Chapter 585: Let Me Give You a Checkup, Wu Chen!

Chapter 585: Let Me Give You a Checkup, Wu Chen!

Guessing what number the other person had written was a game both fascinating and “boring.” Like a magic trick performed to liven up a drinking party, it struck some people as utterly dull—what difference did it make whether the guess was right or wrong? Others, however, never tired of it and threw themselves into the game.

Among people considered “successful,” the former attitude was usually the more common one.

Li Ruobing belonged to that first camp. Not because she commanded immense wealth or status, but simply because she had never possessed the leisure—or the inclination—for such diversions.

Xia Jinyu, on the other hand… was no ordinary successful person. Yet because of her profession and life experience, she enjoyed the little pleasures of the human world. Only in this way could she keep in check, just a little, the heart that had seen too much ugliness and had nearly become disillusioned with the world.

Even Xia Jinyu herself did not know that she had once played countless little games with this very same man. From rock-paper-scissors to betting on whether the person about to leave a café would step out with their left foot or right; from guessing numbers to betting on whether someone was telling the truth.

All of it had been swallowed by the resets of the time loop.

…

“I guess the number you wrote is… three!” Wu Chen said with a smile, looking at Xia Jinyu.

“Mr. Wu… are you sure?” Xia Jinyu smiled back. It was an artificial mask from which no one could deduce a single thing.

“Of course.” Wu Chen smiled, entirely casual and supremely confident.

At that moment, Li Ruobing was the most nervous person in the entire private dining room—in truth, the only nervous one. Her feelings were subtle and tangled. While she did not care that Wu Chen had other women, she genuinely disliked Xia Jinyu.

Yet she still could not bear to see her man lose!

“Mr. Wu,” Xia Jinyu smiled, “you are far too confident.”

With that, she picked up the folded slip she had earlier tossed onto the table, unfolded it, held it up by its two corners to wave it before Wu Chen, and tossed it back down. The number inscribed upon it was five.

Li Ruobing glanced at it, her brow furrowing instinctively.

Wu Chen had guessed wrong. He had lost again! Earlier, when Xia Jinyu had challenged him to guess the last photo on her phone, Wu Chen had directly backed down, which counted as a loss. Now he had lost once more. Twice in a row. Something was deeply wrong.

Li Ruobing had never seen Wu Chen lose like this.

Not a single time.

Let alone twice in such rapid succession.

Why was he doing this?!

Could this possibly be his way of winning Xia Jinyu over?! There was zero logic to it! Xia Jinyu’s personality was painfully obvious: anyone who lost to her, no matter how brilliantly they had postured before, would be written off as boring. They would become indistinguishable from the rest of the herd, and Xia Jinyu would lose all interest.

“Oh? Mr. Wu! Aren’t you embarrassed?” Xia Jinyu asked. Her voice remained gentle, yet the teasing and mockery within it rang all the more pronounced.

“What is there to be embarrassed about?” Wu Chen replied, his smile unwavering.

“You are always bragging about yourself. One rarely encounters someone as arrogant as you,” Xia Jinyu continued. “I must admit, you seemed quite remarkable at the start. Yet in the end, your own arrogance made you lose this round! A little boy like you… heh.”

Xia Jinyu had even altered the way she addressed him!

Little boy!

Given Xia Jinyu’s age and her standing as a university professor, calling a twenty-two-year-old man who had graduated from college only a few months prior a “little boy” was not entirely unreasonable.

Yet when applied to Wu Chen…

It’s over, Li Ruobing murmured silently in her heart.

Clearly, Wu Chen had botched it. It truly was over.

Once an impression solidified, it was notoriously difficult to overturn. Normally, it required a prolonged span of time. Yet Wu Chen plainly did not have that luxury; once this meal concluded, Xia Jinyu would likely never grant this “stranger” another audience.

“I let you win,” Wu Chen smiled.

“You certainly have some nerve,” Xia Jinyu smiled back.

“Truly! I kept winning earlier, and you couldn’t beat me no matter what. Out of basic courtesy, it was only proper to let you win once or twice. Besides, I believe the number three carries special significance for you!” Wu Chen smiled. “Professor Xia, you are already in your thirties. You remain captivating, of course, but how many more decades do you have ahead of you? Life is short, Professor Xia…”

Xia Jinyu’s expression grew ever more impassive.

Li Ruobing felt as though she could scarcely bear to listen.

What on earth are you doing, big brother?!

Just what are you playing at?!

How could a single speech contain so many glaring blunders?!

Xia Jinyu was an exceptionally proud woman; she plainly had no need for anyone to throw a game for her. Wouldn’t saying such things merely breed resentment? And bringing up her age to preach about the brevity of life—no woman appreciated hearing that!

And the “special significance” of the number three was merely that she was in her thirties?!

Could he be any more pedestrian?!

It made him seem… utterly ordinary!

“Mr. Wu, there’s no point in refusing to admit defeat. Letting me win? Ha!” Xia Jinyu’s concluding laugh did not even bother carrying deliberate mockery or contempt; she no longer possessed the energy to spare for it.

“Professor Xia, my phone’s passcode is now your birthday,” Wu Chen said with an easy smile.

Under their original wager, the loser was obligated to reveal their phone passcode to the victor. Wu Chen had handed his phone to Xia Jinyu earlier, and it still rested beside her hand.

Using a person of the opposite sex’s birthday as one’s phone passcode was generally an act reserved for lovers.

For one party to do so proactively before establishing a relationship made the underlying implication glaringly obvious—and exceedingly likely to provoke disgust. Li Ruobing watched “calmly.” Wu Chen’s persistent bluntness, his aggressive posturing, and his relentless defiance of all intuition had left her nearly numb.

Xia Jinyu cast a glance at the handset beside her, picked it up, and entered the code.

It unlocked on the first attempt!

Xia Jinyu then pressed the side button to put the screen to sleep and placed the device face down on the table. She did not browse a single piece of content on Wu Chen’s phone. Originally, had she won, she had intended to look through it casually. Yet Wu Chen had refused to engage with her first challenge, and had then lost the second in an extraordinarily foolish fashion: guessing directly without asking a single question, getting it wrong, and stubbornly refusing to back down!

Xia Jinyu had genuinely lost all interest in inspecting Wu Chen’s phone.

No matter what lay within.

There was far too much in this world she did not know. Everyone harbored secrets, yet those secrets were fundamentally identical: money, illicit affairs, petty vices, vile thoughts, or bizarre notions.

Only when a person was interesting did their secrets become interesting.

Otherwise, it was entirely meaningless.

“Not going to look?” Wu Chen smiled.

“I have seen plenty,” Xia Jinyu replied with perfunctory politeness.

“In that case… I shall change the passcode,” Wu Chen smiled.

Xia Jinyu made a small gesture, inviting him to proceed.

Wu Chen reclaimed his handset, tapped lazily on the screen with one hand for a moment to alter the passcode, and tossed it back onto the table.

“Mr. Wu, in truth, people like you… are hardly rare,” Xia Jinyu said, turning to him with a smile. At this moment, her demeanor radiated a warm, gentle grace—the sort that would make anyone instinctively warm to her and lean in to listen. It was not merely her approachability, but her striking beauty.

Humanity was naturally drawn to beautiful things.

When a professor of psychology fused her professional mastery with exquisite beauty, she could effortlessly command the center of attention in any setting. Everyone was willing to linger on her face, captivated by her words.

“Giving me an assessment?” Wu Chen smiled.

“No one possesses a flawless psychological state. To a greater or lesser degree, everyone harbors psychological issues. They may not escalate to the level of pathology, but life experiences and various pressures inevitably leave their mark—myself included, though I carry little pressure. Naturally, the vast majority of issues require no intervention. There is no need; so long as life continues, what must come will come…”

“Yet you, Mr. Wu, are seriously ill!” Xia Jinyu stated in all earnestness.

This was the final reserve of her “patience.”

It was the sole reason she had not simply walked out.

Wu Chen had fallen from grace far too swiftly and violently. From deeply wondrous, he had tumbled into utter mediocrity in the blink of an eye. That trajectory was not entirely rare—having only modest competence, losing control of the situation, and exposing one’s limitations all at once.

Yet Wu Chen remained obstinate, his expression unruffled and his emotions devoid of the slightest crack.

Xia Jinyu genuinely could not resist giving him a checkup.

And so, she resolved to finish the meal.

Wu Chen remained thoroughly unperturbed. The pronouncement that he was “seriously ill” failed to stir the faintest ripple in his emotional waters. His smile persisted, and he even extended an inviting hand.

Please, begin your performance.

“Extreme self-confidence, an extreme sense of self. You appear to possess deep calculation, Mr. Wu, keeping your emotions hidden, yet in reality you lack the capacity for self-reflection and introspection. This is an egocentric psychological trait, a form of affective psychological disorder…”

“Forgive my bluntness. With most patients, I generally employ a gradual approach, guiding them step by step to examine themselves. Yet that method is clearly unsuited to you, Mr. Wu…”

“Your intellect is formidable. Were I to phrase things tactfully, you would merely rationalize your conduct from within!”

“I can also sense that you have studied psychology.”

“Therefore, I shall be direct… You are young and wealthy, Mr. Wu, free from the worries of ordinary people. Yet I can sense that you have suffered profoundly severe psychological trauma!”

“You exhibit certain histrionic personality traits. The trauma you endured has made you more inclined toward self-disguise. From the moment we met in the cinema until now, your most frequent expression has been a smile. And the curvature of that smile has remained entirely uniform…”

“A smile can be an entirely natural expression. Yet practiced to your extent, Mr. Wu—consistent and unwavering—it is glaringly abnormal!”

“I can almost state with certainty that the trauma you suffered involved something intensely terrifying, something so dreadful that even now, you have never fully emerged from it. You remain trapped in that final state where you lost your true self… You ought to learn to let go, yet you have not!”

“In truth, symptoms like yours generally manifest in older, relatively accomplished men. Born of humble origins, having tasted bitterness and suffering in their youth, they seized their destiny and found patrons, rising from success to magnificent triumph.”

“Their complicated lives are filled with glorious achievements. All they hear from those around them is flattery, and they are always treated as if they are right. They become ever more convinced that they are different from everyone else, geniuses who have endured hardship. They believe they are never acting blindly, and that everything they think and do is both right and reasonable!”

“Yet quite evidently,” Xia Jinyu gestured toward Wu Chen, “that is not your case. You are exceedingly young. You have not had sufficient time to accumulate such complicated life experiences. In other words, you haven’t gone through the gradual process by which reality shapes a person’s inner world…”

“It was not gradual, but a sudden, violent transformation.”

“Furthermore, young men are, by nature, spirited and impetuous.”

As she spoke, a smile touched Xia Jinyu’s lips, carrying neither condescension nor mockery.

Instead, it looked almost like “approval.”

Being young and spirited was not inherently wrong; it was merely a question of whether it crossed into excess.

She deliberately cultivated that impression in Wu Chen, for it served to draw her closer to her “patient.”

“My deduction, Mr. Wu, is that the trauma you endured ultimately forged who you are today. As for what it entailed specifically, I have no means of discerning. Perhaps during that traumatic crucible, your performance earned the recognition of your clan’s elders…”

Xia Jinyu commanded a terrifying analytical capability.

And she was daring enough to deploy it.

In that regard, she was even bolder than Wu Chen. She truly deserved the reputation of one who understood the human heart. The traits that set Wu Chen apart from ordinary mortals appeared to everyone else as raw genius, formidable backing, or meticulous planning. No one would dare assess a “stranger’s” past based on so brief an acquaintance.

Yet Xia Jinyu dared.

And she believed herself to be entirely correct.

What proved even more chilling… was that part of her deduction was genuinely accurate.

Wu Chen had indeed endured immense “trauma.” In the early days of the thousand-year loop, the endless repetition had driven him into swift despair; he had attempted suicide in countless ways, seeking release time and again only to find it unattainable. And he had indeed been forged into what he was by being trapped for a thousand years.

That portion was correct.

Everything else was entirely wrong.

Three hundred and sixty-five thousand days and nights—the span was simply too vast. Long enough to reshape the very architecture of one’s thoughts. Time had smoothed away his agony, rendering him numb, before leading him from numbness toward the pursuit of novel pleasures. His reflections upon existence and the breadth of what he had lived through were infinitely more intricate than Xia Jinyu could possibly fathom. He had long since moved past the phase of losing himself.

As for so-called histrionic personality traits—

Wu Chen possessed nothing of the sort.

His composure, his placidity, and his smile were the sediment of centuries. What he had touched and witnessed was far more complex and treacherous than the experiences of a hundred-year-old person whose life had been full of dramatic events. Those self-made figures who clawed their way from the gutter to the pinnacle certainly led eventful lives, yet in reality, most of their lives were spent pursuing whatever goal belonged to the stage they had reached.

No matter how complex a mortal’s life might be, the monumental events they could experience remained finite.

But Wu Chen’s days were reset over and over, and he did not want to repeat himself. So he had no choice but to actively seek out and create new experiences to satisfy his desire for enjoyment. As time went on, this tendency became more and more extreme.

Take something that would take an ordinary person several months to accomplish.

Wu Chen would attempt to conquer it within a single day—starting from scratch as an absolute “stranger,” wielding methods unconstrained by any boundaries.

Wu Chen had seen supposedly unflappable power brokers reveal, when staring down the barrel of death, a wretched cowardice worse than that of common men.

He had also seen genuine titans whose inner fortitude matched their outward grace.

He had seen far, far too much.

…

Xia Jinyu had struck upon certain truths, yet the vast bulk of her analysis was flawed. Still, those errors were hardly her fault. No matter how brilliant or perceptive she might be, she was bound by the logic of reality. Wu Chen’s secret, however, did not exist within the framework of present-day reality; it was entirely submerged beneath the sands of time erased by the resets.

No living soul could deduce or analyze it.

It was not that Xia Jinyu was lacking.

It was that Wu Chen himself was exceptionally unusual.

Wu Chen could not help admiring this woman. Though they had exchanged many words, their acquaintance spanned barely an hour or two at most. Frankly, had Wu Chen’s secret not been wiped away by the resets—had it been traceable through investigation, or conformed to the logic of the real world—he never would have approached Xia Jinyu.

This woman was terrifying.

She was suited to being a friend or a formidable ally, but never a lover. To remain intimate with her over an extended period and spend days by her side would guarantee that she saw straight through him, unearthing every matter he wished to conceal from the world.

Yet there was no “if.”

Wu Chen’s secret was unsolvable.

And that would become his most lethal weapon in drawing Xia Jinyu close. The more time she spent in his company, the deeper her curiosity would fester; as time went on, her fascination would only mount, until deciphering him might well become the crowning diversion of her remaining years.

To crack this man’s mystery.

Though she might spend her entire life pursuing an answer only to find it forever out of reach—a fate that seemed almost tragic—to someone of Xia Jinyu’s nature, it was nothing less than discovering a brand-new horizon in life. The “truth” itself was inconsequential; what mattered was the process of the chase. Keeping life interesting was far, far better than gradually losing heart and becoming disillusioned with the world.

Wu Chen met Xia Jinyu’s gaze with open appreciation, listening to her continuous deductions without offering a single word of contradiction.

“Mr. Wu, your gaze right now is quite fascinating. You have displayed very little genuine emotion thus far. May I assume this is deliberate? You look upon me with admiration, as though eager to show that you appreciate me as an individual… Yet I suspect you hardly agree with what I have said. Are you waiting for me to ask, so you can refute me?”