“Name?”
“Jiang Jianxin.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Occupation?”
“Unemployed.
I just graduated this year.”
Jiang Jianxin sat on a black foam chair in the police station.
She wore a new pair of rose-gold handcuffs and a black-and-white striped prison uniform as she watched the officer across from her, who was scribbling in a notebook—
‘I never imagined things would turn out like this.’
「Time rewound to last night.」
After seeing her friend’s strange expression in the mirror, Jiang Jianxin instinctively spun around.
But Su Dong was just sitting on the bed, scrolling through videos.
When Su Dong saw her turn, she glanced over in surprise, her voice clear as she spoke:
“What’s wrong?”
Jiang Jianxin pressed her lips together.
The chill running down her spine hadn’t faded.
She could feel her palms sweating nonstop.
Nervous and afraid, she couldn’t help but shoot several suspicious glances at Su Dong.
The light was on in the room.
Under its dim yellow glow, her friend swung her legs back and forth, her complexion rosy and her demeanor natural.
She really did look completely normal.
Jiang Jianxin cleared her throat.
“It’s nothing.
I just swallowed wrong.
My throat’s a little itchy, so I had to cough.”
“Oh, okay.”
Su Dong nodded in understanding.
Jiang Jianxin scratched her head.
Confused and bewildered, she turned back to look at the sword on the cardboard box, only to find that the small, sharpened blade had vanished.
Only an abstract sword folded from white paper remained, with a few crookedly written characters she had scribbled on it in pencil as a child.
[Tang Guang Sword]
Jiang Jianxin casually picked up the small paper craft and stuffed it in her pocket.
The Tang Guang Sword—the personal sword of the eleven-year-old Sword Master from the “Sword Master’s” diary.
She had used this very sword to identify evil spirits and slay Demons, eventually walking over a sea of corpses and a river of blood to become the youngest Sword Master.
When she’d first read those words in the diary, she had just found them funny.
At an age when she was still in elementary school and couldn’t even recognize all the characters, she had somehow managed to write an idiom like “sea of corpses and river of blood.”
But after witnessing that bizarre scene just now, revisiting the words in her diary sent a chill down her spine.
—Though her handwriting in the diary was crooked, her expressions were perfectly clear.
—She used many idioms, and without any typos.
It was just as Su Dong had sighed a moment ago.
At thirteen…
was her literary talent a little too good?
Jiang Jianxin shook her head, deciding not to dwell on it.
‘There can’t be so many strange things in the world.
I must just be scaring myself.’
As if to prove her own reassuring words, Su Dong acted completely normal as she and Jiang Jianxin had hot pot and played video games.
There was no foul stench of a corpse, nor any strange behavior.
She was like a normal friend, laughing and joking around with her.
Jiang Jianxin gradually began to relax—until it was time for bed, and Su Dong wanted to sleep with her.
Normally, it wouldn’t be strange for two close female friends to sleep together, but Jiang Jianxin suddenly recalled the scene she had seen in the reflection of the little sword.
A bloated corpse…
lividity spots…
She swallowed and said:
“I’m used to sleeping alone, so it’s not very convenient for us to share.
I’ve put a fresh set of bedding for you in the guest room.
Could you sleep there, Ah Dong?”
Su Dong pouted, a hint of disappointment on her face, but she didn’t say anything.
She just hugged her quilt and went to the guest room to sleep.
Jiang Jianxin stayed in the master bedroom alone, locked the door from the inside, and placed the Little Paper Sword by her pillow before she could finally sleep in peace.
In her sleep that night, she vaguely seemed to hear the sound of dripping water, but it was too faint to wake her, so she paid it no mind.
The next morning, Jiang Jianxin slowly woke up.
The moment she opened her eyes, she saw a bloated corpse lying beside her bed.
The body had been brutally cut in two, with water and fresh blood seeping out.
A three-foot-long sword, covered in blood, lay right by her pillow.
Jiang Jianxin had just sat up in bed.
She was still in her fluffy pink bunny pajamas, her face unwashed and her hair uncombed, and before she could figure out what was happening, she heard a commotion outside.
BANG—
A team of police officers, armed to the teeth, broke down the door.
They secured the living room first, then began searching every room.
Her middle-aged neighbor, hiding behind the police squad, followed them into the bedroom.
When he saw the disheveled Jiang Jianxin on the bed, his pupils contracted in fear, and he nearly collapsed.
He shakily raised a hand to point at her and shouted:
“That woman is the murderer!”
Instantly, several barrels were aimed at Jiang Jianxin on the bed.
“Don’t move!
Hands up!
You’re under arrest!”
Jiang Jianxin sat on the bed, a blood-soaked sword to her left, her friend’s corpse to her right, and the dark muzzles of guns surrounding her.
She looked at the numerous police officers and instinctively raised her hands.
And then…
Listlessly, Jiang Jianxin looked at the officer beyond the glass partition.
She frowned, her spirits low, as she tried to defend herself again:
“I really didn’t kill Su Dong.”
The mention of her deceased friend brought a wave of sorrow over her.
Jiang Jianxin blinked, struggling to hold back the tears welling in her eyes, and said painfully:
“Su Dong was my friend.
We went shopping together, had hot pot, watched TV shows…
We were very close.
I would never kill her.”
The officer gave her a cold glance, as if looking at a cunning murderer.
“The medical examiner has already performed an autopsy.
The deceased, Su Dong, died from a heavy blow by a sharp object.
The preliminary conclusion is that the weapon was the sword found with you.”
Jiang Jianxin sniffled, unable to argue her case.
“That sword isn’t mine!
I don’t know where it came from!”
The officer tapped his pen and continued coldly:
“Your fingerprints are the only ones on the sword.
No others were found.”
Jiang Jianxin sucked in a sharp breath, so angry that her tears retreated.
She didn’t know how to explain any further.
The evidence was so solid that even she was starting to feel like a rampant murderer.
“Suspect Jiang Jianxin, just wait for your trial.”
The officer scribbled on his paper, then gave her one last, icy look.
Seeing the officer was about to leave, Jiang Jianxin gritted her teeth, made a decision, and suddenly shouted:
“I have a mental illness!
I demand to see a doctor!”
The officer, who was about to leave, looked up at her, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
Having gone this far, Jiang Jianxin decided to go all in and started spouting nonsense:
“You probably don’t know this, but…”
“I joined the Sword Sect at age four!”
“I became a Supreme Sword Master at eleven!”
“I turned the tide in the final battle!”
…
Jiang Jianxin cherry-picked all the cringey, fantastical lines from her childhood diary and blurted them all out in one breath.
But when she was done, she found that the officer wasn’t annoyed at all.
Instead, he sat back down with great interest.
Jiang Jianxin’s throat tightened.
She slowly fell silent, watching in astonishment as the officer took out his radio and spoke:
“Interrogation Room 410, send a computer over.”
Jiang Jianxin had no idea what the officer was planning.
In her experience, the interrogation procedures of the Da Rong Republic didn’t include a step like this.
A few minutes after the radio call, someone brought in a computer.
The officer typed on the computer for a moment, then turned the screen to show a webpage to Jiang Jianxin.
It was a simple ranking list, densely packed with names.
Jiang Jianxin stared in surprise at the unfamiliar names and the symbols she didn’t recognize after them.
She saw many strange terms on it, like “Serial Number,” “Faction,” “Mind Reading Technique”…
“See this Talent Ability ranking?
I couldn’t find your name on it.”
The officer flashed a mocking smile and said meaningfully:
“Little girl, if you’re a normal person, just be a normal person.”
“Just wait here.
The psychologist will be here soon.”