THE LATE TRAVELER
Part Two
Her husband looked a bit confused, perhaps not quite understanding what "insurmountable" meant. The village head nudged him: "See, Professor Qiu really knows his stuff. Those people from the township were completely helpless. What are you standing there for? Hurry up and thank the professor!"
Her husband snapped out of it and grabbed Colin Jarvis's hand, shaking it up and down, mumbling a string of thanks, his eyes like a drowning man who had just spotted a lifeline.
Back at the village committee, we made simple arrangements for lodging. The village head was very hospitable—he even ordered food from the little restaurant across the street to be delivered over. After a few drinks, he opened up: "Professor Qiu, look at that Tanya—she talks nonsense, half the time not making any sense. What exactly is wrong with her?"
Colin Jarvis didn't answer directly, but asked instead: "You're the village head—you know everyone here. What do you think?"
"Well..." The village head suddenly leaned in and said mysteriously, "I think she's been possessed by the Great Immortal Huang."
"Great Immortal Huang?"
"Definitely the Great Immortal Huang, no question about it. A while back, some weasels made off with Tanya's chickens. Her husband set some traps and caught three weasels in a single night. I saw it with my own eyes—he bludgeoned each one to death with a hoe. It was gruesome—brains splattered everywhere... He sold the three weasel tails to a brush maker and made a couple hundred yuan for nothing." At this, the village head glanced around as if worried someone might be eavesdropping. "And now—karma, right? You shouldn't mess with weasels. They're eerie creatures."
Colin Jarvis laughed out loud: "Superstition, pure superstition."
The village head grew anxious: "It's not superstition! Tanya's husband even invited a spirit medium from a neighboring village to come take a look. That medium is incredibly accurate—she only needed a couple of glances to confirm it was the Great Immential Huang's doing."
Colin Jarvis smiled: "Then if they know who's causing the trouble, why hasn't it been cured?"
"That's her husband's fault—he's too stingy. The medium said he had to personally slaughter the three pigs they raise at home and offer the pigs' heads to the Great Immortal Huang for three days and three nights to appease the spirit. Otherwise it would keep haunting Tanya. But three pigs are worth over ten thousand yuan—her husband absolutely refused."
"That makes sense. Slaughtering three pigs would be a waste."
"What do you mean?" The village head let out a belch.
"All things originate from internal causes—external causes are merely triggers. The key lies here," Colin Jarvis pointed to his head. "The problem is rooted in Tanya's own thoughts."
The village head was startled: "It's her own problem?"
Colin Jarvis turned to me, as if testing me: "What do you make of this?"
I thought for a moment and said: "It sounds like delusional disorder."
"Exactly," Colin Jarvis agreed. "More precisely, a fantasy-type delusion. Broadly speaking, it falls under schizophrenia-like personality dissociation."
"Wait—personality dissociation?" The village head's eyes went wide.
Colin Jarvis picked up his wine glass and asked: "Let me ask you—what kind of person is Tanya's husband?"
The village head thought about it: "If I'm being honest about her husband, he really doesn't have many redeeming qualities. Stingy, petty, not exactly easy on the eyes. Never seen much of the world—gets tongue-tied around crowds."
"Do they ever fight?"
"Of course they fight—what couple doesn't? But her husband is the silent type. Even when they argue, he barely lets out three words. Tanya got so angry once that she actually drank pesticide."
Colin Jarvis took a sip of wine, nodded, and said: "There you have it. All along, Tanya has been dissatisfied with her life. She looks down on her timid, shrinking husband, and of course the grueling daily labor takes its toll too. But the constraints of traditional social customs prevent her from expressing these feelings openly, so they fester deeper and deeper inside. When this emotional repression reaches a breaking point, she fantasizes another self—a person from far away who has nothing to do with her husband or this kind of life. In other words, she has split off another personality within herself, replacing her current self."
The village head was thoroughly confused: "You're saying the current Tanya... isn't Tanya?"
"No," Colin Jarvis shook his head. "It's still her—just another version of herself that she's fantasized into being."
"Then—then—" The village head was sputtering, "What about Tanya's Mandarin? She never spoke it before."
"Functional changes caused by mental abnormality. It's rare, but not unprecedented. There was a case in Austria where a male patient, when transitioning to another personality, not only underwent changes in temperament and language, but even the color of his pupils changed."
"Good heavens, isn't that just demonic possession?" the village head muttered.
Colin Jarvis shook his head with a smile: "This has nothing to do with ghosts or spirits—it's science. My friend, as long as you approach problems with rigor, there's nothing truly bizarre in this world."
The village head looked dazed for a moment, then asked: "Then Professor Qiu, if what you say is true, can you cure Tanya?"
Colin Jarvis considered: "I don't think it should be too difficult. Generally, personality dissociation is treated with hypnosis or medication, but both methods are slow to show results and the cure rate isn't high. I've decided to use cathartic therapy—through direct conversation, I'll make her current personality realize the reason for its own existence. This will trigger an emotional collapse, and then we can try to coax her original primary personality back to the surface."
"But Professor Qiu," I raised an objection, "once a dissociated secondary personality has formed, it will fiercely resist any attempt to eliminate it. Isn't cathartic therapy too risky?"
"That depends on conversational skill," Colin Jarvis smiled confidently. "Tomorrow you'll be responsible for taking notes while I talk with her. I'll show you what psychological guidance really looks like."
Seeing Colin Jarvis's confident smile, I felt reassured. After all, he was my advisor, my intellectual and spiritual pillar. But what I never expected was that the conversation the following day would be, for someone like me who had received over twenty years of mainstream education, nearly a form of torture.
3
The next morning, under overcast skies. Tanya was sitting in the same spot as yesterday, her eyes somewhat vacant as she looked at us. To me, when she wasn't speaking, she was indistinguishable from any ordinary peasant woman.
I sat off to the side taking notes. Colin Jarvis placed both hands on the table, assuming a posture that conveyed total openness and safety, and asked: "Do you really dislike the people here?"
Tanya glanced at him but didn't answer.
Colin Jarvis said: "I heard that when people from the township came, you'd only talk for a few sentences before you started crying and throwing plates and bowls. Is that true?"
She nodded: "Yes, I threw them."
Colin Jarvis: "Why? Did you dislike them?"
Her: "It wasn't about dislike. I was in a bad mood those days and didn't want to talk to them so much. They wouldn't leave, so I could only throw things."
Colin Jarvis: "Why didn't you throw anything yesterday?"
She looked at me and said: "You two are different from them. They just assumed right away that I was a mental patient."
I chuckled inwardly, realizing that Colin Jarvis had already begun his guidance—laying a verbal trap, slowly drawing her in. It seemed harmless, but it was indeed a snare—the more the other person said, the better. Once the moment was ripe, a single pointed question could make her entire defense collapse. We also thought she was a mental patient—we just expressed it differently.
Colin Jarvis continued: "Tell me about yourself. Where do you come from?"
Her: "A place very far away."
Colin Jarvis: "You said yesterday that you were a late traveler. What does that mean exactly?"
She bit her lip, looking at us. After a long while, she said: "If I tell you, would you believe me?"
Colin Jarvis nodded: "Of course I would. Go ahead."
She paused for a moment: "I come from the ninth planetary cluster in the Orion Spur, about 1,600 light-years from here."
I jumped in my seat, my pen nearly slipping from my hand.
Colin Jarvis was also taken aback—clearly he hadn't anticipated such an answer. Then he laughed, adjusting his glasses: "Orion... interesting. Can you tell me which direction the Orion Spur is in?"
Her: "The solar system itself is located within the Orion Spur. I can only point you toward the direction of the ninth planetary cluster. Using Earth as a reference point, it's located north of the galactic plane, at an angle of roughly 35 degrees from the celestial equator."
The village head and Tanya's husband wore utterly blank expressions, looking back and forth between me and Colin Jarvis. Their meaning was obvious—see, this woman just spouts incomprehensible nonsense.
Colin Jarvis fell silent for a moment, then asked: "Where did you learn all these professional astronomical terms? From TV?"
Her expression was slightly displeased: "You still don't believe me."
Colin Jarvis: "I do, I believe you. Let me ask you this—coming all the way from such a distant place to Earth, what was your purpose?"
Her: "For the Star War."