Chapter 745: The Murder Case of the Past

“What? Visit someone in prison?” Upon hearing Lin Dongxue’s explanation, Lin Qiupu said, “Well, we could, but is it really necessary?”

“Miss Gu really wants to see him. She’s helped us out a lot. Helping her once isn’t much to ask, right?”

“Must we?”

“Bro!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll communicate with the prison and request an interrogation.”

Lin Dongxue relayed this information to Gu You, who was waiting outside, deeply grateful. Chen Shi suggested, “Let’s take a look at his file first! Since it’s under the guise of an interrogation, we should know who he is.”

Lin Dongxue agreed. The three went to the archives and found the file for that case, which was quite thick.

The file was detailed, with over twenty pages of transcripts alone. During the interrogation, Chen Fengde mentioned a word—Mengyuan. For example, this segment:

Question: Describe the weapon you used.

Answer: I must correct your question. It was this body that used the weapon. It was a serrated dagger, about this long (approximately forty centimeters).

Question: You didn’t purchase this knife. How did you obtain it?

Answer: Found it.

Question: Found it? Where can you find a controlled weapon like that?

Answer: The original owner of the knife was a young man who went to the hospital for a urology surgery, but the doctor made a mistake and cut his foreskin. This left him feeling deeply humiliated, so he bought a knife to threaten the doctor. However, upon arriving at the hospital, he had a change of heart and hid the knife under a trash can.

Question: Do you know the original owner of the knife?

Answer: I don’t need to know him. I saw it in Mengyuan.

Question: I don’t understand what you mean by “Mengyuan”. Are you saying a stranger hid a knife somewhere in the hospital, and on the day you planned to commit murder, you went there empty-handed, only to later retrieve the knife?

Answer: I need to correct you. It was this body. I emphasize again, at that time, the one controlling my body was someone named Liu Tao.

Question: When it wasn’t you in your body, how did you know all this?

Answer: I saw it in Mengyuan.

Reading the yellowed pages, Lin Dongxue could imagine the frustration and collapse of the interrogator at the time. She said, “This person is truly quite mad.”

Chen Shi flipped through the records in his hands. “Have you noticed that there are many inexplicable things in this case? Or rather, things that common sense can’t explain. But according to Chen Fengde’s twisted reasoning, everything makes sense.”

Gu You said, “I’ve encountered some patients in the psychiatric hospital who are cognitively sound, with complete thoughts and their own worldview. No matter how you question them, they can always justify themselves, which is truly astonishing. The famous Sergei time-traveling incident, where Sergei Ponomarenko was initially considered mentally abnormal, but many years later, the more you ponder it, the more terrifyingly real it seems. So I’ve thought more than once that perhaps among the so-called mentally ill, there are indeed some who have been misdiagnosed.”

Chen Shi chuckled. “I remember there was a psychiatric cult somewhere that propagated a theory, and surprisingly, quite a few people believed in it, almost turning it into a cult. It was eventually shut down by the police.”

“Oh, what theory was that?” Lin Dongxue was curious.

“He believed that there were no women in the world.”

“Nonsense! Then what are we?”

“He said the women on Earth were projections made up by men’s hypnotism. In 1972, a group of aliens took away all the women, and through the isolation of men and women, they would slowly cause the extinction of mankind. Even childbirth is the birth of alien babies. All obstetricians have been brainwashed by aliens. In less than a hundred years, the entire human race will be replaced by aliens, and you don’t even know it.”

“This nonsense,” said Gu You, evaluating.

“Yeah, so what is Mengyuan?” Lin Dongxue asked.

“Chen Fengde himself said that Mengyuan is a vortex of collective unconsciousness. When dreaming, one occasionally arrives there. But most people are unaware. He can consciously visit Mengyuan through dream training. He says he can observe any place in the world from there, and even enter other people’s dreams. But it’s very dangerous. If the person whose dream is intruded upon wakes up…” Gu You paused mysteriously.

“What happens?”

“Your own consciousness will enter that person’s body. He said he once got stuck inside a pregnant woman for twenty hours, forcibly experiencing the pain of childbirth. The pain of tearing seemed to linger in his body.”

“According to this theory, exchanging bodies is when two people enter each other’s dreams and then wake up?”

“Yes, that’s how he explains it.”

“Who did he mention the pregnant woman was…”

“A Czechoslovakian woman.”

“Oh my God!”

“Then Liu Tao, who swapped bodies with him, has been to the so-called Mengyuan? Or does he also have the means to actively control dreams?”

“Liu Tao lives in Long’an. You can go find him anytime.”

There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Lin Dongxue and Chen Shi laughed together. Chen Shi said, “What are we doing? We’re actually verifying the words of a mentally ill person?”

But Gu You didn’t laugh, she was even a bit serious, “Are you afraid that the verification will be successful?”

Chen Shi shrugged, “I don’t believe this kind of thing at all!”

“Don’t believe it, go and disprove it.”

“Miss Gu, are you mad at me?”

“No, I think we should take an attitude of seeking truth from facts, rather than immediately denying it when we hear such things. Just a few weeks ago, probably no one would believe that a headless person would run from the anatomy room here to the street. But didn’t it happen?”

“Well, let’s be practical.” Chen Shi made concessions. He secretly thought that Gu You’s hint of anger seemed to imply an extraordinary relationship between her and Chen Fengde.

“My brother still needs some time. Shall we go find Liu Tao now?” Lin Dongxue suggested.

“Wait a moment…” Chen Shi was still looking at the file. He found a detail that could be considered a suspicious point. “Among the deceased, there are three people of exactly the same age. Is this a coincidence?”

Lin Dongxue took out her phone, “Take a picture of it. We’ll check it out later.”

Through the linkage of household registration data, they quickly found a person who matched Liu Tao’s characteristics in every aspect. The three of them drove there. On the way, Gu You seemed a bit anxious. Lin Dongxue said, “Miss Gu, do you not want to verify this matter?”

“Tell you a story. I once received a patient who claimed to be from the future. Guess what I asked him?”

“To tell me the winning numbers for the next lottery?”

Chen Shi laughed, “Usually, they would cloud it over and say that mentioning the future would change it.”

“You guessed half right. In order to refute his hypothesis, I also asked this question. He looked into my eyes very seriously and said, ‘Ordinary people don’t deliberately memorize the winning numbers of a certain lottery in 2004. If I were to ask you the winning numbers for a certain lottery in 2004, you certainly wouldn’t know either. But I guessed before the crossing that someone would ask me this, so I remembered a set of winning numbers from 14 years ago. I can tell you now.'”

“He really said that?” Lin Dongxue was surprised.

“He said that, and I wrote it down. But when that lottery began selling tickets, I didn’t buy them or check any winning information.”

“Why!?”

Gu You smiled bitterly, “I was afraid that if it was true, I would go crazy.”