The last day of August.
With half an hour to go until September.
Su Miaoyi updated her novel and posted a hiatus notice.
It was to cover the missed update from the day she spent at the police station.
And she swore.
That she absolutely, definitely wouldn’t miss any updates in September.
Her work done.
Su Miaoyi opened her phone and scrolled through some short-form videos for a while.
Then she looked around her room.
And then... in the middle of the night, she suddenly started cleaning her room.
It was a one-bedroom apartment of over fifty square meters.
She didn’t have much stuff.
After quickly tidying everything up, she wiped down every surface.
She also mopped the floor.
She changed the bedsheets and duvet cover, tossing them into the washing machine.
Then she threw all her clothes onto the bed.
But after folding just a few items, she lay down among the clothes and fell asleep.
The power went out in the building in the middle of the night.
Although it came back on quickly, the air conditioner had turned off and didn’t restart.
Su Miaoyi, still sleeping in a pile of clothes, was soon covered in sweat.
The heat woke her up.
But the very instant she opened her eyes and saw the light, the scene before her suddenly changed.
A dim, cramped room, with only a little light filtering in through a window.
She was lying on a bed, her gaze sweeping past the window.
Then, a sharp pain shot through her ankle.
A powerful force gripped her ankle and yanked her down.
She suddenly started screaming and struggling.
"Get off! Get off! Help! Help! Get off!"
In the darkness, she couldn’t see the man’s face, only hear his heavy breathing. "Shut up! Don’t scream! Don’t scream!"
She kept struggling frantically.
Her pushing hands were grabbed and pinned to the bed, so she kicked out hard with her legs.
She didn’t know where she’d kicked the man, but he suddenly cried out and let her go.
She immediately scrambled into a corner, and two seconds later, got up and ran for the door.
But just as she touched the doorknob, the man grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back.
She fell to the floor, the back of her head hitting the wall.
She heard a dull thud, and a wave of dizziness washed over her.
The man came over and slapped her across the face.
Her body slumped to the ground, and she lost consciousness...
...
The scene before her eyes changed.
Blinding light replaced the darkness.
Su Miaoyi shot up and stood beside her bed.
She gasped for air, sweat dripping down her cheeks and the side of her neck.
She took two steps back and steadied herself against a nearby cabinet. After a moment, she found her pajamas in the pile of clothes on the bed and went into the bathroom.
The sky outside was already bright.
When Su Miaoyi came out of the shower, she sat down at her computer without blow-drying her hair.
She took a notebook and pen from the bookshelf, her gaze falling on her two chafed wrists.
’There was so little to go on this time.’
’The room was too dark.’
’There was only one window with light.’
’But the light was too weak.’
’Through that window, the sky outside seemed dim.’
’Like the sky before sunrise.’
’The window had bars on it, and it was high and small. Not like in a residential building.’
’I couldn’t see the man’s face at all, not even what he was wearing.’
’Only the layout of the room...’
She had managed to see that much, at least.
Su Miaoyi sketched out a rough drawing in the notebook.
Once she was sure she hadn’t missed anything she’d seen, she tore the drawing from the notebook, changed her clothes, and hurried out the door.
She took a taxi to the municipal bureau.
The moment she got out, she headed inside.
"Hey! Su Miaoyi!" Zhuang Yanzheng called out to her.
Su Miaoyi turned and saw Zhuang Yanzheng’s car parked by the entrance.
She immediately walked over.
"Coming in for your shift?" Zhuang Yanzheng said, handing her bag after bag of breakfast: steamed buns, soy milk, fried dough sticks, soft tofu pudding, savory crepes, and more.
Standing outside the car, Su Miaoyi took them one by one.
For some reason, a strange sense of familiarity washed over her.
"Saw something again?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
"I’m here for my shift," Su Miaoyi said.
Zhuang Yanzheng chuckled. "Go on in. I was just thinking I needed someone to carry my breakfast."
Su Miaoyi: "..."
"Take two steps back, I’m going to park," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi took two steps back. "Then be quick about it."
"Got it." Zhuang Yanzheng drove the car away.
Su Miaoyi carried the breakfast into the municipal bureau.
She stood outside the office area, only recognizing Qi Feng.
"What’s all this?" Qi Feng asked, walking toward her.
"It’s breakfast. Hand it out," Zhuang Yanzheng’s voice sounded from behind her. "Eat up, we’ve got work to do."
Qi Feng took the breakfast from Su Miaoyi’s hands, setting aside a portion for Zhuang Yanzheng. "Thanks, Captain Zhuang."
Su Miaoyi looked at Zhuang Yanzheng.
"To my office."
Su Miaoyi followed Zhuang Yanzheng to his office.
Zhuang Yanzheng sat down.
Su Miaoyi sat in the chair opposite him.
Zhuang Yanzheng set the breakfast aside—the case was more important. "What did you see?"
"I saw a girl being assaulted in a room," Su Miaoyi said.
Zhuang Yanzheng lifted his eyes to look at her.
Su Miaoyi told him everything she had seen, then took out the drawing she’d made. "This is the layout of the room."
Zhuang Yanzheng took it and looked.
Whoa.
’He couldn’t make heads or tails of it.’
"What’s this?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
"A window," Su Miaoyi said.
Zhuang Yanzheng frowned, scrutinizing it. "An instant-noodle-shaped window?"
"Those are the bars," Su Miaoyi said. "There are security bars on the window."
Zhuang Yanzheng: "..."
"The room is small. The furniture inside and the decals on the wall are all pretty old. The window is high up and also small," Su Miaoyi said. "It doesn’t seem like an apartment building."
Zhuang Yanzheng stared at her drawing, troubled.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand her drawing. Even if her sketch was a perfect reproduction of the room...
...it was still just a single room.
With no specific location.
Even if they could determine it wasn’t an apartment building...
...in a city like Jinghai, there was no telling how many old buildings like that existed in the surrounding areas and the city center.
They couldn’t even be sure it was in Jinghai.
This was a complete needle-in-a-haystack situation.
And they didn’t even know which ocean the needle had fallen into.
"You didn’t see the man’s face at all?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
Su Miaoyi shook her head.
Her hair had air-dried on the way over.
A slight shake of her head sent loose strands falling in front of her eyes.
She raised a hand to brush them away.
Zhuang Yanzheng’s gaze followed her movement. "What happened to your wrist?"
Su Miaoyi glanced at her own wrist.
She was wearing a sun shirt, and her wrist, which had been covered, was exposed when she raised her hand.
She tugged her sleeve down. "It’s nothing."
While she was in the shower replaying the scenes in her mind, Su Miaoyi had accidentally scrubbed too hard, chafing her wrists and ankles raw.
Zhuang Yanzheng saw a flicker of disgust pass over her otherwise placid expression.
Connecting it to the scene she had described, he could guess what had happened and didn’t press the issue.
"Let’s have a sketch artist recreate the scene you saw first," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
’Her drawing was honestly a little hard to look at.’
After speaking, he stood up, only to find that Su Miaoyi wasn’t responding.
"Su Miaoyi?" Zhuang Yanzheng called her name.
Su Miaoyi was staring blankly ahead, her eyes unblinking and completely vacant.
Zhuang Yanzheng narrowed his eyes. ’This state... she’s seeing something again...’