Translator: Abo Dammen
Editor: Ainden
Proofreader: Musk
Each of the three amounts of sugar called for in the cookbook such as 80, 150, and 120 grams were scratched out, leaving only 70 grams.
“Bai Tang.” Jiang Yunshu was dressed comfortably and stood by the kitchen table, holding a manual egg beater at an angle in his right hand. He displayed no emotion. His grip was firm. “Is it ready?”
Bai Tang was apron-clad and searing the butter. As soon as he heard Jiang Yunshu’s question, he extinguished the fire, moved two feet away from Jiang Yunshu, and poked his head in his direction in order to check. The cream was sparse. “Not yet. You must move your hand…in a circle-like motion.”
Jiang Yunshu stood in a relaxed posture, his figure tall and straight, and followed Bai Tang’s directions without saying anything, like a stirring machine devoid of emotion.
Bai Tang spoke in a hushed whisper, “I don’t know if Senior likes to eat this…”
He’d been talking about Zhou Zhaoyu since he woke up in the morning. Senior this senior that. “Didn’t you say it was cooked for me?” Jiang Yunshu asked, his face expressionless.
Bai Tang’s eyes curved into a lovely arc. “Hehe, let’s eat together.”
Jiang Yunshu averted his gaze. Little liar.
🍬 —🕊— 🍀
The oven had just dinged when Zhou Zhaoyu arrived. After removing his oven mitts, Bai Tang unlocked the door. “Good afternoon, Senior!”
“Good afternoon.” Zhou Zhaoyu, who was carrying a bag of fruit, stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he saw Bai Tang. “What happened?”
He noticed Bai Tang had a white clip on his slightly long bangs and a small bandage handkerchief glued to his otherwise smooth forehead.
“Ah, this,” Bai Tang touched it with his hand, “I bumped my head myself yesterday…”
“Did you really bump it yourself?” Qin Zhongnan leaned against the doorframe, his gold-rimmed glasses chains swaying. He cast a meaningful glance behind him at Jiang Yunshu.
Bai Tang raised his hands to stop Qin Zhongnan and Jiang Yunshu from staring at each other, arguing, “It was really me.”
The two of them got the gist of what happened yesterday after listening to Bai Tang stammer. “What he did yesterday is also one of the steps in the desensitisation treatment,” Zhou Zhaoyu explained, “but it is too much for Bai Tang’s current tolerance level.”
“The treatment that we’re going to do is called systematic desensitisation,” Zhou Zhaoyu explained to the two people sitting on the opposite side of the sofa. “First and foremost, we must assist Bai Tang in creating a fear hierarchy, and the first step in doing so is to identify all of the people and things that make Bai Tang feel scared or anxious. The second step will be to categorise the reported horror or anxiety events and order them from least to most intense. To quantify the degree of subjective anxiety, we will use a 5-point scale and a percentage breakdown.“
“There are two types of treatment methods: imaginal exposure and exposure therapy. Mr. Jiang, your cooperation is required for exposure therapy.”
Jiang Yunshu answered, “Okay.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“But first,” Zhou Zhaoyu stared at Jiang Yunshu, “we need to use hypnosis to determine whether you’re really not Jiang Yunsu. Is that something you can do, Mr. Jiang?”
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Jiang Yunshu approached the stairwell. “Is the bedroom all right?”
Qin Zhongnan, “Kay. Is it okay with you if Bai Tang listens in? This will allow him to strengthen his sense of reality.”
“Sure.”
Bai Tang took out a few cupcakes from the oven and placed them in front of Zhou Zhaoyu, then trailed behind the two alphas, suppressing his discomfort at being alone in the room with them.
Qin Zhongnan asked, “Have you ever been hypnotised before?”
Jiang Yunshu answered, “Yes.”
The other three were all taken aback.
Zhou Zhaoyu peeled the cupcake paper away. Hypnosis patients typically do so for one of three reasons: One was for the treatment of mental health issues like anxiety and depression, another was for the treatment of chronic pain, and the third was for the management of certain allergic reactions and chronic insomnia.
Qin Zhongnan continued to ask, “When did you do it?”
Jiang Yunshu paused for a moment to remember. “12 years old.”
Bai Tang looked at the alpha’s back in astonishment.
Further discussion during this session would involve the patient’s personal privacy. Qin Zhongnan asked no further questions. He drew the curtains, arranged the surroundings, and then let Jiang Yunshu lie on the bed after obtaining his permission. “Okay, relax, but don’t fall asleep. I need your complete trust and undivided attention.”
Bai Tang hid in the shadows, breathing lightly and daring not to make a sound for fear of disturbing them.
As the hypnosis progressed, Bai Tang clearly saw that Jiang Yunshu’s expression gradually became empty.
“Your name is?”
“Jiang Yunshu.”
“Age.”
“29 years old.”
“Your occupation is?”
“Surgical oncologist doctor.”
Jiang Yunshu’s answers to the following questions were the same ones he gave to Bai Tang. After each response from the person in the bed, Bai Tang felt as though his entire body had been exposed to the sun, and his heart rate rose accordingly. The warm light slowly enveloped him, as if buds sprouted from dry branches. Surviving what seemed like an impossible situation caused an uncontrollable outpouring of relief and joy from within him that left him with a burning nose.
It’s real. Everything here, it’s all real.
Qin Zhongnan also asked some subjective questions, such as “Do you have evil intentions towards Bai Tang?”, “Do you have any other purposes for getting close to him”, “Will you be harming Bai Tang?” and so on. Jiang Yunshu replied without hesitation, “No.”
Qin Zhongnan asked Jiang Yunshu, who had not yet recovered from hypnosis, “Do you feel uncomfortable?”
Jiang Yunshu slowly shook his head.
“Then take a rest before coming down,” Qin Zhongnan said, then turned his head to look another glance at Bai Tang. “Are you going to wait for him here?”
Bai Tang sniffed, “I’ll wait here…”
The door closed.
There was an alpha sleeping on the inside. Bai Tang stepped his toes on the carpet, then lightly walked over, knelt on both knees, and leaned over softly on the outer bed. The cut of his white T-shirt accentuated the delicate butterfly shape of his shoulder blades. “…Thank you.”
Jiang Yunshu had yet to sober up. “Hhm?”
“Thank you for coming… Thank you.” Bai Tang buried his face in his arms, his voice heavy and nasal. A glimmer of tears fell from his eyes.
By the time they got down, Zhou Zhaoyu had already accepted this unscientific natural phenomenon.
Qin Zhongnan was dissatisfied. “Little student Bai Tang, why don’t I have a cupcake?”
Bai Tang hurriedly went to the kitchen to bring out some delicious cupcakes, and specially took out one and placed it before Jiang Yunshu. The latter sat up straight and reached out to take it.
Zhou Zhaoyu gave Bai Tang and Jiang Yunshu a document, which had the explanation and examples of systematic desensitisation.
“We need to give Bai Tang an opposite stimulus to his fear and anxiety so that he can gradually eliminate his anxiety and fear and no longer be sensitive to harmful stimuli and produce pathological reactions.”
“Given the fantastic nature of the situation, we can only think about this individually. Bai Tang is terrified of Jiang Yunsu and his body. 70% of his fear originally came from Jiang Yunsu. Jiang Yunsu is no longer alive in this case. Bai Tang also knows about him being replaced,” Zhou Zhaoyu narrated. “Simply put, we need to increase the physical contact between Bai Tang and this body and adjust it over time. And you, Mr. Jiang, should act completely different from Jiang Yunsu in order to mitigate Bai Tang’s negative impression of that body.”
Bai Tang and Jiang Yunshu both had facial expressions that were difficult to put into words.
“Of course,” Zhou Zhaoyu continued, “If the way you both will get along in the future is to mind your own business, and your physical distance is greater than two metres, then doing these things are unnecessary. It takes time and effort.”
Bai Tang first raised his trembling hand. “I-I still want to do it…”
Jiang Yunshu glanced at Bai Tang, then hummed dully, “Mhm.”
Qin Zhongnan raised his eyebrows and took a bite of the cupcake, as if he was amused by this unexpected situation.
“Okay. There is almost no difference between the two names Jiang Yunsu and Jiang Yunshu.” Zhou Zhaoyu nudged away Heitang who kept on sniffing his hand. “When you call out Jiang Yunshu, you will definitely think of Jiang Yunsu, so I suggest that you call him by a nickname in private.”
Bai Tang was a little confused. “What nickname?”
Zhou Zhaoyu responded, “You guys should think about it yourselves. Also, next week, you guys can have some relatively simple physical contact, such as touching hands and legs, until Bai Tang has no uncomfortable psychological reactions or physical reactions such as withdrawing in fear of these actions.”
Speaking of which. He paused, and then added, “It’s a very pure, literal ‘touching’. And then, I will come over every week to do imaginal exposure therapy with Bai Tang.”
Jiang Yunshu nodded and said, “Thank you for your time, Professor Zhou.”
Zhou Zhaoyu replied, “You’re welcome.”
Because Zhou Zhaoyu and Qin Zhongnan had other matters to attend to at night, they didn’t stay long.
After they left, the house became very silent. Bai Tang was sitting on the sofa at one end, and Jiang Yunshu was sitting on the other end. The two of them maintained their silence, obviously digesting the plethora of information that Zhou Zhaoyu had just said.
As the minute hand ticked, Bai Tang suddenly spoke, “… Angel.”
Jiang Yunshu lifted his head. “What?”
Bai Tang’s eyes were bright, as if he had finally come up with a satisfactory nickname, his gaze at Jiang Yunshu full of expectation. “Angel…Angel Jiang.”
Jiang Yunshu was rarely a little spacey. “….Ah?”
Author’s Feed:
Using hypothetical questions during hypnosis will arouse the subconscious resistance of the client. At this time, the client will have the risk of getting out of the hypnotic state that’s why positive, open questions or directions are generally used to guide the hypnosis. Hypnosis is neither a truth serum nor an enchantment method. A human’s subconscious mind has a defence mechanism. Directions that you don’t want or that don’t align with your values will spark resistance.
Hypnosis is actually a very normal and comfortable feeling. It can not only heal past pain, but also replenish your positivity.
———Layman explanation from a hypnotist reader.
(Of course, go to a regular hospital!!!)
(In the novel, in order to promote the development of the plot and let Bai Tang realise that Angel Jiang will not hurt him, I used very direct questions. In reality, hypnosis is not like this.)
All relevant knowledge related to psychology came from Baidu, please don’t take it seriously. Please seek medical treatment immediately if you have any questions!
Can I just assume we all got a little emotional when Angel Yunshu and Bai Tang made cupcakes together? I love where this is going.
Thank You for the new chapter (♡ ὅ ◡ ὅ )ʃ♡
Can confirm, hypnosis is very nice. Too bad I haven’t been able to get into trance since last summer (I don’t have the patience)🥲
Hypnosis isn’t what is seen in the mainstream media, you can wake yourself up (I count from 1 to 10), and you won’t do anything you don’t want to. It’s like meditating, the only difference is that your mind is exposed to triggers and you can use it to help yourself in different parts of your life (quitting addictions, self-esteem, etc.). More people should try it! Very relaxing
Also I said I haven’t been able to get into trance, but humans actually experience light trances everyday! I just meant a deep one lol
Thanks