Chapter 9: Departure
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Fang Qingzhuo recalled that she had been in this hospital room before—several years ago. This was where Shen Zhiyang had been placed. The square-shaped room, she stood at the doorway and softly asked the person inside, “Do you like the sky outside?”
The figure by the window turned at the sound.
“You hardly ever saw it before, right?” Fang Qingzhuo asked. “Then why don’t you go outside?”
Shen Zhiyang gripped the stainless steel railing tightly with both hands, looked at her for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the window.
Waiting long for an answer, Fang Qingzhuo said, “Are you afraid of that tightly closed door? Because he doesn’t allow you to leave.”
...
Fang Qingzhuo woke up and sat up on the bed.
The dazzling sunlight she had seen before falling asleep had vanished without a trace; the room was filled with the quiet stillness unique to the deep night.
For a brief moment, Fang Qingzhuo mistakenly felt as if she were stranded at the center of darkness.
She touched the old wound on her right hand; the uneven scar was etched vividly in her mind, presenting an ugly image. Barefoot, she stepped onto the floor.
She still remembered the continuation of the conversation in her dream—it was etched so deeply into her soul.
— “The code to this door is 620378. Beyond it lies a narrow corridor with twelve rooms on both sides.”
Fang Qingzhuo approached the door, each movement sluggish, her fingertips numb and cold as she entered the numbers one by one.
With a soft “click,” the touchscreen lit up, and the door lock disengaged.
She took a breath, pushed the door open, turned her body, looked at the shadow cast behind her, and hesitantly stepped out.
— “The stairwell to the emergency exit and the door before the elevator both require passwords and swipe cards, with two surveillance cameras installed above—you’ll need to avoid them.”
— “On your right, the second-to-last room at the corridor’s end is an empty lounge.”
The long, empty corridor stretched ahead; Fang Qingzhuo walked barefoot step by step.
— “It’s not locked. You can open the door and enter freely. The window there has no protective bars.”
— “This is the first floor. If you jump out the window and run fast enough, you can leave this psychiatric hospital.”
Fang Qingzhuo turned the lock.
Light from the corridor spilled into the cluttered room, and a rush of dust billowed out.
She lifted her eyelids, staring intently at the rectangular glass window opposite.
— “The outside world has no bars.”
— “Shen Zhiyang, I hope that the next time you wake up, you can walk through that door.”
On the table in the middle lay two hundred yuan in cash and a pair of shoes deliberately placed there.
Fang Qingzhuo’s eyes inexplicably grew moist, filled with a boiling emotion she was not yet ready to accept.
She stopped thinking, emptied her mind, grabbed the cash, put on the shoes, and jumped out the windowsill, landing on a soft lawn.
The late summer night breeze was damp and loud; the coolness lingering on her skin instantly dissipated under the heat, as if an invisible water cocoon enveloped her body.
Fang Qingzhuo sprinted wildly toward the distant gate.
The guard sat lazily in the security booth, resting his head on the table, watching her leave.
Her breath ragged, she wandered aimlessly along a long street dappled with tree shadows.
A taxi pulled up behind her, its lights flashing as it spotted her figure and flickered its headlights.
Fang Qingzhuo raised her hand to hail it, opened the door, and got in.
The driver adjusted his rearview mirror and looked at her, asking, “Little miss, where to?”
Fang Qingzhuo clenched two bills in her hand; countless thoughts, like layers of thick rust, clogged every crevice of her reason, rendering her mind frozen as she sat silently.
The driver didn’t urge her, slowly started driving along the road, and explained warmly, “No long stops here, so I’ll just keep moving.”
Fang Qingzhuo blinked and decided to return to where her memories had begun. Her voice hoarse, she said, “Garden Hotel.”
“Got it,” the middle-aged man replied promptly, pressing the accelerator and speeding off.
The vehicle passed through a desolate outskirts area, and gradually, clusters of lights appeared outside the window.
The dazzling lights scattered across tall buildings shone like pearls spilled from the sky, illuminating the city’s prosperity.
Among countless overlapping shadows, Fang Qingzhuo once again stood at the hotel entrance.
She looked around, directionless. After struggling to think, she decided to find a computer first.
She planned to borrow a phone for navigation but found few pedestrians at this late hour. Her gaze wandered until she unexpectedly saw a blue neon sign across the street that read boldly: “Internet Café.”
Despondent, she stepped inside the café and met the manager’s gaze. She sighed and said, “I didn’t bring my ID.”
The manager smiled and said, “No problem, just use mine. Seat 3-18.”
Fang Qingzhuo handed him all the change the driver had given her without looking back and went inside.
She found the designated computer, powered it on, and typed “Abnormal Assessment” into the search bar.
Most results were blocked or deleted; only a few incomplete snapshots remained on the homepage.
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Fang Qingzhuo backed out and searched for information related to Sun Qingqing.
This time, numerous news reports and case discussions flooded the screen.
As a notorious criminal case that had once stirred the entire city, people still shared detailed accounts to this day.
The key information in these lengthy articles closely matched what Ji He had said, except that speculation about Sun Qingqing’s fate varied wildly.
The most recent traceable clue was a live broadcast by Sun Qingqing’s mother six years ago.
The broadcast scene had been chaotic, even trending on social media at the time. Afterward, Sun Qingqing vanished without a trace.
Some guessed she had been locked in a psychiatric hospital; others believed her parents had once again made her “disappear.” Many thought she was already dead, as caring for someone incapable of self-care was fraught with dangers.
Sun Qingqing’s parents repeatedly denied these rumors but eventually fell silent when clarifications proved ineffective.
Fang Qingzhuo found a screenshot of the live broadcast and felt the people there looked vaguely familiar.
City A was neither too big nor too small. Perhaps she had seen them somewhere unknown.
She searched her own name next; many award reports appeared, mixed with an interview.
The reporter asked if her work was too stressful, causing her to be so thin. Zhou Suirong, standing nearby, interjected helplessly, saying Fang Qingzhuo was a picky eater who hardly ate anything and was good at enduring hunger.
Fang Qingzhuo smiled and returned to the page, searching all the names she had heard in the past two days one by one, but none filled the vast emptiness in her chest.
After mechanically completing this meaningless task, she closed the webpage and approached the front desk.
The young internet café manager had been watching her with wide eyes before she even reached the counter—not with the gaze of a stranger, but one full of hesitation and surprise.
Fang Qingzhuo suddenly had a flash of insight, withdrew the words she was about to say, placed one hand on the counter, and nodded to him familiarly: “Hello.”
The manager exhaled, bent over to click the mouse, and said, “You want the sour and spicy noodles, mild spice, no numbing, extra cilantro, right?”
Fang Qingzhuo opened her mouth to say she didn’t usually eat spicy food or cilantro, but only nodded and said, “So you’re on duty today.”
“Yeah. When you came in earlier, I thought you’d forgotten me,” the manager smiled, revealing a dimple, and asked worriedly, “You look terrible. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Fang Qingzhuo said, pulling out the remaining cash from her pocket and casually asking, “When was the last time I came here?”
The manager looked down to find her change and said, “Just a few days ago. By the way, have you finished what you needed to do?”
While handing back her change, he slid over an envelope: “Here, this is for you.”
Fang Qingzhuo took only the envelope, pinched it, guessing it contained keys and a card, and anxiously said, “I gave you all the money.”
The manager was dumbfounded: “Huh?”
Fang Qingzhuo asked, “Why did I leave it with you?”
“You said something strange back then. You kept forgetting things lately and wanted to store your keys with me until you could come back to pick them up. If you didn’t come back in over a week, I was supposed to call and remind you,” the manager joked. “You didn’t really forget, did you? It’s only been a short time. I recommend you drink some calming brain tonic.”
Fang Qingzhuo said “thank you” and staggered out.
At the door, she opened the envelope and pulled out two keys, an access card, and a paper with an address.
She looked up and walked forward a little, indeed spotting a tall sign marking the community with the same name.
Fang Qingzhuo was stunned; she realized this was a signal she had left herself before her cognition became completely muddled. Her heart pounded uncontrollably, and she felt a strong urge to retreat.
Her figure froze under the streetlight for a long moment before she finally stepped inside.
Like a wandering soul, Fang Qingzhuo found the correct building, swiped the card, opened the door, and took the elevator.
As she turned the lock on the last door, her panic peaked; her heart seemed about to leap out of her chest, pressing against her throat and making it hard to breathe.
A creaking sound.
The door opened.
Fang Qingzhuo flipped a switch, and the white light in the living room illuminated the layout.
The room was tidy and bright; plastic sheets covered the sofa and other large furniture, showing years of vacancy, thickly coated with dust.
Her attention uncontrollably focused on the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Her eyes seemed drawn by some unseen force, fixating on the freezer below, as if hiding the most terrifying truth of time.
Dragging her heavy steps forward, just before opening the fridge door, she withdrew her hand.
Step by step, she retreated into the darkness beyond the reach of the living room light.
Her eyelashes trembled; surrendering to a primal fear, her legs rooted in place, she feared melting into the chilling silence.
Until the slightly ajar door was pushed open again, and a woman wearing a black motorcycle helmet entered.
Fang Qingzhuo snapped back to reality, terrified, lunging toward the knife rack on the counter, grabbing a kitchen knife, and turning around.
The woman’s hard-soled shoes clicked crisply on the tile floor; slender and upright, she circled the dining table in profile, the light tracing smooth and beautiful lines on her shoulders and back, evoking a familiarity Fang Qingzhuo could almost call out to.
It was the doctor from the hospital.
The woman casually tossed the keys onto the table, walked to the refrigerator, opened a freezer compartment just enough to peek inside, paused for two seconds, then calmly closed it.
From Fang Qingzhuo’s angle, she couldn’t see inside the fridge, only the elegant, slender hands of the woman—the cleanly trimmed nails, the curved knuckles, the pale skin, the blue veins.
Those very hands, in the late spring years ago, had reached out to welcome her, stretching toward the girl who had jumped from the windowsill.
When their hands met, the owner said:
— “Welcome to human society.”
At that moment, mere inches away, the woman slowly turned toward her, removed the helmet, revealing a plain yet refined face.
— The face belonging to Fang Qingzhuo herself.
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“Ah…”
Fang Qingzhuo’s pupils unfocused; her hands fell weakly. The knife’s tip clattered onto the floor, shattering into small sharp fragments.
She collapsed to the ground, back against the kitchen counter, turning her head and seeing her blurred features reflected in the shiny metal of a nearby sterilizer.
Her eyes were somewhat rounded, her eyebrows curved.
She was Shen Zhiyang—she was not Fang Qingzhuo at all.
The mirror she had shattered in the hotel.
The instinct to attack and resist.
The contradictions in eating habits.
The shifts in stance.
Ji He’s indifference to her motive for murder.
The disharmony of memory.
And all sorts of other chaotic thoughts—everything was confirmed, causing her head to split with pain while waves of nausea overwhelmed her.
She bent over and vomited violently, as if her bile would be completely expelled. Her hands flailed helplessly in the air, trying to grasp something—a lifeline in the turbulent tragedy upon which she could rely.
Sensing the person opposite approaching, Shen Zhiyang grabbed the one she instinctively trusted, mouth open wide like a dying fish struggling for breath.
Each breath brought new memories bursting forth from suffocating pain.
She recalled her mother standing outside the hospital room, covering her face and crying: “Don’t look at me like that. No normal child would be like you.”
She thought of escaping the confines of life, leaving the psychiatric hospital, and beginning a new life—only to see Lu Jiancheng in City A.
He turned back at her shouting, the transparent lenses reflecting cold white light, obscuring his eyes. Yet his voice was filled with icy hatred, revealing his attitude completely.
He showed no remorse but sneered at her: “I didn’t expect you’re doing pretty well now, like a normal person.”
She remembered wielding a knife fiercely near the park’s restroom, then stuffing a body into a refrigerator.
The memories were intermittent, with gaps at some turning points.
At the edge of these fragments, a man who often came to her café squatted before her and said:
“Wait till you see Fang Qingzhuo. I want you to deliver two messages to her.
“You see, you grant her peace, calm, rebirth, but you cannot solve her pain.
“Fang Qingzhuo, in truth, you’re no different from us—all you are is a withered skeleton wandering in search of new flesh. But that’s just a facade; your true nature is cold indifference.”
At the story’s end, after missing and skipped chapters, she was hastily thrust into a second fabricated life.
Multiple distinct memories clashed in an instant, truth and falsehood shattered and reconstructed. Shen Zhiyang wept bitterly, tightly grasping the hand Fang Qingzhuo extended, pressing her forehead to the palm, sobbing as she poured out:
“When I saw him, I remembered…
“He got out of prison, married a woman he knew before. She knew what kind of man he was but still bore him a child. They moved to a new city. I heard that woman say he was a good father, and I thought it was so unfair…”
“Sorry…”
·
Under the streetlight in front of the apartment building.
Ji He sat by the flower bed, smoking into an empty soda can used as an ashtray.
The young man glanced at the time, paced in circles by the building entrance, and, running out of patience, moved over to sit next to Ji He, pressing his voice low to ask, “Master, it’s been almost half an hour. Aren’t we going up?”
Ji He’s face darkened, almost radiating coldness. He shot a sidelong glance and said impatiently, “If I tell you to wait, then wait. You’ve already played the role with them for so long; why rush now? If Shen Zhiyang really breaks down and kills himself now, whose responsibility is it—yours or mine?”
The tall young man shrank into a quail on the spot and obediently said, “Oh.”
Ji He bit his cigarette butt, grinding his teeth; the muscles in his cheek twitched as a sinister smile spread: “It’s the first time someone has ordered me so forcefully, ‘You must listen to me.’ Ha.”
The young man trembled, shaking so violently that no mosquito dared to land.
A hand patted his shoulder. A middle-aged colleague leaned over and kindly said in his ear, “Zhao Rong, if you can’t remember, I don’t mind engraving the phrase ‘Silence is golden’ on your back.”
Zhao Rong: “……”
Ji He glanced at his cowardly posture, his anger rising twofold as he clicked his tongue.
Zhao Rong perceptively stood up and volunteered, “Master, should I free up your eyes? I’ll wait behind the door.”
Ji He scowled, “I said don’t call me master outside.”
“Why?” Zhao Rong complained, “Aren’t we on the same team? You don’t really want to find a chance to kick me out of the detective squad, do you?”
Ji He stubbed out his cigarette, “I’m afraid outsiders will think I’m the one who brought you along.”
Zhao Rong: “...?”
Isn’t that exactly the case? He was Ji He’s own apprentice!
The colleague beside them covered Zhao Rong’s mouth with a big, smoke-scented hand and dragged him away from the scene, saving his life.
With the case soon entering the paperwork phase, this young fool’s life was precious.
Ji He pulled out his phone, checked the chat records, confirmed no new messages, then cranked the volume to the maximum before putting it down beside him.