Chapter Three: The Woman Drenched from Head to Toe
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There was no body.
There was no blood.
The quartz clock on the wall ticked crisply, its hands showing 7:30.
Half past seven in the evening.
Lu Yuan returned to the psychiatric clinic from the police station.
He stood at the clinic entrance, his feet seemingly rooted to the floor, unable to take even one step inside.
Really...
Nothing had happened...
At that moment, Lu Yuan began to wonder whether he had hallucinated the whole thing.
He felt himself being shoved aside as a capable-looking figure squeezed into the clinic and glanced around.
“Your clinic is rather small.”
Lu Yuan said nothing.
The woman was a police officer. Whenever Lu Yuan was around the police, he felt an instinctive psychological pressure—much like the feeling patients experienced when facing a psychiatrist.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
The policewoman turned to look at him.
At her words, Lu Yuan hesitated for several seconds before lifting his right foot and stepping onto the clinic floor. The floorboards creaked, startling him into pulling his foot back.
The policewoman studied him with interest, then sat down on the sofa without waiting for an invitation.
“Mr. Lu, come in and sit down. I have a few questions for you. I’ll leave when I’m finished.”
Hearing this, Lu Yuan finally summoned the courage to enter the clinic. He did not sit on the sofa, however. Instead, he moved a chair to a spot far away from it and sat down.
“Go ahead.”
Lu Yuan felt that something was wrong with his memory, but he could not shake the vivid sensation of having killed someone.
He felt that he had killed a man.
Right there on that sofa.
He had brought a knife down on the middle-aged man’s neck, severing his head. Blood had splattered everywhere, staining the floor and the sofa’s linen cover crimson.
Yet reality was not like that at all. The sofa where the policewoman sat was spotless, as clean as new. Even the objects on the coffee table had been restored to the arrangement they had held during the day.
“Mr. Lu, according to your file, you graduated from Evergreen Medical University in City S, and your mentor was Professor An Yuanshan.”
“You graduated from a prestigious university and studied under one of the country’s leading neurologists. Why didn’t you apply for a position as a psychiatrist at a major hospital? Why open a small clinic of your own instead?”
The policewoman’s question came without warning.
Lu Yuan remained silent for several seconds before answering, “That has nothing to do with what happened today. I refuse to answer.”
The policewoman shrugged.
He was right. It had nothing to do with the matter.
“You’re an orphan, and apart from this psychiatric clinic, you have no other source of income. Yet, as far as I know, you rented this place immediately after graduating from university and paid five years’ rent all at once.”
“Where did the money come from?”
The policewoman seemed unusually interested in Lu Yuan’s past. Every question she asked was pointed and deliberate.
Lu Yuan’s expression darkened. Hidden beneath his clothes, his hands slowly clenched into fists. Blood vessels began to show in his eyes, though he kept his head lowered and she failed to notice.
“I saved it from working part-time in college.”
His voice was heavy and dull.
The policewoman seemed unaware of anything unusual. She turned her gaze toward the street outside the window. The dim yellow glow of the streetlights slanted into the room, lending it an air of loneliness.
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“Do you usually have many patients?”
“Not many.”
“Have you ever had any unpleasant incidents with them?”
“No.”
...
The policewoman asked one question, and Lu Yuan answered each one.
Ten minutes later, she rose and took a business card from her pocket, holding it out to him.
“Thank you for your cooperation. Call me if anything comes up.”
Lu Yuan accepted the card and glanced at it.
Wen Ke, Captain of the Third Criminal Investigation Unit, East District Police Station, City S.
How unusual.
These days, even police officers carried business cards...
Wen Ke gave Lu Yuan one last look before walking toward the door.
Lu Yuan did not stand.
Creak~
Bang!
The door opened, then closed again.
Only Lu Yuan remained inside the psychiatric clinic.
The dim surroundings gradually magnified his already frayed nerves. He felt as though a pair of eyes were watching him from the darkness. Under the sideways glow of the streetlights, his face looked frighteningly pale.
Lu Yuan hurriedly turned on every light. Brightness flooded the entire room, making everything inside seem both familiar and strange.
“Maybe... I really did hallucinate.”
Lu Yuan leaned against the wall.
Then, suddenly, he thought of something. He went to the desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a medicine bottle without a label. He shook several white tablets into his palm and swallowed them.
He was ill.
But he was not mentally ill.
Recently, Lu Yuan had been suffering from insomnia. He needed these sleeping pills in order to fall asleep.
“I’ll be fine after I sleep.”
“After I sleep, it’ll be a new day.”
Lu Yuan murmured the words over and over, his trembling lips repeating them like a self-hypnotic mantra.
There was no bed in the clinic.
Lu Yuan usually slept on the sofa at night.
But he did not dare approach it. The closer he got, the more violently those blood-soaked memories stimulated his mind, leaving his hands and feet ice-cold.
Lu Yuan sat in the chair as drowsiness began to weigh upon his eyelids.
He did not turn off the lights.
Only a brightly lit room could give him even the slightest sense of safety.
Gradually,
Lu Yuan fell asleep.
...
Outside the clinic.
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Wen Ke had not left.
She deftly took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her pocket. Just as she was about to light one, she seemed to remember something and reluctantly put them away again.
At that moment, her phone rang.
Wen Ke answered it. It was a colleague from the police station.
“What is it?”
“Captain Wen, someone just reported finding a woman’s body in a villa in the East District. We’re already on our way.”
“Exact location.”
“Villa 14, Fragrant Bay Estate, East District.”
“Understood. I’ll be there immediately.”
...
Looks like I won’t be sleeping tonight either.
Wen Ke gazed thoughtfully at the lights inside the psychiatric clinic. Her instincts told her that the man named Lu Yuan had not been lying. He really had killed someone.
But the body had vanished.
Then Wen Ke got into her car and drove away at speed.
Inside the clinic,
Lu Yuan entered the world of dreams.
He had not dreamed in a very long time. Ever since his insomnia began, even getting one peaceful night’s sleep had become a luxury, much less dreaming.
Lu Yuan opened his eyes. His clothes had changed into luxurious silk velvet, soft and smooth against his skin, while the room was decorated in an extravagant modern style.
The television was broadcasting the previous day’s news.
“An explosion at an abandoned warehouse in the East District left five dead and fourteen injured...”
“Caring for the elderly and preventing them from becoming empty-nesters...”
“Renowned neurologist Professor An Yuanshan passed away from illness at the age of eighty-two...”
...
How noisy.
Lu Yuan instinctively picked up the remote control and switched off the television.
In an instant, his ears were blessed with silence.
Lu Yuan knew he was dreaming, but the dream felt far too real.
Ding-dong~
The doorbell rang.
Lu Yuan felt terribly weak. With some difficulty, he climbed down from the bed and went to the door. He did not open it all the way, merely pulling it ajar and peering through the gap.
A woman stood outside.
She was soaked from head to toe.
She wore a hat and a face mask.
The woman was trembling. Her voice sounded strained and indistinct.
“Excuse me... is this Doctor An Shi’s home?”