SES Chapter 99 Part 1

Chapter 99

After moving to Lijiang, the very first thing Huo Zihong did was take Mu Dai to the provincial capital to seek medical help.

He asked around again and again until he found the doctor who was said to be the very best at the time—He Ruihua.

Back then, He Ruihua was still practicing at the hospital. He had a lot of patients who had pulled strings to see him, so he wasn’t particularly invested in Mu Dai’s case. And truthfully, Mu Dai hadn’t shown anything unusual. Compared to those patients who were wailing and making scenes as if they were about to die, she seemed normal enough to be given an award.

He Ruihua figured Huo Zihong’s worries were nothing more than the overblown anxiety of a parent with a teenage daughter.

He advised, “How about this—you parents keep a close eye on her daily behavior. Best if you can record it on video or audio. That way, we’ll have evidence, and it’ll make things much easier to analyze.”

Luo Ren’s gaze fell on the box of old VHS tapes in Huo Zihong’s hands.

Square, black, outdated, dusty—an old recording sealed away.

He Ruihua said, “Let’s play one.”

Luo Ren thought they’d bring out an old projector, but no—they’d already had the footage converted into computer video.

The image appeared.

The resolution wasn’t good—blurry, with static interference. It was nighttime. The room was dark, but the outline of a bed and the figure on it could be faintly seen.

Suddenly, the bedside lamp flicked on. Mu Dai sat up in bed. Barefoot, she stepped down as if heading to the bathroom—but after just two steps, she abruptly sat down on the floor.

She crossed her legs, sitting there blankly. Somehow, Huo Zihong had set the camera at exactly the right angle, so her face was fully visible.

Luo Ren watched her.

She was so young then—really young. Straight hair, a face still full of childishness, thin arms, a slender frame. Her chest had just begun to develop, a faint curve beneath her pajamas that outlined her budding figure.

If now he could call Mu Dai my girl, back then he could only have called her my little girl.

Mu Dai wiped at her tears. She was crying—quietly, restrained, trying her best not to make a sound. Her small face scrunched up, and she used her sleeve to dab her eyes. She cried in bursts, stopping, then starting again, whispering to herself, “What am I supposed to do?”

Luo Ren wanted to reach out and stroke her hair.

The truth is, things in this world are rarely clear-cut, never easily divided into black or white. The simple words “right” or “wrong” can’t capture the complexity of human nature. Even if Huo Zihong’s account were placed right in front of Luo Ren, he wouldn’t be able to sort it out in a short time, let alone Mu Dai, back then.

No one taught her, no one guided her. She believed she was guilty—Huo Zihong made her confess, and the Shen family already treated her as though her crime were unforgivable. That guilt… it was already set in stone.

She reached under her pillow and pulled out a knife.

Just an ordinary fruit knife.

Luo Ren saw her holding it, first pressing it against her wrist, then at her throat, and finally pointing the tip toward her heart. The hand clutching the knife trembled nonstop.

Luo Ren’s chest tightened; his body leaned forward.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, her right hand clenching hard—

Even though he knew there was no way the suicide would succeed, Luo Ren still felt his breath catch in that moment, a ringing in his ears.

Suddenly, Mu Dai’s eyes snapped open.

Her gaze turned vicious, her expression sharp, almost cruel.

In defiance, she flung the knife aside with a loud clang and shouted, “What’s it to you?!”

Luo Ren froze, then realized—she was talking to another version of herself.

Her words tumbled out fast: “It’s not like you killed anyone, so why should it matter? You almost died yourself. You barely survived—are you going to throw your life away again?”

Her chest rose and fell, anger boiling over—like a dark, brooding girl consumed by shadows.

Yan Hongsha had been right. Mu Dai herself had already guessed it: a split personality.

Luo Ren turned to Huo Zihong. “I already suspected Mu Dai might have dissociative identities…”

Huo Zihong said, “There’s still a little more. Watch the rest.”

Mu Dai’s expressions kept shifting—weak and pained one moment, defiant and arrogant the next. Luo Ren didn’t want to keep watching. He feared these images would etch themselves into his mind.

Thankfully, judging by the progress bar, the video was almost over.

Then, Mu Dai suddenly lifted her head.

Her face was calm, eyes half-narrowed, brows slightly furrowed. It looked like disdain, maybe even disgust.

She said, “You two, stop fighting.”

The video cut off there.

The room fell silent for a long time. Then Uncle Zhang’s plastic fruit bag rustled noisily. The sound was so grating, it made you want to hurl the whole bag to the floor and stomp the fruit into pulp.

Luo Ren said, “I don’t know much about psychology. If you’re going to explain, do it in terms I can understand. Keep it simple.”

He Ruihua was upfront: all the evidence and video records of Mu Dai’s abnormal behavior—that video was it.

That was all? Just that clip?

Luo Ren found it hard to believe. “And then?”

“Then,” said He Ruihua, “she recovered at a rate none of us could have imagined.”

“Recovered?”

He Ruihua stressed the pronunciation. “Self-recovered. She healed herself.”

He pulled his chair back, stood from behind the heavy desk, and dragged over a whiteboard. With a fluorescent marker, he drew three circles.

The first, the largest, he labeled with the word “Hidden.”

The second, medium-sized, he wrote “Mu Dai.”

The smallest, he wrote “No. 2.”

Luo Ren pointed to the largest circle. “That’s the primary identity?”

“Yes.”

“A personality that rarely shows itself… is the primary one?”

“Some rulers never step into the public eye, yet they control an entire empire. Others rush around performing errands at court. Which one has more power? The weight matters more than appearances.”

On any other day, Luo Ren might have smiled at that phrasing. But here, now, he couldn’t.

He Ruihua said, “There isn’t much material to study, so much of this is my inference. Take it as a reference—you don’t have to agree. I welcome discussion.”

A typical scholar’s tone.

Luo Ren nodded. “Go on.”

“I think you’ll agree people are wired with an instinct to survive. That instinct exists even in the unconscious. Like when someone who insists they want to die still flinches away when a car rushes at them.”

Luo Ren agreed—most people, after all, need enormous courage to embrace death.

“Because of that instinct, people have a natural drive to save themselves. At its core, even eating when hungry or drinking when thirsty is self-preservation.”

Luo Ren listened quietly.

He Ruihua looked back at the whiteboard. “Mu Dai, at the time, was engaged in self-preservation.”

“At her age, under that kind of pressure, if she’d continued as she was, the outcome would have been either death or total collapse. So, I believe, in her own mind, she created a strategy of attack and defense.”

“The primary identity, burdened with that guilt—or call it sin—hid itself, went dormant.”

Luo Ren fell silent. Judging from Mu Dai’s daily behavior, you’d never know she’d suffered such psychological trauma. She was so pure, so simple, it bordered on naïve.

He suddenly recalled the incident with the boiled fish splashed on her—the woman who did it was likely a member of Shen Wen’s family.

He mused, “But Mu Dai never forgot what happened eight years ago.”