Jiang Jianxin didn’t come back to her senses until long after the police had left.
‘So there are a lot of superpower users in the Da Rong Republic?’
Her country’s military system was completely independent.
If she hadn’t committed a crime, she never would have had any contact with the police.
And she never would have known they were hiding such a massive secret.
Before this, she had always believed the world was full of ordinary people, that the Magic in movies was all just post-production and special effects, and that guns were the only real power.
However, a trip to the station and the list the police had inadvertently revealed completely shattered her worldview.
She thought again of her childhood diary.
Joining the Sword Sect…
cultivating to become a Sword Master…
Jiang Jianxin tried to recall what on earth she had done at six years old, but her mind was a complete blank.
Her parents were dead, and her childhood memories were practically nonexistent.
She only knew her parents were dead because the local government had told her.
Someone had registered her, and the government needed to pay her a living stipend.
A chill ran through Jiang Jianxin.
An unknown past could so easily stir a person’s deepest fears.
Just as her imagination was running wild, she felt something vibrate in the sleeve of her prison uniform.
It was cold to the touch, pressing against her arm like an ice cube.
The police were gone.
She was alone in the interrogation room.
Jiang Jianxin shook her shackled hand, and a small, three-inch-long sword fell from her sleeve with a CLATTER.
According to the laws of the Da Rong Republic, murderers were sentenced to death.
But the criminally insane were not; they were transferred to a mental hospital for treatment first.
Jiang Jianxin hadn’t yet made sense of everything that was suddenly happening to her, and she wasn’t ready to die.
She stared at the small sword, knowing what she had to do.
…
“You’re saying this Little Paper Sword can turn into a real sword, and you can see the figure of a young man on its blade?”
On the other side of the glass partition, Doctor Lin Xin’an, the psychologist brought in by the police, wore a white coat and white gloves.
Underneath his coat was an elegant taupe vest adorned with a brooch.
He had just sat down and begun to ask about Jiang Jianxin’s general mental state when he heard her incredible story.
Lin Xin’an glanced skeptically at the handcuffed murderer, Jiang Jianxin, then at the piece of paper in front of her.
It was a small sword folded from paper, with some scrawled handwriting on it that looked somewhat cute.
‘Most mental patients are out there…
but this is a bit *too* out there, isn’t it?’
Jiang Jianxin nodded emphatically.
Mimicking the speech patterns of a psychiatric patient from the movies, she said in a near-screech:
“Yes, Doctor.
And the young man spoke.”
“What did he say?”
Doctor Lin asked.
“He said he likes me.”
Doctor Lin swallowed, his handsome features knitting together.
Just as he was about to say something, he saw Jiang Jianxin prop her chin in her hands and gaze at him with infatuation.
“Doctor, I know you like me too, but it’s impossible between us.”
Lin Xin’an: “…?”
“Why is it impossible between us?”
Doctor Lin asked, curious.
“Because you’re too ugly.”
“…”
In disbelief, Lin Xin’an took out a mirror and examined his own handsome face before glancing at Jiang Jianxin’s plain features.
“I’m…
ugly?”
His eyes widened in astonishment as he asked Jiang Jianxin.
Jiang Jianxin grunted in affirmation.
As the mental hospital’s resident dreamboat, it was the first time he’d ever been hit with such a point-blank, unblockable attack.
So he shot her a glare, angrily took out the report form, and forcefully checked the box next to “Mental state: extremely poor.
Hospitalization recommended.”
Jiang Jianxin glanced over.
Her eyesight had always been excellent.
During past vision tests with the long chart full of “E”s, she could clearly read the bottom line.
In fact, she felt she could have read an even smaller line, but unfortunately, there wasn’t one.
This time was no exception.
By sneaking a peek, she clearly saw Doctor Lin’s diagnosis.
Jiang Jianxin breathed a sigh of relief, but she still gave the psychologist a discreet, appraising look.
He gave off a strange feeling—not of malice, but more like an affinity that inexplicably made one want to talk to him more.
After a day of intense stress, Jiang Jianxin swallowed and said:
“So, Doctor, about my sword…”
Lin Xin’an waved his hand impatiently.
“That’s just a common Little Paper Sword, and you yourself are seriously ill.
Say no more.
The sanitarium van will be here tomorrow to escort you to the mental hospital.”
Hearing this, Jiang Jianxin’s heart finally settled.
She was truly at ease.
Doctor Lin then asked a few more perfunctory questions.
After Jiang Jianxin answered each one, he packed up his things and left the interrogation room.
She remained at the police station until nine the next morning, when Doctor Lin finally pulled up to the entrance, fashionably late, in the mental hospital’s van.
A row of red lights flashed atop the blue and white vehicle.
Two police guards escorted Jiang Jianxin into Lin Xin’an’s van.
One of them was the very officer who had interrogated her.
One officer took the front passenger seat, while the other stayed beside Jiang Jianxin to keep an eye on her.
The weather this morning was just as terrible; the rain was as heavy as it had been the other day.
Huge raindrops hammered against the car windows, as if the sky itself were dumping buckets of water.
BOOM—
In the distance, a bolt of lightning ripped open the sky, slashing a white scar across the horizon.
Watching the torrential downpour, Jiang Jianxin couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—
As their vehicle stopped at a red light, Jiang Jianxin vaguely saw a figure through the curtain of rain streaming down the window.
It walked up from the curb and began to pound violently on the driver’s side window of the car next to them.
After pounding on the glass for some time to no avail, the figure raised a hand and shattered the window.
It then lunged for the driver and began to bite and tear at them.
“AHHHHH—”
A piercing scream tore through the air.
Jiang Jianxin glanced behind the van and saw a dozen more figures emerging from the sidewalk, beginning to knock on car windows one by one.
In that same instant, many of the people still in their cars began to react.
The doors of several cars at the intersection flew open.
People scrambled out, abandoning their vehicles to the downpour, only to be caught by the figures.
They were thrown to the ground, their limbs torn from their bodies as they were mauled.
The entire intersection descended into chaos.
Blood mingled with the rain, flowing together into the sewers and seeping into the cracks in the concrete.
Jiang Jianxin glanced impassively at the psychologist in the driver’s seat and the officer beside him.
Their van was in an inner lane, so none of the figures had come to knock on their windows yet.
But…
it wouldn’t be long.
No one in the van spoke.
The only movement was the play of light from the pouring rain, flickering across a sign on the dashboard that read “First Mental Hospital.”
*Click.*
A long, slender hand reached out and picked up the sign.
Only then did Jiang Jianxin notice the coiled blue lanyard behind it.
It was a work ID that could be worn around the neck.
Doctor Lin, dressed in his psychologist’s white coat, hung the First Mental Hospital ID card around his neck and placed both hands on the steering wheel.
Jiang Jianxin glanced at the rearview mirror, her eyes happening to meet Doctor Lin’s.
He looked nothing like the vain, narcissistic man who had conducted her psychological evaluation.
In the rearview mirror, his eyes glinted with a sinister, shadowy light.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—
A figure knocked on the driver’s side window.
Lin Xin’an hit the wipers, clearing the windshield for a moment.
Only then did Jiang Jianxin see the figure’s true face.