Chapter 18: It is Smiling |
A wave of heat washed over him. The orange-red glow of the fire cast Shen Mo's shadow onto the cold metal wall, stretching it into a distorted shape.
His face was expressionless. With a long-handled pair of iron tongs, he fed the contaminated white lab coat, along with all related clothing, piece by piece into the feeding port of the high-temperature incinerator.
The polymer fibers instantly curled and carbonized in the heat exceeding one thousand degrees Celsius, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.
He didn't miss a single detail. Even the shoelaces of the pair of shoes were carefully picked up with the tongs and sent into the heart of the flames.
A high-definition camera, fixed on a tripod, faithfully recorded everything. The red recording indicator light, in the dim disposal room, was like a tireless eye.
This was the destruction of evidence, and also a farewell ceremony.
He had to personally burn down the "sandbox" that the enemy had shaped for him, so that he could rebuild his own fortress on the scorched earth.
Back in the brightly lit office, Shen Mo spread out all the evidence related to the "Teacher" again.
This time, he was not looking for clues, but for a mindset, a core driving force hidden behind all the actions.
Previously, everyone's attention had been focused on the victim's tragic self-immolation, but they had overlooked a detail in the crime scene investigation report marked as "no significant relevance."
The record showed that in that simple rental house, the medical examiner had found a line of words written in charcoal on the wooden backboard of an old-fashioned dressing mirror.
Because the mirror had shattered in the fire, the handwriting had become blurry and was considered to be just random graffiti from the deceased's deranged state.
Shen Mo put on white gloves, picked up a magnifying glass, and leaned close to the high-resolution crime scene photo.
The charcoal powder was deeply embedded in the rough wood grain. The strokes, due to the force used, appeared deep and desperate.
He identified the words one by one, silently reading them out in his mind: "You... cannot see me... so... I must... make you see."
In an instant, it was as if a thunderclap had exploded in his mind.
All his previous theories were overturned at this moment.
He was wrong, terribly wrong.
He had always thought that the "Teacher's" obsession stemmed from a twisted vanity, a desire to be remembered, to leave a mark on history.
So he chose to hide, to erase his own presence, trying to make the obsession dissipate on its own because it couldn't find a point of attachment.
But now he understood. It was not about "being remembered" at all, but a more fundamental, more primitive desire—"to have one's existence confirmed."
Like a child ignored in a crowd, who would cry, roll on the ground, or even be destructive to attract their parents' attention.
He wasn't doing it to "be remembered"; he was doing it just so that, in that moment, his parents' gaze would be on him, confirming "I am here."
The "Teacher's" ritual was the same. Its core was not to have the world praise his name, but to find a host, to have another person, on a cognitive level, completely confirm "you" are "me."
The moment Su Wanying, Lin Xiaoya, or anyone familiar with him, pointed at Shen Mo and genuinely believed "he is the Teacher," the ritual would be complete.
Not imitation, not acting, but a complete cognitive overwrite.
All his previous hiding and avoidance, on the contrary, was like playing a game of "hide-and-seek," playing right into the other's hands.
Cold sweat trickled down Shen Mo's temple. He had to verify this terrifying theory immediately.
He needed a reference point, an anchor that could define the "real Shen Mo."
He thought of Su Wanying.
Her understanding of him went deep, to the level of his behavioral logic.
An hour later, he placed a forged "Shen Mo Mental State Evaluation Report" in front of Su Wanying.
He named this little experiment the "Identity Dissociation Test."
The report's wording was extremely professional, citing classics and authorities, claiming that Shen Mo, due to long-term handling of high-risk abnormal events, had suffered from mental stress overload and showed significant symptoms of depersonalization, blaming his own responsibilities and failures on an imagined "Teacher" personality, and recommended immediate isolation, observation, and psychological intervention.
Su Wanying read it quickly, her brow furrowing tighter and tighter.
She did not panic or worry as Shen Mo had expected. Instead, she pushed the report onto the table, her eyes sharp as she looked at him, her tone carrying an unquestionable negation: "What's written here is not you."
"Why?" Shen Mo's voice remained absolutely calm, the pen in his hand ready to record.
"The logic is wrong," Su Wanying said decisively. "The report says you are trying to escape responsibility by constructing a 'Teacher' personality. But you are not that kind of person. Shen Mo, the you I know is always the first to carry all the responsibilities on your own shoulders, even if those responsibilities would crush you. You would blame yourself, you would suffer, but you would never avoid it. This report, from its very root, denies your core personality. Therefore, it is fake."
The tip of Shen Mo's pen left a heavy dot on the paper.
He had succeeded.
Su Wanying, completely unaware, had seen through the disguise through his most fundamental behavioral logic.
This proved that the identity of "Shen Mo" was not a blank sheet of paper that could be easily altered.
Its existence was forged by countless real actions and choices, possessing a depth and texture that could not be easily tampered with.
He put away the report and, in his notebook, forcefully wrote a new line of anchoring words: "My existence is not defined by others."
The next day, Shen Mo proactively applied to headquarters to return to the front line.
When the news came, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but they were also puzzled by his additional conditions.
He requested that all future meetings he needed to attend should, in principle, use encrypted voice connections; if face-to-face communication was necessary, he would wear a pair of special sunglasses and refuse any unnecessary physical contact.
His request was approved.
When Shen Mo stepped into the familiar conference room again, everyone's eyes were focused on the strangely shaped sunglasses on his face.
The lenses had a near-perfect mirror effect, clearly reflecting the face of everyone in the conference room, every light, but his own eyes could not be seen.
No one knew that the lenses of these glasses had a polarized double-layer structure. The outer layer was a high-reflectivity mirror surface, while the inner layer, close to his eyes, merely projected a pre-recorded static projection of his own face with completely relaxed muscles.
He had isolated sight. Physically, he ensured that no one could truly "see" him.
"From today on," Shen Mo's voice sounded through the microphone on the table, calm and clear, echoing in everyone's ears, "what you see is only the part I allow you to see."
Three days later, Lin Xiaoya came uninvited.
Like a frightened bird, she burst into Shen Mo's office, clutching an old-fashioned Polaroid camera.
"They all say you've changed," she panted, her eyes filled with stubbornness and fear. "I want to see for myself, to capture the truth, to prove that you are still you, or... that you are not anymore."
Shen Mo was sitting behind his desk. Hearing her words, he just slowly raised his head, still wearing the sunglasses.
He did not stop her, even turning slightly to give her a better angle for the shot.
Lin Xiaoya's hands trembled slightly, but she still raised the camera.
With a "click," the flash went off, and a photo paper slowly emerged from the camera's slot.
She nervously pinched the edge of the photo paper, shaking it gently. The characteristic smell of chemical agents filled the air.
The image slowly emerged on the white photo paper.
In the picture, Shen Mo's figure became clear.
He was not wearing sunglasses, but a clean white lab coat. The corners of his mouth were slightly raised, outlining a smile that was both compassionate and all-seeing.
That look, the expression in his eyes, was identical to the one in the "Teacher's" file photo.
Lin Xiaoya's face instantly turned deathly pale. The camera slipped from her hands.
Shen Mo stood up, calmly walked past her, and picked up the photo.
He glanced at it, then, in front of her, fed the photo into the paper shredder by his desk.
Amidst the roar of the motor, the compassionate smile was cut into countless long, thin strips of paper.
Then, he pressed the play button on a player on his desk.
A recording began to play. It was Shen Mo's own voice, calm, steady, reading something without any emotion.
Lin Xiaoya quickly recognized that it was a passage from the "Yiji Hall Proxy Speech Drafts"—the words the "Teacher" had spoken to those desperate people before his death.
The recording had been edited. It was an audio collection of him reading all those words for an hour every day for seven consecutive days.
He used his own voice to repeat the "Teacher's" words, as if performing a long and tedious imitation.
When the last word fell, the office fell into a dead silence.
Shen Mo turned off the player and turned to Lin Xiaoya, as if also speaking to some invisible presence in the air.
"I hear you," he said, word by word, clearly. "But I will not become you."
The moment his voice fell, a wisp of green smoke suddenly emerged from inside the paper shredder without any warning.
The edges of the shredded photo paper strips quickly turned black, as if scorched by an invisible flame, emitting a faint burnt smell.
That night, Shen Mo returned to his apartment.
He did not turn on the lights. The entire room was immersed in the faint glow of the city's night.
He drew the curtains, placing himself in a state of absolute darkness, then lay down on the bed fully clothed, preparing to sleep.
He closed his eyes.
However, the moment his eyelids closed, on his retina, which was completely isolated from light, a picture emerged with extreme clarity.
It was a face.
His own face.
That face was facing him, so close it seemed about to touch the tip of his nose.
It stared at him in the absolute darkness, and then, the corners of its mouth slowly, slowly, curved upwards, revealing the same compassionate and eerie smile as in the Polaroid photo.
Then, it blinked at him, gently.
Shen Mo's body did not move. Even the frequency of his breathing did not change in the slightest.
He did not open his eyes to dispel this illusion, because he knew that this was not an illusion.
He just calmly reached his hand to the bedside table, fumbled for a moment, and accurately pressed the switch of the recording pen.
A faint red light lit up, then quickly went out.
In the boundless silence, he, in a voice that was calm to the extreme, whispered to the face in his mind:
"I know you are there. But when my eyes are closed, it is my world."
As soon as his voice fell, outside the window, on the surface of the huge glass curtain wall of the skyscraper directly opposite his bedroom, a series of fine ripples silently appeared, as if a stone had been thrown into a pond.
Then, throughout the entire city, the glass facades of tens of thousands of office buildings, apartments, and shopping malls, as if endowed with life, in the deep night, like billions of sleeping giant eyes, were slowly opening.
(End of Chapter)