the harems of ancient emperors were rarely peaceful. I think the game set up by Zhang Chengting is very likely related to castration as well."

"Castration...castration..." Su Yang murmured to himself, lost in thought. Looking back, in the past two years, his vibrant life force had been extinguished, his passion completely drained, even his lust vanished. Wasn't that close to being castrated? He sighed deeply.

"Can we analyze the whole process now?" Zhao Lirui asked tentatively.

Su Yang was in a state of turmoil, but he nodded reluctantly.

"According to Zhang Chengting's diary, he had already decided to seek relief through death, but at the same time he also had a wishful thinking, that if he could successfully focus Zhu Su's remaining energy and the police's attention on him, then he could get away with it and escape Zhu Su's clutches, right?"

"I didn't expect a girl like you to have such strong logical thinking." Su Yang secretly rejoiced at meeting Zhao Lirui. With her, he not only gained hope and courage to live on, but she could also help him untangle many tangled thoughts.

Zhao Lirui felt a little embarrassed by Su Yang's praise. After thinking for a moment, she continued, "Then we can assume that Chen Lijuan was killed by Zhang Chengting, and the cause of death was that she used Zhu Su's phone number, and Zhu Su used that number to call Zhang Chengting..."

"Wait a minute. Your assumption is based on the premise that ghosts exist and that ghosts have power, right?"

"This is just a hypothesis. Of course, we can also assume that Chen Lijuan accidentally dialed Zhang Chengting's number. As for why she happened to find Zhang Chengting in the vast sea of people, it can only be described as a stroke of luck..."

"Okay, let's continue."

"After Zhang Chengting killed Chen Lijuan, he used her phone to call and text you..."

Su Yang looked up and carefully calculated the time, feeling that there was a loophole. "But Chen Lijuan's time of death was between 11:30 pm and 12 am. Before that, who sent me the message using that phone number? Was it Chen Lijuan or Zhang Chengting?"

Zhao Lirui rolled her eyes at him. "How did you suddenly become so stupid? Don't forget that Zhang Chengtin is a computer expert. The text messages you used to receive were all sent and received by him using hacking software on his computer."

Su Yang smiled sheepishly, "That's true. My thoughts are too chaotic right now, and my prejudices are too deep-rooted, making it hard for me to change course."

"Okay, then our hypothesis will hold for now. Zhang Chengting intentionally used Chen Lijuan's phone to send you a text message, leaving clues for the police to find you, thus making you a victim of the trap."

"That's right, and then the police found Zhu Su's body, fulfilling one of Zhang Chengting's wishes. But how did he manage to kill Chen Lijuan so quietly?"

"Well... we can find some clues in Zhang Chengting's diary. He wrote that he had killed someone in Qinglan Town before. And this person should be the mastermind who violated him back then. We can imagine that Zhang Chengting must have devised many ways to deal with him in order to get revenge, so he must be very skilled at killing, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to escape the police's pursuit for so many years afterward. In addition, he has Chen Lijuan's phone number, so he can easily impersonate someone, such as a postman delivering letters or packages to Chen Lijuan, trick her into giving him her address, keep her occupied, and when they meet, he can cut off her head with a knife when she's not paying attention."

Su Yang couldn't help but admire Zhao Lirui's imagination and reasoning ability, and sincerely exclaimed, "You're really amazing, you talk as if you were just an observer."

Zhao Lirui blushed and said, "Psychology and criminal investigation are somewhat similar. Both involve organizing elusive clues and finding their source. Both require scientific methods combined with reasonable personal reasoning. So you can learn some of these things, which will greatly help you solve all the mysteries."

"Psychology? I've always been interested in it, but unfortunately I haven't had time to study it, nor has anyone taught me. I can ask you for advice in the future. However, it's definitely too late to learn and apply it now, so I'll rely on your insightful guidance."

"Sure, sure," Zhao Lirui said, putting on a serious face. "But don't forget that you have to pay afterwards. My consultation fee is one hundred yuan per hour, and the teaching fee is the same."

"Wow, you really know how to raise prices so easily. Don't exploit us proletarians like this."

"Alright, enough rambling, let's get back to the point." Zhao Lirui brushed a stray strand of hair aside and said with a deep gaze, "I suspect that the series of terrifying events that happened in your room later were all Zhang Chengting's doing. For example, he stood upstairs and used a rope to hang Zhu Su's head on your balcony to scare you, he sneaked into your room and gave you a kitchen knife to kill Old Chen, or maybe he was hiding under your bed from the beginning, waiting for you to fall asleep before coming out to scare you... That's also why he moved upstairs to live with you."

Apartment 602, the Man-Eating Apartment, Part 18 (2)

Su Yang admitted that Zhao Lirui's reasoning was a bit far-fetched, but not impossible. After all, how many things in life are truly logical and clear-cut? Simply put, wasn't his acquaintance with Zhao Lirui also something that happened under almost impossible circumstances? Moreover, Zhu Su and Zhang Chengting cannot be viewed through the lens of ordinary people.

"As for Zhang Chengting's death..." Zhao Lirui hesitated, then said with difficulty, "I will still follow the conclusion you reached at Zhang Chengting's house before. He committed suicide. The reason for the suicide can be temporarily assumed to be that Zhu Su's curse took effect. As for the deaths of Lao Chen and the others, they can also be attributed to Zhu Su's curse, but it cannot be ruled out that they originally harbored fear, and Zhu Su's murder case catalyzed and amplified this fear, thus driving them with their subconscious death instinct, leading to their tragic deaths."

“Death instinct?” Su Yang frowned. “You’re quoting Freud, right? But didn’t he eventually deny that humans have a death instinct?”

“He couldn’t confirm it, but he didn’t completely deny it either,” Zhao Lirui said. “However, according to Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, Freud’s favorite student, I think death should be part of the collective unconscious.”

Why?

Zhao Lirui spoke eloquently: "Look at the religions around the world, they all coincidentally contain the concept of the end of the world, the destruction of life—recreation—and destruction again. This shows that death and self-destruction are an important part of the collective unconscious of humankind, so the existence of the death instinct is reasonable. Besides, can you say you've never had suicidal thoughts? You have, haven't you? I have too, and according to my research, everyone around me has had suicidal thoughts at some point. The number of people who commit suicide is limited, not because the number of people who think about suicide is so small, but because many people do not have the real conditions for suicide. But you cannot deny that the impulse to die, that is, the death instinct, exists in people's hearts."

"That's quite profound." Su Yang raised his hands in surrender. "Then let's proceed with your reasoning. But I still have one question: who exactly moved Zhang Chengting and the others' heads to his home?"

"This..." Zhao Lirui was speechless. "Could there be a third party involved?"

Su Yang fell into deep thought. After a long while, he tentatively asked Zhao Lirui, "Do you remember what I said during the last hypnosis session: 'The black cat meowed, and the head disappeared.' Do you think it's possible that the black cat moved the head?"

"Huh?" Zhao Lirui was taken aback. "No way, I've never heard of cats being interested in human heads. Unless it's specially trained like a police dog."

Su Yang looked bewildered. "But during the last hypnosis session, I felt like I was back at the crime scene. Although everything else was blurry, I clearly heard a black cat meowing. I suspect that the scene was apartment 704 in Shangling Apartment, the night Zhang Chengting committed suicide, because I read an article online that said the security camera recorded me entering 704. Also, the black cat's meowing has appeared in my brain more than once. Last time, when I was about to commit suicide in Zhang Chengting's house, it was its meowing that saved my life."

Zhao Lirui nodded. "When you encountered obstacles during your last hypnosis session, the black cat meowed outside the window, and then you calmed down. It seems that the black cat's connection to the whole incident is much more complex than I imagined."

“Perhaps it really does possess a human soul,” Su Yang said with a mocking smile, “and it’s Zhu Su’s soul, no less.”

Zhao Lirui glared at her. "Don't talk nonsense, or I'll never dare to see it again."

"If it stays in 602 for a long time, are you going to give up the house altogether?"

Zhao Lirui smiled bitterly, "Do you think I would dare to take it now? If it weren't for the need to find out the truth about my brother's death, I wouldn't want to take even half a step into it."

“But we have to go in again now.” Su Yang looked up at Zhao Lirui, his gaze intense.

"Going to find that black cat?" Zhao Lirui laughed. "Don't worry, talk is cheap, but we still have to go in. I'm not afraid of ghosts. Shall we go now?"

"Why don't you stay here?" Su Yang hesitated for a moment and said, "No matter what the black cat's identity is, 602 is an ominous place. I can go alone."

Zhao Lirui glared at Su Yang. "Hey, you're a grown man, why are you being so fussy? It's just going to my own house, why are you being so hesitant? What's wrong? Do you really think my house is a den of thieves, or are you trying to seize power and take away my right to be the homeowner?"

Su Yang gave an awkward smile, "You know that's not what I meant..."

"If that's not what you meant, then there's nothing else. Let's go."

Su Yang awkwardly followed Zhao Lirui out the door. Zhao Lirui looked at his timid, downcast appearance and chuckled, "Sometimes I think you're really brave, daring to venture anywhere, and sometimes I think you're really timid, like a snail. If someone says anything to you, you shrink back into your shell and don't dare to make a sound."

"That's because you subdued me," Su Yang said sullenly. "I'm not this docile with other people."

"Oh?" Zhao Lirui looked at Su Yang with interest. "How are you to others? Are you fierce and aggressive? Then why are you so docile to me? Is it because I'm a tiger? Or are you a sick cat?"

Looking at Zhao Lirui's radiant smile, Su Yang felt all the frustration in his heart vanish, but he still spoke toughly, "Hmph, just because the tiger doesn't roar doesn't mean it's a sick cat. The day I really roar at you, you'll know how powerful I am."

Zhao Lirui covered her mouth and chuckled, "Alright, then you should have a good chat with your fellow black cat first."

Su Yang, caught off guard by her sharp retort, couldn't find a retort and could only remain silent. Zhao Lirui's face grew even more cheerful and smug upon seeing this.

Apartment 602, the Man-Eating Apartment, Part 18 (3)

Amidst their laughter and conversation, the two quickly reached the iron gate of Building 6. Su Yang took out a master key from his pocket, ready to open the door. Zhao Lirui looked at him curiously, "What are you holding? What are you doing?"

Su Yang proudly brandished the key. "A master key! How are we supposed to get up here without opening this iron gate?"

"Hey, you wouldn't admit you were stupid, but now you've been exposed." Zhao Lirui took out a bunch of keys from her pocket, picked one out, and opened the iron gate with a "snap".

Su Yang stared in disbelief, only then realizing that the owner of apartment 602 was no longer Zhu Su, but the girl in front of him.

Zhao Lirui turned around and said, "What are you standing there for? Come in quickly."

Su Yang awkwardly followed Zhao Lirui up the stairs, silently praying, "Please, please don't let anyone recognize me, please... please don't..."

Fortunately, they didn't encounter many people along the way. Occasionally, one or two people would stare intently at Zhao Lirui, only glancing at him casually as he walked behind her, without really paying attention.

The two stood in front of apartment 602, and Zhao Lirui took out her key. Su Yang secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment, a man staggered down from upstairs. His expression became uneasy when he saw Zhao Lirui opening the door, and his face changed drastically when he saw Su Yang standing next to her. He abruptly took a step back, pointed at Su Yang, and said in a trembling voice, "Aren't you that so-and-so?"

Su Yang inwardly cursed. Then he saw Zhao Lirui turn her head, make a strange expression on her face, and say to the man, "Who are you talking about? Is it me?"

The man's legs were trembling. "No, no, I'm talking about him." He pointed directly at Su Yang.

"Who is he? I didn't see him?" Zhao Lirui asked, feigning confusion.

"Ah..." The man's legs trembled even more violently.

Su Yang understood Zhao Lirui's intention in pretending to be a ghost. Suppressing a laugh, he grinned, revealing his two rows of white teeth to the man, and asked softly, "Can you see me? Can you really see me?"

The man took two steps back in terror, tripped on the stairs, and fell to the ground with a thud, his face turning deathly pale. He stammered, "No, no, I didn't see anything." Then he turned and ran upstairs as if his life depended on it. Su Yang and Zhao Lirui clearly saw liquid dripping from between the man's trouser legs.