142: One Extra Person
Recently, for some reason, the amount of people who were visiting psychiatrists had increased.
"I feel that...there seemed to be one more person at home." The woman in front seemed quite neurotic, since she sat down, she had not stopped looking around. "When I return home everyday, the things at home would all be in different positions."
"Madam Qin, could you have remembered wrongly?" Wen Yu asked her, "Sometimes a person's memory would be erroneous, could you have used these things but forgotten about them?"
"I didn't remember wrongly." The woman said, "I could have put my phone at a random spot after I played with it, but I could not have emptied half of the items in my refrigerator then forget to replace them after."
"When was the refrigerator emptied?" Wen Yu asked.
"At night I think." The woman rubbed her face, she looked very frail, it seemed to be because she had stayed up all night in fear. "When I woke up, all the bottles I placed in there were opened, especially the beers, they were all opened."
Wen Yu made a note on his book.
"What do you think?" The woman leaned over and looked at him. "Should I call the police?"
If you wanted to call the police, you would not have come to a psychiatrist in the first place. Wen Yu looked up at her and said, "This might be a case of somnambulism."
The woman leaned back on the chair again as she sighed. "You think so too?"
"It's not certain," Wen Yu said, "I suggest that before you sleep tonight, place a video camera or a phone so that you record everything that happens after you fall asleep."
It was almost afternoon break time once he sent this customer away, Wen Yu came out from his office, he was a little stiff from sitting for the whole morning, he pressed on his shoulders a little. Just as he was about to go out for lunch, the door beside him suddenly opened, a psychiatrist came out holding their stomach, upon seeing Wen Yu, they frantically grabbed him.
"Doctor Wen, do me a favour." The other party had a bad expression on their face, their forehead was perspiring. "My stomach is not feeling well today, help me with the customer inside. Thanks, ah..."
Wen Yu shook his head, he forgot about eating lunch as he opened the door and entered. "Hello, something came up for Doctor Liu, I'll take his place for now, this is my name card."
Switching doctors at the last moment, the customer seemed a little uncomfortable. He had his arms crossed, his right leg was shaking non-stop, he was obviously weary.
He took Wen Yu's name card in his hands, took a look and tossed it to the side, then said as he chewed on bubblegum, "Forget it, I'm holding on to an anxiety, I just want to pour it out to someone...you won't tell anyone what I say right?"
"I won't." Wen Yu smiled. "We have professional integrity, we will keep what you say confidential."
"That's good..." The man breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Truth be told, I am the video editor of a production crew, to be honest...I think there is an extra person on the crew."
"Oh?" Wen Yu blinked once, he seemed to have heard the same thing from another person. He asked, "What person exactly?"
"How would I know?" The man complained, he rubbed his own hair and said, "The people online all thought that there was something wrong with my editing, but that was not something I did, I don't have such capability!"
Wen Yu poured a cup of hot water for the other, trying his best to placate his emotions. "Can you tell me what exactly happened in detail?"
"See for yourself." The man took out his phone and tapped on a video for him to watch.
Wen Yu was open-minded to others' beliefs, he took the phone and took a look, it was playing a sequel to a very popular show, titled <<Big Brother's Lover 2>>. The lead actors and director had been changed, but to draw popularity, the lead actors from the previous season made a cameo in the first episode.
Wen Yu saw a familiar face—Ning Ning.
"Watch closely." The man was beside him before he could notice, looking down at the video. "One minute fifty seconds."
At a minute and forty seconds, Ning Ning appeared in the female lead's flashback.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" The man shouted as he reached out with a finger, pointing at Ning Ning's waist and said, "Look here."
Actually, he did not need to point it out specifically, a screenful of bullet chats had already pointed out what was different in this scene. Wen Yu turned off the bullet chat, then looked closely at Ning Ning's waist.
He gradually saw what was different.
"Look at the crease on her clothes," the man asked, "doesn't it look like a person's hand?"
Ning Ning was speaking to the female lead on the screen, there was clearly no third party nearby, but a crease slowly appeared on the waist area of Ning Ning's clothes. It looked like a hand had reached out from behind her and gently placed itself on her waist.
"Could it be an accident?" Wen Yu turned his head to look at him. "Did a gust of wind kick up while they were filming?"
"This was an indoor shoot." The man looked at him as if he was dumb. "If there was wind, how could it only be on her and not the female lead in front of her? Watch what happens next."
Wen Yu looked at the video again, then his eyes widened with surprise.
The crease on Ning Ning's waist, it had changed.
At first it was in the shape of a hand, then when followed closely, the crease started moving slowly like a snake, like an arm slowly wrapping around her from behind, interlocking at her waist.
Ning Ning remained smiling, her right hand that was touching her earring suddenly smacked downwards.
"Smack!"
At the same time, at the backstage of a certain new show that was in the midst of filming.
Shi Zhong Tang wagged his hand around as he grinned cheekily. "That hurts."
Ning Ning sat down on a chair. She glanced back at him, holding her phone in one hand as she typed on it with the other: [There are people watching, keep your hands to yourself.]
"But I'm bored." Shi Zhong Tang slowly bent down and laid down on the chair. "Chat with me?"
Ning Ning wrote on the phone: [Then I would be sent to the mental hospital very quickly.]
"Sigh, how troublesome." Shi Zhong Tang stretched lazily. He looked at his surroundings as time hung heavy on his hands. All of a sudden, his vision was fixed on a person, he smiled and said, "I'll go play over there."
"Hey! Hey!" Ning Ning shouted at him frantically. Seeing that the makeup artist was looking at her with a strange look, she frantically coughed. "Hey...that person over there, can you bring me a bottle of water?"
The staff member brought her a bottle of mineral water very quickly. Ning Ning opened the bottle and casually took two sips before closing it up. The makeup artist continued to put on makeup for her as Ning Ning's vision occasionally shifted to Shi Zhong Tang's direction.
This fellow was simply like the monkey that had just been released from Five Finger Mountain1, everything was fresh, he wanted to try everything. She saw that he was by the side of a veteran actor who was catching a wink, sneakily tying the old man's white beard into braids. He was behind the male lead at the next instant and started to act according to the script in his hands.
"Close your eyes." The makeup artist held a mascara brush in their hand.
Ning Ning closed her eyes, she felt the brush slowly caress her eyelashes.
"Ah!!" There was a sudden screech, her eyelashes trembled, the makeup artist exclaimed, they frantically grabbed a cotton swab from the table and slowly dabbed the corner of Ning Ning's eyes.
Ning Ning, on the other hand, looked towards the direction of the screeching noise, it was actually the assistant director? Hold on, why was Shi Zhong Tang standing behind him? Why did he look smug? He was even waving at her.
When Shi Zhong Tang came over, Ning Ning frantically showed him her phone, written on it was: [What did you do to Director Han?]
"He wrote a harassment message." Shi Zhong Tang said with a smile, "I helped him broadcast it."
Ning Ning was astonished, she opened WeChat to take a look in a frenzy.
[Pretty little lady, you must be tired today right? Come to my room tonight, I'll make you feel comfortable.]
It simply blew the internet apart.
Shi Zhong Tang did not send this hook up message to the crew's group chat, but into another work group chat instead. Not only did the other group chat have active directors, there were also many presently popular stars—thus, not long after the message was sent, replies soon followed.
Director Chen, "..."
Chen Shuang He, "..."
Director Han, "This is for my wife! Sorry, sorry, I accidentally sent it to the wrong chat!!"
Before he could finish explaining, Director Cui who was in charge of the show had appeared on set, shouting at Assistant Director Han with a foul expression, "Little Han, come over for a minute!"
Ning Ning watched him leave, Shi Zhong Tang's laughter rang out beside her. He said with a wide grin, "Praise me."
Just as Ning Ning was about to take out her phone, a hand had already pressed down on her hand.
"Look at me." Shi Zhong Tang bent down and looked straight at her. "Talk to me."
Ning Ning looked at him helplessly and said, "Thank you."
Shi Zhong Tang immediately started smiling, he reached out and hugged her.
He was so easily satisfied that it made her feel a little guilty.
As if he knew what she was thinking of, Shi Zhong Tang hugged her tightly. "It's fine, I'm already very blessed now. You can at least see me, talk to me, so I...am more blessed than most of the other masked people."
At the same time, in a private home.
A photo frame was placed in the wardrobe. In the photo frame was a couple, wearing a set of blue couple's clothes, each holding a bottle of beer. Behind them were spectacular fireworks, they clinked bottles under the fireworks.
A masked person stood in front of the photo frame. A rabbit mask was on his face, he was wearing the exact same blue clothes as the man in the photo frame. He used a gentle and reminiscent expression as he looked at the photo frame. The sound of the opening door rang out beside him, he turned over and was stunned by what he saw.
The woman who had visited Wen Yu's psychiatrist clinic in the morning—Madam Qin—stood at the entrance hall doorway. She placed two pairs of slippers on the floor and smiled with her head tilted to the side. "I'm counting on you tonight."
A tall man stood beside her, carrying a video camera over his shoulders. He changed his shoes and smiled at her. "Leave it to me."
"You're not afraid at all?" Madam Qin blinked at him. "The doctor said that I might sleepwalk."
"I'm not afraid." The man brought her into his arms. He looked down at her and said, "I'll give you a kiss to wake you up when that happens."
The two of them kissed.
Their kissing figures were reflected on the pure white rabbit mask.
The original owner of this house was staring coldly at them through the mask at this moment.
1This is a reference to a part where the Monkey King Sun Wu Kong was trapped under Five Finger Mountain in the Chinese mythology: Journey to the West.