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A Lunatic Says He Loves Me: Chapter 38
Chapter 37: The Divine Comedy 3
“The herbs in the chicken soup have a calming and sleep-inducing effect. You’ve had trouble sleeping and have been overly reliant on Western medicine, consuming a lot of hormones, which isn’t good for your body. I’ve been using medicinal cuisine to help you recuperate.” His tone remained calm and composed as he continued, “Han Rong, you’re sick. Let me help you, okay? Trust me.”
“No, thank you.” Han Rong replied with a smile, then coldly asked, “Who is the one really sick?”
“If you don’t want to eat what I make, that’s fine. There’s a health porridge shop nearby. Eat something before you sleep, and remember to eat on time.” Ji Yan said, taking out his phone to order from the porridge shop.
“No need. I already ate at Bald Head Ling’s place.” Han Rong sidestepped him, walked into the bedroom, closed the door, and smiled, winking at him. “I’m not used to sharing a bed with others. From now on, you’ll have to sleep in the living room. Goodnight, Dr. Ji Yan.”
With a bang, he closed the door and locked it firmly.
Ji Yan kept his eyes lowered, his long, thick eyelashes hiding all his loneliness and emotions.
****
“Why are you afraid of me?”
In the room, Han Rong lay on his back on the bed, holding Demolition up high, staring at it.
“Although I don’t like cats, I don’t really dislike them either. Besides, apart from having a bit of a bad temper, I’m better in every other way than the original.” He suddenly laughed and corrected himself, “No, I am the original.”
“Don’t be afraid of me. As long as you’re obedient and don’t mess up the place, I’ll take care of you until you die of old age.” He put Demolition down and “gently” stroked its fluffy little head. Under the influence of gravity, its head nodded as if agreeing.
“If you mess up the place like before, I’ll cook you into soup and feed you to the dogs.” Han Rong grinned maliciously.
Demolition covered its eyes with its paws, still trembling.
“Good night.” Han Rong turned off the bedside lamp, covered himself with the blanket, and went to sleep. At three thirty in the morning, he received a series of urgent calls from Ling Feng. Before he could start yelling, he heard Ling Feng’s tired voice on the other end, “Qin Jiadong’s father passed away while we were interrogating him.”
“His father wasn’t killed by you,” Han Rong said calmly. “If you can’t give me a reason for disturbing my sleep in the next three seconds, I’ll kill you.”
Ling Feng replied, “Since his father passed away, he hasn’t said a word. The investigation has reached an impasse. I need your opinion.”
“In silence, one either erupts or perishes. He will either refuse to confess until the end or surrender and give up. You just need to wait patiently. If you can’t wait, just give him any novel written by Ge Jiaqi. The psychological suggestions in it might provoke him into madness on the spot. Oh, and don’t forget to turn on the law enforcement recorder to avoid accusations of illegal coercion.” As Han Rong was about to hang up, Ling Feng’s urgent voice came through, “Wait! Did you say any novel? Are all of Ge Jiaqi’s novels suggesting criminal behavior to mental patients?”
“I suggest you consult a professional doctor about his novels, preferably a specialist in mental research. Let’s put it this way: when Han Rong was deeply analyzing Ge Jiaqi’s ‘Blind Detective,’ his subconscious entered a vast memory palace. This palace houses all the ‘Han Rongs.’ Do you understand? From kindergarten until now, including every ‘Han Rong’ after he became mentally unstable. I don’t know how skilled Ge Jiaqi is, but it’s clear he’s quite accomplished. He can use words to make a mentally ill person confront themselves. If Han Rong opens the doors of the palace and sees his normal self, willing to lead the people inside out, then congratulations to him—he’s about to recover. But if Han Rong sees a murderer or some other pervert and accidentally lets them out, then you’ll need to be extra cautious.”
After a moment of silence, Ling Feng asked, “So, which situation are you in? Were you willingly brought out by Han Rong, or did you escape with great effort?”
Han Rong chuckled lightly, “Of course, I walked out on my own.” Before Ling Feng could respond, Han Rong hung up, turned off his phone, threw it on the ground, and buried his head in sleep.
He slept until noon. Stretching comfortably, he washed up and opened the door to the living room. Sitting on the sofa, Ding Ding, Yuan Fei, Bai Xinhai, and Ling Feng simultaneously looked up, their gazes shooting towards him.
Han Rong gave them a carefree smile, “Quite lively here. How about hot pot for lunch?”
Ji Yan wasn’t home, so Han Rong went into the kitchen himself, opened the fridge, and looked for something to eat.
Clearing his throat, Ling Feng said, “Last night, after taking your suggestion, I gave Qin Jiadong a copy of one of Ge Jiaqi’s early novels, ‘The Cross Gate.’ He didn’t actually read it; Yuan Fei and Ding Ding took turns reading it to him. By dawn, he voluntarily confessed.”
Han Rong didn’t respond. He poured a cup of milk into a frying pan and turned on the stove.
Following Ling Feng’s cue, Bai Xinhai picked up a stack of documents and read them out in a report-like, expressionless manner, “Your reasoning was correct. The text in Ge Jiaqi’s novels doesn’t just guide mentally ill patients with criminal tendencies into darkness; it also opens a window to heaven for them.”
“First, we need to clarify one point: the same world looks different to mentally ill patients than it does to ordinary people. For example, a bright red rose might appear black and white to these patients. The same passage in a novel can look different to different readers.”
“Some passages in ‘The Cross Gate’ are positive, sunny, and uplifting. Reading them several times is equivalent to psychological and mental counseling, making people feel comfortable and relaxed. In his other novels, some parts of the text are dark and gloomy. Ordinary people might feel a bit uncomfortable reading them but can accept it. However, to a reader with depression, this discomfort is magnified a hundred or a thousand times into immense pain. When these parts repeatedly appear, they guide the patient towards extreme behavior.”
Han Rong sneered with a look of mockery, “Reading ‘The Divine Comedy’ a few times and thinking of oneself as a savior.”
He turned off the stove, poured the warm milk into a cup, took Demolition out of his coat pocket, and poured cat food into its bowl, his expression indifferent as he said, “I really hate those psychiatrists and psychologists. Their simple words or actions can easily ruin a person’s life.”
“The doctor says you’re sick, and you’re sick. No amount of appeal or argument matters.”
“Sometimes I think it would be better to just kill all those quacks.”
“But that’s not possible. We can’t do things that break the law.” He turned and smiled at the people in the living room, “Because I long for absolute freedom.”
In the past, Han Rong’s smile was like blossoming peach flowers, filling the room with spring. Now, it carried sharp blades in his eyes, piercing. Seeing this, Ding Ding and Yuan Fei couldn’t help but shiver.
After a while, Ding Ding said, “So far, the five murder cases have all been solved. But the ‘mastermind’ behind these crimes is still at large.”
Yuan Fei added, “But you don’t have concrete evidence proving that Ge Jiaqi was involved in these cases. Moreover, there’s no legal provision against ‘using words to hypnotize readers.'”
It seemed like they were at an impasse. Everyone looked at Han Rong, who raised an eyebrow and said, “What does this have to do with me? He looks tough to deal with. Why should I take on such big trouble?” After finishing his milk, he licked his lips and said, “But I can point you in a direction.”
“Mental brainwashing, organized crime—label him as a cult leader, and I guarantee he’ll spend the rest of his life behaving with integrity in prison.”
“But… this should fall under the purview of the Anti-Pornography and Illegal Publications Team. Your serious crimes unit can’t officially interfere.”
Han Rong flashed them a bright smile, revealing his pearly white teeth. Ling Feng’s expression stiffened, and he left like a whirlwind with Yuan Fei and Ding Ding, who were struggling to hold back their laughter.
****
Nanming Ancient Temple is a major scenic spot in Hucheng District. There are a total of eighty-one temples of various sizes in the mountains, named after the saying “to endure eighty-one tribulations and achieve enlightenment.” The mountains are covered with fragrant camphor trees, and in autumn and winter, the forest is a picturesque sight.
Han Rong didn’t quite know why he suddenly had the leisure to visit these monasteries. Each thriving temple had a wishing pond filled with the smell of copper, and Nanming was no exception, with its eighty-one ponds. Han Rong placed Chai Jia in his coat pocket and visited each one. By the time he finished, it was 7 p.m., the closing time for the temple.
Facing the solemn and majestic Buddhist temple, Han Rong suddenly felt an urge to abandon everything. He stood for a long time, aware that Ling Feng’s master had been watching him from a distance for a while. A lazy black cat lay on the master’s bald head.
Han Rong smiled and asked, “Master, do you think I can become a monk?”
He Chen replied, “Your mother loves you very much.”
Han Rong’s carefree smile gradually faded, his raised lips slowly drooping until they were pressed into a tight line. After a moment, he said with a slightly downturned mouth, “Yes.”
“I know,” Han Rong added. “We all know.”
He Chen waited silently, like a perfect listener.
Han Rong said, “When I first came out, my dad cut off my financial support and gave me the silent treatment. Every half semester, I would go home to visit my mom. She always asked if I had enough money. She put her hard-earned savings in a bank card and gave it to me, but I refused. When I got back to school, I found she had hidden five thousand yuan at the bottom of my suitcase among my clothes.”
“When she had her accident, I knew the person who loved me most in this world was gone.”
“Whether Chen Sheng cheated or not doesn’t matter, he’s just a man, and there’s nothing I can’t get over. I just can’t accept that my mom is gone.”
“When the police couldn’t solve the case within 96 hours, I guarded her body and didn’t let anyone near it. I conducted a psychological autopsy on her, and did a psychological profile of the killer, but no matter what, I couldn’t piece together a complete image of the perpetrator. My dad didn’t want to make things difficult for the police and agreed to close the case. My mom always told me it’s better to rely on myself than others. So when she was pushed into the crematorium, I finally forced out another version of myself—one with an antisocial personality who understands the criminal mind best. ‘I’ simulated the killer’s actions and finally caught the real culprit.”
“But what use is it? My mom will never come back. I know there will never be anyone who loves me as much as she did.”
“As for that antisocial Han Rong, at first, we communicated with each other. I created him, and he could sense me. His learning ability was strong, his personality became more independent, and his ambitions grew. He gradually wanted to replace me and did some things in the gray areas of the law.”
“Later, I even thought about ending it all.”
“But… when my mom gave birth to me, she had a severe hemorrhage and almost didn’t make it. You know, doctors nowadays won’t ask the inhumane question of ‘save the mother or the child.’ If something goes wrong during surgery, they will only choose to save the mother’s life. But my mom actively requested the doctors to save me. Thinking about how she painstakingly carried me for ten months and fought for my life during childbirth, how could I die so easily? And thinking about that bastard Chen Sheng still being alive, I can’t die yet.”
“In some ways, Chen Sheng is quite pitiful, having to deal with a lunatic like me who wants to drag him down. I understand that my years of loathing him, hating him, wanting to kill him, are all because I needed someone to blame. But I need a reason. A reason to continue living in this world. I don’t want to live, but my mom won’t let me die, so I can’t die.”
“Now, I think my mom wouldn’t want the Han family line to end with me either. So, I can’t become a monk.”
“Master, I don’t know if your fortune-telling is accurate, but I can tell you’re very good at understanding people.”
He Chen clasped his hands together and recited a Buddhist chant, his face kind and gentle, “Living near the mountains, one learns the sounds of birds; living near the water, one learns the nature of fish; living among people, one learns the hearts of men.”
“That’s quite rare,” Han Rong said with a squinting smile. “They say the human heart is unpredictable, yet Master, you seem to understand it clearly. Your inner strength must be extraordinary. I want to learn from you.”
He Chen, sensing the deeper meaning in Han Rong’s words, asked, “Learn what?”
Han Rong winked at him playfully and said, “Learn how to be a ‘second 1’ type of person.”
He laughed heartily and went down the mountain with Demolition in his arms.
He Chen clasped his hands together, bowed slightly, and watched him leave with lowered eyes.
Author’s note:
Han Rong’s words carried a lot of information.
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- The character used here was 二(which is two or in Beijing dialect, it is stupid. Not sure what meaning the author was going for here or if it’s slang.[↩]