Mind-reading ability

Mind-reading ability is the supernatural state through which Gu Huaian hears Shen Tang’s inner voice, making private thought function as an audible layer of the couple’s relationship. Its decisive importance lies in the contradiction it creates: the ability gives Gu Huaian an extraordinary advantage in understanding and protecting Shen Tang, yet its very existence makes her feel exposed and drives her to keep emotional distance. The plot therefore treats mind reading not merely as a magical convenience but as a test of privacy, consent, secrecy, and genuine intimacy.

Definition and Operation

Mind-reading ability operates as direct access to Shen Tang’s thoughts rather than as ordinary observation or inference. Gu Huaian can hear what she does not say aloud, including passing reactions that she tries to conceal. When he had only just awakened, he heard Tang Tang’s inner voice before she pretended that she had merely woken up; he recognized the practical value of the ability and privately considered it remarkably useful, while remaining uncertain how long it would last. His uncertainty becomes an important condition of the state: the power is effective, but it is not presented as permanent or fully controllable.

The ability also gives Gu Huaian knowledge during ordinary social situations. When Shen Tang was thinking about Xie Xuan and wondering whether Xie Xuan was cute, Gu Huaian immediately told her not to think about her. Shen Tang agreed to listen, but then still voiced her opinion aloud, creating a layered exchange in which Gu Huaian responds to a thought before Shen Tang has explained it. The resulting comedy depends on the gap between her visible behavior and the private stream he can already hear.

Intimacy, Privacy, and Unequal Knowledge

At first, mind reading makes Shen Tang feel as though she has no privacy in front of Gu Huaian. She cannot control every passing thought, and the possibility that he may hear all of them turns emotional concealment into a physical sense of exposure. The state is consequently more invasive than a secret merely being discovered: it removes the boundary between what she chooses to communicate and what Gu Huaian can receive without permission. Her discomfort is strong enough that mind reading itself becomes associated with distance between them.

For Gu Huaian, the same condition produces an opposite experience. Hearing Shen Tang’s thoughts gives him what the narrative describes as a form of supernatural assistance. He can detect concerns before she articulates them, respond to impulses that remain hidden from everyone else, and understand emotional truths that she does not yet say aloud. When she worries about using someone else’s money instead of her own, he hears the thought clearly, rubs her hair, and asks whether she has checked her card. The gesture combines practical reassurance with the possessive tenderness of a husband who knows exactly what is troubling her, while also exposing the asymmetry on which that tenderness depends.

The mind-reading state repeatedly converts domestic interaction into a double scene. Shen Tang may speak innocently while Gu Huaian has already heard the thought beneath her words; he may answer a concern she has not verbalized, leaving her to wonder how much he knows. This structure creates both affection and anxiety. Gu Huaian’s knowledge can make him more attentive, but Shen Tang’s unease shows that being understood is not automatically the same as feeling safe.

Relation to Memory and Identity

Mind reading is also tied to Gu Huaian’s larger uncertainty about Shen Tang’s identity. He has long noticed that her appearance is exactly the same as that of the original Shen Tang and has wondered whether they were originally the same person. Her inner voice helps sustain this conjecture, but it cannot provide a safe means of confession: Gu Huaian cannot explain how he knows what he knows without revealing the ability itself. He fears that if Shen Tang discovered that he could always hear her thoughts, she would leave him.

This secrecy gives the power a narrative function beyond romance. It allows Gu Huaian to occupy two positions at once: he is Shen Tang’s intimate partner, and he is an observer who possesses forbidden information about her. The silence around the ability preserves the relationship in an unstable form. He knows more than she believes he knows, while she continues to judge his actions without access to the hidden mechanism behind them. Their apparent mutual understanding is therefore partly genuine feeling and partly an effect of unequal knowledge.

Disclosure and Disappearance

The state reaches a turning point when Shen Tang directly asks Gu Huaian whether he is reborn. Gu Huaian answers yes without evasion and explains that he had wanted to tell her earlier but feared that discussing rebirth would make her leave, just as the mind-reading ability had already caused her to distance herself. His confession connects the two supernatural conditions: both are truths he conceals because he wants to preserve the relationship, and both threaten to destroy the trust they are meant to support if revealed badly.

After this disclosure, the couple’s emotional position becomes clearer. They understand that they truly love each other even when Shen Tang has not said so aloud. The relationship no longer depends only on Gu Huaian’s ability to retrieve hidden thoughts; it also contains a shared recognition that love has become mutual. Mind reading still supplies him with unusual certainty, but the narrative begins to distinguish involuntary knowledge from freely acknowledged feeling.

The ability eventually ends. After an intimate encounter, Shen Tang asks whether Gu Huaian can still hear her inner thoughts. He listens carefully and shakes his head: he cannot hear them anymore. She immediately recognizes that the master’s prediction was correct and reacts with excitement, even though the physical circumstances leave her unable to leap up as she wishes. The disappearance resolves the practical uncertainty that had shadowed the state from its beginning, but it does not erase what the ability revealed about the couple.

Narrative Significance

Mind-reading ability organizes a recurring contrast between spoken language and hidden feeling. It makes routine events—the game room, a money worry, a remark about Xie Xuan, or a moment in bed—carry a second level of information. Readers are invited to track not only what Shen Tang says and what Gu Huaian hears, but also how each character manages the knowledge gap between them. The result is a sustained pattern of dramatic irony: Gu Huaian often understands the situation before Shen Tang realizes that he understands it.

The condition also turns privacy into the central ethical pressure of the romance. Gu Huaian’s access is useful, affectionate, and at times protective, yet it is not granted through ordinary conversation. Shen Tang’s discomfort prevents the power from being treated as uncomplicated wish fulfillment. Her eventual relief when it disappears suggests that love becomes more acceptable to her once it no longer depends on unrestricted entry into her mind.

At the same time, the ending does not reduce the ability to a purely harmful intrusion. While it lasted, it helped Gu Huaian recognize Shen Tang’s needs, endure her unspoken resistance, and confirm the depth of feelings that neither of them initially expressed directly. Its disappearance therefore acts as a transition rather than a simple defeat. Gu Huaian must now relate to Shen Tang without supernatural assistance, and the couple’s mutual love must survive through speech, trust, and chosen disclosure. Mind-reading ability begins as a mechanism of asymmetry and ends as a measure of whether intimacy can continue after secrecy and involuntary knowledge are gone.