"Who said you could touch this?"
A hand suddenly shot out and snatched the photograph away.
At some point, Yu Zhengze had finished his shower and come out. Water dripped from his hair, which he hadn’t had time to dry. He clutched a towel tightly in his hand, his face livid.
He slammed the photo face-down on the table, the motion so forceful that it scattered the file folder he had just tidied up.
Yu Xian didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look up at his cousin’s expression.
His gaze remained fixed on the back of the overturned photo, his mind consumed by that bone-chilling smile.
’It’s too fake.’
’Is that an expression a normal human being could even make?’
’He felt a strange sense of familiarity. Where had he seen an expression like that before?’
That fixed, abrupt, lifeless, mannequin-like curve.
’That’s it. A mannequin. A plastic mannequin.’
That smile was just like the ones on the plastic mannequins in a department store window.
It was as if someone had slapped a smiling mask directly onto the mangled, bloody face of the girl who had fallen from the building.
His stomach churned violently, and Yu Xian felt the urge to throw up the buns he’d had for breakfast.
Yu Zhengze’s grip on the towel loosened slightly. He clearly realized his reaction had been excessive.
He glanced at the now-clean room, opened his mouth, and then sighed.
"How many did you see?"
"All of them."
Yu Xian fought down the nausea churning in his stomach.
Yu Zhengze picked up the cigarette pack on the table and shook it, but nothing came out. He crushed the empty pack in his hand.
"It’s the recent serial suicide case."
He sat down heavily in the chair. The case had probably been weighing on him for too long, leaving his nerves stretched taut.
"It’s nationwide. A few cases popped up in Jiangcheng a while back. This was all supposed to be confidential. This case... it’s just too damned strange."
"Were they all posed with a smile after they died?"
Yu Zhengze was silent for a moment.
"The medical examiner performed autopsies and did a biopsy analysis of the facial nerves and muscle fibers."
After saying this, he gave Yu Xian a deep look.
"If the smile was forced onto their faces after death, there would be signs of tearing or bruising on the smaller muscles from the external force. But the fact is, there’s nothing like that."
"Which means..."
Yu Xian felt his throat tighten.
"They were smiling when they died?"
Yu Zhengze gazed out at the curtain of rain against the window. The sky was gloomy.
"Yes. And the smile was very stable, the muscle texture symmetrical, as if it had been practiced countless times. It’s like they forcibly welded that expression onto their faces right up until the moment of death."
Yu Xian felt his scalp tingle and a chill run down his spine.
Imagine it. A person falling from a great height. In the instant their body hits the ground, primal fear, pain, and the will to survive should have twisted their features into a grimace.
But not these people.
They suppressed their most basic biological instincts and, in that final moment, maintained a perfect, plastic, mannequin-like smile.
That was more terrifying than any murder.
Yu Zhengze rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily.
"That’s why the current theory at the bureau is that it’s some new kind of neurotoxin, but all the toxicology reports have come back negative..."
At this, he seemed to realize something and sat up straight.
"Alright, that’s enough. Now that you know, don’t go spreading it around, and don’t get any crazy ideas."
Yu Zhengze stood up, stuffed the stack of photos back into the file folder, and wound the string around it several times, pulling it tight.
"Hey."
Yu Xian suddenly spoke up, his voice sounding distant.
"Do you think Xia Li... could she have been caught up in this case too?"
He couldn’t stop the thought from surfacing in his mind.
"Impossible."
Yu Zhengze’s reply was firm and decisive, even tinged with a hint of reproach.
"These are two completely different things. As strange as the victims’ deaths are, the people are accounted for. We have the bodies, and we have their IDs."
He paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. "Your... Xia Li... even if this person really exists..."
In the end, he just sighed.
"Xiaoxian, I know you’re upset, but these are definitely two different things. Social pressures are high right now, and there have been a lot of suicides related to mental health issues. We’re all terrified of copycat incidents. You really need to get a hold of yourself."
With that, he got up. "You get some rest. I’ll go make you something to eat."
Yu Xian watched his cousin walk into the kitchen. A moment later, he heard the sound of water boiling.
’Two different things?’
It was true. The two matters seemed completely unrelated, but to him, they both exuded the same indescribable, jarring sense of dissonance.
It was a dissonance he couldn’t ignore, one he could only temporarily suppress in his heart.
That night, he lay in bed. The bed in his cousin’s home was very close to the window, so close he could hear the rain sliding down the building’s exterior and pipes.
Occasionally, a car would pass by below, its headlights flashing across the ceiling, dragging a brief trail of light and shadow.
He stared blankly at that trail of light. His mind was exhausted, but sleep was impossible.
He put on some soft music, but it didn’t seem to help. He simply kept his eyes closed until his brain finally gave out and he fell asleep.
...
「Monday.」
Although the weekend had nearly broken him, the inertia of life was still frighteningly strong.
The alarm went off at seven as usual. Yu Zhengze was already gone, leaving a spare key and some breakfast money on the table.
Yu Xian mechanically washed up, left the apartment, and squeezed onto the subway.
The crowd around him was as bustling as ever. People stared down at their phones, different music or news playing in their earbuds, their faces sharing the same reluctance to let go of the weekend and hostility toward Monday.
He arrived at the main university building. His 8 AM class was High-Energy Astrophysics and Gravitational Waves. In layman’s terms, it was a field dedicated to studying the violent activities of celestial bodies like black holes, neutron stars, and supernovae, as well as the "ripples in spacetime" they caused, known as gravitational waves.