traveling doctor

People are like this sometimes. For example, when taking an exam, one of the most difficult questions you encounter is that you clearly remember that you have read it, remember when, where, and in what posture you read it, but you forgot to read it. What.

Kou Tong was sitting on the cruise ship, and the other two people who didn't know their origins were on the side, and neither of them spoke.The three of them sat around a small round table, each sitting on a chair, and there was a very curious puppy staring at Kou Tong with wet eyes, as if vigilant.

There was a bouquet of flowers on the round table, and there was a small teacup in front of everyone. Kou Tong suddenly felt as if he had entered Alice's dreamland, and the two people next to him were like another version of the March Hare and Mr. Hat.

He glanced, "Magician" didn't know when the lily in his hand was replaced with roses, but the flowers on his clothes changed from roses to lilies. When did this magical moment happen, Kou Tong unexpectedly I didn't notice it at all—as if he was like that, those flowers seemed to bloom on him, so naturally people turned a blind eye.

"What is that?" Kou Tong broke the silence.

The magician explained: "These flowers are a philosophy. Roses are red and represent fiery life, lilies are white and represent the other extreme, like death, or everything that is fluid and cold. Life and death are constantly shifting. , there is no moment of stagnation, and every moment of change symbolizes the inherent death and the beginning of a new life, and they all happen in an instant."

Kou Tong felt that philosophy was very pretentious, but at this moment he didn't smile or nod—because after listening to it, he felt that what this man said actually made some sense.

The magician continued: "This is nature. Creation must be accompanied by destruction. They are born together until infinity. Humans express this meaning with a symbol, which is '∞'. The endless transformation between the two levels is infinity. "

Kou Tong frowned, feeling more and more unable to assess whether this man was a conscious subject, or was projected by some object in the conscious subject.

Then he asked, "You mean there's nothing we can keep?"

The magician said: "Even we are constantly dying and being reborn, walking on a timeline that can never stop, how can we keep other things?"

Kou Tong's heart moved slightly, and he asked: "Is the changed self still me?"

The magician didn't answer, but the man in the hat laughed and asked, "Why do you have to know this answer?"

Before Kou Tong could speak, the man in the hat lowered his head, which made his face appear from under the hat, showing a somewhat melancholy expression.

"If you admit it yourself, you are yourself. If you don't admit it, you are not yourself, and there is nothing. However, whether you admit it or not, it is your destiny." He said in a slightly cold tone, "Just like us, we Everyone holds a part of the world's secrets, but they must execute the master's orders meticulously, this is fate."

Kou Tong noticed the words he used: "You?"

The man in the hat stretched out a finger, looked straight at Kou Tong with his always melancholy eyes, and said, "Shhh—"

Kou Tong was speechless, feeling that this situation and this situation were very familiar, a bit like old man Ji pretending to be a ghost to cheat people of money.

The atmosphere among the three fell silent again strangely. Kou Tong was looking at the two people outside, and he found that the two of them were a bit like a programmed program. When they were not touched, they would always sit there. Not moving at all, even the frequency of drinking tea is very fixed.

It seems that it should be the creation of a certain consciousness subject—Ku Tong thought, and it seems that it should not be projected by someone in real life, and it probably corresponds to some kind of object in their space.

cartoon?

No... Kou Tong quickly denied this idea, it shouldn't be.

He often has some young patients who need counseling. For the convenience of communication, he has also learned at a glance that young people are full of hobbies such as sports stars, entertainment stars and various animation characters. Such.

what is that……

They have a lingering aura of magic sticks, and their clothes are complicated. Some of them have very obvious symbolic meanings in semiotics, while others are subtle hints. Kou Tong's art is not specialized in this, So it's not very clear.

Is it a prop of some kind of occultism, or something related to a certain religion?

The speed of the boat suddenly slowed down, and the puppy who had been staring at Kou Tong suddenly raised its front paw and said, "Wow!"

The man in the hat let go of his hand, allowing it to jump out of his arms.Kou Tong turned his head and saw a small island close in front of him. The island was filled with a layer of white mist, and there were plants and hills looming.

A huge white stone was revealed in the drifting clouds and mist. It was close to the sea, like a staunch guardian. Behind it were two huge pillars, one black and one white, like an incomplete arch.

A woman in a robe and a strange tall hat stood there, her hands were open, but her face was expressionless, Kou Tong thought she was a stone statue from a distance.

It wasn't until he got closer that he realized that it was actually a living person.

The woman's body does not know what kind of blood is there, and the color of the eyeballs is extremely light. Under the effect of the strange light distorted by the white mist, it seems a bit transparent.

The magician and the man in the hat stood on the boat, watching Kou Tong disembark and walk towards the two stone pillars, without intending to send him off.

It wasn't until Kou Tong walked up to the woman that she seemed to have a certain program activated in her body, her eyes slowly turned to one side, she took a deep look at Kou Tong, and said, "Please come with me."

Hearing her voice, Dr. Kou, who was extremely strong and nervous, was in a trance for a moment—if I had to describe it, it was like some kind of voice from heaven, and mortals could not tell the huge power contained in it. Mystery and beauty.There is always a white mist around the woman in the robe. No matter how close you are to her, you can't see her whole body. The white mist seems to be alive.

Seven conscious subjects were involved in this abnormal procedural space at the same time. Needless to say, the three of them, Kou Tong, who landed in one place, and even Manman and He Xiaozhi, who joined later, did not show any special regional awareness. A harmonious and eerie way, mixed with other people's consciousness projections.

This person is different, he or she seems to have occupied the entire nameless island, facing the direction of the mainland far away, and clearly separated.

Kou Tong couldn't help thinking of Manman's words, "Intruder", only a person who thinks he is the owner of a certain place will say this word.

He looked back, and found that the back road was gone. The white mist was like overproduction of cotton, covering the entire island perfectly. At that moment, a thought suddenly crossed Kou Tong's mind——Huang Jinchen How to keep up?

After following the woman for an unknown distance, Kou Tong arrived in front of a castle—it was really a castle, but for some reason, this thing gave him a strange feeling, as if it was incompatible with the entire nameless island that was full of mysticism As if, it stood there abruptly, as if it came from the secular world, like a pennant paying homage to the theological field.

The gate of the castle opened in front of Kou Tong, and the woman stopped, as if she was about to resume her NPC status, Kou Tong hurriedly asked, "Do I need to go in all the time?"

The woman turned her inorganic eyes, fell on his face, and nodded silently.

Kou Tong frowned, and said impromptuly: "This beautiful sister, I think your special hat looks familiar, haven't we seen it before?"

Even if the woman in the top hat is an intelligent NPC, there are things beyond the program restrictions.

However, she just looked at Kou Tong wordlessly for a while, and didn't react angrily to the almost teasing words, and stood there staring at Kou Tong.

Kou Tong sighed, thinking that this is silent, it seems that this NPC is not as intelligent as the previous two, then he turned and walked into the gloomy castle.

Behind him, the gate of the castle slowly closed by itself. At this moment, the woman who was almost a door away from him spoke out, and she still said in that miraculous and ethereal voice: "Because we are everywhere. .”

Kou Tong turned around suddenly, and saw a familiar melancholy on the woman's face, like a god imprisoned in a certain place with broken wings. She was beautiful and mysterious, but not disturbing. Some kind of motherly warmth.She clasped her fingers in front of her chest, lowered her seemingly transparent eyes, as if silently reciting blessings that no one could understand.

Like a holy priestess...

As soon as this idea came up, Kou Tong suddenly seemed to be struck by lightning—magician, priestess, man wearing a tall hat like a wandering philosopher, the wheel of fortune symbolizing a strange fate... full of symbols The symbol of meaning, strong theological color, is the tarot card!

This is a kind of playing card that originated in Italy during the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. Strictly speaking, it is an expression carrier of Western mystic philosophy, and it can also be said to be a popular product of Neo-Platonism. There are different cards, and there are different opinions on the analysis of Tarot cards.

Later, it was also regarded as a revelation tool similar to psychological counseling... and then somehow, it became a fortune-telling tool that teenagers love to see.

Among them, the Major Arcana has a total of 21 cards with numbers and a fool card.

There were magicians, priestesses, the pope, etc.—now that I think about it, Mr. "Hat" with a dog may be the Fool representing the Major Arcana.

Every card in the Tarot has been projected, and each card has an inherent meaning. It is said that it has a relationship with Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism.It reflects some ancient pagan philosophical views in another cultural system. These views are not the ideas of the conscious subject, but things he passively accepts out of "common sense".

Kou Tong quickly walked through the castle, and finally stopped in front of a door.

Before he moved, the door opened automatically, and there was a very high arch inside, engraved with the wheel of fortune equipped with a super motor like a perpetual motion machine, underneath was a rolled up curtain, almost invisible light, tall chairs On it, sat a thin figure wrapped in a black robe.

Kou Tong saw that she should be a girl.

She raised her head, looked at him with a look that made Kou Tong's hair stand on end, and then said softly: "Doctor Kou, long time no see, do you still remember me?"

This address immediately made Kou Tong think that this was probably a patient or a family member of the patient he had handled, but he couldn't remember who it was for a while, so he looked at her and made a gesture: "Can you... Do you get the thing covering your face up?"

She laughed, still staring at him with that almost fiery gaze, slowly rolled up her veil, and explained softly: "This is just for the purity of divination, have you already seen my servants?" ?”

Kou Tong suddenly opened his eyes wide, and blurted out, "You are... Qin Qin!"

As soon as he said this, Kou Tong immediately regretted it - he was pleasantly surprised when he saw the expression on Qin Qin's face, as if it had been lit up by something.

This girl was not a patient he had dealt with. When he saw her, the projector was being adjusted. Kou Tong went to one of his professors to collect parameters, and saw this special patient in the professor's reception room.

That was probably... five or six years ago, the person in front of her was a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl. The hormones of puberty made her develop rapidly, and her figure looked a little round and chubby.When he saw her, she was sitting alone on the sofa with the same black veil around her face, playing with a set of tarot cards in her hand.

Her mother was talking with the professor outside, and Kou Tong came back in a hurry because of a missing document, and saw her playing with her own things alone, like an elderly autistic patient, so it was natural He said hello and poured her a glass of water.

In the end, he found something, and when he was about to leave, when he turned his head, he found that the little girl's gaze fell directly on him.

"Mom said I was sick." Kou Tong remembered the little girl saying.

Kou Tong paused, bent down, and asked her softly, "Why?"

The girl said coldly: "It's because of her that she is sick. She won't believe what I say. No matter what I do, she will scream and make a fuss."

This kind of parent is not without precedent. Although Kou Tong didn't quite believe it, he nodded in understanding and asked tentatively, "Is it because you always wear a veil? Some adults can't accept your young people's trendy clothes."

The girl explained softly: "This is just for the purity of divination."

Kou Tong didn't talk to her, and the professor hurried over.What impressed him most was that after he walked a few steps, he turned his head intentionally or unintentionally, and met the girl's gaze through the glass window. The girl looked at him as if she was very hungry It's as creepy as people staring at grilled steaks.

It was not until a long time later that the professor told him that this girl named Qin Qin was a delusional patient.

But now, after such a long time, she can actually recognize herself accurately, and the gaze of a starving ghost staring at the roasted whole lamb still does not change...

Suddenly, Kou Tong felt an ominous premonition.