Chapter 62: Lost (Three)

  The door of the hut was also ajar, and a faint light came from inside. I took a deep breath and walked over to push open the door. Inside, there was only one table, with a young man wearing black-rimmed glasses sitting at one end, and an empty chair at the other end, which seemed to be for me to sit on.

  Before I saw this small house, I had many imaginations, but I didn't expect that when I really saw the young man I once saw in a daze, I was unexpectedly very calm. On the wall behind the young man hung a sign that read "Dream Club", everything was just like what I saw at that time, except for the person who came to see him changed from a woman to me.

  The young man didn't say a word, looked up at me, and I walked straight to the chair in front of him and sat down, looking at him fearlessly. I believed he brought me here for a reason and my doubts would be explained, so I wasn't in a hurry to speak first. As long as he spoke first, I'd have the upper hand, making the conversation more favorable for me.

  The young man looked at me and suddenly smiled, saying: "Welcome home."

  My eyes involuntarily contracted, this voice was very familiar, it was the person who said "don't drink" to me in my dream. I looked at the sign on the wall behind him that read "Dream Club", and remembered the letter my ancestor wrote to me, a chill ran down my spine, and my eyes couldn't help but glance downwards.

  The young man laughed and said: "Don't worry, I am a human being, a living person."

  I didn't relax at all, stood up straight, stared into his eyes and asked: "Tell me what's going on!"

  The young man didn't mind my gaze at all, but suddenly gave a slightly nervous and sinister smile, saying: "You don't need to rush, I'll tell you a story, after listening to it, you'll understand everything."

  I sat down again and listened to the young man tell his story. The young man seemed to be at a loss for where to start, and he was silent for a while before opening his mouth to speak:

  I don't know where to start, it seems like a very clichéd story. I have a good job, good friends and a pretty sister, all of which seemed to indicate that I would have a beautiful life.

  But I'm a person who is not satisfied with the status quo, I studied psychiatry and psychotherapy, but I don't like the monotonous life in the hospital. Because my best hypnotic technique cannot be freely played in clinical treatment, so later I and a best friend resigned from the hospital together, we opened a club, yes, it's called Dream Club, then use hypnosis to make people hallucinate, in this hallucination, experience everything they want but can't get in real life.

  My eyebrows jumped, and I vaguely thought of a possibility. The young man waved his hand to signal me not to ask, he looked at me with extreme disgust, and continued:

  "This is completely unacceptable in the secular world, as it may be used for evil purposes by malicious people. Therefore, all our activities are carried out underground and in secret. Every time someone wants to ask us to hypnotize them, they must be introduced by an absolutely reliable person. Despite this, there are still many, many people who want to join our club, because everyone has many things in their heart that they cannot reveal to others. They tell me these things, and I help them achieve them."

  Those days were spent very happily, until one day, my sister brought back a man and said he was her boyfriend. He was a very elegant and delicate-looking young man, and we were all very satisfied, even starting to plan their wedding.

  But one day, my sister suddenly told me that she wanted to go with her boyfriend to a place. She told me the name of the location, and as soon as I saw it, I didn't allow them to go. However, my sister begged me persistently, saying that the man wanted to write a horror story to participate in the Tianya Original Competition, he wanted to go to that place to find inspiration, and there would be many people going together, so definitely nothing would happen."

  My body began to tremble, the young man's face grew increasingly gloomy, he looked at me and continued:

  I knew I couldn't win against my sister, so I agreed to it. At the same time, I sternly warned that man to ensure my sister's safety. Actually, what I was worried about wasn't ghosts in that place - where are there ghosts in this world? Many times it's just people scaring people. What I was worried about was that the place was desolate and uninhabited, and if there were any wild beasts roaming around, that would be truly dangerous.

  That man promised me that he would take good care of my sister, so I let them leave with peace of mind. Of course, for safety reasons, I also asked them to leave the contact information of several other people who went together. But I didn't expect that ten days later, I received a call from the police saying that my sister was dead, and she was killed by her boyfriend, and many people were present at the scene to prove it.

  My body trembled even more violently, the young man's gaze at me made me certain that I must be his sister's boyfriend, but why did I have no memory of such a thing? I clenched my fists tightly and tried to control my body, the young man's voice grew colder as he said:

  "I asked the man, 'Why did you kill my sister?' He didn't say anything, just stared at me with a foolish grin. I thought this man would be shot, but many people also proved that on those days, this man seemed to have some mental problems, kept shouting on the day of the murder, as if he had seen something terrifying, and the subsequent forensic examination also confirmed that this man suffered from mental illness."

  I don't believe all this is true, but the forensic expert is an authority and I have no way to go against the law. However, what I didn't expect was that in just two years' time, this man's mental illness was cured, although he was listed as a key surveillance target due to the murder case at the time, but after all, he was freed, while my sister died like this for nothing.

  I studied psychiatry, so I naturally don't believe that someone's illness can heal so quickly, unless he was pretending to be ill all along. But later on, I couldn't find any trace of him again, and I didn't have the chance to avenge my sister.

  One day, as I was about to go out and take care of some business, I suddenly saw someone standing at the door who was just about to push it open. Although many years had passed, even if he had been burned to ashes, I would still have recognized him. I rushed up to him, ready to hit him, but he looked at me with a gaze that seemed as though he no longer knew who I was. My professional instincts made me certain that I wasn't mistaken - he really didn't recognize me anymore. Later interactions also confirmed my judgment.

  I withdrew my fist, he looked at me and said he wanted to find his dream. He didn't have a recommender, which was originally not in line with the rules, but I wasn't willing to let go of this opportunity. I didn't care why he had amnesia or how he knew about this place. I agreed to everything he said.

  He handed me a thick stack of printed paper, saying it was a horror story he had written but couldn't finish. It seemed like something was missing in his mind. To make the story complete, he hoped I could help him hypnotize into his story and live a normal life, moving around everywhere, perhaps in that immersive state, he could finish his story.

  This is a crazy man, but I still agreed to him, his papers also drew many people, each person has a name, he said that the people in his hallucinations must be like this, and I promised everything. This is a big plan, it will be very difficult to implement, I originally wanted to use hypnosis to understand why he killed my sister at first, want to know what he saw that day, but strangely, his mind was blank, I couldn't ask anything, I can only change my revenge plan.

  "This plan was huge, my friend and I worked together for a long time. Originally, everything went according to the script he gave me. When the woman in the story would give him chicken soup, he would wake up from his illusion. But I wasn't willing to let him off so easily, so every time we implemented hypnosis, I secretly made some small changes without telling my friend. Everything had already deviated slightly from the original script, and the characters inside had undergone subtle changes. At the moment when he was about to wake up, I left a message for him, reminding him not to drink it. He really listened, didn't drink it, and then lost his chance to return to the real world."

  I lost control of myself, let out a loud cry and pounced on him. The young man's strength was incredibly great, and with one move, he slammed me to the side, looking at me coldly as I gasped for air on the ground. "To make you forever lost in this world where reality is unknown," he said, "I hypnotized my friend so that he would never remember this incident. I will be the only person in this world who knows how to wake you up. However, I also gave myself self-hypnosis. I wrote a diary telling me that as soon as I finish saying these words, my subconscious mind will forget how to awaken you. From now on, you won't know who you are or which people around you are real and which ones are just characters in your fantasy world. I made you experience the pain of losing loved ones and friends, then told you the truth so that you would be terrified when you're awake. Now you understand the truth about everything, but ironically, you're powerless to do anything about it. This is my best revenge against you, and for you, this is the most terrifying story."

  He squatted down, looked at me and asked: "That day, what did you see exactly?"

  I couldn't answer him, and he probably didn't expect to get an answer from me either. I watched as he walked out the door, and I thought about rushing over to kill him. But his voice came drifting back: "If you kill me now, all those people outside will be witnesses that you're a murderer, and this time you'll never have another chance to pretend to be mentally ill again. I can use my own life to avenge my sister; if you don't come over and kill me, then I've still avenged my sister with my own expertise. Either way, I won't regret it - you're the one who's always going to lose!"

  I slumped weakly to the ground, what he said was right, no matter how I looked at it, I had fallen into a dead end, either death or losing myself, what else could I do?

  I struggled to get up and walked out, no matter what, I had to go home, whether that home was real or illusory. At least in my memory, I've always been there, when I was most helpless, when there was no one around me, true or false, I could only return to that place.

  After sitting in the car for several days, I arrived at my own home. The house was empty and there was no one inside. I curled up on the sofa, stunned, and the truth of the matter was beyond my expectation. I believed it was true, that young man had no need to deceive me, and only this could explain the strange things I encountered. But for some reason, I always felt that something was not quite right, just couldn't think of what it was at the moment. Just then, the phone suddenly rang, I didn't know if the sound was real or fake, hesitated for a long time before answering, it was the delivery guy asking if I was home, he was at the door.

  I still don't know if the delivery person is from the real world or a virtual one, but I opened the door anyway. The delivery person looked impatient and handed me a small package. I signed for it and took it inside to open it. It was a letter with handwriting that was extremely familiar - exactly like mine.

  I opened the letter and found it contained just a few simple sentences:

  "What did you see that day?"

  My heart suddenly started racing, and in an instant I knew what was wrong: that young man, his hatred towards me seemed more because he couldn't get out of me what I had seen that day, rather than because of his sister.

  "What did you see?" I suddenly remembered the words that were often asked at Lao Chu's house, and now someone was asking me too. What exactly did I see that day?

  I picked up the second sheet of paper, on which was printed a photo and a sentence: "Do you want to know another story?"

  My eyes narrowed again, and my heart beat more violently: it was a very famous place, many, many Chinese people knew about it, its name, and many strange things were connected to it!