"Help! Help me! Let go of me! Help!"
The cold blade slid across the side of her neck, turning her pleas for help into a scream.
"I paid you back all the money, please just let me go, okay? I’m my parents’ only daughter, I can’t die, I—Ugh!"
Pain flared in her abdomen.
The fruit knife plunged in, then was pulled out.
Her clothes were stained red.
"Help, help, save me, save me..."
The man in front of her, wearing a baseball cap and a black mask, stood up. The fruit knife fell from his hand. On the inside of his wrist, a black tattoo extended into his white glove.
"Help, save me, is anyone there to save me..."
The pain slowly faded as her vision gradually sank into darkness...
...
"Will patient number twenty-three please proceed to consultation room three."
"Will patient number twenty-three please proceed to consultation room three."
The robotic voice rang out, and light returned to Su Miaoyi’s vacant eyes.
She gasped sharply, looking down at her abdomen and feeling it with her hand.
There was no wound, no blood. Everything was fine.
She let out a breath and looked around.
She was in a hospital.
Patients and their families were seated around her, all waiting outside the consultation rooms for their numbers to be called.
Her breathing slowly returned to normal.
Su Miaoyi rubbed her cold arms.
’This time, it wasn’t some random knowledge popping into my head. I just saw a vision of myself being murdered.’
"Will patient number nineteen please proceed to consultation room two."
"Will patient number nineteen please proceed to consultation room two."
Su Miaoyi glanced at the ticket in her hand, then stood up and walked toward consultation room two of the psychiatric department.
...
Leaving the hospital, Su Miaoyi stared at the Olanzapine tablets in her hand.
She read the indications on the back of the box.
The first line read: Olanzapine is used for the treatment of schizophrenia.
Even though she had just left the hospital, Su Miaoyi opened her phone and searched for symptoms of schizophrenia.
Visual and auditory hallucinations...
’It seems... to fit my symptoms pretty well.’
She kept walking, her eyes glued to her phone.
Suddenly, she bumped into a man walking toward her.
"I’m sorry," Su Miaoyi apologized, and as she did, she saw a tattoo on the inside of the man’s right wrist.
It was a longsword.
It stretched nearly to his palm.
On either side of the hilt was a pair of unfurled wings.
It was the same tattoo from her vision—the one on the hand that held the fruit knife as it killed her.
Su Miaoyi’s head snapped up to look at him.
The man turned his head and glanced at her.
Their eyes met.
And Su Miaoyi saw another strange vision.
She saw a hand in a white glove holding a fruit knife, plunging it into a girl’s abdomen before quickly pulling it out.
Blood stained the girl’s clothes.
It stained the fruit knife as well.
Then, the knife fell to the floor.
The scene shifted. The same hand was now pressing down on a doorknob.
As the handle turned, the tattoo on the inner wrist became visible, though it was partially covered by the white glove.
The door opened, then closed.
The final image lingered on the heavy door.
The apartment number on it was: 2001.
The sunlight hit her eyes, and Su Miaoyi snapped back to her senses.
She looked at the man in front of her and immediately took two steps back.
The man frowned at her, then turned and walked into the hospital.
Su Miaoyi stood frozen, watching his retreating back. She noticed one of his shoulders was higher than the other as he walked, and it took her a long moment to recover.
She looked up at the sun. It was blinding.
’Heh... It’s over for me. My condition is getting worse. I need to get home and take my medicine right away.’
...
「Jinrong District.」
After getting out of the elevator, Su Miaoyi paused as she was about to unlock her apartment door with her fingerprint.
She looked at the number on her door.
1901.
The apartment number from the vision she’d had at the hospital entrance... aside from the number itself, everything else was identical.
Su Miaoyi let go of the doorknob, took a step back, and stood there rubbing her chin as she stared at her own door.
’The same residential district? If it’s the same building and the same unit block... then wouldn’t 2001 be right upstairs?’
Su Miaoyi rubbed her chin and looked up.
A streamer lived upstairs.
Every night, she could hear the sound of her livestream.
But last night, it seemed like she hadn’t been streaming.
’Maybe... I should go check?’
With that thought, Su Miaoyi turned back to the elevator. Seeing it was still on the first floor, she pushed open the fire escape door and took the stairs to the twentieth floor.
She arrived at the door of apartment 2001.
Just as Su Miaoyi was about to knock, she noticed the door wasn’t fully closed. It was open a crack.
She knocked anyway. "Is anyone home?"
There was no response.
Su Miaoyi knocked again, this time harder. "Hello? Is anyone there?"