"Friedrich Nietzsche once said in his book titled 'Beyond Good and Evil'- if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Dr. Song, how would you interpret this sentence?"

Song Rui's throat started to turn dry, but he showed no panic on his face. Using the original words that accompanied this very phrase, he answered, "Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."

"Yes, those who fight against monsters should be careful not to become monsters themselves. Dr. Song Rui is right. Another adage is that the warrior who defeats the dragon will eventually become the dragon, just like the narcotics officers who fight on the front line. If they are even a little careless, they will find themselves corrupted by drug traffickers and unwittingly enter the very dirty world they seek to destroy. You are the one closest to the abyss, meaning you are also the one most easily swallowed by the abyss."

Song Rui nodded politely and listened attentively. His attitude seemed to be the same as before, but if one looked carefully, they would discover that his tautly stretched heartstrings and tensed limbs relaxed upon hearing this remark. He believed that Fan Jialuo had not seen through him, and nor did he pose much of a threat to him.

Song Rui took off his gold-rimmed glasses, wiped them slowly and then asked, "What are you trying to suggest? That I've been corrupted by criminals? That I'm a vermin hiding in the police force? That I'm not eligible to conduct this interrogation?"

Zhuang Zhen's face filled with ridicule, as if he had just heard a huge joke. He had initially thought that Fan Jialuo wanted to play some tricks, but he didn't expect that the other party was just making trouble. Did this person feel that Dr. Song's participation in the interrogation was disadvantageous for him? What he didn't know was that Dr. Song was a Special Consultant for the Ministry of Public Security. Dr. Song's family background and life experience naturally had to be clean and innocent.

Instinctively, based on her personal feelings, Liao Fang quickly denied, "Nonsense! Dr. Song is a good man!" She poked at the notes with her pen and said in a rueful voice, "You're here for the investigation, but you shouldn't try to provoke our team's internal relations!"

Fan Jialuo smiled, shook his head and then stared at Song Rui. He said slowly, "Did I say that Dr. Song was corrupted by criminals? It's Dr. Song himself who interpreted the meaning in such a way. What does it have to do with me?"

Liao Fang knocked against the table and said, "You might not have said so, but that's clearly what you implied! You need to understand that we are the ones interrogating you, it's not the other way around!"

With his hands clasped as they rested on the table, two long and thin fingers tapped against the back of his half-hidden hand. Fan Jialuo lowered his voice and said, "What I really want to ask is, Dr. Song, you joined the police and became a consultant. Every day, you have to face an endless number of criminals, fight against them and bring them to justice. But are you really doing it just for justice? Are you still standing on the edge of the abyss, or the abyss itself?"

Song Rui's dark eyes ignited in a wave of fury. The grip of the hand holding the frame of his glasses tightened so hard that he almost broke the frame. However, he was exceptionally skilled at controlling his emotions and body movement, such that Zhuang Zhen and Liao Fang did not notice his momentary gaffe.

But Fan Jialuo saw it, and he leaned back, smiling softly.

Song Rui once again wore his glasses, and spoke a lot faster this time, "I know what trick you are playing, Fan Jialuo."

He had to stop the man from continuing any further.

"Oh?" With a slight slant of his head, which showcased his beautiful jaw, Fan Jialuo said politely to Song Rui, "Please do say."

"Your so-called psychic ability is just a simple use of the mind-reading skill, which can easily be achieved by any person proficient in psychology. You've been summoned by the police once before, so you know the identities of the task force members. Through their speech and behavior, you profiled them, and extrapolated their personality traits from those observations. That's why it's not surprising that you can spot them with such accuracy.

"Liu Tao has a short temper and a unique disposition. He doesn't like to stand close to others, so he will stand to the side after entering the observation room. Xiao Li is shy and insecure, so he likes to stand in the middle of a crowd, so naturally he must be the one between Liu Tao and Yang Shengfei. This position also can't be mistaken.

"The only question left is about who will be standing in the interior part of the room and who will be closer to the door. As you stated just now, Yang Shengfei suffered from severe psychological trauma when he was young. In order to feel more secure, he would instinctively choose to stand in the position closest to an exit. So their order could be deduced as Liu Tao, Xiao Li and Yang Shengfei."

Song Rui reached out, pointed to the one-way mirror, and directed his finger to move from left to right as he said this.

Zhuang Zhen, with his hands folded against his chest, scoffed. He felt that this kind of trick would be considered very profound if it had not been exposed. Once the method was revealed, it could only be described as 'clumsy'. How capable was Fan Jialuo? Just who was Dr. Song? Did Fan Jialuo really think that he could deceive Dr. Song?

Liao Fang gazed at Song Rui with adoring eyes and sighed in her heart. Interrogation is really a technical job. These two people seem to be locked in a battle of wits!

But as the saying goes-the devil is ten feet tall whereas virtue is one foot high. It was obvious that the Bureau's Dr. Song was superior!

However, Liu Tao, standing on the other side of the mirror, shook his head and said lightly, "No, Dr. Song is not right." As for the reason why he said this, it was inexplicable. Only those who were the participants in the scene could understand the subtle feeling of being controlled by Fan Jialuo's fingertip along with being ingested by his mind.

When Fan Jialuo had pointed at them, he had pointed at the tip of their noses impartially, and had adjusted the direction according to their height or the manner in which they stood. But Song Rui pointed at them only on the basis of his conjectures, thus the direction pointed at by his finger was not exact. It was a vague indication and lacked the sudden sensation of being ensnared. It was obviously very different!

But Liu Tao was unable to explain this feeling in words, so he could only remain silent. Xiao Li also wanted to open his mouth. He seemed to want to convey a different opinion, but in the end, he didn't dare to speak.

Fan Jialuo raised his hand and gently clapped, with one sentence clearly expressed across his face-You're right, you're great!

Song Rui was immediately angered by his joking attitude, so much that he seemed to almost want to gnash his teeth, and restrained the impulse to do that with a slight twitch of the muscles on his cheek. Instead, a gentle smile bloomed across his face, in stark contrast to his following words. "I forget to mention, I'm also quite good at profiling. Oh no, according to you, this seems to be called a psychic ability? You don't mind if I read you once, right?"

With the palm of his hand facing upward and his head slightly drooping, Fan Jialuo gestured gracefully. "Please."

Song Rui stared at him for a moment, and said slowly, "You are not the same you from a month ago, right? You are a sub-personality of this body. You seem to have been sleeping for a long time, because your eyes brighten very much whenever you look around. They are full of curiosity and innocent light. You don't know anything about this outside world.

"You appear to be like a young master, or more precisely, like a noble son from the Republic of China period. Or perhaps a noble scion from the late Qing Dynasty, because you speak in a genteel way, with the special accent of that era. You were able to replace the main personality. This shows that you are a person with a strong character.

"You are happy when playing with people. You have no basic sense of morality or law. You are more similar to a beast than a human. Your body is full of cruelty. That master became your prey and was eaten by you, isn't that so?"

Zhuang Zhen's sneering expression was gradually replaced by one full of righteousness, and his sharp eagle-eyes stared at the youth sitting opposite him for a while. He finally realized just how dangerous this man was. Even if he hadn't participated in the serial killings, in a sense, he was already a criminal with blood on his hands!

Liao Fang covered her mouth in silent exclamation. From the constant glistening of her eyes, she appeared to be very frightened.

Fan Jialuo tilted his head as he hooked his lips and squinted slightly, before he clapped and praised, "Wonderful! Worthy of being the top psychologist in the world!"

Song Rui stood up, and placed his hands firmly on the table. For the first time, he spoke in an aggressive tone. "If you think so, then I advise you to speak only the facts and cease your attempts of trickery. For the remainder of this interrogation, you'll play this game by my rules, understand?"

Fan Jialuo didn't stand up, but his hands had stretched out, and he held the table lightly. His black eyes looked straight at Song Rui and without the slightest hint of arrogance, appraised him from the bottom to the top. "Dr. Song, do you think you are very strong? Ninety-nine percent of the world's people are trash to you, and the rest are objects you can observe and play with?"

Song Rui unconsciously held his breath, opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Fan Jialuo. "No, you are wrong. In my eyes, you are pitiful, just a little bit more vulnerable than the beggars on the street outside, than newborn babies, than the dying old people. Do you understand where one's greatest strength is drawn from? It comes from emotion, from consciousness, and you have neither! Let me show you just how strong emotion and consciousness can be."

Fan Jialuo suddenly turned his head to Zhuang Zhen and whispered, "You question me, despise me, guard against me and hate me. Your emotions are very strong, because they were generated by me, so then, why can't I do anything to them?"

Zhuang Zhen did not understand what the other was talking about. Then, before he could react, his hands were firmly held by the other person, and together, their hands grasped the thermos cup which he had placed at the corner of the table.

In the moment when his skin was touched by Fan Jialuo, Zhuang Zhen's whole body erupted in a layer of goosebumps, simply because the other person's temperature was too low. It was like being covered by a block of ice.

The invisible magnetic field once again wrapped around Zhuang Zhen firmly, penetrating deep into his brain and heart through his eyes, ears, mouth, nose and even every pore, stealing away all the emotions and feelings contained in these organs, and then pouring them into the thermos cup through his fingertips.

This meandering flow of emotions, coupled with his galloping thoughts, vaguely but clearly existed in each and every one of Zhuang Zhen's sensory cells. Their outflow from his body caused his whole body to become dull, making it seem as if he was wrapped in a thick film.

Only his hands, which were being covered by Fan Jialuo, remained sensitive and maintained a direct connection with the outside world. His eyes filled with horror, a storm raged through his brain and his heartbeat went completely haywire, but the two colleagues around him did not even notice the kind of tremor he was experiencing.

...