Delegado, eu realmente matei alguém, por que vocês não acreditam em mim!

The weather was somewhat cold and gloomy.

The air was tinged with the earthy scent that follows rain.

The first autumn rain seemed to have carried away the restless heat.

Inside a small psychological clinic, Lu Yuan absently caressed the teacup in his hand, gazing out the window in a daze. Wisps of white steam curled up from the cup, and the friction of his fingers produced a faint, creaking sound.

“Business is tough these days,” he sighed.

He set down the cup and flipped through the clinic’s patient records. The last visitor had come exactly three months ago.

“If there are no more patients, this place might as well close,” he muttered, taking a sip of his tea.

Ugh.

Terrible.

He shook his head helplessly. He much preferred coffee, but buying coffee required money. Tea leaves, on the other hand, were free—after all, the old security guard at the door was long past the age for coffee; from him, you could only cadge tea, never coffee.

“This doesn’t make sense!”

“With all the pressure people are under these days, who doesn’t have some kind of mental issue?”

“All those people always complaining about depression—where have they gone?”

“Is it that everyone can afford high-end psychologists and snubs a small clinic like mine? They say the economy’s bad, but it seems I’m the only one struggling.”

It was five o’clock in the afternoon.

As expected, today was yet another empty day.

Lu Yuan tidied up his desk, ready to close shop early. The clinic was not only his workplace, but also where