Chapter 49: Whispers in the House of Mirrors

In the dim air, only the low hum of the computer tower and the faint heartbeat of the second hand moving across the clock face could be heard.

At seven eighteen in the morning, the restoration room at the deepest corner of the library stood like an isolated island, cut off from the world.

Su Wan wore noise-canceling headphones, her eyes bloodshot from a sleepless night, yet her pupils shone with an astonishing brightness.

She was transcribing a segment of hypnotic audio frame by frame, the waveform on the screen undulating slowly like a sedated viper.

Here, amidst the smooth guiding phrases and soothing music, a ghostly syllable appeared again and again.

It was wrapped in an almost imperceptible intonation by Dr. Zheng, hidden in the spaces between breaths.

“mo-ling-zi.”

At first listen, it seemed like meaningless gibberish, or perhaps a flaw in pronunciation.

But after more than thirty repetitions, a cold intuition crawled up Su Wan’s spine.

She tore off her headphones and rushed to a row of specially sealed old shelves in the corner.

Her fingertips brushed over the yellowed spines, finally stopping at a book without a catalog number, its cover pitch black.

Record of Heart Enchantment. The first forbidden book of the Republic era, a solitary copy.

Her hands trembled as she opened the pages.

The paper was fragile, exuding a scent of decay and taboo.

Almost by memory, she found the chapter describing “mo-ling-zi.”

It was not an object, but a spell of sound.

By composing certain syllables in specific tonal frequencies, one could bypass conscious awareness and implant unwavering commands directly into the subconscious.

The book, annotated in cinnabar ink, warned: This art is sinister; those afflicted become puppets, unable to discern truth from falsehood until death.

Su Wan’s heart sank.

She immediately pulled up all consultation notes and synchronized recordings from Lin Wei’s past six months.

Sure enough, each time Lin Wei’s account began to deviate from reality, each time she actively constructed details of her “husband’s betrayal,” there was always a barely perceptible, gentle humming in the background—and at its core, the same syllable: “mo-ling-zi.”

This was not treatment. It was a meticulously orchestrated murder of the soul.

At eleven o’clock and five minutes, inside an unmarked safe house, the air was so heavy it could be wrung out.

Song Zhao stubbed out his cigarette, face steely in the haze.

For the third time, he pressed play: the clandestine recording Chen Mo had risked everything to obtain from Dr. Zheng’s assistant echoed through the room.

The audio was noisy, but two sentences pierced through like steel needles.

An unfamiliar voice said, “The risk is too high. Her resistance is getting stronger.”

Dr. Zheng’s voice followed, mocking and aloof: “Don’t worry. The more she believes, the truer it becomes. When sand fills all her memories, she’ll accept it as a castle. Once she starts weaving stories herself, we won’t need to lie anymore.”

Psychic parasitism.

Song Zhao’s mind conjured the term.

They were not merely distorting Lin Wei’s perception, but siphoning her spirit—turning her into a craftsman of her own deception.

His fists tightened, knuckles pale with strain.

Procedures, approvals, chains of evidence—all the principles he once upheld now seemed like useless scraps the moment the recording ended.

If they waited any longer, Lin Wei—an emptied house—would collapse entirely.

He grabbed his jacket and said in a low voice to his team, “No more waiting. I need direct evidence from the counseling room before tonight.”

At two forty in the afternoon, in the foundation's affiliated psychological clinic.

The corridor was suffused with an artificial blend of disinfectant and aromatherapy, striving to create a façade of tranquility.

Su Wan, dressed in a crisp white shirt and gray uniform skirt, wore a forged “Records Associate” badge.

Her steps were measured, expression serene, blending perfectly into the slow-paced rhythm of the workplace.

She pushed a records cart, using “sorting expired cases from the first half of the year” as her excuse, and entered the restricted archive room.

The surveillance cameras blinked quietly in the corners of the ceiling.

Su Wan knew she had only ten minutes.

She didn’t touch the locked steel cabinets, but strode directly to Dr. Zheng’s temporary personal bookshelf.

She gambled on his arrogance: the most dangerous place is often the safest.

Sure enough, behind a row of thick professional volumes, she found a black leather notebook.

Inside, no words—only an entire system of symbols he had devised.

Su Wan’s heart raced.

Quickly, she snapped photos with her phone, her mind working at top speed to decode the strange diagrams.

A butterfly with a damaged wing, dated—representing “memory replacement”; a tangled chain linking two stick figures—denoting “emotional binding”; most chilling of all, beside Lin Wei’s initials “LW,” a small flame, annotated: “Ready to trigger collapse.”

This chart was Dr. Zheng’s blueprint for fine-tuning his “work.”

Su Wan uploaded all critical pages to an encrypted cloud, then returned the notebook precisely to its place, and wheeled her cart out, unnoticed.

She triggered neither physical nor electronic alarms.

As she exited the clinic, afternoon sunlight bathed her, yet she felt a chill deep in her bones.

At five twelve in the afternoon, in the familiar consulting room.

Lin Wei lay slanted on the sofa, eyes half-closed, seemingly under hypnosis.

Dr. Zheng sat beside her, his voice as gentle as a feather: “Think about it again—does your husband really love you? For his so-called truth, he’d rather take your daughter away, hiding everywhere, than face reality… He abandoned you, didn’t he?”

The room was silent.

Just as Dr. Zheng believed he had everything under control, Lin Wei’s lashes trembled, and then—without warning—she opened her eyes.

Gone was the confusion and pain; in their place was a clarity and coldness that pierced through everything.

She stared at Dr. Zheng, and asked, word by word, “You say my husband doesn’t love me… but why are you so afraid of him coming back?”

Dr. Zheng’s smile froze for the first time.

Lin Wei sat up, continuing, “Every time you mention him, every time you speak ill of him, your left hand on your knee—your pinky finger twitches involuntarily. Just like now.”

On the other end of the surveillance, Song Zhao shot upright, fixated on the screen, forgetting even to breathe.

She was awake.

No—more precisely, she was breaking free from her mental prison, inch by inch, with her own strength.

At seven fifty-nine in the evening, in Dr. Zheng’s office.

He yanked at his tie in frustration, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

He replayed the afternoon’s session with Lin Wei again and again, especially the moment she opened her eyes—her gaze was a scalpel, making him feel as if he were the one being dissected.

He snatched up a specially encrypted phone from his desk and dialed.

“The plan needs to change,” his voice was hoarse, “the subject… has started observing the practitioner in reverse.”

The line fell into a suffocating silence. After several seconds, a callous, merciless voice replied, “Then stop guiding her. Let her… collapse completely.”

The call ended.

Dr. Zheng stood dazed, then moved to the wall safe, entered the code, and opened the heavy door.

From inside, he carefully took out a refrigerated syringe, the vial labeled: LW-07.

Outside the office window, on the rooftop of an abandoned building a hundred meters away, Su Wan locked her telephoto lens onto Dr. Zheng’s every move.

She captured his handling of the syringe in full detail, even the label—nothing escaped her.

Lowering the camera, she whispered into her earpiece to Song Zhao, “The fish took the bait. This time, we’ll hypnotize him.”

With that, she raised the camera again, focusing on Dr. Zheng’s face—distorted by anxiety and cruelty—and pressed the shutter.

The photo clearly recorded him holding the deadly instrument.

Yet, as Su Wan zoomed in on the LCD screen to check the image’s clarity, her eyes were drawn to something in the background that shouldn’t have been there.

At the edge of the open safe’s shadow, a tiny, almost overlooked gleam of metal.

Not a document, nor medication.

Its outline made Su Wan’s blood freeze instantly.

The primary target was locked, but what truly chilled her to the bone was that unexpected glimmer in the photo’s corner.

A ghost from another grave, slipping unbidden into the frame.