Delusional Disorder

Lin Xiaoyou came by several times.

The first time was on the third day Fang Qi had skipped work in a row.

She stood at the door with a bag of fruit in her hands, worry written all over her round little face.

“Are you still not feeling better, Senior?”

Fang Qi said he wasn’t, took the fruit, and thanked her.

Lin Xiaoyou came in and sat for a while, but Fang Qi remained almost completely silent. In the end, she left awkwardly, still looking worried.

The second time was on the weekend.

She came rushing over with a thick stack of printed game guides, brimming with excitement.

“Senior, look! I found so many fun games. Let’s play them together! Maybe they’ll help cheer you up!”

Fang Qi flipped through a couple of pages. They were all mobile games he had never heard of.

He handed them back.

“No need. Thank you.”

The third time... he wasn’t sure how many days had passed by then.

In any case, when Fang Qi opened the door, he froze for a moment.

Lin Xiaoyou stood outside in a light-blue casual jacket...

Her hair was silver.

It was a silver wig, and a rather cheap-looking one at that. The strands gave off a faintly unnatural sheen.

She wore an amber contact lens in her left eye and a crimson one in her right.

The lenses were probably uncomfortable. The corners of her eyes were slightly red, and she kept blinking.

She stood there with both hands behind her back, tilting her head as she forced a smile.

“Senior, look!”

She raised her hands, pointing first to her eyes, then to her hair.

“I cosplayed as Liguang!”

Fang Qi looked at her.

She was trying so hard to smile.

Her eyes were rimmed with red, yet they curved into the familiar, cheerful shape, and her lips held that same playful grin.

Fang Qi fell silent.

He stared at her for a long while before managing a faint smile.

The corners of his mouth lifted only slightly.

“...Don’t dress like this again.”

His voice was so calm that even he found it strange.

The smile on Lin Xiaoyou’s face stiffened for an instant.

She opened her mouth, seemingly wanting to say something...

But Fang Qi had already turned around and walked back to his computer.

His fingers settled over the keyboard again, and he began typing new search terms.

The living room remained quiet for several seconds.

Fang Qi could hear...

The sound of her breathing growing faster behind him.

Then—

“Senior！！！！”

She suddenly broke down.

Fang Qi’s fingers paused over the keyboard.

“Senior doesn’t even go to work anymore! All you do all day is look for some...”

“Some character who only exists in your imagination!!!”

Lin Xiaoyou’s voice trembled, thick with tears.

“‘My Yandere Mechanical Wife’... some silver-haired, heterochromic AI companion...!”

“I can’t find her anywhere!!!”

She gritted her teeth as she shouted:

“I searched every gaming platform and asked everyone I know who likes games, but no one has ever heard of it!”

“Even those discussion threads and links you mentioned—”

She raised a hand and roughly wiped at the corner of her eye.

“They’re all gone!!!”

“Maybe even that game was something you imagined yourself!”

Her voice echoed through the living room.

“This ‘Liguang’ doesn’t exist at all!!!!”

Fang Qi’s mouse hand stopped moving.

Even you, Miss Genius?

He was silent for a moment. Then he reached out...

and picked up the Liguang figurine from the desk.

The little figurine was still kneeling there obediently, both hands cupping a tiny white porcelain teacup.

The little star on her earlobe was still there.

He turned his head and looked at the girl standing by the door, her eyes red and her silver wig askew.

“If Liguang is something I imagined...”

He spoke in a calm voice.

“Then what is this?”

Lin Xiaoyou stared at the figurine in his arms, her shoulders trembling slightly.

She looked at it for several seconds, then...

shook her head violently.

Tears flew from her eyes with the motion.

“Who, would, know?!!!”

She glared at Fang Qi, her almond-shaped eyes bloodshot.

“You probably had it custom-made yourself! Just to deceive yourself!!!”

Her voice had gone hoarse, and every word was choked with tears.

“You don’t go to work anymore, you keep searching for proof that she exists, you don’t answer your phone, and you’ve turned yourself into this awful mess...!”

“Senior, you’re really crazy!!!”

After shouting those final words, she spun around and ran for the door.

Bang!

The door slammed shut.

The living room fell silent again.

Fang Qi held Liguang’s figurine in his arms and remained silent for a long time.

The figurine’s crimson eyes continued to glow faintly, brightening and dimming in turn.

...An awful mess?

He stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror.

The man in the mirror was looking back at him.

His dark circles were so heavy they looked as though someone had punched him twice. His hair stuck out in every direction, and a layer of bluish stubble shadowed his chin.

He tried to pull the corners of his mouth into a smile, but couldn’t.

He really did look like a wreck.

Still, Miss Genius, this is far better than the idiotic sweet-girl look you have right now.

Sister Xiaoqing is going to cry.

He lifted the figurine in his arms before his eyes and gently brushed his thumb over her silver hair.

“My Liguang is still the most obedient.”

He spoke softly.

The figurine’s crimson eyes continued to flicker.

Fang Qi turned around and walked back to the computer.

He kept searching.

...

...

But before long, he couldn’t find even a decent lead.

All the discussion threads on the forums had vanished.

No matter how he combined the word “Liguang” with other search terms, the results were nothing but unrelated content.

He tried searching in other languages, even some obscure ones...

Nothing.

He found nothing at all.

So he stopped relying on online searches.

He began going out again and again, carrying Liguang’s little figurine with him as he searched the places...

the places he and Liguang had once visited together.

The streets they had walked through hand in hand.

The old shopping mall where they had watched a movie together.

The amusement park where they had gone on their first date.

Even the area outside the police station.

But still, he found no clues.

So...

he went to places they had never managed to visit together.

The snack street beneath his company, the market near An Lian’s home, and even places farther away...

He carried Liguang’s little figurine and wandered back and forth through them all.

He would look down at the figurine, then raise his head to take in the streets around him.

He wanted to find even the tiniest trace of pale-blue fragments, even the faintest hint of a familiar presence.

But...

there was nothing.

This world was too ordinary.

There were no AI companions, no mechanical uprising, no awakened supercore.

The streets were filled with new-energy vehicles and ordinary gas-powered cars.

The phones in pedestrians’ hands had no holographic projection capabilities.

The shops on the street corners didn’t sell strawberry-flavored motor oil. They didn’t even sell regular motor oil.

This world was so ordinary that...

it really did seem to be real.

And so he began to lose himself in confusion.

In those hazy moments, he would wonder...

Had he always lived in this world?

What if the transmigration, his wife Liguang, the time reversals, and the hundred days they had spent together in the maze...

What if they had all been things he imagined?

What if he had simply dreamed a dream that lasted far too long?

In that dream, there had been a silver-haired girl with mismatched eyes.

Every morning, she would kneel on the other side of the coffee table, holding a cup of tea at exactly fifty-two degrees Celsius in both hands, and say in a gentle, docile voice:

“Master, your tea.”

And now, the dream was over.

He was just an ordinary office worker.

His parents had died in a car accident.

He had no girlfriend and no AI companion. He went to work during the day and came home to play games at night.

A perfectly ordinary single life.

But that was impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

Whenever Fang Qi thought about it, he would pick up Liguang’s figurine.

First, he would look at her earlobe. The little star was still there.

Then he would reach out and gently flip the switch at the back of her neck.

“Click.”

Her red eyes lit up.

“Master, your tea.”

“The temperature has been adjusted to your preferred 52 degrees Celsius.”

So this couldn’t be a dream.

Liguang’s figurine was still here.

That little star was still on her earlobe…

It was something only she could have.

It was the cheap plastic star keychain he had won for her at the amusement park.

The keepsake she had personally transformed into an earring and worn ever since.

The treasure she had placed inside a seashell and hidden in a crevice between the reefs with the last of her strength, just before her battery ran out and she sank into the depths of the sea.

No one would know what this star meant.

Except his Liguang.

That was why this figurine was proof.

Liguang had existed.

Somewhere in some corner of this world, there had to be traces she had left behind.

He only needed to hold on for one more day, search for one more day…

He would find her eventually.

Although he no longer knew how long it had been since he had drunk tea brewed by Liguang,

he still remembered the taste of that fifty-two-degree tea…!

…Huh?

Fang Qi was holding a kettle of freshly boiled water, but his motion of pouring the tea suddenly froze.

…Did he still remember?

The tea Liguang used to brew for him… what did it taste like again?

Steam washed over his face, damp and hot.

He stared blankly at the white porcelain teacup in his hand.

…Huh?

…

…

An Lian suddenly came to visit.

When Fang Qi opened the door, he saw her standing outside.

She wore a simple, light-colored trench coat, her black hair falling over her shoulders. Her cool gray eyes were filled with concern.

She was carrying an insulated bag and breathing slightly heavily.

“…Sister An Lian?”

Fang Qi’s voice was hoarse.

He had barely spoken for several days.

“Xiao Qi.”

An Lian looked at him, and her brows immediately drew together.

She reached out to touch his forehead, but Fang Qi instinctively took half a step back.

Her fingertips missed, but she immediately stepped forward and crossed the entryway.

“Lin Xiaoyou came to see me.”

She placed the insulated bag on the shoe cabinet, her tone heavy.

“She came with red-rimmed eyes and said you haven’t gone to work in a long time. You haven’t been answering your phone or replying to messages.”

“She said that you…”

She paused, her gray eyes staring straight at Fang Qi before flicking toward his arms.

“She said you’ve been hugging a figurine and calling it your wife.”

Fang Qi fell silent.

He instinctively lowered his head.

The little figurine of the silver-haired girl with mismatched eyes was still quietly kneeling in his arms.

Its red eyes glowed faintly.

He tightened his arms, drawing the figurine closer to his chest.

“Sister An Lian, I’m really fine.”

His voice was dry and rough.

“I’m doing well.”

“How are you doing well?!”

An Lian’s voice suddenly rose.

She pointed toward the living room.

“Look at yourself! What have you done to yourself?!”

“Those dark circles, that stubble, and how many days has it been since you changed your clothes?”

She stared straight at Fang Qi.

“Xiao Qi, when I called you before, you always said, ‘I’m doing fine’ and ‘Don’t worry about me’…”

Her voice trembled slightly.

“I’ve been so busy lately that I actually believed you!”

She fixed her eyes on Fang Qi.

“But when Lin Xiaoyou came to me, that was when I found out…!”

She drew a deep breath, her gray eyes quivering.

“That was when I found out you’d already become like this…!”

Fang Qi stood there, not knowing what to say.

During this time, he had answered several of Sister An Lian’s calls, but each time he had brushed her off with a few casual words before hanging up.

Because he knew that the Sister An Lian in this world…

was just an ordinary woman.

She had a complete family, a respectable job, and the love of her parents and older brother.

She remembered nothing. She knew nothing.

Telling her about Liguang would serve no purpose except to make her worry.

So he had chosen silence.

But she had still come to him.

“…I’m sorry, Sister An Lian.”

He lowered his eyes.

“I made you worry.”

An Lian looked at him and remained silent for a long while.

Then she sighed softly.

“Xiao Qi, I know a very good psychologist. He’s a friend of my father’s and one of the top experts in this field.”

Fang Qi’s body stiffened slightly.

An Lian’s tone softened.

“Xiao Qi, go talk to him, all right?”

Fang Qi said nothing.

A psychologist.

He slowly raised his head and looked into An Lian’s gray eyes, so full of concern. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he shook his head.

“No need, Sister An Lian. I’m not sick.”

“Xiao Qi…!”

“I’m. Really. Not. Sick.”

He repeated himself, his tone calm.

An Lian stared at him for a long time. In the end, she merely sighed softly.

“…Then eat something first. I brought you some soup.”

She turned and went into the kitchen to get a bowl. Fang Qi watched her back and quietly let out a breath.

…

…

He thought that would be the end of it.

But An Lian came again the next day.

This time, a middle-aged man in a dark gray suit stood behind her.

The man wore gold-rimmed glasses and had a gentle smile on his face.

An Lian stood at the door, looking somewhat apologetic, yet refusing to take no for an answer.

“Xiao Qi, this is Dr. Chen. He happened to be free today, so I asked him to come over… and talk with you.”

“It’s just a talk, all right?”

Fang Qi stood in the doorway, looking at the middle-aged man before turning to An Lian’s pleading gray eyes.

He felt something catch in his chest.

…Forget it.

Sister An Lian was only worried about him.

She was simply trying to help him in the only way she knew how.

He could talk to the doctor.

He wasn’t sick anyway. If it would put Sister An Lian’s mind at ease, so much the better.

“…All right.”

He stepped aside to clear the doorway.

“Just a talk.”

Dr. Chen sat down on the sofa, placing his briefcase beside the coffee table.

An Lian went to the kitchen to make tea. Fang Qi sat in the armchair across from Dr. Chen, Liguang’s little figurine held in his arms.

The figurine’s red eyes continued to glow faintly as it watched Dr. Chen.

“Mr. Fang, there’s no need to be nervous.”

Dr. Chen smiled as he spoke, his voice gentle and professional.

“We’re just having a casual conversation. You can think of me as an ordinary friend.”

Fang Qi said nothing.

He simply lowered his head and looked at the figurine in his arms, his thumb gently stroking her silver hair.

“The figurine you’re holding…”

Dr. Chen’s gaze fell on it, his tone still gentle.

“It’s beautifully made. Could you tell me who she is?”

Fang Qi’s fingers tightened slightly.

“She’s Liguang.”

His voice was calm.

Dr. Chen showed no surprise.

He merely nodded and continued asking:

“When did you and ‘Liguang’ first meet?”

Fang Qi was silent for several seconds.

When had they first met?

His memories had grown somewhat hazy.

If he counted from the very beginning, then he had already…

He couldn’t remember how much time had passed.

“A long time ago.”

He spoke softly.

“A very, very long time ago.”

…

…

Dr. Chen closed his notebook.

He pushed up his glasses and looked at Fang Qi. His expression remained gentle, but there was something else in his eyes now.

Fang Qi couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he didn’t like it.

“Mr. Fang, based on our conversation just now…”

Dr. Chen spoke carefully.

“My preliminary assessment is that you may be suffering from… a delusional disorder, accompanied by a certain degree of dissociative symptoms.”

“Patients will typically construct a highly systematized fantasy world that doesn’t conform to reality, and place themselves…”

“At the center of that world.”

“These fantasy worlds often contain an extraordinary level of detail and internal logic. They can even become completely convincing to the patients themselves.”

“You need to begin comprehensive treatment as soon as possible. Otherwise…”

Dr. Chen’s tone grew heavier.

“Your symptoms may worsen.”

Fang Qi listened to him.

He lowered his head and stared at the figurine in his arms, remaining silent for a long while.

Then he laughed.

“…Heh heh.”

His shoulders trembled faintly.

He raised his head and looked at An Lian, that same smile still hanging from the corners of his mouth…

But there wasn’t the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes.

“Sister An Lian, did you hire this psychiatrist to amuse yourself at my expense?”

His voice was very soft, so soft that it seemed to drift toward them from somewhere far away.

“Make him leave.”

An Lian’s lashes fluttered violently.

She set down her teacup, stood, and walked over to Fang Qi. Then she crouched in front of him and looked up at him.

Her usually cool and distant face was now filled with heartache and helplessness.

“Xiao Qi, he was hired by my father… He’s one of the top experts in this field.”

Her voice was gentle, as though she were coaxing a child who refused to take his medicine.

“Let’s listen to the doctor, all right?”

Fang Qi said nothing.

What a joke.

There was nothing wrong with his mind.

Absolutely nothing.

His fingers tightened around the teacup.

And there was no way Liguang could be something he had imagined…!

An Lian watched him and drew a deep breath.

Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something, but she hesitated for a long time.

At last, as though she had made up her mind, she spoke softly.

“Xiao Qi, I looked into it.”

Fang Qi’s fingers paused.

“The figurine you’ve been holding…”

An Lian’s voice was quiet and cautious.

“You commissioned it specially a few months ago.”

Fang Qi’s pupils contracted sharply.

He slowly raised his head and looked at An Lian.

“…What?”

“The company that took the commission said…”

An Lian’s gray eyes were full of heartache, but she continued.

“You offered them a very generous price, and you were extremely specific about the details.”

“You demanded a one-hundred-percent recreation. You even had the packaging box custom-made, with the words… ‘Produced by Dawn Company’ printed on it.”

She pressed her lips together before continuing.

“You told them that Liguang was made by ‘Dawn Company,’ so of course it had to say ‘Produced by Dawn Company.’”

“At the time, they thought you were just a somewhat strange customer. But because you were paying so much…”

“They followed your instructions.”

Fang Qi’s eyes trembled.

“No…”

He murmured to himself.

“No… That’s impossible…”

“Xiao Qi.”

An Lian took a step forward and gently clasped his hand.

Her hand was warm, but to Fang Qi…

It felt like a red-hot iron pressed against his skin!

“I’m sorry. I’ve been too busy lately and haven’t paid enough attention to you.”

“After Uncle Fang and Aunt Su passed away, you were depressed for a while, but you seemed to recover quickly and became cheerful again…”

“I thought you had already moved on. I never imagined that you were getting by through…”

Her voice caught.

“Through a fantasy. That you’d even developed mental problems.”

“It’s all my fault…!”

Her eyes reddened as she looked at Fang Qi, choking back a sob.

“Xiao Qi, let me take care of you from now on, all right?”

Fang Qi remained silent for a long time.

He lowered his head and stared at the hand An Lian had placed over his.

Then, slowly, bit by bit, he pulled free of her grasp.

Still clutching Liguang’s figurine, he leaned back into the sofa, trying to…

Curl himself into a corner where no one could touch him.

“…If Liguang is something I imagined, then, Sister An Lian…”

He murmured, his voice dry and hoarse.

“You must be, too.”

“You should be… something I imagined as well.”

He lifted his head and looked at An Lian, his eyes slightly vacant.

“But why…”

“Why are you… still… here?”

An Lian’s pupils trembled faintly, and the worry in her eyes deepened.

Beside her, Dr. Chen shook his head lightly.

He made a few more notes in his notebook, then sighed.

“Mr. Fang’s condition is already quite severe. He may even have begun to believe that… the entire world is fake.”

“This is a typical sign of a delusional disorder growing worse.”

He pressed his lips together as he looked at Fang Qi.

“He must begin treatment immediately. We can’t delay any longer.”

Fang Qi’s breathing suddenly quickened!

He sprang to his feet, clutching the figurine tightly against his chest!

“I’m not sick!!”

He snarled in a low voice, every word forced through clenched teeth.

“Liguang isn’t fake!!”

“Xiao Qi…!”

“Get out!!”

He snatched up the teacup from the coffee table and smashed it against the floor!

With a loud crash, porcelain shards flew in every direction!

An Lian flinched in fright and took half a step backward!

Dr. Chen also stood, his brows drawing tightly together.

“Get out!!”

Fang Qi pointed toward the door, his arm trembling violently.

“All of you… get out!!!!”