Starting with dissecting ghost stories

After returning to the main road, Shen Xing crossed the road and picked up the bicycle that had been lying on the ground behind the railing.

Shen Xing didn't take Li Ya's threat too seriously.

He was pondering whether Li Ya's words and the emotions Li Ya had displayed from yesterday until now matched Li Ya's personality.

Based on Granny Zhang's oral accounts over the years and his interactions with her in the past few days, Shen Xing could make a simple judgment about Li Ya's personality traits.

He has a low level of education, is easily agitated, has weak psychological defenses, and is all bark and no bite—a true villain and a fool.

Shen Xingxin is capable of committing crimes of passion, but it is unlikely that he would commit them repeatedly. Li Ya lacks both the courage and the motive to do so.

The most suspicious point is...

Yesterday, he played the role of a kind father without batting an eye in front of me and took Li Xiaohua away. But today, when facing me in the underground casino, he began to show a panicked look and jumped out of the window to escape in a panic.

Just now, after watching the video of "Li Xiaohua" on the DV camera, Li Ya showed another side of himself. He calmly and completely recounted what had happened from the moment he met the doll until now, and finally threatened himself fiercely at the end.

It's like schizophrenia.

There must be something that caused him to be in this situation.

Shen Xing unlocked his bicycle and glanced back at the video arcade across the street. He saw Li Ya standing there with his hands in his pockets, watching him.

After exchanging a glance, Li Ya slowly raised his right fist, extended his thumb and little finger, and shook it against the side of his face, as if to tell Shen Xing that he would call Shen Xing.

Then, Li Ya turned around, opened the door, and went into the video store, where the aluminum door closed again.

Shen Xing abandoned his idea of ​​filming the other person with a DV camera, got on his bicycle, and rode towards the school clinic.

The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was tinged with a pale yellow hue. With the river breeze carrying a slightly fishy smell, Shen Xing decided to change his mindset.

He didn't know Li Ya very well; at least he had never had any long-term contact with him. He had only heard snippets of comments about Li Ya from others.

Judging from these assessments, Li Ya certainly doesn't have a schizophrenia, at least not before.

Between the Li Ya described by others and the Li Ya in one's own memory, and the Li Ya encountered in the past two days, there is a huge variable.

That doll.

What if the influence came from that doll?

Was he already mentally deranged under the influence of the doll after his first crime of passion—the murder of his ex-wife?

Just as one cannot imagine things that do not exist, even if Li Ya were to be affected by schizophrenia, his cognitive level would not change significantly.

Influenced by the doll, but not schizophrenia.

What could it be?

Shen Xing squeezed the brakes, nodded and smiled to signal the pedestrians in front to go first, and only stepped off the pedal again after they had passed.

A puppet that devours corpses; Li Ya, whose personality undergoes multiple changes; schizophrenia...

No, it's not schizophrenia.

What if it's dissociative identity disorder?

Or rather, personality devouring.

Li Ya was already influenced at the moment the doll devoured his ex-wife's body after his first crime of passion, or even before that.

The tender-hearted person who brought "gifts" and earnestly pleaded to take her daughter to celebrate her birthday yesterday was Li Ya's ex-wife, who died 72 hours earlier.

The cowardly gambler personality that saw himself in the abandoned restaurant this morning and ran away in fright is Li Ya himself.

The personality that had just watched the DV recording, then conspired with me, confronted me, and ultimately threatened me, was another, ruthless, and calm personality that I didn't recognize and who had died 48 hours earlier...

If we think about it this way, doesn't it make a lot more sense?

In addition, Li Ya unintentionally revealed in his words that the puppet has a certain "thinking" and "communication" ability.

It's pretty much a done deal.

Before arriving at the school clinic, Shen Xing had already deduced the general reason why Li Ya was behaving so differently based on his interactions with him over the past two days.

This inference is the most reasonable, and how to verify it... is also very simple.

All he needs to do is attack Li Ya.

If that anomaly is like [0111], possessing an almost instinctive, frantic self-repair or resistance to attacks, then attacking Li Ya will inevitably expose his weakness.

If it's really as I deduced...

Is Li Ya even human anymore?

Is a human being affected or even controlled by an anomaly still considered human?

Shen Xing didn't think so.

When Li Ya-neng uses supernatural powers to create murder cases that may be undetectable, he has already transcended the realm of humanity.

If it's not human, that would be great.

"squeak--"

Shen Xing applied the brakes, and the bicycle came to a steady stop at the school gate.

He glanced at his watch; it was 4:45. Although it was past his planned time, he still managed to arrive before 5:00.

He took out his work ID from his bag, knocked on the window of the security booth, and woke up the old man who was dozing inside.

The school also offers extracurricular classes on weekends, usually calligraphy or similar subjects, so the school isn't completely deserted; there are security guards on duty at the gate.

"Excuse me, Uncle Wang," Shen Xing said with a smile, looking at the sleepy old man in the security booth. "I'm going to the park later, but I realized I left my DV camera in the school clinic. Could you open the door so I can go in and get it?"

"Oh...okay." The old man nodded, pressed the remote control button, opened the folding electric barrier gate a little, let Shen Xing in, and then continued to doze off.

Shen Xing entered the school gate smoothly and went to the infirmary under the watchful eyes of the administration building's surveillance cameras.

He walked into the clinic with practiced ease, closed the wooden door, sat down at his workstation, skillfully set up the DV camera on a tripod, and looked at the four paintings on the opposite wall.

"The Slaughtered Cow" - 012, Human Muscle Diagram - 013, "Dr. Dulp's Anatomy Lesson" - 014.

Shen Xing didn't mark the last Vitruvian Man, which didn't react at all. He simply used it as a failed control group to complete this round.

Time ticked by, and Shen Xing stared at the DV camera, glancing at the four paintings on the wall out of the corner of his eye, waiting for five o'clock to arrive.

16:57......

16:58......

16:59......

17: 00.

The digital alarm clock on the table ticked to five o'clock. Perhaps the alarm clock was slightly off, because after about two seconds, Shen Xing began to feel a sudden swelling in his left hand.

Yes, it wasn't a burning sensation, but rather a swelling I'd never felt before.

It was as if something was writhing and growing in his left hand...

In his field of vision, the three portraits on his left, which originally looked like ordinary reproductions to the naked eye, began to show severe distortion.

The picture frame appeared as a double image in Shen Xing's eyes, and the increasingly scarlet muscles on it seemed to be pulsating, showing a "vitality" that Shen Xing had never expected before.

In just two days... the painting on the wall came back to life.