Who would study psychology unless they had some issues?!

The visitor leaned forward, elbows rested on the knees, and the whole body assumed a hunched, crawling posture.

His neck strained forcefully, fists clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed three times.

Then he took a deep breath and slowly said, "I remember that night, around nine o'clock, my phone suddenly rang. It was a video call from a buddy I served in the military with."

"We served in the same year and retired together. We had a fairly good relationship. When the video call connected, and I saw his face, something felt off."

"Ahem..." At this point, the visitor cleared his throat, and simultaneously, his expression and body language started showing signs of intense discomfort.

Nan Zhubin carefully observed, contemplating whether to let the visitor continue recalling or to intervene in time.

The visitor continued, "He first exchanged a few pleasantries with me, asked how I've been doing since retiring. Then... he began to cry."

"He told me his family was recently in trouble, said his brother was in a car accident, and the compensation from his discharge wasn't enough to cover it. He wanted to borrow money from me."

The visitor stopped here, took a deep breath, and his discomfort was visibly noticeable.

Yet, it wasn't to the point where intervention techniques were needed. Nan Zhubin thought for a moment and followed up on the visitor's words: "How much did he want to borrow from you?"

"Five thousand," the visitor replied, "Not much, I don't care much about money. If he was really in trouble, it wouldn't matter if he didn't pay it back. I would just consider it as a gift to him."

"I actually thought at the time... it might be some kind of scam or something. Before our discharge, we had actually received training on such matters because discharged soldiers generally have more spare money, and many veterans have been deceived."

"I was on good terms with him and even felt somewhat indebted to him from our time in the military. So, I agreed to lend him money without much hesitation. While transferring the money, I took the opportunity of the transaction time to chat a bit about our past military life to confirm his identity, to ensure he wasn't a fraud."

He was still cautious, knowing to verify rather than transferring money directly.

Nan Zhubin continued listening. If it was "just" a matter of being scammed out of five thousand, the visitor surely wouldn't be in his current state.

In fact, when talking about money, the visitor's discomfort reaction actually eased, not as intense as at the beginning.

There would surely be a twist later on.

"I didn't want him to feel like I suspected him of being a fraud. After all, he was in trouble, and he would certainly be sensitive. I didn't want to hurt him more because of this. So I just casually asked a few questions, as if joking or reminiscing, and he answered all of them, which made me even less suspicious."

"Then, I started to transfer the money to him. That's when the problem arose..."

"When I entered the amount 'five thousand,' the transfer failed. Then my buddy told me it was because he had borrowed money from too many people recently, and his account only had a 'three thousand' limit left."

"He asked me to transfer 'three thousand' first, but then immediately said he needed 'five thousand' to manage everything."

"Then he discussed with me if I could scan a QR code and download a transfer app, saying it was possible to transfer the remaining 'two thousand' through that app as other channels were either limited or suspended for him. He spoke tearfully, saying he had really tried all means to raise money these days."

Nan Zhubin's brows gradually furrowed.

At this point, it was a bit too obvious.

Indeed, the visitor sighed as if he was lamenting for himself, "At this point, even a fool can see there's a problem."

...

The visitor recalled, "Before we were discharged, we had heard about using AI face-swapping for fraud. That's when I realized I had encountered such a situation."

Yet, at this moment, the visitor showed no trace of joy in having seen through the scam. Instead, his tone became increasingly discontinuous, with more small actions like gritting his teeth and swallowing.

"It wasn't until I reported to the police and the investigation was conducted that I found out there was an issue with my buddy's phone and account, causing his data to leak. That's how they could create a video call with AI to impersonate his face. The fraudsters could also use chat logs and such information to easily answer our usual questions."

Nan Zhubin expressed with a sense of wonder, "AI face-swapping... have scammers already reached such an extent now?"

Asking this was merely to guide the conversation, and Nan Zhubin knew—it was possible.

With the advancement of technology, every aspect of various industries benefits, to the extent that things akin to urban legends are gradually becoming a reality.

It's just that sometimes, what's developed isn't positive.

Hearing Nan Zhubin's words, the visitor's head lowered even more: "I had already seen through it at the time, I noticed it, I even thought to report to the police, and I was already on my way to the police station..."

His voice grew smaller and finally went out completely, so much so that Nan Zhubin couldn't help but speak up, "Did he use some other method to cheat you out of more money?"

The visitor shook his head, "There was a method, but if it had stopped here, everything would have been fine. The police said that the scammer might have used a method that exploited the psychological state of me having already transferred three thousand, a kind of 'already in the game', urging me to continue scanning and proceeding with the following actions."

"And I didn't care about that three thousand; theoretically, I could have stopped at this point."

"But, but..." The visitor suddenly clutched his head, hitting it hard twice, "I was too confident..."

...

The visitor's emotions began to rise.

Still, Nan Zhubin didn't intervene.

The current situation was merely a typical reaction while recounting past trauma, far from reaching a "problematic" level.

Nan Zhubin continued to let the visitor narrate.

"When I heard him ask me to scan the app, I guessed it might indeed be one of those high-level scammers. So, I got up planning to seek help from the Police Station."

"What was in my mind at the time was the online skit videos and such, where after encountering a scammer, people would prank the other side, or even chat with them and become like sworn brothers or something."

"My vigilance didn't rise; I was too confident... I only thought that as long as I didn't transfer money, I could do whatever."

"Even transferring a bit more is fine. I would stall this scammer, keep the call going, walk to the police station, and maybe help the police to trace back to catch something."

"In this situation, I kept the call going, scanned the QR code sent from the other side while walking to the police station. Downloaded an app and logged in, then..."

The visitor suddenly shook all over, "It was just because of this step that all my privacy information was leaked!"