Psychotherapy

Yue Wuhuan had a long history of failed suicide attempts. His mental state was abysmal, and when an episode struck, he could not control his own actions, so his promises could not be fully trusted.

The Joyous Union Brand could prevent suicide, but it required activating the divine-sense bead. That would worsen Yue Wuhuan's mental state even further and make him distrust treatment forever. It was the worst possible means of preventing suicide.

Song Qingshi immediately struck the Joyous Union Brand from the list of options. Other methods with similar effects were likewise meant for torturing one's enemies, no different in essence from the Joyous Union Brand. He had also considered other ways of treating psychological pain, such as hypnosis or entering the sea of consciousness to erase those unbearable memories. But hypnosis was easily broken, and the pain would be worse upon waking; wiping away memories also damaged the spiritual consciousness. Yue Wuhuan had been taken on as Xie Que's disciple at the age of eight. There were simply too many memories to erase. If they were forcibly wiped, there was a ninety-nine percent chance he would become an idiot...

Once every unsuitable option had been eliminated, only modern psychology remained.

Psychology was Song Qingshi's weakest subject. It was not that his written-test scores were poor; psychology emphasized communicating with patients on a mental level and analyzing their inner selves. He could not even solve his own social anxiety, and he was tongue-tied and unable to read the room. He had learned only the barest basics. How could he possibly handle a problem as impossibly difficult as Yue Wuhuan?

Once again, top student Song tasted the terror of being dominated by a difficult problem. He even dreamed of failing the course.

He swiftly removed everything Yue Wuhuan could use to kill himself from his sleeping quarters. Every day, he scanned Yue Wuhuan's vital signs over and over with his divine sense, terrified that one moment of inattention would leave him dead. Then one day, he found Yue Wuhuan blankly staring at the koi pond, lost in thought, and decided to treat a dead horse as if it were alive. Ready or not, he had to tackle it.

Thus, the unreliable psychologist Song was forced to open for business...

Song Qingshi carefully organized a treatment plan. He added medicines that settled the mind and calmed the qi to Yue Wuhuan's medicinal decoctions, and used soul-calming incense every night to help him sleep, greatly reducing how often nightmares jolted him awake. Then, from the few psychotherapeutic methods he knew, he eliminated one unsuitable or impossible approach after another, finally deciding to try rational emotive behavior therapy.

Rational emotive behavior therapy was a form of cognitive therapy created in the 1950s by Dr. Ellis. It emphasized the role of individual will and reason. Treatment first required establishing a good working relationship with the patient and helping him build self-confidence. Then one had to overturn his mistaken self-perceptions, and finally encourage him to develop correct self-knowledge and return to a normal life.

The theory sounded simple enough. Putting it into practice was harder than climbing to heaven.

Song Qingshi's preferred way to relieve stress was studying and doing problems. He racked his brains for a long time before finding inspiration in the girls who had struck up conversations with him in the library—he could pick an extremely difficult book, pretend not to understand it, and ask Yue Wuhuan about it. After receiving an answer he did not know, he could naturally invite him to search the library stacks together for the answer, then guide him, during the search, to experience the joy of knowledge, build confidence in the sacred hall of wisdom, and together reach bliss in the sea of learning.

There had once been a girl who persistently tried to strike up conversations with Song Qingshi. Every day, he encouraged her to study seriously and taught her to grind through practice papers and solve problems. The girl's grades improved enormously, and she was eventually admitted to graduate school at a top university. At her graduation ceremony, she had wept with gratitude, saying Song Qingshi had cured her love-struck illness.

Love-struck illness was a type of mental illness too, right?

Thinking of that accidentally cured case, Song Qingshi suddenly gained a bit more confidence.

...

The original owner of this body had also been a bookworm. Medicine King Valley's library held tens of thousands of volumes, the overwhelming majority related to medicine and poisons.

Afraid of making it seem as though he were deliberately giving Yue Wuhuan a hard time, Song Qingshi did not dare choose a professional text. He picked and sorted for half a day before finally finding, among the miscellaneous books gathering dust in a corner, an immortal-realm travelogue called Records of Fleeting Lives at Jade Terrace.

This travelogue had been written several thousand years ago by an immortal venerable of the Confucian school. It depicted a certain immortal paradise, with florid prose and obscure allusions. Song Qingshi had always favored science over literature, was severely deficient in romantic sensibility, never studied poetry, lyrics, or songs, and knew nothing of this world's literary works or historical allusions. He found the piece utterly baffling, though it seemed to be a very refined description of scenery such as flowers, grass, and trees.

Yue Wuhuan had completed five medicinal-bath treatments. The residual medicinal effects in his body had dissipated, and he was presently recuperating as he awaited the future Six-Meridian Restoration Decoction.

Once he was certain Song Qingshi had no designs on his body, he put away his seductive manner. He bound all his hair neatly in a green-jade crown, refusing to let even a single strand fall out of place. He would wear only the plainest green robes, their high collars locking away his Adam's apple without showing the slightest hint of skin. He was like an ascetic cultivator who strictly observed every rule: unwilling to say half a sentence too much, unwilling to take half a step wrong. No ripple of emotion could be seen in his eyes. His face was cold as frost, and everything about him radiated a refusal to let anyone come within a thousand miles.

Although Song Qingshi had refused to let him call himself "this slave," saying he was not used to it, Yue Wuhuan merely lowered his head and answered with the utmost respect, "Yes." "Very well." And so on...

Holding the book, Song Qingshi hid in a corner and secretly observed him for a long time. He feared Yue Wuhuan's feigned licentiousness, feared his genuine coldness even more, and most of all feared being rejected when he spoke. Every time he approached, he had to do a great deal of mental preparation first.

Yue Wuhuan sat dazed in a corner of the covered corridor. Sensing the gaze spying on him, he could not help lifting his head for a look.

Song Qingshi gave an awkward smile and walked over stiffly, moving the arm and leg on the same side together. Taking a deep breath, he hypnotized himself into believing he had run into Senior Yue Wuhuan at the library. Then he gathered his courage, opened the book, handed it over, and said, "I can't understand this passage. Could you help me interpret it?"

Yue Wuhuan watched his actions thoughtfully, feeling more and more that he could not understand this person.

Rubbing his fingertips together, Song Qingshi said nervously, "Of course, if you don't understand it, I—we can just..."

"Let me see." Yue Wuhuan took the book and skimmed several lines. His expression froze slightly. Then he gave Song Qingshi a strange look and explained it word by word. "Jade Terrace refers to the Jade Terrace Immortal Realm. Legend has it that the Jade Terrace Immortal Emperor was exceedingly fond of beautiful people and often assumed a mortal form to descend to the human world, inviting beautiful cultivators to share in 'the pleasures of fish and water'—an erotic liaison. This piece is an erotic fantasy in which Immortal Venerable Hongwen imagines meeting the Jade Terrace Immortal Emperor. It uses scenery to write of events and objects to allude to people. Among it, 'jade soft, flower slanting, falling' refers to..."

The more Song Qingshi heard, the more bewildered he became. He had never read any improper materials in his life—how had he managed to pick one at random and immediately crash and burn? When he came back to himself, Yue Wuhuan had already reached the passage euphemistically describing sex as 'overturning clouds and rain.' Song Qingshi hastily snatched the book back, hid it behind his back, burned it to ashes with a single flame, shook the ashes into the wind, and pretended nothing had happened.

The two stared at each other in speechless silence for a full two quarters of an hour.

He was supposed to be conducting psychotherapy, yet he had handed an improper book to a patient with psychological trauma in that area. It was simply a major blow.

Song Qingshi was both regretful and mortified. His ears burned; he could not speak. He wanted to cry, but he could not cry...

Yue Wuhuan recovered first. He looked at Song Qingshi's expression, realized it was a misunderstanding, and comforted him. "Immortal Venerable Hongwen's writing is rather... well, most of his works describe landscapes and travel. This one is only an exception. If my lord likes this style, you could read his Record of the Sea-Pearl Tower, Secret Realm of a Thousand Mountains, or Endless Sea. They are a little better..."

Song Qingshi nodded aggrievedly, indicating that he had taken note.

The two continued staring at each other in silence for another quarter of an hour. The atmosphere was extraordinarily awkward.

Song Qingshi felt they could not remain silent like this. He tried to find a bright spot in the wreckage and made awkward small talk. "What is Record of the Sea-Pearl Tower about? I've never heard of it. It sounds interesting—could you tell me?"

Yue Wuhuan fell silent for a moment. Not knowing how to describe it, he recited the entire piece to Song Qingshi.

Though Song Qingshi's talent for poetry was terrible, he was not an idiot. Once he had listened, he understood that Immortal Venerable Hongwen was no great literary master at all, merely a pedant who liked to pile beautiful words and incomprehensible allusions into his writing to feign profundity. In truth, it was empty, tedious trash.

Yue Wuhuan asked respectfully, "Would my lord like to hear anything else?"

Song Qingshi suddenly sensed that something was off. He considered himself intelligent and able to remember what he read at a glance, but that was limited to good writing. It could not be too long, and he had to read it carefully while committing it to memory. Who would go to the trouble of memorizing this kind of trash? And remember it word for word? Understand every obscure allusion? He thought of something he could scarcely believe and cautiously asked Yue Wuhuan, "Have you read a great many books? Where did you read them?"

"When I was young, I learned some things under the Grand Tutor, and I read some at Xie Que's," Yue Wuhuan replied honestly, thinking Song Qingshi was examining his past and not daring to conceal anything. "Mostly, I read at Jinfeng Mountain Manor. I... every time I served the manor lord to his satisfaction, I would ask him to permit me to enter the library and read. Please rest assured, my lord. Wuhuan knows his status is lowly and that he is fit only to read miscellaneous books. I did not dare touch any immortal-sect cultivation manuals."

Jinfeng Mountain Manor's collection was vast. Clinging to a thread of hope, he had wanted to find a way out in those books. Unfortunately, the manor's rules were strict. Those who were not disciples could not borrow books related to immortal-sect cultivation manuals, and he could only read various miscellaneous books. He had once bribed the disciples guarding the library with his body in exchange for two low-level immortal texts. But by then, more than half his cultivation had already been destroyed. The Joyous Union Brand's suppression of his soul was tyrannical. After studying them for a long time, he had ultimately gained no result.

The original owner of the body had seen the scale of Jinfeng Mountain Manor's library. It was many times larger than Medicine King Valley's, with tens of thousands of miscellaneous books alone.

Song Qingshi pressed urgently, "You remember all those books? You can recite them?"

Yue Wuhuan hesitated. "I only remember the books I have read—more than ten thousand, approximately. If my lord needs them, I can write them out from memory..."

Song Qingshi sucked in a breath, his throat tightening. He threw all treatment completely out of his mind and swiftly fetched brushes, ink of every color, and a ruler. Writing and drawing, he copied out from memory several IQ tests he had taken before, then had Yue Wuhuan do them.

When Yue Wuhuan first saw these strange diagram questions, he was utterly bewildered. After Song Qingshi taught him a few, however, he gradually got the hang of them. He completed them smoothly, his brush never stopping, and soon turned in the test.

Song Qingshi calculated the score and nearly suffocated. He had been fortunate enough to join an international high-IQ society, but he had only barely met its qualifying score. He knew he was not a genius, so he made up for his shortcomings through diligence and hard study. Yet Yue Wuhuan had casually scored 162 on the society's IQ test, matching the historical record and already entering the realm of supergeniuses. And that was without considering their different worlds and educations. There were question types he was not good at; perhaps he could score even higher...

Before, Song Qingshi had felt only pity and anguish over what Yue Wuhuan had endured. Now, however, his rawest nerve had been struck, leaving him shattered and furious. Those beasts had actually ruined a genius who might have entered the halls of science and changed history to this extent! How was that any different from handing Einstein over to savages to be eaten as meat?

What a monstrous waste! Like a cow chewing peonies! Like boiling cranes and burning zithers!

Song Qingshi was so angry that tears came to his eyes. Unable to think of any curses, he repeated over and over, "This is too much. This is too much. This is too much..."

Yue Wuhuan stared blankly at the tears in the corners of Song Qingshi's eyes, not knowing why Song Qingshi was crying.

Song Qingshi hurriedly wiped away the embarrassing tears and told him with utmost seriousness, "Wuhuan, you are exceptionally intelligent."

"My lord, it has no meaning." Yue Wuhuan steadied himself and regained his calm. He lowered his gaze slightly, thinking with some amusement that no one would care whether he was intelligent. They cared only how many tricks he could perform in bed; no one would care whether he read books. They cared only whether he could moan in ways that pleased them...

The corners of his mouth could not help curving into a mocking arc. Countless malicious thoughts surfaced in the eyes hidden in shadow. His intelligence only made him endure even more pain with greater clarity than others. "This is the Immortal Realm: a beastly world where the weak are meat for the strong."

Author's Note: Song Qingshi: I was extremely responsible back then! Every day, I made that girl do five whole sets of practice papers. That's how I cured her love-struck illness! It wasn't easy! Praise me!

P.S. Yue Wuhuan needs to do at least ten sets of practice papers every day before he'll get better, right?!