The killer was the family's father, a man named Jev, who was the only one who went missing and was never found afterward. The press also described the killer gouging out the eyes, cutting off the nose, ears, and tongue, and peeling off the skin as the act of stripping the victims of their sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Thus, the nickname "Pentagram Murderer" was born.
"Wait, the case happened three years ago… and you also joined the police force three years ago…"
Sarah had clearly caught the key point through the coinciding timeline, but she still didn't understand the connection. So her eyes turned toward Arthur as if she were looking for an answer.
In response, a fleeting look of anguish appeared on his face.
Arthur took out his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, lit it, and let the smoke fill his throat, letting the nicotine rush into his nervous system.
It was only to make him feel a little less pained.
Arthur exhaled the smoke, making his vision seem to blur for a moment, and in front of him was no longer Sarah's face, the surroundings were no longer the late-night diner, but the clinic where he used to work.
God, sometimes Arthur truly hated his bizarre imagination.
To the point that he imagined the person opposite him turning into Jev, exactly as he was in his memory.
Jev was his patient.
An overly ordinary man, ordinary in his communication, ordinary in his behavior, ordinary in how he handled social relationships, with a wife and a daughter, and a little bit of pressure and a mid-life crisis. Arthur had met quite a few patients like this.
In short, there was nothing too special about him. Arthur didn't even need to "treat" Jev properly, because most people like this just needed someone to listen, to be an "emotional outlet" for them.
But at the third therapy session, Jev suddenly asked Arthur if he could perform deep hypnosis on him. He said he sometimes had some strange dreams, perhaps related to a past that Jev couldn't remember.
This request for hypnosis was quite sudden, but Arthur wasn't surprised because some patients came to him for this so-called "hypnosis."
They wanted to see if hypnosis and psychology were as magical as they were in the news or movies, where the manipulator only needed to snap their fingers to make the hypnotized person dazed and do whatever the manipulator wanted.
From an academic standpoint, Arthur could confirm that hypnosis wasn't that magical, but it could still be performed. Especially the type of hypnosis to access memories, which was essentially just to make the hypnotized person completely cut off from the external world—the external factors—to sink deep into their internal mind—the inner nature of the mind. This was similar to a dream created from memories, but the dreamer would be guided more specifically rather than at random.
And Arthur did hypnotize Jev, exactly as he requested.
And he wished that if he could go back to that day, he would definitely have refused.
…
"Jev, shall we begin?"
In the clinic, Arthur fiddled with a swinging pendulum. With just a slight push, the vertical rod with the weight on top would move back and forth sequentially, while emitting a steady ticking sound. This was a tool that most psychologists had in a deep conversation, as a steady, monotonous sound would often help the ears relax.
The ticking sound began to echo, and Jev had already closed his eyes.
"Jev, relax."
Arthur's voice lowered.
"That's it, just relax like that, follow my voice, follow my voice…"
Hypnosis could be performed with three tools: light, sound, and drugs. Depending on the intensity and application, there would be different types of hypnosis, with no two being the same. Arthur, he relatively preferred the method of hypnosis by cutting off the subject's external input, from closing their eyes to eliminate sight to relaxing their hearing with a steady frequency sound.
Through the posture, Arthur could assess the tension in the subject's body, which was a manifestation of the human body's basic reaction to external factors, and he needed Jev to give that up.
At the same time, breathing was also a crucial factor. A primitive breath was a very light one, just enough for a single life, not a deep breath. When the subject returned to this primitive state, it meant that the subject's state was close to sleep, with no conscious reaction, only instinct remaining.
After a while, Jev now only had his sense of hearing still truly active, where he received Arthur's voice and the sound of the pendulum swinging back and forth.
It was true that people reacted to stimuli, but if the stimulus was light enough to be ignored and repeated enough in a short time to make the ears "bored," then Arthur could make their sense of hearing actively ignore the sound.
However, he couldn't close off their hearing completely.
Arthur reached out and stopped the pendulum, making the steady swinging sound disappear.
Now, only his voice was the sole stimulus, dominating Jev's mind, forcing Jev to only react to his voice, to his requests.
This was hypnosis.
"Jev, you are walking on a meadow, where the sky is blue, where the wind is blowing against you…"
He should have assessed Jev's medical record more carefully beforehand.
"Jev, you are smelling a familiar scent, a familiar feeling. In front of you is the most familiar house in your memory…"
He should have asked Jev about that dream beforehand.
"Jev, you are walking into the house, where there is the familiar living room, the familiar hallway, the familiar walls…"
He shouldn't have been so arrogant.
"Jev, find your way up to your room, your most familiar room, the place you want to go to most."
He should have stopped.
"Jev, you are standing in front of the door to the room. Open it. What you want to know is inside."
He should have failed.
"Jev, what do you see in there?"
He was the one who was guilty.
"Nothing… at all…"