Chapter 30: Who Are You

Back on Little Rabbit Island.

Everything was just as it had been before they were swallowed by the house—juice still spilled across the table, the food still warm, her ten fingers still covered in diamond rings.

Wang Jiexiang turned her head. Another part of the island had vanished.

The two connected houses were gone, leaving only the last old wooden house.

The rabbit slowly shuffled over to her side, brushing against her with his face.

Wang Jiexiang looked down and picked him up.

The pink pouch on his back was open. The pineapple bun inside had been eaten. The key to the “boarding school” was gone, but the rental apartment key remained. She put the newly obtained key into his pouch as well.

Neither of them spoke.

By now, they didn’t need to say anything to understand what the other had experienced inside the house, or how exhausted they both were.

He rested obediently in her palm, and her fingers gently stroked his soft fur.

“Can I go back to normal?”

The rabbit looked tired and lost.

He had been trapped for so long, his mental state was deteriorating.

Wang Jiexiang said, “You definitely can.”

Unlike his pessimism, she was full of confidence, even joking, “Asshole, you’ve caused me so much trouble. When you turn back into a human, I’m going to beat you up.”

She tried to act fierce, but unfortunately, Yin Xian didn’t laugh.

“I have something to tell you…”

He sat up, his long ears drooping.

“Go ahead.”

He pressed his paw to his forehead and rubbed hard.

“What’s wrong? Dizzy?” Wang Jiexiang tensed up again, remembering how strange Yin Xian had been before they entered the house.

“Yeah.”

He rubbed his head and spoke haltingly.

“It started before the last time we went in… weird voices. Someone talking to me inside…”

“Someone? Where?” Her back went cold as she looked around warily.

Then Wang Jiexiang realized.

Yin Xian meant inside his head.

There were strange voices constantly in his mind.

Wang Jiexiang held her breath and asked, “What did they say?”

“Some commands.”

Clearly, Yin Xian had not followed them.

His fur stood on end, his body trembled, as if in immense pain.

Wang Jiexiang lay down beside him, pressing her ear against his rabbit ear.

But she couldn’t hear a thing.

“They keep asking me, ‘Who is the person next to you?’”

Yin Xian looked at her. “Should I tell them?”

Wang Jiexiang shook her head and asked in return, “Do you know who it is?”

It was as if she were fighting an invisible person over Yin Xian.

He looked even more distressed.

Wang Jiexiang didn’t understand the situation, stomping anxiously.

“Yin Xian!” A light bulb went off in her head. “Let’s figure it out together. Just repeat to me exactly what you heard.”

He repeated every word he had heard in his mind.

“Relax. Try to sense, to judge whether she’s kind, whether she means you harm. Yin Xian, don’t talk to her—you answer me.”

To Wang Jiexiang’s surprise, the tone wasn’t aggressive.

It was calm, gently persuasive.

Yin Xian looked at her helplessly, waiting for her to decide.

He trusted her more than the voice.

“Answer him,” Wang Jiexiang said, plugging her ears and taking a few steps back.

“She’s kind. She means no harm,” Yin Xian replied.

Something was asked again, and he paused before saying,

“I’m sure.”

Wang Jiexiang gnawed on her fingers, her thoughts a mess.

Was it because of her?

She had shown Yin Xian a photo of her home—and then the voices started?

How were these things connected?

Before long, the rabbit came over to her.

“I don’t understand.”

He stuck close to her heels, his eyes full of confusion.

This Yin Xian had lost all his usual sharpness, like a lost little child.

“He wants me to leave Little Rabbit Island quickly. How am I supposed to leave?”

She held his soft, paw pad-less paw.

Let out a long sigh, just as lost.

—Is that thing an enemy or a friend?

—What could she do to help him?

Yin Xian’s rabbit ears twitched. His eyes stared blankly at the empty ground, his lips mouthing the words he heard.

“If you don’t leave now, you won’t get out…”

“Wandering… nightmare, subconscious…”

Wang Jiexiang crouched down, unable to hear clearly. “Yin Xian?”

He looked possessed, his body stiff.

She poked him with a finger. “Yin Xian, don’t be like this. You’re scaring me.”

“Hide! Never give it to you!”

The rabbit suddenly snapped to attention and enunciated those words clearly.

Wang Jiexiang was startled. Just as she was about to ask more, he started mumbling again.

“Hide it well… safe house… paper…”

A sudden spasm. The rabbit collapsed.

Yin Xian!

He fainted again!

Just like before entering the house last time…

Could it be!

He just said: If you don’t leave now, you won’t get out.

Wang Jiexiang glanced at the last wooden house on the island and cursed.

The house didn’t have legs—it was the ground.

The whole of Little Rabbit Island was shrinking toward them.

In the emergency, Wang Jiexiang grabbed the twitching rabbit and stuffed him roughly into her pocket.

“Safe house and paper, huh? Can’t give them to me? Fine, I’ll find them myself.”

She ran wildly across the island, frantic like an ant on a hot pan.

Safe house. House.

What other houses were on Little Rabbit Island?

It couldn’t be the crazy wooden house coming after them. Only one house remained.

Feifei’s Home.

Wang Jiexiang dashed to the rabbit den like she had rockets on her feet.

The roof was still off from when she took it down—no need to pry it again.

“Paper, paper…”

Muttering to herself, she started digging through the furniture.

She yanked off the curtains—shook them.

Lifted the mattress—shook it.

Even pulled up the floor—nothing, not a single sheet of paper.

The rabbit den had two floors.

The wooden house’s shadow loomed in an instant. Wang Jiexiang didn’t even have time to look up.

She punched through the floor of the second story and tore her way down to the first.

Everything on the first floor was black.

Black bed, black wardrobe, black curtains, black walls, black floor.

What the hell? Yin Xian’s secret base?

Wang Jiexiang suddenly had a hunch.

She reached straight for the black desk.

Her fingernail pried open the tiny drawer, and a thick stack of paper fell out.

As she pulled it out of “Feifei’s Home,” the paper changed size to standard dimensions.

The wooden house approached at a steady pace. The hem of her clothing got caught and was pulled in.

She stepped back, yanked her clothes free, and shouted angrily at the house.

“Hey! Mind your manners, will you? Can’t you wait?”

Righteous indignation filled her voice. “Can’t you see I’m busy? I have to finish reading this first.”

On the first page of the paper, the title stood out in bold: Patient Case Analysis Report.

【Patient Name: Yin Xian

Gender: Male】

She skimmed rapidly downward. The wooden house, clearly trying to stop her, sped up.

“My paper crane! Where’s my paper crane?!”

Wang Jiexiang’s eyes were glued to the page as she ran around in panic.

【Analysis: This patient exhibits multiple memory gaps. In a dissociative amnesia state, he engages in self-harming behavior…】

Little Rabbit Island had shrunk to where she had nowhere left to hide. She stood tall, using her last moments to read.

【Avoidant symptoms and cognitive decline appear repeatedly. Neither psychological counseling nor medication have shown significant effects.】

A gust of wind sent pages flying from her hands into the wooden house’s mouth.

With the shaking, the unconscious rabbit fell from her pocket and merged into the house.

Wang Jiexiang’s legs were half-swallowed by the house as she hurriedly read the last lines of the page in her hand.

【Diagnosis: Psychogenic Amnesia, Depression】

At the critical moment, the paper crane appeared out of nowhere.

It suddenly lifted her into the sky. She managed to grab only two pages from the stack.

The paper crane soared, instantly reaching a height out of the wooden house’s reach.

From above, the entire island—all land, all buildings—was gone, leaving only the strange house floating in the dark sea of night.

Wang Jiexiang continued reading the two remaining pages.

First page:

【Treatment Plan:

Psychological counseling suggests the illness may be caused by childhood abuse, interpersonal trauma, and self-harming behavior.

Initial treatment should focus on hypnotherapy.

Use memory regression to identify the precise cause; combine with energy implantation techniques to reduce trauma memories, enhance happy ones, and lower depressive emotions.

Once the root cause is confirmed, proceed with cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, and trauma therapy.】

Second page:

【8th Hypnosis Session:

Attempt to regress the patient to age four.

Hypnotist constructs a new guide to lead the subject.

Subject continues to resist, refusing to enter deeper subconscious hypnosis.

This memory regression attempt failed.】

Wang Jiexiang read those two pages over and over at least ten times.

She felt like she understood so much, yet understood nothing at all.

Dissociative amnesia, depression, self-harm, trauma…

Subconscious, hypnotherapy…

Wang Jiexiang couldn’t wrap her head around it.

How could that heartless, careless Yin Xian have anything to do with these words?

And herself.

Going to Yin Xian’s age four, helping guide him? She had been to his age four.

But the guide built by the hypnotist—was that referring to her?

Could something like that even exist?

On Little Rabbit Island and in his childhood house, there had only been her and Yin Xian.

Could it be her?

But she wasn’t something constructed—she had thoughts, memories, a personality.

She could ride the paper crane at will! She could choose not to save Yin Xian! She could go home and work!

So…?

Wang Jiexiang was utterly confused.

She’d rather believe Yin Xian turned into a rabbit because he was such a piece of crap that someone cursed him, and now he needed true love to save him.

That’d be way easier to fix.

Psychoanalysis, trauma therapy and all that… come on, with her barely passing middle school, what help could she possibly be?

Wang Jiexiang looked down at the wooden house’s wide open door.

Yin Xian had already been sucked in.

What now?

Should she go home and cram a few psychology books real quick?

Wang Jiexiang was in despair.