Inside a dim, cramped room.
A young man sat on the edge of the bed.
The bed was an ordinary bunk bed, with a long desk beside it.
The young man’s eyes were hollow and lifeless.
In his hand, he held a strip of capsules.
He pressed them out one by one.
Then he took another strip of capsules and pressed them all out, one by one again.
Clutching a handful of capsules, he put them all into his mouth, then picked up the cup on the desk in front of him.
The transparent cup seemed to contain beer, and he drank it all down.
After drinking, he opened the computer in front of him again.
He typed out the words bit by bit.
[Dear Mom and Dad, I’m sorry. I’ve let down the kindness of your upbringing all these years, but I’m really, really tired. I’m sick, and I tried to fight it. Taking medication, seeing a counselor, convincing myself every day to overcome the various physical symptoms that appeared. But it’s too strong. I can’t beat it. I really can’t beat it. I can’t become the outstanding child you hoped for. I can’t reach your standards anymore. I’m not the good child you wanted. I’m so, so tired. Let me go. Please let me go. Don’t be sad for me. I’m just free now. Be happy for me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…]
He typed out these words, clicked save, and without closing the page, he simply shut the laptop.
Then he got up, found a rope from under the bed, tied one end to the frame of the upper bunk, and made a slipknot on the other end, which he looped around his neck.
With a slight effort, the rope around his neck tightened.
The rope grew tighter and tighter. The feeling of suffocation hit him, and his face turned red from being choked.
The young man’s hand went to the rope around his neck, trying to loosen it.
But because the knot was the kind that tightened the more he struggled, he couldn’t muster the strength, and in the end, he never managed to undo it.
Finally, he hung half-suspended by the edge of the bed…
…
“Su Miaoyi. Su Miaoyi. Su Miaoyi.”
Su Miaoyi snapped back to reality and looked at Zhuang Yanzheng.
It was Zhuang Yanzheng who had snapped her out of it again.
She looked around, then at the deceased on the autopsy table.
“What did you see this time?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
That sudden blank, vacant look in her eyes was the same as in the interrogation room.
Su Miaoyi nodded.
This time, it wasn’t a scene seen from the perspective of the deceased.
Instead… she had stood from a third-person perspective, witnessing the scene of his death, and she had also seen his appearance.
So she hadn’t felt the agony of dying or the pain of the body.
Yan Cheng stood off to the side, watching the two of them.
He was observing Su Miaoyi’s reaction.
Su Miaoyi said, “I saw the process of his suicide. He took a large dose of medication—it should have been a large amount of pills washed down with beer.”
Yan Cheng’s eyes trembled slightly.
In those calm, phoenix-shaped eyes, confusion appeared, but more than that, shock.
Indeed, a large amount of psychiatric medication had been detected in the deceased’s body, along with alcohol.
Those test results had only come out shortly before the two of them arrived—Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t even know yet.
“After taking the medication, he left a suicide note on the computer,” Su Miaoyi said. “Later, he hung himself from the bed frame with a rope. The knot on the rope was somewhat unusual—it tightened the more he struggled. Later, he tried to untie it but couldn’t.”
The suicide note on the computer, the location of the hanging, the special knot of the rope.
Zhuang Yanzheng had been to the scene.
He knew all of these details, and they all matched up.
He looked at Yan Cheng.
Yan Cheng met his gaze, still finding it somewhat unbelievable.
“He had a suicide note on his computer—did you see it?” Su Miaoyi asked.
Zhuang Yanzheng nodded. “The deceased’s parents didn’t believe it. They thought the note was forged. It was the parents who requested the autopsy to find the true cause of death.”
They had investigated the scene and ruled out homicide.
But the parents couldn’t accept it. They refused to believe their child would take his own life.
“The final cause of death was still asphyxiation, right?” Su Miaoyi said. “From what I saw, his facial expression and the characteristics of his limbs were consistent with suffocation.”
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at Yan Cheng again.
Yan Cheng nodded.
Although the medication was overdosed and alcohol was involved,
the cause of death was asphyxiation.
“Convinced now?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked Yan Cheng.
Yan Cheng didn’t speak.
He found it very hard to accept what was happening before his eyes.
How could someone who wasn’t at the crime scene see the process of the crime occurring?
Zhuang Yanzheng stood beside Su Miaoyi, looked at her again, hesitated for two seconds, and finally asked, “Not afraid of blood anymore?”
“Huh?” Su Miaoyi let out a confused sound first.
Then the blood on the autopsy table caught her eye, and her legs gave way as she suddenly dropped to her knees.
Zhuang Yanzheng caught her arm and, with visible effort, hoisted her back up.
He could clearly feel her trembling.
And sweat had instantly broken out on her forehead.
The temperature in the autopsy room was this low, yet she was sweating.
Su Miaoyi dry-heaved again.
Zhuang Yanzheng helped her out.
Yan Cheng grabbed a stool and brought it outside.
Zhuang Yanzheng helped Su Miaoyi sit down.
“Take her mask off for her,” Yan Cheng said.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at him. “Me?”
Yan Cheng raised his own hands—his gloves were still stained with blood. “Who else?”
Su Miaoyi raised her hand and took off her mask herself, breathing deeply.
“She can take it off herself,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
“I saw that,” Yan Cheng said.
Su Miaoyi: “…”
“Feeling better?” Yan Cheng asked.
Su Miaoyi: “Mm.”
“If it’s severe, you can take some diphenhydramine or diazepam,” Yan Cheng said.
“Mm,” Su Miaoyi said. “Much better.”
Zhuang Yanzheng watched Su Miaoyi.
This blood phobia didn’t seem fake either.
She seemed like two people.
One who was afraid, and one who wasn’t.
One who fainted at the sight of blood, and one who didn’t.
“Why did the hospital diagnose schizophrenia? Doesn’t her symptom look more like dissociative identity disorder?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked Yan Cheng with his arms crossed. “No matter how you look at it… she seems to have two personalities.”
Su Miaoyi sat on the stool, looking up at the two men in front of her.
They felt like two walls standing before her.
“I’m a forensic pathologist, not a psychiatrist,” Yan Cheng said, standing straight with his hands at his sides, giving off a sense of rigor—unlike Zhuang Yanzheng, who stood there solid and sturdy, exuding an air of ruggedness. “But with dissociative identity disorder, there would be gaps in memory. Memories between personalities aren’t shared. She doesn’t seem to have memory gaps.”
Su Miaoyi listened to their conversation.
Her memory indeed had no gaps.
She remembered every absurd thing that had happened.
“Is it really okay for you two to talk about me like this right in front of me?” Su Miaoyi said.
Both of them looked at her.
“No,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. “But it’s already been said, so just bear with it.”
Yan Cheng glanced at him.
Su Miaoyi’s lips twitched slightly. She had never met anyone so unreasonable and yet so overbearing.
After a moment, she said, “I want to go to the restroom.”
Yan Cheng said, “Walk to the end, turn left.”
Su Miaoyi stood up.
Zhuang Yanzheng asked, “Still dizzy?”
“I’m fine now,” Su Miaoyi said.
Zhuang Yanzheng nodded.
Su Miaoyi went to the restroom.
The two men watched her back.
Until she disappeared at the end of the hallway.
Yan Cheng said, “Don’t you also think she and Le Yan… even her name…”
Zhuang Yanzheng’s brow furrowed slightly. “Le Yan is Le Yan. She is who she is.”
Yan Cheng nodded, then paused and said, “Let’s notify the family to claim the body.”
“Alright,” Zhuang Yanzheng sighed. “So young and couldn’t see a way out. Why resort to suicide?”
“He was sick,” Yan Cheng said. “For him, it’s a release.”
Zhuang Yanzheng glanced toward the autopsy room, took a piece of candy from his pocket, and tossed it into his mouth. “I don’t get it. Being alive is still better. As long as you’re alive, there’s always hope.”
Yan Cheng said nothing.