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Luo Hai didn’t agree to Zheng Mingyi’s request, taking him to the opposite infirmary.

In the end, less than ten minutes later, Luo Hai brought Zheng Mingyi back, nursing a headache as he told Jiang Chijing, “I can’t get through to him. You do it.”

A question mark floated above Jiang Chijing’s head.

“I asked him whether he tended to be punctual or late when going out with someone, and he said he doesn’t go out with anyone. I asked him if he believes in intuition or experience, and he said he believes in data.”

Jiang Chijing had a general idea of why Luo Hai would be having a headache. It was practically the same as the way he was like just now. The only difference was that after a few questions, Zheng Mingyi started to cooperate with his tempo, but from the looks of it, Zheng Mingyi had no intention of cooperating with Luo Hai.

“You do it,” Luo Hai put the tablet on Jiang Chijing’s office desk, sharply turning on his heels to leave. “Hurry up and finish it then send him back to the confinement cell.”

The prison guard who had escorted Zheng Mingyi over had been guarding the hallway for a good chunk of the day. Jiang Chijing inclined his head just in time to see that man looking at his watch, obviously growing impatient in the wait.

He sighed helplessly, lifting his chin at Zheng Mingyi. “Go sit over there.”

Zheng Mingyi walked over and sat down in the same seat from earlier, quietly waiting for Jiang Chijing to ask him questions, not appearing in the slightest like an inmate who wasn’t cooperating with the guards.

It was exactly this sort who were the hardest to work with, because it was impossible to tell whether their lack of cooperation was deliberate or not.

“If you find that someone has a problem, would you (A) point it out politely, (B) point it out bluntly?” Afraid that Zheng Mingyi would jerk him back and forth again, Jiang Chijing swiftly added, “Don’t tell me that you’re too lazy to care about other people’s problems.”

Actually, Zheng Mingyi had already opened his mouth to answer at the same moment that Jiang Chijing added the latter sentence, but Jiang Chijing’s elaboration had interrupted the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

He paused and, instead of answering, asked back, “How do you know that I’m too lazy to care about other people’s problems?”

Jiang Chijing said in his head, You are too lazy to even open the door for the community workers, how much can you care about other people?

But, of course, he still pressed without a flicker in his expression, “A or B.”

“B,” replied Zheng Mingyi.

Over the next few minutes, Jiang Chijing finished asking all of the basic personality test questions. He found that Zheng Mingyi’s personality wasn’t as unpredictable as he had imagined, but unquestionably calm, rational, perceptive, and then with just that little bit of a leap.

However, following this, the style of the questions gradually became strange.

“Normally, how…” Coming to this point, Jiang Chijing couldn’t help but frown, squinting his eyes and moving closer to the screen, at first thinking that he had read it wrongly. “…frequently do you masturbate?”

Even Jiang Chijing felt particularly awkward asking such a question.

It would have been fine if it was any other inmate, but the one sitting in front of him was once the object of his voyeurism. For him to ask this question made it seem like he was openly prying into someone else’s privacy.

But the question still had to be asked, because many people who were psychologically abnormal had needs that were above and beyond the norm sexually.

“(A) Everyday, (B) often, (C) occasionally.” Jiang Chijing read out the options.

Originally, they had already established a quick rhythm of question and answer, but when this question came out, Zheng Mingyi didn’t immediately respond, but turned it back to him, “What about you?”

“Me?” Jiang Chijing instantly had a feeling that he was being affronted and a thick defence was raised in his mind.

Nietzsche had famously said that when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. This quote could have many ways of interpretation, but leaving the esoteric philosophical notion aside, the literal meaning of the quote was very much like the situation the two of them were in now.

Jiang Chijing was used to gazing at Zheng Mingyi. But when Zheng Mingyi started to gaze back at him, his first instinct was wariness.

If any other inmate were to ask him this question, he wouldn’t be so sensitive, much less feel like his tail had been trodden on.

“I’m the one asking you.” Naturally, Jiang Chijing didn’t answer, his voice a little stern as he said, “Don’t change the subject.”

That faint, almost-but-not-quite smile appeared on Zheng Mingyi’s face again, just like when they were staring each other down before.

The corners of his lips curled very slightly upwards, in a radian that could barely be considered one, but the changes in his facial lines and the wandering light in his eyes told Jiang Chijing: Zheng Mingyi knew something, and he found it very interesting.

“C, occasionally.”

Zheng Mingyi finally gave an answer, breaking the stifling atmosphere between them.

Jiang Chijing secretly sighed in relief inside, hurriedly clicking to flip to the next question, only to unexpectedly see that the next question was still in the same category.

“When you are…” The two words on the screen were really too hard for Jiang Chijing to pull from between his teeth, so he had to say it in a euphemistic manner. “…having relations with someone, do you prefer to (A) leave the lights on, (B) turn the lights off.”

“I’m fine with either, I can go with whichever the other party prefers.” At this, Zheng Mingyi seemed to be aware that Jiang Chijing wouldn’t be satisfied with his answer, then supplementing, “Don’t you prefer it with the lights off? I’ll choose B, then.”

If he previously felt like his tail had been trodden on, then right now he felt like needles were pricking his back.

The logic in Zheng Mingyi’s answer still leapt as it always had, but this time, Jiang Chijing knew that his motive was certainly not that simple.

The encounters that two of them had could be counted on one hand, so how could Zheng Mingyi have deduced whether or not he liked the lights off?

Just like the way that Jiang Chijing analysed people; if it weren’t for someone yawning non-stop, he wouldn’t guess that person’s activities the night before for no reason.

Every conjecture had its trigger—or, better put, a sign, a signal.

Without the prerequisite of there being any signal, Zheng Mingyi couldn’t have associated Jiang Chijing with turning off the lights.

So was it really the slip-up in the recreation room that made Zheng Mingyi want to sound him out?

Utmost composure rested in Jiang Chijing’s heart. No matter what, he would never reveal another opening.

He lifted his gaze, looking straight into Zheng Mingyi’s eyes, saying expressionless, “Are you sexually harassing a prison officer now?”

Zheng Mingyi tilted his head slightly with curiosity in his eyes. “So are you going to beat me with a baton?”

The last time that Jiang Chijing used a baton to beat someone was because the thug had groped his ass. If he battered an inmate just by these few words of provocation, he’d surely have been complained about and lost his job long before now.

Since Zheng Mingyi was looking forward to seeing how he’d react, he refused to show him any reaction.

Jiang Chijing indifferently shifted his gaze away, continuing to ask the next question, “Which of the following items excites you? (A) Children’s socks, (B) female underwear, (C) male uniform, (D) none of the above.”

Seeing option A, Jiang Chijing inadvertently thought to himself that this was indeed a test for perversions in psychology.

All of a sudden, he was a little anxious as to whether Zheng Mingyi would give a dangerous answer, but it was relieving that Zheng Mingyi didn’t hesitate, straightaway giving him an alphabet. “C.”

Fortunately, he wasn’t a pervert.

Otherwise, Jiang Chijing really couldn’t accept that he had secretly watched a pervert for so long.

Eh, hang on. He seemed to have skipped over a key piece of information.

Male uniform?

Without batting an eyelid, Jiang Chijing glanced down at the dark grey uniform he was wearing on himself. Inexplicably feeling very uneasy, he hastily moved on to the next question.

Not long later, the questions with regards to sexual attraction finally concluded. But the next section was even more complicated. Sometimes, a single question would examine multiple aspects at the same time, and the speed with which Zheng Mingyi answered also slowed noticeably.

“If someone was cursing your significant other to their face, would you (A) pretend not to have heard, (B) try to reason things out with the other party, (C) sit back and watch the show, (D) pull out the other party’s tongue?”

Zheng Mingyi mulled over it for a moment before asking, “Can’t I knock his teeth in? It’s a little disgusting to pull out his tongue.”

Jiang Chijing said, “There isn’t this option.”

Zheng Mingyi said, “B, then. Reason things out with the other party.”

Jiang Chijing was slightly surprised. He thought that Zheng Mingyi would choose D.

The questions in the last section were largely related to violence, and Zheng Mingyi’s answers were always quite different from what Jiang Chijing expected.

For example, one of the questions went: If you come across your enemy about to fall off a cliff, would you (A) pretend not to have seen, (B) remind the other party, (C) push him down?

 Zheng Mingyi’s answer was to remind the other party, but this obviously contradicted Jiang Chijing’s understanding of him.

Previously, when Zheng Mingyi was fighting with the black-clothed man, when the other was already in a disadvantageous position, he had still knocked the other down from the second floor. How could someone like this show kindness to his enemies?

As it turned out, Jiang Chijing was right. Luo Hai also felt that there was something afoot.

After the assessment report came out, Luo Hai took several sheets of A4 paper to the library, asking Jiang Chijing, “It says here that he’s someone with a gentle disposition. Do you believe it?”

“Nope,” Jiang Chijing said point-blank.

If Zheng Mingyi had a gentle disposition, then Old Nine wouldn’t have needed external hospitalisation.

“Do you know what feeling he gives me?” Luo Hai nudged his glasses. “I think that he’s picking the correct answer.”

“Rather, the safe answer,” said Jiang Chijing.

The results of the psychology assessment would affect Zheng Mingyi’s treatment in prison in the future. Naturally then, the more normal his answers were; the better.

This situation was similar to artificial intelligence and the Turing Test. ‘Actually thinking’ artificial intelligence would be able to understand the implications of the Turing Test, thus even if it could pass the test, it would choose to pretend that it couldn’t and hide itself, pursuing the safest consequence.

“You think so too, huh.” Luo Hai said grimly, “He’s consciously beautifying the results of his psych eval. Taking his dyslexia and not knowing to moderate his strength when fighting into account, I feel that he should be classified as an inmate with extremely high-risk level.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jiang Chijing didn’t agree with Luo Hai. “It’s only his answers in the last section which are unreliable, he shouldn’t be hiding anything in the earlier sections.”

“But the last section concerns violence. Which might mean to say that he potentially has a proclivity for violence.”

Jiang Chijing declined to comment. He didn’t side with Luo Hai’s opinion only because he felt that it wasn’t as complicated as Luo Hai was making it out to be.

Currently, the only two times that Zheng Mingyi had acted out against someone had the precondition that they were the ones who provoked him first. While his counterattack might have been excessively vicious, this only showed that he lacked compassion for his enemies.

If it were Jiang Chijing, when facing such a probing and critical psychology assessment, he would also prefer not to expose his lack of compassion.

It was similar to someone discovering his voyeurism. If someone came with the objective to assess him for voyeuristic tendencies, he would naturally hide himself away.

Hiding was only a self-defence mechanism. It wasn’t representative of a psychological problem.

Jiang Chijing didn’t feel that he had a problem. Similarly, he didn’t feel that Zheng Mingyi had a problem.

“You don’t agree,” Luo Hai could read the expression on Jiang Chijing’s face, mocking, “Why? Did you get blinded by his beauty?”

The corners of Jiang Chijing’s lips twitched, speechless. “No way.”

“However, the results of the eval have to be sent to a professional psychiatrist. What my opinion is is unimportant.”

“As long as you understand that.”

“Though…” Luo Hai drawled, as if deliberately hanging him in suspense. “Your reaction is suddenly giving me a kind of feeling.”

“What?”

“You and he are alike.”

Jiang Chijing’s bafflement showed on his face. He heard Luo Hai say, “The 90% above the surface is very normal, but there’s still the 10% beneath the surface that you insist on hiding.”

Jiang Chijing immediately understood what Luo Hai meant. The reason that the two of them had broken up was largely in part because Jiang Chijing wasn’t willing to bare his heart to Luo Hai.

When put into perspective like this, it did seem to be as Luo Hai said—while speaking in defence of Zheng Mingyi in his head, he was actually also speaking in defence of himself.

“Do you feel that I’m dangerous?” Jiang Chijing asked, watching Luo Hai.

“Not really,” Luo Hai pondered.

“Then isn’t it fine?”

Jiang Chijing lazily looked away. But all of a sudden, he heard Luo Hai click his tongue meaningfully at this time.

Perplexed, he looked back at Luo Hai, only to see that Luo Hai was looking at him with distress written all over his face, saying, “You’re actually speaking up for an inmate. I knew it, you’ve really been blinded by his beauty.”