Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 357 Beautiful Soap Bubbles
The sheriff standing behind Sun Hang immediately drew his pistol and said nervously, "Weird, weird, weird... Weird thing?!"

"Don't be nervous, it's not a ghost." Sun Hang waved his hand, signaling him to put down the gun, "It's just a baby corpse specimen."

"Just a corpse...a specimen?" The sheriff put down his gun doubtfully.

"The weird meme detection device didn't react." The investigator holding a shield beside him nodded to him, "The hunter is right, this thing is indeed not a weird thing."

Sun Hang walked forward and carefully took the glass jar out from the wall.

The glass jar was not sealed very tightly, but fortunately the gap at the mouth of the bottle was not very large, and there was a layer of wall outside to block it, so the solution in the bottle only evaporated below the bottleneck. The entire corpse specimen was still immersed in the solution and did not show any serious signs of decay.

"Give me the law enforcement recorder." Sun Hang turned and said to the sheriff.

"Oh...oh! Okay!" The sheriff immediately took off the law enforcement recorder hanging on his shoulder and handed it to Sun Hang.

Sun Hang took out his cell phone and called Song Yarong.

"Are you watching the real-time footage transmitted from the law enforcement recorder?" Sun Hang asked.

"I've been watching." Song Yarong's voice came from the headphones.

"If I'm not mistaken, the corpse specimen in this jar is Zhao Ming's daughter, Zhao Xuan." Sun Hang said.

"Looking at the size of the specimen, the baby seems to be only two or three years old... That is to say, Zhao Xuan actually died when she was very young." Song Yarong continued, "But Zhao Ming fabricated the fact that Zhao Xuan is still alive and growing up little by little... No wonder, no wonder every time he showed us photos of his daughter, he only showed us photos of her when she was a baby."

"For Zhao Ming, his daughter Zhao Xuan has never died." Sun Hang said.

"But, if that's true... Zhao Ming will not pass the routine mental status review... Those psychologists should be aware of these problems..." Song Yarong muttered softly.

"What if he is completely immersed in his own fantasy world, so perfect that even psychologists can't find any flaws?" Sun Hang asked back.

"This……"

"As the saying goes, if you want to deceive others, you must first deceive yourself... I think Zhao Ming really believes that his daughter is still alive. He believes that his daughter is growing stronger and stronger with each passing year. Just yesterday, he celebrated his daughter's ninth birthday. Under his gaze, his daughter blew out the birthday candles on the cake..."

"No, it's still not right!" Song Yarong suddenly said, "If he believed that his daughter was still alive, then why did he go to the school to ask for a long vacation with a fabricated reason after completing the admission procedures for Zhao Xuan? Could it be that a person would unconsciously make up one lie after another, and that they are logically consistent with each other? I don't think this is something that a person who has been immersed in fantasy for a long time can do!"

"No, it can be done." Sun Hang rejected Song Yarong's opinion. "He believes that Zhao Xuan is still alive, but Zhao Xuan is dead. So when Zhao Ming finds evidence that Zhao Xuan is no longer alive, he will think that these things are contrary to his cognition and belong to the bug of this world... But he can't remove this irreversible bug, so he can only try his best to fake it. After the bug is perfectly faked, he will immerse himself in the original fantasy again... It's similar to schizophrenia. One personality is a normal person, with a loving father and filial son, and a happy life... while the other person is a walking corpse without the ability to think independently, and exists simply to maintain that fantasy world."

"If it's schizophrenia, the psychological examination should reveal some clues..."

"What if his other personality is deeply buried and only emerges when he realizes that Zhao Xuan is really dead? Are you sure that the psychological examination will definitely reveal this personality? Could it be that during the psychological examination, you will ask him questions like 'If you find out that your daughter is dead, what would you do?' If that's the case, then it's a miracle that the group of psychologists in charge of the examination didn't get sacked and dragged to an alley and beaten after work."

"..." Song Yarong fell silent.

"If we bring this glass jar to Zhao Ming, we might be able to draw out his hidden personality. Unfortunately, there is no such opportunity now."

"...Speaking of which, you didn't find anything related to strange things in Zhao Ming's residence, right?"

"No, Zhao Xuan died very early. Zhao Ming's nine-year-old daughter only exists in his fantasy." Sun Hang said in his heart at the same time - the girl with the weird smile also did not exist, it was all just Zhao Ming's fantasy.

It’s just that...his fantasy seemed to have been tampered with by “someone”.

"What caused Zhao Ming to transform into a strange person...?"

"It's emotions, a sudden outburst of emotions." Sun Hang glanced at the two people behind him with the corner of his eye and said in a low voice.

Zhao Ming was not a lurker, and the piece of cake he ate was a real cake made of eggs, flour and cream, not some rotten meat with tentacles.

Except for the hidden personality that developed due to the loss of his beloved daughter, he was completely normal before his transformation - both physically and mentally.

The reason why Sun Hang could not see his negative emotions was because Zhao Ming, who was immersed in the fantasy world, did not have any negative emotions. Although the work was hard, as long as he thought about going home to see his cute and well-behaved daughter, he would feel extremely happy and satisfied, and all the negative emotions would disappear...

Although all of this was fantasy, it was these fantasies that allowed his spiritual world to be restored to its original state after its collapse.

As for the hidden personality, it was just some "residues" left over after the mental breakdown.

But that’s where the problem lies.

Zhao Ming firmly believed that Zhao Xuan was still alive. For him, this was almost as solid as a stamp of faith in his mind… But not long ago, this solid stamp of faith was easily shattered by "someone" like popping a soap bubble.

Shattering fantasies, cutting off hopes, distorting cognition... plus a few tricks, a "normal person" can degenerate into a desperate creature in the blink of an eye.

He is very sad and pitiful, but even if Sun Hang knew all this in advance, he would still kill Zhao Ming without hesitation.

He would even take the initiative to attack Zhao Ming before he could transform into a strange being.

In a case like Zhao Ming, weirdness is almost inevitable, his cognitive distortion is irreversible, and psychological counseling is completely useless - there are only two choices left for him, one is to try hard to maintain that beautiful bubble, and the other is to burst the bubble and tear open the bloody reality for him to see.

One lie needs to be covered up with more lies, and sooner or later the bubble will be burst.

Even if not today, at some point in the future, he will still become a monster.

It's just that a certain existence noticed Zhao Ming's problem and took advantage of it in advance. As for whether this existence is Chimera No. 17, it's hard to say.

Sun Hang was more inclined to believe that it was the case - otherwise, Zhao Ming would not have targeted Song Yarong as the target of attack.

If he wanted to hinder the development of PFDA, he could attack any engineer and it would be easier to succeed, but he chose Song Yarong, who was the second most difficult to kill among all the people present except Sun Hang, which is very suspicious.

It is very likely that Chimera No. 17 eavesdropped on the conversation between Sun Hang and the others through this guy and learned about the existence of such a secret that only a few people knew about - and the only people present who knew about it were Sun Hang and Song Yarong (Tang Jing, disguised as Fukada Miki, was ignored), so his only choice was Song Yarong.

The only doubt is how Chimera No. 17 controls Zhao Ming...

Sun Hang suddenly thought of the girl with a strange smile that he saw in Zhao Ming's memory...

Suppose Chimera No. 17 used his ability to slightly modify Zhao Ming's cognition and memory, and turned himself into Zhao Xuan... Then given Zhao Ming's doting on his daughter, I'm afraid he would unconditionally agree to any unreasonable request from his daughter...

"Damn, the case is solved." Sun Hang muttered softly.

"What did you say?" Song Yarong asked on the other end of the phone.

"I said, the clues are broken." Sun Hang said, "Zhao Ming is a mental patient, and his daughter Zhao Xuan is a baby girl who died young. What a pitiful family. The whole thing has no direct connection with other weird things... He simply realized that his daughter was really dead, couldn't stand the shock, fell into madness, and then became weird... It's just that in the later process, Chimera No. 17 took advantage of it..."

"Taken advantage of? What do you mean?"

"If there hadn't been Chimera 17, Zhao Ming would have indiscriminately attacked all living things he saw after his transformation." Sun Hang said, "But Chimera 17 took advantage of Zhao Ming... Guess why Zhao Ming suddenly fell into madness at that time? There was nothing around that could prompt him to think of his daughter who died young."

"You mean, Chimera 17 shattered his fantasy?"

"That's right. Zhao Ming will turn into a monster sooner or later in his current state. It's just that Chimera 17 brought this time forward and used the monster Zhao Ming to attack you." Sun Hang said, "Besides that, I suspect Chimera 17 has been eyeing Zhao Ming for a long time and used him to eavesdrop on our conversation."

"Hiss..." Song Yarong couldn't help but take a breath.

"I know it's hard to prevent, but we should try to prevent it as much as possible. We should strengthen personnel review and confidentiality, and try not to say anything when we are not at work... After all, if there is the first Zhao Ming, there will be the second and third..." At this point, Sun Hang suddenly paused, "Tsk, this is disgusting."

"What's so gross?"

"I suddenly realized that Chimera No. 17 is killing two birds with one stone. In fact, the other purpose is its main purpose... and this is an open conspiracy, a conspiracy that we cannot detect even if we see through it." Sun Hang frowned.

"What you want to say is... a crisis of trust between people?"

"Right... When everyone starts to be wary of their colleagues, how much do you think the progress of the pesticide program will be slowed down?"

"Then...should we still make this public?"

"You decide. Maybe ask those old guys in Tianshu Tower how to solve this problem... They should be quite experienced in this regard." Sun Hang returned the law enforcement recorder to the sheriff. "I'm tired. I'm going to go home and rest after get off work."

"Okay... I'll contact Tianshu Tower right now." After Song Yarong said this, she simply hung up the phone.

Sun Hang turned around and looked at the sheriff and another investigator standing in the room.

The two looked at each other for a few seconds, then shook their heads at the same time: "Let's just pretend we didn't hear anything. We know nothing."

"Logically, I should have asked you to sign a confidentiality agreement, but that thing is very troublesome and may not be useful... Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not that I think you can't control your mouth, but there are some things that can dig out memories from your brain without your consent... So, the safest way is..."

There was a flash of fear in the eyes of both of them.

"Snapped."

Sun Hang snapped his fingers, and the fear in the eyes of the two quickly turned into confusion.

Sun Hang handed the glass jar in his hand to the sheriff and said, "Collect evidence and record what needs to be recorded. When you are done, go to the incinerator and burn the specimen. Find a cleaner place to bury it."

"Okay, okay." The sheriff took the glass jar blankly, "Then do we still need to continue investigating Zhao Ming's residence?"

"For me, this matter is over. But if you still have some procedural things to do, you can do as you please." After Sun Hang finished speaking, he put his hands in his pockets and walked towards the door.

He was a little confused. Ever since the Chen Hongjuan incident, he had been thinking about a question - why would humans become monsters because of some "negative emotions" that seemed to have no impact on the real world at all?

What are the conditions for the transformation of strange things? What is the essence of strange things?
Last time, Old Man Pei told Sun Hang about the evil thoughts of human beings, but it was as if he hadn’t said anything… He talked a lot, but he didn’t explain how these evil thoughts turned people into monsters…

Evil thoughts can make people commit crimes and do all kinds of things that break moral bottom lines and violate ethics...but how do evil thoughts make a tongue with sharp teeth grow in a person's throat?
This damn thing even changed the species?

Sun Hang was stunned for a moment, and suddenly he thought of his abilities.

May all your wishes come true?

Those people think all kinds of ugly things, so they become ugly monsters?

Um? ?

(End of this chapter)