“I need a sketch artist.”
That was the first thing Su Miaoyi said to Zhuang Yanzheng once she snapped back to reality.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her pale face and the beads of sweat on her forehead, then immediately stepped out of the office.
“Qi Feng!” Only Zhuang Yanzheng would yell this loudly in the municipal bureau. “Tell Lu Zhishen to bring his sketchpad to the office.”
“Got it.” Qi Feng ran off with a deep-fried dough stick still in his mouth.
Zhuang Yanzheng stood at the office door and turned back to look at Su Miaoyi.
Su Miaoyi sat in the chair, both hands resting on the desk.
It looked like an ordinary sitting posture.
But her back was ramrod straight, her shoulders tense. If you looked closely, her arms were trembling very slightly.
Her hands were clasped together, gripping so hard they shook.
Lu Zhishen arrived quickly with his sketchpad.
Still dressed casually.
“What’s the matter?” Lu Zhishen asked.
Hearing him speak, Su Miaoyi stood up.
Lu Zhishen saw that it was her again. He glanced at Zhuang Yanzheng.
“Sketch artist.” Su Miaoyi addressed him.
Lu Zhishen looked at her.
Zhuang Yanzheng suddenly felt a flicker of confusion.
Her Mandarin was usually quite standard—why did she suddenly have an accent all of a sudden?
“Sit.” Zhuang Yanzheng tilted his chin toward the sofa.
Lu Zhishen and Su Miaoyi sat down on the sofa.
Zhuang Yanzheng sat down as well.
“You… an eyewitness again?” Lu Zhishen pulled a pen from his pocket once more.
Su Miaoyi nodded.
Lu Zhishen was a bit puzzled but didn’t ask further questions.
“It’s one location.” Su Miaoyi said.
Lu Zhishen nodded. “Go ahead.”
“I saw the buildings outside through a very small window,” Su Miaoyi said. “That window faced west.”
She had roughly determined the direction based on the sunlight, the shadows, and the orientation of the houses she saw.
Lu Zhishen understood what she meant, so he started sketching from her described perspective.
“It should be a self-built house, two stories total. The exterior is lime-gray, no other decoration, just plain walls…” Su Miaoyi spoke while recalling what she had seen.
Still that dim, cramped room.
She stood on a chair, looking out through that small window.
She saw the houses outside, saw the street outside.
No high-rises.
As far as her eyes could reach, almost everything was two-story buildings.
There were brick-red walls, gray walls, and white walls.
Streets, utility poles.
Lu Zhishen made adjustments based on what she described and finished the drawing quickly.
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at it and asked, “Did you see the number on the utility pole?”
“No.” Su Miaoyi had just carefully tried to recall that utility pole and hadn’t seen any number on it.
She looked at the drawn location, thought for a moment, and said, “There’s a signal tower here, very far away.”
Lu Zhishen made revisions based on her description, recreating the signal tower she had seen: “Based on this scale… the signal tower should be on a mountain, or the terrain there is relatively elevated.”
“I heard some people talking. From their voices, they’re Jinghai locals.” Su Miaoyi said.
“Self-built houses, a mountain, a signal tower.” Zhuang Yanzheng picked up the tablet from the desk and opened the map of Jinghai.
Lu Zhishen looked at Su Miaoyi again.
“What did you hear?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked while looking at the map.
“One chicken, two crackers, peng! Your turn, draw a tile. This weather is so hot, even with the fan on I can’t sleep. Then turn on the air conditioner. Turning on the air conditioner makes my legs hurt.” Su Miaoyi repeated the voices she had heard while standing by the window. “All male voices.”
Lu Zhishen said, “Playing mahjong? Air conditioner makes legs hurt—this area skews toward an older population.”
Zhuang Yanzheng continued searching for the location on the map: “What else did you see?”
Lu Zhishen looked at Su Miaoyi again.
Su Miaoyi furrowed her brow slightly. “I didn’t see anything else, but I heard some more conversation.”
Zhuang Yanzheng’s expression paused for a moment. He raised his eyes to look at her. “What?”
Su Miaoyi was still seeing everything through that girl’s eyes.
She stood on the chair, looking out through the window.
Suddenly the door was opened from outside.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, she was startled, her legs went weak, and she fell off the chair.
She hit the ground, curled up in the corner, hiding her head between her knees.
She kept trembling, hugging herself tightly, completely afraid to look at them.
So Su Miaoyi hadn’t seen anything either.
But she had heard their conversation.
It was the voices of two men.
“What happened to your head? And what’s wrong with your face?”
“Nothing, just took a fall and hit my head. The face is an allergic reaction to something I ate. Take the proper precautions, it won’t affect anything.”
“Really? It’s not contagious, is it?”
“When have you ever heard of an allergy being contagious?”
Suddenly a woman’s voice rang out: “I’ve already given her a bath. Don’t worry.”
“Well, she’s not much to look at then. Give us a discount.” The man spoke again.
“Fine, fine. Just this once, though. Next time it won’t work.”
Then came the sound of the door closing.
The voices outside faded away.
Then the scene shifted, and she was plunged into another kind of darkness.
She couldn’t see anything there either.
But this darkness wasn’t like the kind you’d feel when hugging yourself in fear—it was a light, floating sensation, as if she had drifted out of her own body, stripped of all senses.
Then Su Miaoyi snapped back to reality.
After Su Miaoyi finished speaking, both Lu Zhishen and Zhuang Yanzheng fell silent for a moment.
Zhuang Yanzheng lowered his head and continued studying the map.
Su Miaoyi said, “That kind of self-built house looks like it’s been around for years. The soundproofing probably isn’t good…”
“The people around there have known each other for decades, living together all that time—covering for one another is possible too.” Zhuang Yanzheng set down the tablet. “This one fits best.”
He stood up, opened the office door, and called out, “Qi Feng, grab a few people and come with me.”
Su Miaoyi followed him. “Can I come too?”
Zhuang Yanzheng turned to look at her.
Su Miaoyi said, “I’ve never seen the same vision twice on one person. From their conversation, the second vision seemed to happen after she hit her head. What I mean is—maybe she’s still alive. And since I’m a woman, it’d be easier for me to handle certain situations.”
In all her previous visions, the victims had been dead.
So when Su Miaoyi saw the vision at home that morning, she’d assumed the girl was gone too…
But just now, she’d seen it again, and she felt this time was different from before.
“Grab the breakfast on the desk,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi quickly snatched the breakfast from the desk and jogged to catch up with Zhuang Yanzheng.
Only Lu Zhishen remained in the office.
His mind was full of questions with no one to answer them.
He was starting to wonder if he’d forgotten how to understand Chinese this early in the morning.
She’d seen it, and she was right here—so why didn’t she know where it was?
And why could she only hear, but not see?
What did all that just mean? What did she mean by seeing it twice?
Lu Zhishen was beginning to think he’d stayed up so late he was hallucinating.
…
Su Miaoyi followed Zhuang Yanzheng into the car.
Qi Feng sat in the passenger seat.
Su Miaoyi sat in the back, holding the breakfast, and asked, “How are you going to eat while driving?”
“You haven’t had breakfast either, right? You eat it.” Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi glanced at it. “I don’t have a habit of eating breakfast.”
“Have a bite,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. “Don’t get low blood sugar halfway there and need me to revive you.”
Su Miaoyi said nothing.
She stuck a straw into the soy milk and drank.
The hand-grabbed pancake she left on the center console.
They drove for over an hour.
After getting out of the car, the area was almost entirely two-story self-built houses.
Su Miaoyi spotted a signal tower on the distant mountain.
Following the location in the vision, they searched for it.
This place was huge.
The names were all something-village.
The area was divided into four such villages.
And the signal tower was far away—comparing it with the image, they calculated the approximate distance.
The range covered nearly this entire stretch.
They split up, comparing the image as they searched, and asking passersby for directions.
Zhuang Yanzheng asked, “Uncle, is there a place to play mahjong nearby?”
“What?” the old man shouted.
“A place to play mahjong—mahjong!” Zhuang Yanzheng shouted.
The old man nodded, gesturing with his hands: “Right, yes, eighty-five this year.”
Zhuang Yanzheng: “…”
He gave the old man a thumbs up. “Strong and healthy. You’re blessed.”
The old man laughed.
Zhuang Yanzheng sighed and kept searching.
Su Miaoyi jogged through row after row of streets.
The sun had risen, and the temperature was climbing.
Jogging, her back was soon soaked through.
She ran into another street.
Looking at the houses around her, she took a few steps deeper in.
Suddenly, she heard a cry for help.
A faint voice.
“Help… save me… it hurts, it hurts so much… please save me…”
Su Miaoyi quickened her pace, running deeper, and turned a corner.
She saw a lime-gray wall—the same kind of house as in her vision.
She looked across to the opposite side.
The wall was unfamiliar.
But that high, small window was familiar.
“Help… it hurts, it hurts so much… save me…”
Su Miaoyi listened to the cries, then glanced back at Zhuang Yanzheng behind her.
She wanted to call out to him, but feared alerting whoever was inside the room.
She picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it at Zhuang Yanzheng.
It hit with surprising accuracy—right on his calf. She hadn’t expected to be that precise.
Zhuang Yanzheng flinched at the impact and turned to look at her.
Su Miaoyi pressed her palms together in a quick apology, then pointed at the room beside her.
She heard the man’s scolding voice again: “What hospital! What would you even say at the hospital! She’s not even showing yet—just let it bleed out and it’ll pass! Make her some brown sugar water. The pain will fade. Bastard! Which son of a bitch didn’t take precautions! If I find out who, I’ll squeeze every penny out of him!”
Su Miaoyi listened, walked to the door, and pounded on it hard.
“Who’s there!” a voice came from inside.
Su Miaoyi pounded on the door again, harder.
“No mahjong today—go somewhere else!” the man shouted.
Su Miaoyi’s knocking grew even heavier.
Finally, the door opened.
The man stepped out, saw her, and asked, “Who are you?”
Su Miaoyi looked at him. “Police.”
……