Chapter 65: Spiritual Appraisal (Part 1)

  Jinghua City Mental Hospital Judicial Appraisal Center Building, Room 308 for appraisal.

  As soon as Tang Xiaosheng entered the appraisal room, his first feeling was that it was empty. He had thought that there should be some appraisal instruments or equipment in the appraisal room, but now he realized that this was not the case at all.

  The appraisal room is quite spacious, over 50 square meters. In the center of the room stands a single chair, and nothing else. The only special feature is that on each of the four walls are installed several large rectangular mirrors, with each mirror being about 2.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, and each wall having three such mirrors. Due to the reflective effect of the mirrors, the entire room appears even more empty.

  As soon as Tang Xiaosheng entered the room, he felt uneasy all over, on one hand because being in such a large room made him feel a bit overwhelmed; on the other hand, it was also because he kept catching glimpses of himself in the mirrors.

  When a person is lying or pretending, what he fears most is to see the real self. Now all four walls in the room are hung with mirrors, and Tang Xiaosheng will see himself in the mirror no matter which direction he looks. Every time he sees himself, his subconscious mind will unconsciously remind him: I am now impersonating a mentally ill person.

  This way, people easily become tense and involuntarily associate with the consequences of being exposed. If it's an ordinary person, once in such an environment, they easily become flustered and may even expose their true self due to fear.

  However, after Tang Xiaosheng adjusted his mentality slightly, he gradually adapted. Because such a scene was extremely familiar to him.

  He is an actor, and over the past few years, in order to hone his acting skills, he has been practicing various movements in front of a mirror almost every day. For him, looking at himself in the mirror is as ordinary as eating, and pretending and acting are just like home-cooked meals. Therefore, when he sees himself in the mirror in the appraisal room now, his emotions do not fluctuate much, it's just like performing an ordinary play.

  Two police officers led Tang Xiaosheng into the appraisal room and had him sit in a chair in the center of the room, waiting for an expert to come and conduct a mental appraisal on him. Afterwards, they left the appraisal room, closed the door, and stood guard at the entrance.

  Tang Xiaosheng sat in the chair for less than ten seconds before immediately leaving his seat. Because on the ceiling directly above the seat, there was a bright lighting lamp.

  Many mentally ill people do not like things that are too bright and are even afraid of light. Tang Xiaosheng is now pretending to be a mentally ill person, so he naturally has to pretend not to like places with sufficient lighting. He quickly walked away from his seat, took a few steps, curled up in the corner of the room, motionless, expression dull, eyes wandering, and had a numb and stupid look on his face.

  He came here today for a mental assessment, thinking that the assessor would arrive soon to assess him. However, after crouching in the corner for more than half an hour, he still didn't see anyone else come in, and there was only one person in the entire assessment room.

  Tang Xiaosheng didn't know what had happened, and the appraiser still hadn't appeared. He didn't dare to move rashly, so he continued to sit quietly in the corner.

  This squat is already an hour. An hour later, there is still no sign of the appraiser.

  Things are getting stranger and stranger, but Tang Xiaosheng still maintains a silly appearance, occasionally smiling foolishly and muttering to himself about something. From start to finish, he has not changed this nervous state.

  Unconsciously, another two hours passed, and the time had already arrived at twelve o'clock in the afternoon. However, the appraiser still hadn't come. For a whole morning, except for Tang Xiaosheng, no one else had entered the appraisal room.

  The situation was a bit unusual, and Tang Xiaosheng didn't quite understand it. However, he didn't think much of it and continued to stay in the identification room as if he were mentally ill, adapting to changing circumstances without changing himself.

  In fact, from the moment Tang Xiaosheng walked into the appraisal room, he had entered the vision of the appraisers. Although the appraisers did not appear in the appraisal room, they were familiar with Tang Xiaosheng's every move. Because in the appraisal room, there are multiple pinhole cameras installed, and the appraisers are now observing Tang Xiaosheng's words and deeds in the monitoring room of the Appraisal Center.

  There were five identification experts in the monitoring room, who were a psychiatrist, a neurologist, a criminal psychologist, a senior hypnotist and a human behavior expert. These five experts were all authorities in their respective fields and formed a temporary appraisal team to jointly conduct an appraisal of Tang Xiaosheng's mental state.

  Yesterday, five identification experts received the materials related to Xia Bai's case and Tang Xiaosheng's personal file from the Public Security Bureau and the Procuratorate. Since Tang Xiaosheng is a suspect in the murder case, the nature of the case is particularly heinous, and Tang Xiaosheng is also an actor who is good at disguising himself. Therefore, after some discussion, the five identification experts decided to adopt a special form to identify Tang Xiaosheng's mental state.

  The first appraisal project arranged for Tang Xiaosheng started as soon as he walked into the appraisal room.

  Because a person is in an environment without others, they will unconsciously relax their vigilance, and some disguises will also be relaxed. The reason why the identification expert does not appear in the identification room, but Tang Xiaosheng is alone in the identification room, is to see his behavior in an environment without others. If he is pretending to be mentally ill, it is easy to reveal some flaws in such an environment.

  However, the final result was a bit beyond the expectations of the five appraisers. Tang Xiaosheng stayed alone in the appraisal room for an entire morning, and all his behavior was consistent with the characteristics of a mentally ill person, without any signs of disguise.

  After the first round of identification, a psychiatrist concluded that Tang Xiaosheng's behavior in the morning indicated that he indeed suffered from severe mental illness.

  However, the other four experts on the appraisal panel reserved their opinions. In particular, an expert in human behavior believed that Tang Xiaosheng was an actor who could pretend to be mentally ill through acting skills, and therefore he believed that it was currently impossible to determine whether Tang Xiaosheng was mentally ill.

  Four of the five experts had reservations, so the appraisal work entered a second phase.

  The second identification project was proposed by a criminal psychology expert, who began to repeatedly play the audio recordings of Xia Bai's case on the night of the crime through the hospital's broadcasting system. These audio clips were provided by the police.

  The reason for playing these recordings is that when the suspect hears the on-site recording of the crime scene again, their brain will involuntarily associate with the crime scene, and their emotions will fluctuate violently, such as tension, panic, fear, etc., and may even collapse due to emotional breakdown and say some words spoken during the crime.

  The recording was played repeatedly in the appraisal room, and Tang Xiaosheng also heard it clearly. When he heard these recordings, he did recall the scene of his fight with Xia Bai that night, but since he didn't kill Xia Bai, when he thought back to that night's events, his emotions were almost unaffected, his face expressionless, still crouched in the corner, looking dazed and confused.

  The recording finally stopped after playing for over ten minutes. The criminal psychology expert found that Tang Xiaosheng did not show any abnormal behavior after listening to the recording, and there were two possibilities:

  The first is that Tang Xiaosheng did not kill Xia Bai, so his emotions did not change at all.

  The second is that Tang Xiaosheng indeed had spiritual problems and felt isolated from the outside world, so he would have no reaction to the recording.

  Due to sufficient evidence of Tang Xiaosheng's crime, criminal psychology experts believe that it is impossible for the first situation to occur. Therefore, the only possibility can be: Tang Xiaosheng indeed suffers from a serious mental illness.

  The conclusion of the criminal psychologist was endorsed by a psychiatrist.

  However, the other three experts on the appraisal team still had different opinions. In particular, a human behavior expert emphasized again that Tang Xiaosheng was an actor and that an excellent actor could not only control his own actions but also adjust his emotional state. He believed that Tang Xiaosheng might still be disguising himself through his acting skills.

  After the second appraisal, only two forensic psychiatrists and psychologists believed that Tang Xiaosheng suffered from mental illness, while three experts had dissenting opinions. Therefore, the appraisal work continued to enter the third appraisal project.

  The third appraisal project was presided over by a senior hypnotist who would put Tang Xiaosheng under hypnosis to see what he was thinking in his subconscious mind.

  No matter how high a person's acting skills are, once they are hypnotized and lose their self-consciousness, it is very difficult to continue pretending. Therefore, whether Tang Xiaosheng was pretending to be mentally ill or not would become clear after he was hypnotized.

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  P.S: Prize-guessing game: Tang Xiaosheng is going to be hypnotized, what will he say after being hypnotized?

  A: Ask for a recommendation letter!!!

  B, ask for two recommendation votes!!!!

  C, ask for three recommendation votes!!!!

  Note: This question is a multiple-choice question.

  Scan the QR code at the starting point, everyone rushes to answer cold knowledge, gets medals and wins big prizes! Click on the "+" in the upper right corner of WeChat, select "Add Friends", search for the public account "qdread" to participate! Various big prizes, easy to get!