“I’m 50. I’m pretending to be 24. I’ve been in an online relationship for six months with a guy 25 years younger than me. He’s going to meet me tomorrow.”
Lin Suwen, a professor in the Chinese department at Huiwen University, sat on the couch in the “Mirror Within” counseling room and said this to Shen Du, a young counselor. She thought he would judge her, or at least frown a little. But Shen Du didn’t.
He slid a black-covered journal toward her. “Write it down.”
With a trembling hand, Lin Suwen wrote on the first page: “The mask: Lingxi, age 24. The truth: Lin Suwen, afraid of growing old.”
From that moment on, she entered a tunnel of truth with no way back.
Shen Du didn’t tell her what to do. He simply asked questions. Each one was like a scalpel, cutting precisely through the surface of her disguise: “Why do you need him to love you?” “What are you afraid of losing if you meet him at your real age?” “Do you love him, or the person you are in his eyes?” “And have you ever wondered why he’s never asked to video call?”
That last question exploded in Lin Suwen’s mind.
She began investigating Chen Mo instead. She drew on every resource at her disposal: her students’ connections, her colleagues’ technical support, and even the tools for critical thinking Shen Du had “casually” offered her. The results left her frozen on the couch.
Chen Mo wasn’t some 25-year-old young man. He had an extremely rare case of congenital progeria. His biological age was already well over 70.
Using age filters, voice-changing software, and an abyss of self-loathing, he had disguised himself as a young man.
"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.