"I am 50 years old. I am pretending to be 24 years old. I have been dating a boy 25 years younger than me online for half a year. He wants to see me tomorrow."
Lin Suwen, professor of the Chinese Department of Huiwen University, sat on the sofa in the "Jingwo" psychological consultation room and said these words to the young psychological counselor Shen Du. She expected a moral judgment, or at least a slight frown. But Shen Du didn't.
He pushed a black-covered diary in front of her: "Write it down."
Lin Suwen wrote tremblingly on the title page: "Mask: 24-year-old Lingxi. Reality: Lin Suwen who is afraid of growing old."
From that moment on, she stepped into a tunnel of truth from which there was no turning back.
Shen Du didn't tell her what to do. He just - asked questions. Every question is like a scalpel, cutting through the surface of her disguise with precision: "Why do you need him to love you?" "If you meet him at your true age, what are you afraid of losing?" "Is it him you love, or you in his eyes?" "And, have you ever thought about it - why he never asked for a video?"
The last question exploded in Lin Suwen's mind.
She began to investigate Chen Mo in reverse. She used all her connections: students' connections, colleagues' technical support, and even the thinking tools "inadvertently" provided by Shen Du. The investigation results made her freeze on the sofa——
Chen Mo is not a 25-year-old boy. He suffers from an extremely rare congenital aging disorder. His biological age is over seventy years old.
He is using the "age filter", voice-changing software, and bottomless self-esteem to pretend to be a young man.
Reader comments
"The True Secret"
Suspenseful imagination · Rules and strange stories · Psychological thriller · Social allegory · Modern emotions
This book is cloaked in the "everyday" guise of psychological counseling, but at its core is a "real record of identity puzzle solving" that is thrilling step by step. It doesn't write about time travel or superpowers, it only writes about how an ordinary person crawls toward her true self step by step on the edge of the abyss built by lies - and with every step she climbs, the world beneath her feet collapses.
Open this book and you will see how an online dating scam is peeled off, how a perfect boyfriend removes layers of makeup, and how a mysterious counselor quietly guides everything. In the end, all secrets will be revealed in front of the "Mirror of Truth". As for the ending - you'll never guess it until the last page.
"The True Secret" Suspenseful imagination · Rules and strange stories · Psychological thriller · Social allegory · Modern emotions This book is cloaked in the "everyday" guise of psychological counseling, but at its core is a "real record of identity puzzle solving" that is thrilling step by step. It doesn't write about time travel or superpowers, it only writes about how an ordinary person crawls toward her true self step by step on the edge of the abyss built by lies - and with every step she climbs, the world beneath her feet collapses. Open this book and you will see how an online dating scam is peeled off, how a perfect boyfriend removes layers of makeup, and how a mysterious counselor quietly guides everything. In the end, all secrets will be revealed in front of the "Mirror of Truth". As for the ending - you'll never guess it until the last page.