My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

Meanwhile, a car sped along the highway, with the endless night outside the window and the occasional streetlights casting fleeting patches of light on the window.

No one spoke inside the car; the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

Jiang Mingyuan sat in the passenger seat, one hand supporting his forehead, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the deep wrinkle between his eyebrows.

Jiang Mingchuan gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

Jiang Ren, sitting in the back row, looked at the emails she had just received on her phone, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

An hour ago, they received a call from the Third Mental Hospital of Linzhou City.

The doctor on the other end of the phone spoke cautiously, but the information he conveyed was enough to make Jiang Mingyuan drop everything and rush over that very night.

The female doctor spoke up.

That woman has been here for fifteen years.

For fifteen years, the Jiang family has kept her in the best ward and arranged for the most experienced doctors to treat her, not to forgive her, but because she owes them an answer.

When the police found her, she was holding a baby swaddle that was so worn that its original color was no longer recognizable. She kept repeating a phrase that no one could understand: "I've returned her to God."

During the subsequent interrogations, she gave the same testimony over and over again, her eyes unfocused, sometimes manic, sometimes dazed, showing no remorse and no clarity of mind.

But during the routine ward rounds this afternoon, she suddenly spoke to the attending physician in a calm tone she had never used before.

The doctor said on the phone that she seemed more conscious than before.

She mentioned that the child did not die, but was taken away by God.

At first, the doctor thought she was just repeating those meaningless ramblings, but what she said next made the doctor's expression change.

She said God took her to see the child, who was wrapped in pink swaddling clothes; it was her child.

When the doctor asked her who that God was and what he looked like, she suddenly started trembling violently as if someone had grabbed her by the throat. Then she screamed hysterically, "He's not God! He stole my child!"

It was late at night when the car entered the gates of the mental hospital.

The hospital is located at the foot of a mountain on the outskirts of the city, and its gray and white buildings look particularly deserted in the night.

The attending physician who received them was surnamed Zheng. He was in his early forties, wore gold-rimmed glasses, had two pens in his white coat pocket, walked quickly, but spoke slowly and deliberately.

As he led the three of them to the ward, he recounted in detail what had happened that afternoon.

  

He said he had kept detailed records of the patient's fluctuating condition over the years, and that her level of confusion would fluctuate with the seasons, but this was the first time she had suddenly experienced such clear moments of lucidity.

He played the recording of the conversation for them.

The woman's voice in the recording was hoarse and slow, as if she hadn't spoken to anyone in a long time, and every word had a rusty quality.

When the door to the ward at the end of the corridor was pushed open, the woman was sitting on the edge of the bed.

She was wearing a faded hospital gown, her hair was cut very short, her eyes were sunken, and her cheekbones were prominent, making her look more than ten years older than her actual age.

She heard the door open, slowly raised her head, and shifted her gaze from Dr. Zheng to the three people at the door. Then she suddenly froze.

She remembers them.

Her eyes widened, but her pupils shrank, and her lips began to tremble violently.

She suddenly sprang up from the bed, staggered and lunged at Jiang Mingyuan, but was caught in time by Dr. Zheng and the nurses who rushed in afterward.

Her arm was held down, and her knee slammed against the edge of the bed with a dull thud, but she seemed not to feel any pain at all. She just stared intently at Jiang Mingyuan, at the door behind him, and at the corridor behind them, as if she wanted to use her gaze to dig out the absent person out of thin air.

She pleaded with them, her voice sharp and broken, her words jumbled like shards of broken glass, but the repeated word was jarringly clear—God.

They asked her who that God was, what he looked like, and where he was.

She suddenly broke free of one hand, pointed to the empty corridor behind them, and screamed with all her might.

He's there! He's right there! He's with you!

The three of them turned around in the direction she was pointing. The corridor was empty, with only the pale fluorescent lights illuminating the clean walls.

They came with only themselves.

"You mean he's with us?" Jiang Ren was the first to react.

Upon hearing this, the woman looked longingly behind the three of them.

"Yes, he follows you! He just follows you! He comes with you every time you come!"

The woman was still struggling when she said this.

Jiang Mingyuan also realized that if she was referring to another person who always accompanied them whenever they came…

He slowly turned around, took out his phone from his pocket, and pulled out a photo that he had kept for a long time but almost never looked at.

That was a group photo taken casually at a party at the Cheng family a few years ago. He and Wu Yue were standing on the lawn, with a sunshade and a balloon arch behind them. The sun was shining brightly, and both of them were smiling.

He held the phone screen up to her face, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded: "Look closely, is this the person?"

The moment the woman saw the photo, she convulsed violently as if she had been electrocuted.

She let out a piercing scream, lunging at the phone screen with all her might, her fingernails scraping the glass with a shrill sound, repeating the same phrase over and over: "Give me back my child, give me back my child."

The nurses quickly pressed her back onto the bed, and Dr. Zheng swiftly took out a sedative from his white coat pocket and inserted the thin needle into the skin of her arm.

Her struggles gradually weakened, her screams turned into muffled murmurs, and then into even breathing. But until she completely lost consciousness, her hand was still stretched out towards Jiang Mingyuan, her fingers loosely clenched, as if trying to grasp something.

The ward fell silent, with only the beeping of the monitors and the heavy breathing of a few people remaining.

Jiang Mingyuan put his phone back in his pocket, his hands still trembling.

He turned to look at Jiang Mingchuan and Jiang Ren. None of the three spoke, but each of them wore the same expression of disbelief.

The person from back then wasn't any of them, but someone who came with them, and that person just happened to be absent at the moment.

Fifteen years ago, he was involved in everything. He accompanied Cui Ying to her prenatal checkup, he arranged the hospital, he waited outside the delivery room on the day the child was born, and he was the first to rush out to search for the child after it went missing...

Why did he do that?

Jiang Ren leaned against the door frame, her fingers gripping her phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and the calm and composure in her eyes had long since shattered.

He didn't know how much of what that crazy woman said was credible. Her previous words were incoherent and rambling, and he wondered how long her "sane" state today would last.

If she is lying, then these words are like throwing dirty water on someone she has trusted for twenty years.

If she is telling the truth, then the debts they have been trying to collect over the years are not limited to just her.

He looked at his father, wondering which direction he should go.

Jiang Mingyuan remained silent, a silence more profound than any anger.

The wrinkle between his brows deepened, and his lips were pressed into a pale line.

Before I could even speak, my phone suddenly rang.

He recognized the number that popped up on the screen: the hospital.

He answered the phone, and a strange yet calm voice came through the receiver. The voice spoke slowly, and each word seemed to be deliberately restrained.

The other party said that Wu Yue's wife, Yin Wan, passed away at 9:53 pm tonight. The cause of death was suicide by cutting her wrists. Wu Yue himself is currently in the hospital handling the funeral arrangements.

The ward was so quiet that you could clearly hear the sound of the medicine dripping from the monitor.

Jiang Mingyuan held his phone, remaining motionless for a very long time.

Yin Wan passed away, and of all times it happened tonight…