The Final Confrontation — Part 2
How do you make a person despair?
Lies don't hold up.
No matter how convincing an outsider's story may sound, a person's consciousness will only cast themself as a spectator.
Only a person's own memories can make them believe unconditionally.
In the photograph, young Dr. Ashmore had a buzzcut and held a slingshot with no string.
He stood beneath a large tree.
Beneath the tree, behind him, stretched the shadow of a young man.
He called that young man brother.
His brother called him Qiao.
On some day he couldn't pinpoint, his brother began sexually abusing him, leaving behind those words: "If you dare tell anyone, I'll kill you."
But it came out anyway. He was slandered as the one who'd seduced his brother, and so the mockery rained down—stones hurled from thin air.
His father was a violent man who abused his mother and gambled away the household money. The parents fought day and night, which gave his brother the opportunity to exploit. Day after day, the shadow of that abuse followed him like a haunting.
A lengthy court battle finally ordered their parents to separate. Though the father refused, the ruling was enforced. His brother went with their father, and he went with his mother.
But the nightmare didn't end.
His mother had an affair. He stumbled upon the scene and screamed, only to be slapped dazed by his mother.
She said, "Get out."
From then on, he was regularly thrown out of the house. His mother moaned inside while he wandered the streets.
Until one day, wandering the streets, he ran into his brother.
He told his brother that their mother was having an affair.
His brother told him not to worry.
But the next time he saw his mother, she was a corpse. His father burst into the house, an argument erupted, it spiraled out of control, the other man fled, and his father stabbed his mother to death.
When his father was taken away.
He stood there in a daze and asked, "Why did it have to be this way?"
His brother turned his head and revealed a sinister grin.
His brother said, "You can never leave me now."
…
Standing outside those images, I finally understood. Dr. Ashmore tormented Serena because he wanted nothing more than to transfer the pain he'd endured onto her.
All that talk of ghosts and angels, all that hatred for this ugly world—
You were nothing but a laughable abuser yourself.
Fine rain drifted into the office. Water had pooled on the windowsill.
I watched Dr. Ashmore in silence. He was breathing hard, as if trying to force himself to calm down.
But the shadow figures behind him betrayed him.
I said, "Long hair, bell-bottoms, sunglasses. A dark mole at the corner of your mouth… That's your brother, isn't it?"
He said, "How would you know that?"
I said, "He lives inside your body."
He said, "I don't know what you're talking about…"
He had no idea what I had seen.
But I'd noticed something fascinating in those images.
He would unconsciously mimic his brother's little gestures.
The sexual abuse had inflicted immense pain. To find a rational justification for that pain, he had replaced himself with the role of the abuser.
And so, like his brother, he'd tap his fingers on the desktop, furrow his brow in mock deliberation. Slowly exhale each word, adopt an affected mask of gentleness…
But he was torn. He remained trapped in this shell, and the harm never diminished. After his parents died, he'd even tried to end that subconscious—otherwise, he couldn't have placed all the blame on his brother.
Once I understood his fragmentation, his death became inevitable.
Dr. Ashmore cast a frantic glance toward the window.
He said, "Detective Vance is right downstairs."
I said, "I know. I'll accept the judgment. No appeal."
His breath caught.
Just as he had done countless times before. First, shatter his psychological defenses.
Then, place him inside the maze.
Tell him that his brother lives inside his body.
Yes, that man dwells within you.
Forgotten? All the pain was caused by him.
I reconstructed the tragedy of his parents and recounted the torment and humiliation of his childhood.
It wasn't anyone else—it was all that man's doing.
So, what are you still hesitating about?
Without him, you'd still have been your parents' good child.
Without him, none of the tragedy would have happened. You wouldn't have been abandoned by your mother, and your mother wouldn't have been stabbed to death by your father.
Kill him.
He's only inside you. Kill him, and no teacher or parent will ever know.
Dr. Ashmore was already lost inside the maze. In a daze, he said, "Even if I kill him, what difference would it make?"
I said, "You can be reborn."
That was the exit I prepared for you.
I watched his expression flicker with faint anticipation, yet hesitation and struggle rooted him in place.
The shadow figures behind him told me it was enough. While I was suggesting this to him, I saw two white lines simultaneously rise from his body and his brother's figure. The lines merged into one, binding them together firmly.
I walked to the office door and pulled it open.
I paused, then turned back and said, "When you can't figure it out, try doing the math."
The door closed gently behind me.