About four years ago, Dr. Bai was still a spry old man full of vigor.
Though he was already sixty and worked in a profession that forced him to interact with all sorts of peculiar individuals daily, he still carried himself like a man in his forties—youthful and energetic.
Alright, maybe forty-something still counted as old, but Dr. Bai genuinely didn't feel old.
At the very least, he could still connect with the young people who walked into his clinic. He had successfully treated countless patients suffering from depression, mania, and even physiological conditions, saving just as many families in the process.
More importantly—
He had helped countless teenagers who weren't "sick" in the traditional sense, providing them with a much-needed safe harbor. He gave these kids, who were being pushed to their breaking points by their environments, a valid excuse to finally relax.
So, four years ago, when Dr. Bai first consulted with Shu, he initially assumed this was just another poor soul driven mad by familial pressure.
"So you're saying... you scored nearly six hundred on your exams, yet your mother believed you never even tried?" Dr. Bai read the answer he had just elicited, a headache already forming.
Another sad case, driven to the edge by an ignorant family...
"So you graduated from university and found a place far away from home?" Dr. Bai's brow furrowed as he reviewed the psychological evaluation Shu had just completed.
Shu nodded.
"What about contact information? Do you still have it?" Dr. Bai pressed.
Shu was silent for a moment before shaking his head.
"Deleted it, huh..." The old doctor raised an eyebrow, a smile spreading across his well-maintained face. "Good for you. It seems pretty clear that the root of your problem lies with your family environment.
"Plenty of people with similar issues don't even have the courage to break away from their families. They're so bound by ethics and morality they can barely breathe.
"It's rare to see someone as decisive as you, choosing to cut ties and be independent."
The questions themselves were straightforward, but the test data was... off.
Everyone was different, of course. The same problem could yield two wildly different test results. But results like these... were just plain bizarre.
Most of the data points were so far into the red that just looking at them made Dr. Bai's heart pound. And the few metrics that weren't in the red were, by contrast, at rock bottom.
A textbook case of bipolar disorder!
Dr. Bai felt this report should be immortalized in a medical journal.
But for bipolar disorder to be this extreme...
He cast a slightly uncertain glance at the young man sitting perfectly straight across from him—calm on the surface, utterly silent, his face a mask of dead stillness.
Logically, the few sentences Dr. Bai had just uttered should have been enough to trigger an emotional outburst. The young man shouldn't be sitting there, calmly and coherently answering his questions.
Coherently?
An idea sparked in Dr. Bai's mind.
He set down the evaluation results, cleared his throat carefully, and asked another question.
"Have you ever taken a test like this before?"
If Shu had taken this exact test, or one with a high degree of similarity, it was possible that, with deliberate control, he could produce such extreme, polarized answers.
Shu thought for a moment. "I've tried similar tests, yes. The official MBTI, and a few online versions. Besides those, there's also..."
He rattled off a list of corresponding personality tests. Dr. Bai nodded knowingly, saying nothing.
In reality, there was a massive gap between the tests Shu mentioned and the psychological evaluation he had just completed.
Compared to those tests, which beat around the bush to arrive at a vague answer, their clinic's evaluation was as direct as slapping the results onto your face. However, the actual scoring mechanism was so abstract it was nearly incomprehensible.
So, if Shu wasn't hiding any relevant experience...
No, Dr. Bai was almost certain Shu wasn't hiding it. Because after he asked the question, Shu had immediately tried to prove his point by listing similar tests he'd taken.
If he had truly taken a similar test, there would be no need to use these examples, which only served to prove he hadn't.
So he really hadn't taken it before?
Then why hadn't he lashed out or burst into tears after being questioned so directly?
Dr. Bai didn't understand, but he was beginning to sense just how difficult this patient was going to be.
It couldn't possibly be that this twenty-something young man had so much self-control that he could completely suppress even the most extreme bipolar episodes, right?
"...That's about it... I think," Shu concluded with a final moment of thought.
It was this final addendum that jolted Dr. Bai to full alert.
"'I think'? You're not sure?"
"I've probably done other tests of the same type... but I can't recall them clearly. If I remember later, I will add to my answer."
A brief silence fell over the consultation room.
Dr. Bai gently tapped the tip of his pen against the white paper beneath his hand, a few suspicions already forming in his mind.
For an improvised answer, that sentence was... completely airtight.
If this were a debate, that response would have been perfect. There wasn't a single word he could latch onto and dissect.
Dr. Bai glanced at the report again.
[Confidence: 1.1/2.0]
Confidence nearly at rock bottom, just a hair's breadth away from a complete loss of self-awareness.
That level of low self-esteem could certainly lead someone to speak with such a lack of certainty. But wasn't this a little too meticulous?
Dr. Bai decided to ask one more question.
"So... while you were taking this test, did you ever consider how each of your answers would affect the final result?"
"..."
Shu silently lowered his gaze.
"Yes."
The gentle tapping of the pen stopped. Dr. Bai looked at the silent, downcast young man and pushed further.
"How much do you think you understood?"
"I feel... I could basically guess the outcome for every question..."
Shu's voice made Dr. Bai pause. He clarified, "All of them?"
"Basically all of them," Shu repeated, emphasizing his phrasing.
"Then what about these results?" Dr. Bai pushed the report, now dotted with several black ink marks from his pen, across the desk. "How credible are they?"
Shu lifted his head, his gaze deep and fixed on the intensely serious old man before him.
The moment Dr. Bai met that gaze, his heart skipped a beat.
The credibility is one hundred percent... isn't it?
"It's real."
The old doctor sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes hardening with a trace of gravity.
So it really is... exactly the answer I wanted to hear...
If you find yourself getting along incredibly well with someone, feeling a natural rapport, it's far more likely that their emotional intelligence is simply leagues above yours, rather than you having found a kindred spirit.
And Dr. Bai certainly didn't believe this young man was his kindred spirit.
Which meant... this young man's EQ was far superior to his own?!
And maybe even his—
IQ?
This was the absolute last type of patient a doctor wanted to encounter during a consultation. Dr. Bai had met his fair share of people pretending to be sick to escape something.
Those people were similar to Shu, but also completely different.
They were vague and evasive, thinking their act was flawless. They babbled incoherently, their sole objective being to emphasize how sick they were.
They thought they could fool him, but what was the reality? It was like a teacher at the front of the classroom who could see everything clearly, while only the misbehaving students thought they were getting away with it.
But Shu...
If he hadn't suddenly realized this kid was likely capable of manipulating the results of a complex scoring system on his very first try...
And if he, as a mental health professional, wasn't naturally sensitive to overly smooth interactions...
And if Shu hadn't practically telegraphed his intentions with that one single look...
Only the combination of all these factors allowed Dr. Bai to realize the truth.
Everything Shu said was exactly what he wanted to hear.
Or rather, it was the most "correct" answer within the framework of his questions.
Why did they say treacherous ministers could ruin a kingdom?
Because they would filter the nation's true information, showing the king only what he wanted to see, what he was pleased to see.