The Fantastical Beasts at World's End

Luo Xiaochen's psychological clinic is located in an office building in the east of the city.Considering the privacy of the consultant and other circumstances, there is still some distance from the busiest downtown area where Ye Zhao's company is located.

The surrounding environment of the office building is good, and there is an exquisitely designed garden downstairs.The consultant will always feel calm and comfortable when he walks through the flower corridor with intertwined branches.The consultation room is about [-] to [-] square meters wide. The warm-toned layout and floor-to-ceiling windows make people feel much more cheerful.Consultants here are all dressed in home-style casual clothes, which can make people who come to consult relax to the greatest extent.

For these reasons, this psychological clinic has an excellent reputation.

And Luo Xiaochen has become one of the most popular consultants in this clinic by virtue of his calm and reliable appearance (like a dog?), deep voice and excellent professional knowledge at work. Every weekend peak period, make an appointment The girl at the front desk was soft on the phone.

But today is a working day, which is relatively more leisurely.

Just as Luo Xiaochen was calm and thought happily in his heart: "This is the last one, labor and management will be able to eat right away!" The consultant opened the door and came in, walked calmly to the armchair and sat down, his posture was so elegant that it was bright. Blind Luo Xiaochen's dog eyes.

Luo Xiaochen's intellectual face that he worked so hard to maintain at work instantly shattered: "Ye Zhao?! Fuck, what are you doing?"

Ye Zhao looked at him with a mentally retarded expression: "Consult."

Luo Xiaochen is still in a state of crisis: "Consult God?"

Ye Zhaoshi calmly said: "I may have a little nervous breakdown recently."

"Thank you! People all over the country have neurasthenia, you can't have neurasthenia, okay? I understand your desire to generate income for me, but my salary is quite high, so you don't need to work hard to pretend to be mentally handicapped. You are really brave. This kind of expression says that you are neurasthenic, and I will doubt my own neurasthenic buddy!" Luo Xiaochen almost knelt down to him.

The person who broke both wrists without blinking, and with a gun stuck to his forehead, probably won't change his expression, has a nervous breakdown, peat!

"I also don't think I will have any psychological barriers," Ye Zhao shrugged, "but I had hallucinations last night, which is very serious and must be resolved as soon as possible."

"What hallucination?"

Ye Zhao briefly described what he saw in the construction shed last night.

"..." Luo Xiaochen's expression looked like he had just been stepped on by a mud horse, "There are many kinds of hallucinations, and one hallucination is really not an illusion. Sometimes you don't have a good rest, and it's normal to see things without paying attention..."

"Well, maybe it's because I didn't sleep well." Ye Zhao leaned back on the sofa and changed to a more relaxed posture. "I forgot to mention yesterday's meal. I haven't slept well for several days."

Luo Xiaochen looked at him with a joking expression: "Didn't sleep well for a few days? What's going on?"

Ye Zhao's expression was still so calm. He looked at Luo Xiaochen and said silently for a while: "I don't know very well, but I have the same dream every night, and I often wake up in the middle of the night."

Luo Xiaochen frowned: "Exactly the same?"

"It's roughly the same, sometimes with a few more bits and pieces."

"How long has this been going on?"

Ye Zhao turned his head slightly and looked out of the French windows, as if thinking about it.He didn't wear glasses today, and his light brown eyes were like glass soaked in water. The light refracted by the floor-to-ceiling windows was imprinted on them, clear and bright. After a while, he turned around and said, "About two weeks."

"Do you remember the content of the dream clearly?"

Probably because it was rare to see Luo Xiaochen so serious, Ye Zhao smiled: "No, it's okay."

"Are you laughing?" So it's not good to be too familiar, and there's no way to pretend to be serious. Luo Xiaochen was immediately ruined by his smile, and he returned to his stupid look, "I don't remember it very clearly. It’s okay. If you remember clearly every day, then your quality of sleep is really bad. Often repeating the same dream may be related to mental stress, or it may be related to sleeping posture. To be honest, I have always felt that your psychological resistance Ability is the strongest I have ever seen, so it should not be a problem of too much pressure. After all, the pressure is really not ordinary. Anxiety and tension may also cause this kind of thing, for example, you have been thinking in your heart One thing, that is, there has always been a knot in the heart, and the obsession is too deep to let it go. This may also happen, but it usually happens to some candidates who are worried about the test results or those who are struggling with the interview results when looking for a job. .Is there anything you can't let go of recently? Although I think it's unlikely... Could it be that you're in love?!"

Ye Zhao looked at him expressionlessly: "..."

"Okay, okay, I'm talking nonsense." Luo Xiaochen curled his lips and muttered in a very low voice: "The expression of the horse makes me seem to be very unreliable in guessing, it's not like you haven't been in love..."

Ye Zhao coughed lightly.

Luo Xiaochen immediately said: "I was wrong."

"Okay," Ye Zhao got up, "It's not a knot, because that dream has nothing to do with reality. Let's not talk about this, you are off work, go to my place for dinner."

Luo Xiaochen: "...you say it's ok, and I'll get off work."

Ye Zhao nodded, turned around and walked out: "Then let's go."

Luo Xiaochen followed behind and murmured: "Let me tell you that you are purely here to play with me, and I won't talk about it before you tell me what you dreamed about. You came today because you are so lonely that you want me to accompany you for dinner." Right, I can see it, let me tell you that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't listen to you, I really can't sleep!"

"I will pay the consulting fee." Ye Zhao pressed the elevator leading directly to the underground parking lot, and Luo Xiaochen walked in, muttering non-stop: "Can I ask you for a consulting fee, Ye Zhao, let me tell you that you are so It's wrong to see outsiders, which one of us is with whom, if you really pay the consulting fee, labor and labor will never end with you, besides, I haven't solved your problem yet—"

"Ask you something." Ye Zhao interrupted.

Luo Xiaochen had a gratified expression of "Have you finally started consulting?": "Say."

"Does your customer think you are too wordy?" Ye Zhao walked out of the elevator satisfied after admiring Luo Xiaochen's petrified appearance.

Luo Xiaochen looked sad and indignant: "Ye Zhao, let me tell you, you are definitely a jerk!"

Ye Zhaoquan pretended not to hear, opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat.

Luo Xiaochen got into the passenger seat with a depressed face and fastened his seat belt: "Why did you drive here today?"

Ye Zhao turned the steering wheel and drove out of the parking lot: "I don't feel right today. It might be foggy tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I don't want to enter the hospital vertically and come out horizontally after inhaling poisonous gas."

I don't know if it's because he is too particular about his daily life. Ye Zhao has always been particularly sensitive to air quality, humidity, taste of water, freshness of vegetables and so on.

This is exactly the opposite for Luo Xiaochen. Basically, he can't feel the air is bad unless it's poisonous and foggy, and he can't taste it until it's rotten.And in the past few years, he has never been admitted to the hospital so many times during the poisonous smog, and Ye Zhao called him to remind him to pay attention, otherwise the grass on the grave would have grown a few stubbles.

They came out at the wrong time. It happened to be the rush hour, and they started to stop and stop along the way. The original [-]-minute drive ended up being stuck in traffic for more than an hour before halfway through.

Ye Zhao rested his elbows on the car window and propped his chin, and casually swept across the pedestrian street outside the window.They had been standing there for more than ten minutes without moving a bit.

Because it was winter, it got dark early, and the outside was completely dark, and the dots of lights on the pedestrian street shone together, with varying brightness and darkness.

"I still remember that in the past few years, people on this street came and went like ants every day, and it could be lively until midnight. Hey——" Luo Xiaochen looked outside and sighed, "Except for the K area, it is still very lively. It's basically calmed down."

District K is the commercial district where Ye Zhao worked before. It is considered the most central place in the city. Even if it is still lively, it cannot compare with the prosperity of a few years ago.

"Hmm." Ye Zhao glanced over the sparse crowds on the pedestrian street, landed on a slightly dark corner, and asked casually, "When did a door open there?"

"Eh? Where?" Luo Xiaochen turned his head after hearing this.

"Over there, at the corner, I remember it used to be a wall." Ye Zhao raised his finger.

Luo Xiaochen stared at that place for a while, and said, "Where is the door? It's just a simple wall."

Ye Zhao: "..."

Luo Xiaochen: "..."

There was an eerie silence in the car for a few seconds, and Luo Xiaochen suddenly said, "I think it's necessary to continue talking about your neurasthenia."

Ye Zhao: "..."

The traffic in front started moving again, Ye Zhao stepped on the accelerator and drove out.

The corner was left behind by the car, Ye Zhao took another look in the rearview mirror, but this time he only saw a clean wall, nothing like a door.

Ye Zhao raised his eyebrows and said, "Okay, maybe I got it wrong again."

"Well, it seems that you are really not in good spirits. You can just make a little for dinner. After eating, take a hot bath and drink a cup of hot milk. Go to bed early. Would you like to sing you a lullaby or something, I will tell you Say I'm good at putting people to sleep—"

"Thank you, no need, I'm afraid of having nightmares."

Luo Xiaochen: "..."

Luo Xiaochen always felt that these hallucinations were just caused by Ye Zhao not sleeping well for so long, and Ye Zhao himself felt the same way.It wasn't until the next morning that Luo Xiaochen was drinking milk and eating bread in the living room while watching the morning news that he realized that things were not that simple.

He ran to the master bedroom with bread in his mouth and knocked on the door, and then howled inside through the door: "Ye Zhao Ye Zhao! Let me tell you that you may not be hallucinating! Maybe there is something wrong! What you said That construction site! There was an accident at the corner of the pedestrian street we passed last night! Get up and take a look!"

A few seconds later, Ye Zhao, who was very angry about getting up, opened the door, looked at him with a pale face and said expressionlessly, "It's a coincidence." Then he closed the door again with a slam.

Luo Xiaochen's nose was almost flattened, and he said angrily: "Fuck! Laozi has a tall and handsome nose!"

Luo Xiaochen, with a tall and handsome nose, bluffed all morning, but was thrown out the door by Ye Zhao along with the car keys and protective mask.

After eating the fried eggs he had left before he left, Ye Zhao warmed up a glass of milk, and holding the glass, Ye Zhao stood by the balcony window and looked down.From this floor you can overlook the entire building site.Next to a cement mixer, a cordon was formed, and some people in uniform stood or squatted inside.There was a circle of people who were probably from the construction team outside, wearing hard hats and whispering, but because they were too far away, their faces looked blurred.

The TV in the living room was still on, and some pictures of the two scenes were alternately displayed in it.With a numb face, the reporter said the words that the audience would almost recite in the past two years——

There were no other traces at the scene of the case except for some belongings scattered by the victim, a few fragments of clothing, and a small amount of dripping blood.No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing that would lead to the perpetrator.There were no witnesses, or even heard or seen anything unusual.

Similar cases have occurred one after another since about two years ago. However, apart from confirming the information of the victims, helping family members claim the relics, and warning the public not to stay in remote corners or go out alone at night, the police can hardly do anything.Such a clean scene made it impossible for the police to start.

The poisonous mist that people don't know how to resist and the serial killer that is hard to guard against——

It seems that this sad and unchangeable reality has been tacitly accepted. People have changed from worrying at the beginning to being almost distorted and numb now; They are all becoming more normal and peaceful.

However, under this calm surface is a growing panic. Once it breaks out, it can no longer be contained.

The cell phone rang suddenly. After Ye Zhao drank the last sip of milk, he went to the living room, bent down, picked up the cell phone on the coffee table, glanced at the caller ID, and connected: "Hello, Zhiming?"

The caller was Ye Zhao's childhood buddy Xia Zhiming, who worked in the Public Security Department of J Province. He was doing well and saw a bright future, but he encountered this serial case that had dragged on for two years and had no clue at all, and the pressure doubled.Last time Ye Zhao saw that he had grown several white hairs.

"Hello, Ye Zhao?" The voice over there was a bit noisy, as if a group of people were discussing something nearby, Xia Zhiming's voice was as anxious as ever, "That bastard went to your place recently, you should be careful and don't go out if you have nothing to do. I see that the construction site in the report seems to be right next to your house, so you usually walk around it."

"Well, I know." Ye Zhao sat down on the sofa, picked up the remote control and turned down the volume of the TV, "It may be foggy tonight, your police protective clothing is still in the experimental stage, and the actual effect is still uncertain. Pay attention to yourself."

"Fog? I understand. By the way, the superior asked me to go to your place to assist in handling the case. I will leave at noon the day after tomorrow." Xia Zhiming changed to a quiet place over there.

"Have you bought a ticket? What time will you be here?"

"It's 04:30 in the afternoon. Several other people's congresses will arrive the day after tomorrow. I'll go over to see you in advance, and I just happened to go to the scene as well."

"Okay, I'll pick you up the day after tomorrow."

"Ah! By the way, I ran into Nie a few days ago—" Someone called Xia Zhiming over there, interrupting his words. He took the receiver and said, "Got it, come!" Beside the receiver, he said to Ye Zhao, "Oh, forget it, the superior recruited me again, I'll hang up first, and we'll talk the day after tomorrow."

"Ah."

Ye Zhao pressed the hang up button, stared out of the window for a while.

If I heard correctly just now, Xia Zhiming must have said "Nie"...

Named Nie...

Who else could Xia Zhiming specifically mention in front of him?

Ye Zhao threw the phone on the sofa, leaned his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes in silence for a long time, then sneered.