This time, it took He Jiwei some time to respond, as if he had been shocked stupid by Xie Qingcheng asking such a cute question during such a serious conversation.
He Jiwei: I think so.
Xie Qingcheng: He doesn’t. But many people believe that he’s always worn overalls—this is the Mandela effect. It’s an erroneous memory that has been repeatedly affirmed by the human brain, resulting in this kind of impression.
Xie Qingcheng: Executive He, you can think of Mickey Mouse as being equivalent to my sister—she exists, but she’s actually never worn overalls. However, He Yu used his own imagination to fill in the two nonexistent overall straps, resolutely believing this to be the truest reality of the matter.
He Jiwei: Then, is this considered a delusional disorder?
Xie Qingcheng: It can’t be called that. To He Yu, this is a way for him to protect, comfort, and redeem himself.
A long time passed between this message and his next.
Xie Qingcheng: Executive He, with all due respect, you and Executive Lü don’t spend enough time with him. Even children with healthy mindsets can hardly endure such neglect, never mind the fact that he’s mentally ill.
Xie Qingcheng: He can’t get any care and love, but he’s stubborn about showing vulnerability. Perhaps stubborn isn’t the right word, but he knows that it’s useless to cry or beg because nothing will give him the reaction that he wants, so he’s already used to internalizing everything and defending himself. The Xie Xue he imagined was actually his own reflection the entire time; it was his own heart that comforted him, borrowing Xie Xue’s image to tell him what he wanted to hear.
Reading these old messages, He Yu thought about the wishes that were buried deep within his heart…
For example, I’ll always stay with you.
For example, the words that he never got to hear face-to-face: “Happy Birthday.”
Didn’t he long for someone to gift those words to him?
But he never got to hear them…
Xie Qingcheng: Since nobody told him, and since he’s someone with a strong sense of self-respect, he would never say such things to himself. Therefore, his brain relied partially on his imagination to fulfill his wish while maintaining his dignity at the same time. This is a kind of psychological self-defense mechanism that people have, so there’s no need for you to worry too much.
He Jiwei: You’ve known about this all along?
Xie Qingcheng: I’ve observed it for a while now. I can’t tell him about this, since the shock would be too much. But I always tell Xie Xue to stay a bit further away from him. Xie Xue shouldn’t be the person on whom he develops an emotional dependence. Neither of us should be, Executive He. Sooner or later, we’ll have to leave.
Xie Qingcheng: I’m a doctor, not He Yu’s relative. I can’t possibly waste an entire lifetime on a single medical case, and Xie Xue even less. I can only give him guidance, not the type of love he lacks and wants to have. My sister is the same.
He Yu didn’t continue reading the following messages; they were no longer important. Knowing this was already enough.
More than enough.
Xie Qingcheng had been deceiving him all along, and Xie Xue wasn’t real either. Of the two of them, one was the person who’d once given him the strongest encouragement with his articles of faith, allowing him to believe that there would come a day when he could return to regular society, while the other was the person who’d given him the warmest companionship, who would always rush to his side in the nick of time when he was at his most hopelessly desperate.
Just like how on the night of that torrential downpour, she’d knocked on his door while shouting his name, taken off her raincoat, and presented him with the chocolate cake that he wanted.
He never could have imagined that perhaps that the cake, and that Xie Xue…never existed at all.
Meanwhile, Xie Qingcheng had witnessed his pitiful, lowly self-comfort; the man had seen it all and knew it very well.
No one had ever loved him.
It was his own idiocy! He was too foolish, too stupid, too desperate in his yearning to walk amongst the warmth of the crowd. In order to become a normal person, in order to tuck his hideously ghoulish face away, he’d forged a faintly glimmering glow from within his own bloody skull.
Xie Qingcheng had seen it, but he had said, “I can’t possibly waste an entire lifetime on a single medical case, and Xie Xue even less. I can only give him guidance, and not the type of love he lacks and wants to have. My sister is the same.”
But if someone possessed love in the first place, why would he lie even to himself? What kind of liar would trick the entire world yet end up deceiving himself the most? Only the poorest, most destitute of liars.
The things he had were too few, and the tears he’d shed were too many. Even “Happy Birthday” was something he could only obtain through his own imagination. If he didn’t lie to himself, what could he rely upon to continue living with a smile?
So, even in front of himself, he would wear a smiling mask tightly bolted to his face, which he was loath to take off. He would lie even to himself.
Xie Qingcheng was right. He did have self-respect. He didn’t want to be seen as a patient, a madman. He knew that, given the He family’s status, many people were waiting to see him come crashing down, to watch him make a fool of himself, to look at his corpse and rejoice in his blood. Thus, he strove even harder to prove himself; he didn’t want to receive anyone’s pity by showing them his scars.
He Yu stood in the empty living room for a very long time.
He stood there so long that time seemed to become slightly hazy. His gaze was light yet sharp, repeatedly sweeping over the ice-cold tide of messages before him. In the end, that sharp look seemed to have been eroded by the tide, becoming scattered and unfocused.
He slowly closed his eyes.
His mask had grown into his flesh, but Xie Qingcheng had cruelly torn it away. He reached up and touched his own face silently.
It hurt.
It hurt so much…
It hurt so badly it made his heart and entire body shudder.
It felt as though he’d lost everything overnight.
Xie Qingcheng’s articles of faith were fake, Xie Xue’s closeness was fake; the consolation he had given himself was fake, and in the end, even his self-respect, even the hard shell he used to protect himself, that mask, had been smashed to pieces. Only now did he suddenly realize that—as it turned out, his laughable, clownish face had already been exposed to Xie Qingcheng for many years.
So what exactly was he persevering for? And why did he have to be so stupid?! Risking his life to accompany that person for just a word of acknowledgment in return, or to repay the wisp of hope that Xie Qingcheng had once given him…
He’d disregarded his own life to gain favor with a liar for an all-encompassing lie!
He Yu started to laugh softly. He doubled over and leaned against the wall, laughter growing louder and louder, madder and madder, like a vengeful ghost stirring in its grave. The wraiths of sickness in his heart glided out in their hooded cloaks; he put his hand to his forehead as his laughter turned deranged—it seemed furious and hateful, sorrowful yet crazed, as tears fell incessantly down his cheeks…
It really hurt too much.
He saw Xie Qingcheng reach out to him with an open hand, but what lay in his palm was an ice-cold scalpel. This was the actual truth.
He saw Xie Xue pass him a piece of chocolate with a smile, but he blinked his eyes, and she was only gazing at him from afar.
This was the actual truth…
And then he saw… He saw himself standing before the floor-to-ceiling window. A storm was raging outside. The antique grandfather clock in the old residence rang twelve times—it was midnight, and he was surrounded by endless darkness.
But no one knocked on the door.
No one had ever knocked on the door.
He waited from darkness until dawn. The storm had ceased, and the long night had brightened, but he never managed to get a single, sincere wish of “Happy Birthday.”
This was the actual truth.
Then, he saw himself strapped to a bed, gagged, as needles pierced his skin. He struggled and wailed like a dying beast, but he couldn’t call out anyone’s name.
He was a solitary island.
There were no bridges.
This was the actual fucking truth! The truth!
A child who was denied love. In order to resist the demons in the depths of his mind, to keep striving to live on, he lied to anyone and everyone—even himself—for so many years…
He Yu leaned against the wall. He’d already vengefully ripped away the bandages from his shoulder, allowing his wound to tear open. His blood was everywhere. Only the scent of it could please him and ground him and make him feel that he was actually alive! He had a body. The blood he shed was warm. He was a living, breathing person. He was alive… He was alive…
He buried his hands in his hair, knuckles whitening, veins protruding. He was like a blinded dragon with its claws torn out. Having lost the treasures he cherished and the lair he relied on for refuge, he’d been forced out into the sunlight, beneath the clear sky, with each one of his ugly scabs on display for everyone to see and ridicule as they pleased.
He’d finally woken up from his dream.
He’d been struggling for almost twenty years, but he was still insane.
No one had ever loved him, no one had ever cared for him.
He had nothing but a clumsy lie.
He’d never actually managed to earn anything.