The night before the promotion

Chapter 53 Questions and Answers

Zhou Si pushed the door open and walked in, sitting on the chair without even looking.

He shouted, "Long time no see, Director Xu, I'm here again."

Director Xu raised his head from behind his desk. His face was full of wrinkles and his hair was gray. Just like the Chen Wen Ge in Zhou Si's memory, he was a real old man.

Director Xu narrowed his eyes, then put on his glasses. After confirming Zhou Si's identity, he sighed.

"Oh? Zhou Si, you're still alive. That's really surprising."

Zhou Si said unhappily, "Is it a novelty that I'm alive?"

"Of course," Director Xu was unexpectedly happy to see Zhou Si. "Others would return to their daily lives and enjoy life after recovering from a serious illness, but you plunged headfirst into treating patients."

"If you were stabbed to death by a patient someday, I wouldn't be surprised."

Zhou Si frowned and touched the sword wound on his abdomen.

He wanted to say that he was indeed stabbed, but unfortunately, the other party did not stab him hard enough, so he survived.

When the words came to his lips, Zhou Si thought of Director Xu's bad character and ruthless mouth, so he swallowed the words and remained silent.

Director Xu pointed to a mirror as tall as a person on the wall and said, "You go sit over there first. I'll take care of the things at hand, and then we can start the inspection."

"Ah."

Zhou Si responded, moved the chair in front of the mirror and sat down obediently.

Director Xu’s full name is Xu Yelan. He is a famous scholar at home and abroad with high attainments in many fields. At the same time, he was also Zhou Si’s attending physician after the Xianyun accident.

After the Xianyun accident, Zhou Si needs to come here regularly for psychological evaluation. Although Director Xu often emphasizes the importance of psychological evaluation, Zhou Si does not take it seriously and just treats it as a daily job.

Zhou Si respected Director Xu very much, not only because of his academic attainments and status as an attending physician, but also because Director Xu, like Zhou Si, was a rare person who had a systematic understanding of the disease.

If Zhou Si is a practitioner, then Director Xu is a theorist. Zhou Si practices medicine on the streets of Anyan City, while Director Xu practices medicine in this vast sanatorium.

In terms of working environment, Zhou Si still envies Director Xu.

Director Xu quickly finished the work at hand. He walked behind Zhou Si with a smile, put his hands on his shoulders, and looked at Zhou Si in the mirror.

"As a self-reflection tool, mirrors are often used in psychology to explore an individual's self-cognition and self-image, thereby guiding the individual to face his or her own inner self and reveal his or her potential psychological problems."

Director Xu's voice rang out beside Zhou Si's ears. "For patients with dissociative disorder, their own cognitive impairment and hallucination problems make it difficult for them to distinguish between reality and illusion. The image in the mirror may also become a symbol of inner confusion and struggle."

The voice suddenly became much closer. Zhou Si saw Director Xu in the mirror lowering his head and whispering in Zhou Si's ear.

"Zhou Si, you should remember the mirror test I mentioned to you."

Zhou Si recited the knowledge points as if he was reciting a text. "The mirror test originates from psychology and cognitive science, and is often used to assess whether animals have self-awareness."

"This concept can also be applied to humans, especially those with anaphylaxis, but not to test for the existence of self-awareness, but to test for the distortion of self-awareness."

Director Xu looked at Zhou Si in the mirror and asked curiously, "What is your image in the mirror at this moment?"

Zhou Si looked at himself in the mirror. Same face, same clothes, same features. Unless Director Xu had done something to the mirror, there was no difference between Zhou Si and himself in the mirror.

He answered, "The sum of social relations called Zhou Si."

"Very good, keep looking, staring at yourself in the mirror."

Director Xu lit the incense. Different from the sweet smell in the golden dream, a light smell surrounded Zhou Si.

Zhou Si asked without looking away, "I have always been curious about the difference between this kind of incense that relaxes the nerves and hallucinogens."

"It's just a difference in ingredients and dosage," Director Xu answered. "It will take some time for the incense to take effect. During this time, I need you to keep staring at yourself in the mirror, and then we can start the psychological assessment."

"Ok."

Zhou Si followed his instructions and kept looking at himself in the mirror. This was not the first time he had done this. This meeting was more of a mental stress test than a psychological assessment. The burning incense would induce Zhou Si's detachment, and Director Xu would use the intensity of the detachment reaction to assess Zhou Si's mental state.

I remember that during the first test, Zhou Si had hallucinations before Director Xu used the incense. Later, as time went by, the impact of the disease on Zhou Si became smaller and smaller, until Director Xu had to use some drugs, the impact of the sequelae would become apparent.

According to Director Xu, Zhou Si's sequelae will be truly resolved when he can no longer see any echoes of the hallucinations.

Keep your breathing steady and let time pass by one second at a time.

At first, the passage of time was so obvious that Zhou Si could even hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. But as his attention became more focused, time seemed to freeze and Zhou Si slowly fell into a kind of eternity.

The senses of self gradually become distant, leaving only the self looking at himself in the mirror, until one unintentional moment, a disdainful laugh rang out from the mirror.

The person in the mirror crossed his legs, looked at Zhou Si jokingly, and sat opposite him across the mirror.

"Okay, ten minutes."

Director Xu looked at his watch and asked, "Zhou Si, what minute did you see the hallucination last time?"

Zhou Si did not answer immediately, but continued to stare at the person in the mirror.

He saw the entire mirror surface slowly expand, and ripples appeared, like a large piece of wriggling mercury, but the figure of the person in the mirror did not distort, and was still clearly reflected in his eyes.

The person in the mirror stood up from the chair.

Zhou Si said calmly, "Twenty minutes. During the last evaluation, I didn't see the hallucination until twenty minutes later."

"Is that so? Then let's wait a little longer," Director Xu noted down the time. "If you see hallucinations within twenty minutes, it means your sequelae have worsened, but if you can hold out for more than twenty minutes, it means your mental state is improving."

Director Xu had a smile on his face, but his eyes were looking at Zhou Si with unexpected seriousness.

Zhou Si faced the mirror expressionlessly, like a soldier ready for battle.

Director Xu knew that Zhou Si had undergone mental training, which made Zhou Si's spirit far stronger than that of ordinary people, and also gave him a higher threshold for facing the effects of the dementia.

The judgment criteria of ordinary people are obviously not applicable to Zhou Si. Therefore, Director Xu needs to weaken Zhou Si's willpower as much as possible and let him answer his questions under the indicators of a normal person. The influence of incense is a suitable subtraction.

He picked up his notebook and sat next to Zhou Si, outside the mirror. "While we're waiting, let's continue with some questions and answers."

"Ok."

Zhou Si still looked forward. He saw the person in the mirror standing in front of him, and the mercury filling the mirror surface was wriggling more violently, as if countless invisible fish were tumbling violently in the mercury.

“Question: On the nature of the self.

When you gaze at yourself in the mirror, do you perceive a self that is constantly present or a self that is constantly changing and in flux?

“Answer: When I gaze into a mirror, I experience a self that is both ongoing and ever-changing.

The self is not a static entity, but a process of continuous evolution and growth. Each moment is a part of the self, and together they make up this unique and complex existence of mine. "

The mirror suddenly broke, and a huge amount of mercury hit Zhou Si head-on, but he remained unmoved, as if he couldn't see it all.

The person in the mirror walked out of the frame carefully, reached out to touch the sharp fragments, and cut a bright cut on his palm.

A cold voice sounded in Zhou Si's mind.

When I gaze into the mirror, I do not perceive a continuous self, but rather an image that is constantly changing and seems to be pieced together from countless moments. Each moment is like an independent, incoherent fragment, which together cannot form a stable, lasting self.

Zhou Si stared straight at the person in the mirror. He was not sure whether the voice came from the person in the mirror or from his own heart.

Although Zhou Si did think so in his heart about this issue.

——A broken self.

(End of this chapter)