Chapter Five: Since Suicide Is Futile, Then Kill Someone

The quartz clock on the wall ticked steadily.

Outside the villa, the rain showed no sign of stopping.

Lu Yuan struggled to lift his head and glanced at the time—it was half past nine in the evening.

His self-inflicted wound in the kitchen had not pulled him out of the dream but had instead pushed the time forward by an hour.

And what had happened during that hour?

Lu Yuan had no idea.

He looked down at his body; the wound he had just inflicted with the fruit knife was now completely healed, as if nothing had occurred.

In that instant, an irrational impulse surged through him—he wanted to rush back into the kitchen and try to kill himself again.

“Doctor An Shi, you don’t look well.”

The woman found it strange.

Lu Yuan gave her the impression of having multiple personalities—just moments ago, during her hypnosis treatment, he had seemed fine, but now, only an hour later, it was as if he had become someone else.

Lu Yuan steadied himself.

He could not kill himself!

According to An Shi’s description inside the psychological clinic, he was supposed to be killed by the woman at ten o’clock, and there were only thirty minutes left until then.

If he committed suicide once, time would push forward by another hour. By this reasoning, Lu Yuan an hour later should be nothing but a corpse.

Suddenly, he dared not gamble.

If he died here, would his real self still be alive in the real world?

If waking from the dream were truly possible, then the earlier slap and even the suicide attempts should have succeeded already.

Lu Yuan forced himself to stay calm and looked at the woman in the living room again.

She was fair-featured.

Her demeanor gentle and mild.

Although her bulky coat seemed somewhat out of place and mismatched, it had to be admitted that, on the surface, the woman showed no signs of threat or aggression.

Suddenly, Lu Yuan’s eyes flickered with realization.

The woman seemed afraid of his gaze, instinctively avoiding eye contact.

Seeing this, Lu Yuan suppressed his own fear and walked toward her, sitting down slowly on the leather sofa, offering a gentle smile: “Getting old, memory’s not as sharp.”

Now it was the woman’s turn to be frightened.

She cautiously shifted aside a bit. “Doctor An, your hypnosis treatment is quite effective. I haven’t slept so peacefully in a long time.”

Lu Yuan nodded and examined her closely for a moment.

There were indeed differences.

The woman An Shi described wore a thick coat, sunglasses, and a mask, drenched from the rain; but the woman before him only matched the coat and wetness.

She was not wearing sunglasses or a mask.

Lu Yuan recalled the scene when she opened the door and confirmed that she had not worn sunglasses or a mask from the start, nor had she taken them off after entering.

Had his memory distorted?

Or was the dream correcting itself?

“What are your specific symptoms?” Lu Yuan asked softly.

The woman was momentarily stunned, her eyes filled with suspicion. “Doctor An, you already asked me that during the treatment.”

Lu Yuan’s expression remained unchanged, though he showed an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m getting old. Sometimes I forget things. If you don’t mind, please tell me again.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the woman’s trust in him weakened noticeably. “I feel like someone else lives inside my body.”

“Every morning when I wake up, my whole body aches terribly, as if I had undergone intense exercise all night.”

“At first, I didn’t pay much attention, thinking it was just fatigue from work and that rest would fix it. But one morning, I woke up in a strange place, my hands covered in blood.”

As she spoke, terror clouded her face, as if recalling something horrifying. Her body trembled.

Lu Yuan grew uneasy.

He remembered that An Shi’s premonition of being killed was marked by emotional breakdowns, extreme fear, and anxiety.

Clearly, this woman was exhibiting similar symptoms.

Lu Yuan soothed her: “It’s all right. Trust me. I will cure you. You’re just ill.”

The fear in her eyes diminished somewhat, but her voice still carried panic and helplessness. “Doctor An, do you think I might be sleepwalking and killing people?”

“You are just ill.”

Lu Yuan repeated firmly.

The woman nodded quickly and began self-hypnotizing: “Yes, I’m just ill. I haven’t killed anyone.”

Lu Yuan rose and went to the kitchen to pour a cup of hot water, placing it before the woman.

“Sleep now. When you wake, I will treat you.”

She sipped the water, closed her eyes, and leaned back into the rocking chair, falling asleep again.

Her bulky, soaked coat clung tightly to her body, the rainwater staining the chair dark and wet.

Silence reigned in the living room.

Soft music drifted through every corner of the villa.

Lu Yuan sat not far from her, staring intently, his eyes growing tired and sore from the prolonged gaze.

From his sleeve, he slid out a sharp knife—one he had hidden there when fetching water in the kitchen.

The woman’s breathing was steady, clearly in deep sleep.

Lu Yuan placed the knife on the coffee table.

Then he glanced at the time: quarter to ten.

In An Shi’s story, the woman suddenly erupted in violence, stabbing him with a knife and cutting off his head.

But now, this was Lu Yuan’s story.

Knowing the general course and even the ending, Lu Yuan did not want to become the second An Shi. What he needed was to change the ending.

He had a vague premonition: if he could alter the outcome of An Shi’s murder, he could escape from here, return to reality, and back to his own body.

Tick, tick, tick.

The second hand clicked.

Lu Yuan could hesitate no longer.

He took the knife from the table and, without making a sound, approached the woman.

At this moment, a smile played on her lips.

It seemed she hadn’t slept so peacefully in a long time; the relaxed state and the smile betrayed how much she was enjoying her rest.

Lu Yuan raised the knife high, blade pointing downward, aiming precisely at her heart.

“If this is a dream,”

“Then this stab isn’t murder.”

“If it’s not a dream,”

“I will turn myself in at the police station.”

He took a deep breath.

To be honest, killing was still difficult.

Lu Yuan felt an inexplicable force holding his wrist, preventing him from plunging the blade.

That force was his conscience and fear as a human being.

But he kept telling himself: it’s just a dream, it’s alright.

Does killing in a dream count as murder?

Of course not.

With that thought, his trembling hand ceased hesitating.

Strictly speaking, this wasn’t his first murder; during the day at the clinic, he had “killed” someone already.

The terror of blood spraying everywhere, the world turning a vivid red, made him physiologically nauseous yet strangely exhilarated.

Swish!

Crash!

The sharp knife pierced the heart.

Thunder roared violently.

A blinding red flowed from the heart, but not a drop fell to the floor—it was all absorbed by the heavy coat, which gradually stained from black to red.

It was over...

Lu Yuan trembled all over.

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