Don't Lie to Your Therapist—She Already Knows Your Fate

’I wonder if live-streaming at night will be a different experience?’

Wen Ying had always been a person of action. After closing the clinic, she returned to her room in the backyard. "System, if I start the stream, can you use a fog effect to blur out everything but me?"

[Host, you are using a command-controlled super-technology device!]

Wen Ying cleared her throat, then used a voice command to start the stream. Looking at the broadcast feed, she saw that her surroundings were shrouded in a thick fog, as if she were floating in a void.

[Holy shit! Doctor Wen is streaming in the middle of the night??? Am I seeing things or am I in the wrong stream? Is this an impersonator?]

[Who would have the guts to impersonate Doctor Wen? Aren’t they afraid of getting diagnosed? To the person above, stop dreaming!]

[Doctor Wen is really streaming at midnight!!! Don’t they say it’s easy to see ghosts at midnight? Is she planning to stream a ghost hunt? Is Doctor Wen changing careers?]

Wen Ying didn’t expect there to be so many night owls. She had only been streaming for a few seconds, and over eight thousand people had already flooded into the stream.

In the blink of an eye, the number of viewers in the stream had reached thirty thousand.

This was probably the appeal of a top-tier influencer.

A captivating smile graced Wen Ying’s face. "I’m surprised so many people are still up. Tonight, I’m just going to fill the slots I owed from last time."

[Doctor Wen is as beautiful as ever! Where are you right now, Doctor Wen?]

[I wouldn’t have noticed if the person above hadn’t said anything. It looks like Doctor Wen isn’t in her clinic today. Why is there fog everywhere? Did she go out into the wilderness to stream?]

[Doctor Wen, don’t go into the wilderness! What if something happens this late?! Not long ago, there was a news story around here about a girl who got off work at midnight, was walking down the street, and then something happened to her...]

[Doctor Wen, please listen to us and go home quickly! It’s okay if you don’t stream, you don’t have to push yourself so hard!]

[I’m so moved! Doctor Wen is actually risking her life to stream for us from the wilderness! WAHHH! I’m going to cry!]

Wen Ying didn’t expect this group to have such wild imaginations; it was both funny and exasperating. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"I’m at home. Everything the camera captures, besides me, has been blurred out, so you can only see me."

[Oh my god! What kind of high-tech is this? I feel like Doctor Wen and the rest of us are living in different worlds!]

[Person above, I feel the same way. I often think Doctor Wen is a fairy who descended from the heavens.]

[Passerby F: Fellow patients! I’m back! With a pounding heart and trembling hands!]

[The patient Passerby F? You’re the one who won the Yellow Paper in the last lottery, right? How have you been? Have you received any ’loving education’?]

[Passerby F: Thank you, Doctor Wen! I really don’t know what to say, but Doctor Wen is my family’s great benefactor! My parents told me to thank Doctor Wen!]

As Passerby F spoke, he sent three gifts worth a thousand each.

[Passerby F: I know everyone’s curious, and I don’t want to take up Doctor Wen’s rest time, so I’ll keep it short. After I got the prize from the last lottery, I dragged my dad with me to burn paper money for my grandpa. We live in a village, and we burn the paper on the back mountain. Basically, all the elders in the village are given earth burials after they die, buried on their family’s plot of land on the back mountain. The day after we burned the paper, a neighbor ran over to my dad and said it looked like our ancestral grave was emitting green smoke!]

[My god! Isn’t an ancestral grave emitting green smoke just a legend? It really happens?]

[The world is vast and full of wonders, but are you sure that green smoke wasn’t a wildfire? That’s illegal!]

[I agree with the person above! The government has been banning open flames in the mountains for years. We’ve seen plenty of news about wildfires these past few years. To extinguish them, how many young heroes were sacrificed? They were still just kids! That’s why I basically never light fires in the mountains!]

[Passerby F: I understand what everyone means, and it’s right to be cautious. I know all that. That’s why our burial plot isn’t surrounded by dense woods; it’s more like an open field where we occasionally plant some crops. When we visit the grave, we always clear out an area first, burn the paper there, and watch until the embers are completely out. There’s absolutely no way a wildfire could start! Basically everyone in the surrounding villages does it this way. The government isn’t worried about it!]

[Alright, alright! Stop showing off! Just get on with your grandpa’s story! It’s the middle of the night, I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t hear it!]

[Passerby F: As everyone knows, it’s been passed down since ancient times that green smoke from an ancestral grave is a good omen! And yesterday, my sister’s score on the preliminary civil service exam was high enough! All that’s left is the interview! This is huge news for our family! Then last night, my dad and I both dreamed about my grandpa again.]

As Passerby F got to this point, his expression became a little hesitant.

’It should be okay to talk about this, right?’

’After all, the rebellion is happening underground, not on the surface.’

[Passerby F: My grandpa said he received the Yellow Paper we burned for him, and something good happened. He used to be a wandering soul down there, couldn’t even fill his stomach, and got bullied by other spirits. But now, he’s been recruited by a squad! They give him food and lodging! He’s living in a thatched hut for now, but he’s confident that once they conquer the world, he’ll be a great hero of the revolution!]

[...]

[Nice story. Next time, don’t tell it.]

[If you wrote this as a web novel, it probably wouldn’t even be bad enough to be called a flop. No twists! No atmosphere! And you’re making us listen to this in the middle of the night?]

[Passerby F: ...]

’But he thought it was full of twists and turns! Wasn’t this a huge deal?’

’Wasn’t it bizarre enough?’

’Before this, he had never imagined that something so bizarre could exist in this world.’

"Thank you, patient Passerby F. Let’s begin tonight’s call-in segment."

Wen Ying spoke up, interrupting everyone’s bickering. Actually, when she saw Passerby F mention things like being "recruited," a "squad," and a "thatched hut," Wen Ying felt a strange sense of familiarity, even though she was certain she had never seen anything like it.

The feeling was very strange.

*

Zhang Xin was a man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight who had found a job as a security guard.

Everyone thought he lacked ambition, had no prospects, and couldn’t find a girlfriend. But Zhang Xin said online that he was just taking a twenty-year shortcut!

His comment even won a wave of praise, and he gained over a thousand new followers.

This gave Zhang Xin the idea to start sharing his life as a security guard with an online audience.

It was now 11:30 PM, the time he got off work to go home. His workplace was a half-hour bus ride from his home, and the route crossed most of the city.

Most bus lines stopped running around seven or eight in the evening, but due to the special nature of this area, there was one last bus at 11:00 PM.

Sitting on the bus, Zhang Xin was watching Wen Ying’s live stream when he accidentally hit the call-in button.

[A patient has appeared! And he’s in a vehicle? Why does it look so much like a bus?]

[Riding a bus late at night instead of sleeping, with total darkness outside... are we sure this isn’t the opening scene of a horror novel? It’s almost midnight!]

"Welcome, patient [Little Security Guard], to my clinic’s live stream."

"Hello, Doctor Wen! Hello, everyone! I can’t believe I actually got through on the call-in! I see everyone is curious about me riding the bus at night. I actually just got off work. My job is a security guard. This is the only bus line still running this late, and it takes me home."

[Little Security Guard?]