Chapter 8 (Please, Remember this.)

Li Qi entered the bathroom. He took a warm bath and then prepared himself a meal. Sitting in front of the window eating while his gaze fixed on Mandolin's window, from behind the camera. When Mandolin finally passed in front of her window, he froze until she disappeared from his view. He stood up, put the food away, and took tension-filled turns around the room, then hit the wall with his fist several times. Afterwards, he went to the camera and hit it with his hand to change its direction away from the window, then he lifted it from the stand and threw it on the bed. Following this, he started to blame himself, saying, "You're doing it to yourself; stop chasing her and looking at her."

For several days, Li Qi prevented himself from trying to watch Mandolin by putting the camera and holder under the bed, out of sight. and posted an ad on the deep web announcing his nickname (Lightning) and stating that he was in this city and available for any work.

While he was waiting for a job offer, he wandered around, explored the city, and went to the gambling halls to look for moneylenders; these are the types of people he used to work with previously. But whenever he enters a place and sits for a while, observing the gamblers' and moneylenders' dealings, he becomes annoyed and believes that he is underestimating himself if he deals with these scumbags. He felt that working for a loan shark and taking money in exchange for threatening or beating up someone is low work that is not on the level of someone like him, so he retreated from his determination to introduce himself in order to accept job offers in this field and decided after three days of observation that he would be more satisfied with keeping to himself the secrecy and prestige by working through the Internet only; he is no longer too young to accept these low missions, and this was his final decision that he would only be an assassin.

Every night, Li Qi would sit in front of the window overlooking Mandolin's apartment and keep watching Mandolin's window in the dark without resetting the camera. Therefore, he was proud of himself because he resisted placing the camera. But something new began to bother him: terrifying dreams, or, in a more accurate sense, nightmares. He experiences vivid nightmares every night that frighten him, feeling so real that even upon waking, the pain he felt in the dream persists. He wakes up screaming, and upon examination, he discovers marks and traces left on his body by the dreams. He finds these nightmares unbearable. One night he awoke terrified from a nightmare; he went to Mandolin and argued with her, but she rejected him and expelled him from her home, so he strangled her and killed her. When he woke up, he quickly took out the camera and put it in front of the window, but he saw nothing but darkness. His dream was so realistic that he was afraid that he had already done it without knowing. He suspected that he might have gone to her in his sleep. Sitting in front of the camera in confusion, he didn't know how to reassure himself. In the end, he decided to wait until the morning. He anticipated her usual routine of waking up and raising the curtain before leaving her apartment. Fear and anxiety wracked him throughout the waiting hours. In some moments, he thought of going to her house, knocking on the door, and risking announcing his presence in the same city as her, but he prevented himself. After a few hours, Mandolin put an end to his anxiety when she raised the curtain before she left her apartment. When he saw her leaving the building in good health, he sighed and calmed down so that he threw himself on the bed and fell into deep sleep. But he woke up frightened again after seeing another nightmare: that he was tied to a chair and his mouth was gagged while another man killed Mandolin in front of him in the same way he used to kill. He was screaming and wrestling to free his hands, but he failed and saw her bleeding in front of him. Because of the intensity of his panic, he awoke with traces on his arms and legs, as if he were truly tied up. After this nightmare, Li Qi found no escape from going back to the psychiatrist to help him because he began to doubt himself: Is he awake or asleep? This new development frightened him more than crying.

Feeling somewhat defeated, Li Qi went to the therapist after missing his scheduled session. He thought that his tardiness would surely be understood by the therapist as a sign that he did not want to come back but was forced to due to his health condition. This internal struggle left him feeling weak, defeated, and somewhat guilty, especially because he was cursing the therapist after leaving the previous session. But his feelings changed when he entered the therapy room, where the therapist greeted him with the same friendly smile and began speaking to him with

"Do you feel any better now, Mr. Li Chao? Did the crying stop, or at least ease?"

He did not ask or comment about Li Qi skipping the scheduled date for this session and attending at another time. Li Qi paused, thinking a little, and then said,

"I no longer cry like I used to, but..."

Then he stopped talking. Here, the therapist broke the silence.

"But what?"

Li Qi hesitated, then said,

"I have terrible nightmares every time I close my eyes, and the problem is that it looks real to the point where I believe it is reality, and when I wake up, I find marks on my body as in the dream, and I feel pain in my body as if the events that happened in the dream happened to me. This makes me doubt: Did I really do that? Do I walk in my sleep? These days, I'm not sure if I'm awake or dreaming, which confuses me. Especially when I'm doing something on my computer or watching something, I feel as if I'm in a dream and look around to see if I'm in a dream or if this is what I really do. Especially after having a terrible nightmare that seemed so realistic. I was playing a game on the computer and I was waiting for the new level to load, I fell asleep, and the dream started with the idea that I was playing the same game, but it developed into something terrifying. And when I was at the top of my panic, I woke up on the ground after I fell from the chair that I was sitting on. "Isn't that an indication that my psychological state has worsened?"

Li Qi looked at the face of the therapist to elicit his thoughts, but he didn't see any expression on his face. The therapist asked him calmly,

"What is the nature of these dreams? Is it one dream that repeats or different dreams?"

Li Qi thought and then said,

"I think it can be said that they are different dreams but have the same theme."

The therapist appeared puzzled and said,

"Can you tell me what the dreams are about?"

Li Qi hesitated and then said,

"I am hurting someone in my dream."

"Who is it? How do you hurt them?" the therapist asked.

Li Qi sighed and then replied,

"The woman I told you about before"

The therapist nodded as Li Qi continued,

"I don't want to hurt her at all; I actually want to protect her, so these dreams are so terrifying."

"How do you hurt her? Can you describe the nature of the harm in your dream?" The therapist asked.

Li Qi was annoyed and distressed, so the therapist continued his words,

"You can only tell me your dream and what you saw, and no more, to understand the nature of your fears and try to confront them together."

Li Qi rocked back and forth in his chair and then began to narrate the dream.

"I dreamed…"

He then paused for a moment, examining the therapist's face, and continued when he observed no expression.

"I dreamed that I went to the woman I told you about earlier. We argued about the fact that she kicked me out of her home and her life. She told me that she didn't want to see me again. I defended the correctness of what I did and stated that she was unjust, as well as that she was supposed to be grateful to me because what I did was for her and to protect her. But her response was to refuse me and expel me from her home. As the argument intensified and she continued expelling me, I pulled her by the head and tried to kiss her violently. "I would never really do that; I've never done that to any woman before; I'm not that kind of man; I never impose myself on anyone; it's impossible."

As Li Qi defended himself against charges that no one had levelled against him, he nervously moved his hands, with an annoyed look on his face, to the therapist. He was waiting for the therapist to say anything to confirm that he believed him, so the therapist said,

"Mr. Li Chao, complete your dream, and you don't have to justify it to me; it's just a dream, nothing more, and I'm not judging you, so just tell the dream without missing a thing."

Li Qi focused on the narration of the dream as he explained with his hands, facial expressions, and all his body movements what happened in his dream.

"When I pulled her from behind her head, my fingers were reaching behind her ears, and she was evading my grip and blocking me, and I was holding her tighter and tighter in order to kiss her, but suddenly she stopped fighting and lost consciousness, so I carried her to the bed and put her on it, and when I approached her mouth to kiss her, I noticed she was not breathing; I put my ear on her chest, but I did not hear her heartbeat; I panicked and moved away from her to fall from the bed, then I woke up and found myself on the floor, but in reality, I fell from the chair that I was sitting on while playing the video game, as I told you before.

See! This is what made me feel nervous, because at the beginning of the dream, I left the game and went to her home, and this seemed so realistic that it made me doubt that I actually went to her. But this is not the only dream. There are a lot of dreams that feel realistic in a frightening way. There is the other dream in which I was tied by my wrists and legs, and when I woke up, I found traces on my wrists and legs as if I were really tied and struggling to unwrap myself. And this was even more terrifying, because I suspected that what happened in the dream actually happened, and I was terrified until I saw her after that with my own eyes when she came out of her home and was fine."

Li Qi was talking with his whole body, and his feelings appeared on him as he spoke. He looked at the therapist after he finished speaking, questioning him with his eyes and waiting for his response.

"In the dream, you were arguing because she expelled you from her home and her life. Was this only in the dream, or is this what happened in reality?" The therapist asked.

Li Qi admitted,

"No, in fact, this is what happened in reality."

The therapist asked him cautiously, choosing his words carefully.

"Is the reason for the separation due to the incident you told me about earlier?"

Li Qi raised his head and replied in a loud voice,

"No, that is not the reason."

The therapist asked spontaneously,

"So what was the reason?"

With a violent and loud voice, Li Qi replied,

"It is none of your business."

The therapist showed signs of distress, but he continued to speak in a calm voice.

"Well, you told her in the dream that what you did was for her welfare and she should thank you; what have you done?"

Li Qi rudely answered, 

"It's also none of your business; don't ask about it." 

The therapist sighed loudly and stroked his nose between his eyes as he said,

"Mr. Li Chao, in this way, we will not reach any satisfactory result for you; I can't help you like this; if you can't trust me and speak to me frankly, I can recommend someone else to go and follow up with him; I can't go on like this. Li Qi stood up and moved to the desk where the therapist was sitting and put his hands on the desk, bowed, moved his head in mockery, and raised his chin, saying,

"What is the difference between you and others?"

The therapist was surprised by Li Qi's reaction and way of acting, but he replied professionally,

"Maybe I can't gain your trust and others can."

Li Qi laughed sarcastically, turned around, and walked away from the desk and back to the chair, saying,

"Don't think about it; I don't trust anyone, so there's no difference between you and anyone else."

The therapist quickly replied,

"Then, if you want to continue with me, you must answer my questions frankly and clearly; otherwise, it will be like you are wasting your time and money by coming here, and nothing will change in your situation except for the worse."

Li Qi turned towards the therapist and stared at him with a frightening look. However, the therapist displayed no fear or retreat in his attitude and continued calmly.

"Mr. Li Chao, I don't want to know anything about you. All I'm trying to do is help you understand yourself so you can overcome your adversity. I have no goals here; they are your goals and what you want. I'm just helping you by asking the right questions and drawing your attention to things you may not see. Mr. Li Chao, we all sometimes need to speak out loud and hear ourselves in order to understand some things. Have you never read a text out loud during your studies in order to understand it?"

Li Qi's features calmed down; he stood in front of the chair and seemed to be thinking. The therapist continued with relative enthusiasm in his voice to win Li Qi's confidence.

"Mr. Li Chao, you yourself said that you can't differentiate between dreams and reality, and you are afraid to walk while you're asleep and carry out your dreams, and this could happen."

Li Qi's eyes sparkled and widened; the therapist nodded as he spoke.

"Yes, this can happen if you continue to keep everything inside you and do not talk to anyone; if your thoughts do not come out of your head, a conflict may rage between your conscious and subconscious minds, and things will get out of your control. In order to bring about reconciliation between your conscious and subconscious minds, you must express all of your thoughts, discuss them, explore your feelings, and identify them."

Li Qi sat on his chair, rubbed his forehead with his index finger and thumb, and then raised his head to look at the therapist. The therapist continued,

"Tell me something else. Let's go back in time a bit and talk about a simple thing that can calm your nerves a little: When was your first sexual experience? How old were you? How did you feel then?"

The therapist noticed Li Qi's eyes narrowing and a sarcastic smile appearing on the tip of his lips; therefore, he realised that perhaps this topic was not comfortable or easy to talk about, so he continued by saying, "

"Or maybe the first time you fall in love with your first girlfriend? How old were you? How were your feelings? What do you remember about her? The first kiss? Tell me about these beginnings."

Li Qi sighed loudly, threw his head back, turned it forward, then rubbed his face with his hands and said,

"It seems inevitable."

The therapist was startled but remained silent. Li Qi got up from the chair and walked towards the door of the room. The therapist thought he was leaving, but as soon as he was about to speak, he saw Li Qi pull a chair on his way to the door, close the door lock, and put the chair behind the handle. The therapist was shocked; his mouth opened and he felt frightened, but he tried to hold himself and waited to see what Li Qi would do. while Li Qi came back and sat straight back in his chair, his arms on the chair's armrest, and said,

"Okay, you want to listen to my thoughts and know about my history and my beginnings in order to help me, okay, but remember that I tried to protect you from this and that I tried to spare you of it. Please, remember this."