“Neatly arranged, symmetrical?” Jiang Baimian asked again as if confirming.

Lawris pointed at the coffee table with considerable certainty:

“Yes.

“You see…”

Ugh, if Xiaohong were here, hearing these words would trigger post-traumatic stress disorder again… Such a thought flashed through Jiang Baimian’s mind.

Of course, Lawris couldn’t hear her mental grumbling and continued on her own:

“There should have been a vase, a wooden box for tissues, and two drinking glasses here.

“But he said the vase and the wooden box couldn’t be symmetrical, so they had to be removed.”

Following Lawris’s words, Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao turned their gazes to the coffee table, only to find four ceramic drinking cups remaining—two of which were extra because of their visit.

Symmetry OCD? Jiang Baimian withdrew her gaze and glanced at Shang Jianyao.

Shang Jianyao nodded to her.

However, Jiang Baimian couldn’t interpret what his nod meant at the moment.

Is he acknowledging Lawris’s statement, or did he hear my thoughts?

Lawris didn’t notice the hidden interaction between the two and said with a sigh:

“It’s actually okay, just a little tiring. I have to constantly pay attention to the placement of objects, as well as my own clothes and hairstyle.

“Well, O’Dick doesn’t get angry about it, he just silently arranges everything the way he wants it, very persistently.”

This reminded Jiang Baimian of the saying, “One eye is big, one eye is small, not a good person, let me help you dig them out.”

It’s also a manifestation of symmetry OCD, only more violent and more insane.

After listening, Shang Jianyao stroked his chin:

“Besides this, what else?”

“Nothing.” Lawris slowly shook her head, seemingly still recalling the various details of her past two days with O’Dick.

She was silent for a moment before saying hesitantly:

“There’s one more thing, I don’t know if it counts…”

“Just say it, whether it counts or not is up to the therapist to decide.” Shang Jianyao, who loved novelty and loved to role-play, said in the tone of a senior psychiatrist.

Lawris was very grateful that he had initially cured O’Dick and quite believed in his medical skills. Hearing this, she no longer hesitated:

“He seems more timid and weaker than before.

“Before going to the Hunter’s Guild today, he looked in the mirror and muttered to himself for a while before he mustered up the courage.”

Doctor Shang Jianyao nodded:

“This is a type of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Simply put, the tragic results of fighting the ‘Nightmare’ before left him with psychological trauma. He’s no longer as confident as before, easily becomes afraid of things with a certain amount of risk, and easily appears weak in front of powerful people.

“This requires long-term treatment to resolve, but it’s not a big problem, so don’t worry too much.”

“I understand.” Lawris breathed a sigh of relief. “No wonder I insisted that he stay at home these past two days and not see those fellow believers. He actually agreed, which was completely impossible in the past. Well, besides being persistent in cleaning and arranging things, he chose to listen to me in everything else.”

Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao repeatedly asked several times, finally confirming that O’Dick had no other abnormalities.

Because they were worried about accidents happening with Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and Genaver, they didn’t wait for O’Dick to return home. They took the initiative to say goodbye, went downstairs, and returned to the rented car.

In order not to involve O’Dick’s family, they drove the vehicle into several unmanned alleys nearby and, after making several turns, finally embarked on the correct road back to Qing-Olive District.

—As more citizens joined the military, the daytime in First City became even quieter. There were many secluded places without shops where people only passed by every ten or twenty minutes.

“Currently, it seems that O’Dick has four more abnormalities: mania, symmetry OCD, timidity and weakness, and mental derangement.” Jiang Baimian, in the passenger seat, summarized the gains of this visit.

“It’s really terrible…” The merciful Pudu Zen Master sighed sincerely.

Anyone who got one of these would affect their normal life. O’Dick got four at once.

Before Pudu Zen Master could finish speaking, Shang Jianyao, who hated evil like the plague, added:

“So this matter can’t be left like this!”

Shang Jianyao, who valued emotions, continued:

“If we can eliminate the ‘Nightmare’s’ claws and find clues to deal with ‘it,’ maybe we can help O’Dick truly recover.”

While the Shang Jianyaos were talking back and forth, Jiang Baimian couldn’t even get a word in.

After the voices echoing in the car subsided somewhat, she exhaled and said:

“Being affected by the ‘Nightmare’ and going crazy will result in so many problems all at once?”

In her mind, there should only be one mental derangement or mania.

Although symmetry OCD, when it becomes severe to a certain degree, is also considered a mental illness, it’s often not linked to going crazy.

Timidity and weakness don’t even count as mental illnesses.

Moreover, there’s a lack of necessary connection between these four abnormalities. In the field of mental illness, only mania and derangement often appear together.

Jiang Baimian initially suspected that the timidity and weakness were indeed, as Shang Jianyao said, psychological trauma left behind after O’Dick encountered the “Nightmare.”

At this time, Shang Jianyao had become calm:

“In that case, Xiaobai’s guess was correct:

“One eye big and one eye small is what O’Dick saw in the ‘Nightmare.’ ‘Not a good person, let me help you dig them out’ are the words that O’Dick added himself after developing symmetry OCD.”

Hearing these two sentences, Jiang Baimian muttered to herself:

“Developed…”

She pondered for a moment, then suddenly turned to look at Shang Jianyao:

“Why can’t it be infection?

“Before we set off to visit O’Dick and Lawris, didn’t we guess that the additional abnormalities on O’Dick might stem from him imitating some of the things he sensed at the time, or that they were traces left behind after being infected by ‘madness’?”

Shang Jianyao slowed down the car, took his right hand off the steering wheel, and stroked his chin:

“If it’s infection or imitation, then there must be a source or a reference object.”

“One person on the left, one person on the right, and a small photo frame in the middle, that’s already very symmetrical. I said that at the time.” Jiang Baimian’s thinking was active, and her expression was calm.

Shang Jianyao thought for a moment and said:

“You mean, the ‘photo frame’ or the other person has symmetry OCD?

“Through the ‘Nightmare,’ they ‘infected’ O’Dick with this problem?”

“Maybe…” Jiang Baimian replied hesitantly at first, then suddenly sat up straight, “If that’s really the case, the reason why the target we’re tracking is always wearing sunglasses is probably not because they’re afraid of light or want to conceal their physical features, but because their companion has symmetry OCD. If they don’t do this, it will inevitably cause internal strife!

“When they asked for directions at night, their companion was lurking nearby!”

…………

Qing-Olive District.

Genaver sat in the room, paying attention to replacing the high-performance batteries that needed charging while also doing real-time monitoring with all the cameras as “eyes,” since he was idle anyway.

Across the hallway from this rented house, separated by a corridor, in the room near the stairwell, Bai Chen and Long Yuehong were quietly lurking.

No one lived here. The tables and chairs were covered in obvious dust. Bai Chen and Long Yuehong had taken advantage of a quiet moment in the hallway when no one was passing by to directly pick the lock and hide inside.

Here, they could see the situation at the stairwell through the keyhole and peephole, and they could observe whether there were any abnormalities in Genaver’s rented house with the help of the hidden cameras installed in concealed locations.

Long Yuehong went over the several situations he had listed earlier in his mind again and again to avoid forgetting the corresponding contingency plans.

“Don’t be too nervous. The more nervous you are, the easier it is to forget details that shouldn’t be forgotten and make mistakes that shouldn’t be made.” Bai Chen comforted Long Yuehong while looking outside through the peephole.

That’s right, I can’t be nervous. I have to make Xiaobai think I’m calm and reliable… Long Yuehong took a breath and slowly exhaled, using this to calm his mood.

After an unknown amount of time, Bai Chen suddenly said in a suppressed voice:

“Someone’s coming up.”

Long Yuehong subconsciously leaned towards the door.

Bai Chen turned to look at him, lowering his voice even further:

“Use the computer to watch.

“Don’t crowd together at the door. That would be very suspicious to an Awakened.”

“Okay…” Long Yuehong tiptoed back to the table that had been cleared.

Bai Chen’s portable computer had been turned on all along, using Genaver’s temporary base station as a signal source to display the images captured by the surveillance camera at the door.

Long Yuehong saw at a glance that a man with ordinary clothes and an equally ordinary appearance entered this floor and turned to the right.

It was noon, and many people whose workplaces weren’t far away would choose to go home for lunch. It wasn’t something to be surprised about that someone was around.

However, this man stopped in front of the rented house where Genaver was staying.

He reached out and began knocking on the door, the sound loud enough to directly reach Bai Chen and Long Yuehong:

“Open the door! I’m back!”

After knocking for a few seconds, he tried to take the key from his waist.

Just then, Genaver’s voice, intentionally imitating a human, came from behind the door:

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” The man was surprised.

He immediately looked left and right, then slapped his forehead and said:

“Damn!

“Wrong floor!”

He didn’t apologize, turned around, and walked quickly towards the stairwell, as if trying to escape this embarrassing scene.

This seemed to be just a coincidence.

But Bai Chen wasn’t careless. He muttered to himself in a low voice:

“Someone’s memory was tampered with?”

“If that’s really the case…” Long Yuehong habitually echoed.

Then, he was startled:

“As neighbors on the same floor as the target, will our memories be quietly read?”