Psychological fragments

He stared at me, silent for a few seconds, and the tension in the air instantly intensified, even the sunlight streaming in from the window seemed to turn cold. Then he spoke, his voice low and undeniably serious: "What about that number?"

I hurriedly pulled out my phone, my fingertips stiffened, and it took me two tries to open the call log, find the unfamiliar number, and hand the phone over.

He took a picture of the screen with his phone, handed the phone back to me, and when he looked up at me, his expression was even more serious.

"Dr. Shen, from now on, you are very likely to be her next target."

I stood there, stunned, my mind going blank, as if I hadn't understood what he said.

"Why?" I asked instinctively. "I'm no longer Zhao Min's psychologist. Zhao Min is dead. I shouldn't be her target."

"You are." Fang Jue's words were like a block of ice, hitting me straight in the heart. "Zhao Min died twice in your clinic, just two steps away from you. In her eyes, it was you who failed to protect her daughter, it was you who allowed those outsiders to get close to what belonged to her, and it was you who almost stole Zhao Min, who was rightfully hers."

A bone-chilling cold instantly shot up from the soles of my feet, crawling up my spine and covering my entire body. I sat on the sofa, my whole body covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.

"And," he continued without giving me a chance to catch my breath, "you're checking those files, searching for that digital chain, getting closer and closer to the truth she's kept hidden for ten years. She won't let you get away with this."

I froze on the sofa, opened my mouth, but couldn't utter a single word for a long time.

The sunlight outside the window was bright and clear, shining through the French windows and onto the floor, but I felt cold all over, as if I had been thrown into an ice cellar, and even my fingertips were numb with cold.

As Fang Jue got up to leave, he pulled a black police pistol from his waist, the gun exuding a cold metallic sheen, and gently placed it on the glass coffee table.

"Do you know how to use it?" he asked, looking at me.

I shook my head, my eyes fixed on the gun, even my breathing became soft.

"It's very simple." He tapped the gun with his finger. "Disengage the safety, aim at the target, and pull the trigger. But I advise you not to use it. The most dangerous moment is when you have to pull the trigger."

He withdrew his hand and placed a thick, stapled copy of the file next to the gun.

"This is the original case file for Zhao Min's serial murder case. I've made a copy of the core part. Take a look; maybe you can find something we missed. I'll come back to pick it up in three days."

After saying that, he turned around, opened the door, and left. The security door clicked shut, and the whole house fell into a deathly silence.

I sat alone in the living room, staring motionlessly at the gun and the brown paper file on the coffee table. Bright sunlight streamed in through the window, casting a patchwork of light and shadow on the black gun and the yellowed file paper, like a silent net.

I don't know how long I sat there. When I suddenly came to my senses, the daylight outside the window had long since faded, and the entire living room was swallowed up by thick darkness. Only the streetlights in the distance, through the gaps in the curtains, let in a faint, dim yellow light.

I reached out and switched on the lamp next to the sofa. The warm yellow light instantly filled the small area in front of me, dispelling some of the darkness, but making the corners that the light couldn't reach seem even more gloomy. I reached for the thick file, and when my fingertips touched the pages, I could still feel the roughness and weight of the paper.

I turned to the first page.

At the top is Zhao Min's basic information, printed in bold, each stroke exuding coldness:

Zhao Min, female, born on March 18, 1989, Han nationality, from Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. Her parents divorced early in her life, and she lived with her mother, He Xiuying, from a young age. She ran away from home in 2007 and her whereabouts have been unknown ever since. Between 2013 and 2016, she was suspected of four intentional homicide cases, and in 2016 she was officially listed as a wanted fugitive online.

3 month 18 day.

This string of numbers struck my confused mind like a bolt of lightning.

0318. The last file number in that archive room, the last link in that chain of numbers, wasn't just an ordinary patient number; it was Zhao Min's birthday.

It turns out that from the very beginning, the end point of this digital chain was her.

I suppressed the turmoil surging within me and continued scrolling down.

The following pages contained the basic details of the four murder cases attributed to Zhao Min by the police. Each page felt like a stone, making my heart ache.

The first case occurred in Harbin in April 2013. The deceased was Zhang Jun, male, 42 years old, a factory worker. Cause of death: acute cyanide poisoning. The deceased was Zhao Min's boyfriend at the time, and the two had been living together for three months. On the day of the incident, Zhang Jun was found dead at home, and Zhao Min's whereabouts were unknown. Neighbors' testimonies indicated that a week before the incident, a middle-aged woman around fifty years old had repeatedly loitered near the residential area, inquiring about Zhang Jun's family situation from the security guard.

The second incident occurred in July 2014 in Shenyang. The deceased was Li Jianguo, male, 38 years old, a self-employed landlord. Cause of death: acute cyanide poisoning. Zhao Min was renting a house under his name at the time. A month before the incident, the two had a heated argument over a rent increase. On the day of the incident, Li Jianguo died in the rented room where Zhao Min was staying, and Zhao Min disappeared again. A downstairs tenant testified that three days before the incident, he saw a middle-aged woman come to see Zhao Min, and the two argued for a long time in the hallway. The woman had a heavy accent, sounding like she was from the Henan area.

The third case occurred in September 2015 in Dalian. The deceased was Wang Qiang, male, 45 years old, a restaurant head chef. Cause of death: acute cyanide poisoning. Zhao Min was a waitress at the restaurant at the time, and Wang Qiang had an ambiguous relationship with her, repeatedly stating in public that he wanted to take care of her. On the day of the incident, Wang Qiang died in the staff dormitory after get off work, and Zhao Min disappeared without a trace. The restaurant owner testified that a week before the incident, a middle-aged woman with a slight limp in her right leg came to the restaurant every day to eat. She would sit in a corner the whole time, her eyes always fixed on Wang Qiang in the kitchen, and she would leave after eating without saying a word.

The fourth incident occurred in March 2016 in Tianjin. The deceased was Liu Dong, male, 51 years old, a private company owner. Cause of death: acute cyanide poisoning. Zhao Min and Liu Dong met on a social media platform and chatted for three months before agreeing to meet at a hotel. On the day of the meeting, Liu Dong died in his hotel room, and Zhao Min's whereabouts became unknown. Hotel surveillance footage showed that half an hour after Liu Dong entered the room, a middle-aged woman wearing a hat and mask knocked on the door and entered, leaving alone ten minutes later without showing her face.

Four murders, four victims, and four identical commonalities: all were men who had close contact with Zhao Min; before the victims died, witnesses saw a middle-aged woman with highly matching characteristics appear; there was no physical evidence at the scene that could directly point to Zhao Min as the murderer; and Zhao Min would immediately disappear after each murder.

I closed the file, leaned back heavily on the sofa, and my mind was completely clear.

The middle-aged woman described in these testimonies has such distinctive features—over fifty years old, with a Henan accent, and a slight limp in her right leg. She is exactly the same as the "He Chunfang" written on the sticky notes in my file folders.

It wasn't Zhao Min who killed anyone.

It was He Xiuying. She was Zhao Min's biological mother, who killed everyone who came near Zhao Min and then made Zhao Min a wanted criminal who had been on the run for ten years.

I took a deep breath, picked up the file again, and continued flipping through it. The next few pages contained scattered copies of witness testimonies, blurry photos of the scene, and a summary of the first autopsy report—all information already reviewed by the police, offering no particularly interesting clues.

Until I turned to the last page of the file, and my fingertips touched the cover, I felt a thin piece of paper tucked inside.

I paused for a moment, then reached out and pulled it out.

It was a sticky note torn from a notebook, the edges already a bit rough. Several lines of writing were on it, done in a messy, forceful hand with the pen tip tearing through the paper, leaving deep marks:

*March 18, 2017, Chen Jianguo's car accident in H City

*On May 21, 2018, Li Minhua drowned in City C.

*On July 15, 2019, Zhang Mingyuan fell from a building in City D.

*September 3, 2020: Wang Xiuying, G City, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning.

*On November 29, 2021, Zhao Zhiqiang went missing in City B.

*April 17, 2022, Sun Lihua's car accident in City A

It was exactly the same as the death list Fang Jue showed me that afternoon.

But as my gaze moved down, at the very end of the list, there was a separate line of text, the ink much fresher than the previous lines, as if it had just been written:

*2023.4.20 The city remains silent?

Silence.

My name.

I stared at the words, and my blood seemed to freeze instantly. My hands began to tremble uncontrollably, and the sticky notes rustled between my fingers.

Who wrote this? When was it written? Why is it sandwiched inside the original police case file copy that Fang Jue gave me?

2023.4.20.

It's today.

My name is followed by a lonely question mark.

What does that mean?

Is my manner of death still undetermined?

Or is it that the person who wrote this note hasn't figured out how to kill me yet?

I sprang up from the sofa, my hair standing on end, my eyes scanning every corner of the living room—the shadows in the entryway, behind the curtains, behind the closed bedroom door, and outside the frosted glass of the bathroom.

The house was eerily quiet, with only my own rapid breathing echoing repeatedly in the empty living room. Outside the window, the night was so thick it was impossible to see anything, but I could clearly feel a pair of eyes staring intently at me through the darkness, never looking away for a moment.