Chapter 189: The Note in My Pocket

As I watched the woman’s back fade away, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she looked so familiar, like I’d seen her somewhere before. I wanted to turn for another look, but before I could catch a proper glimpse of her face, she had already vanished around the corner. At that moment, everyone else walked over so I gave up trying to see more.

Team Leader Shao and the Head Nurse exchanged a few pleasantries. The Head Nurse looked helpless, as if every time we showed up we brought new problems with us. She clearly wasn’t thrilled but there wasn’t much she could do.

Still, I wanted to check on Wang Ergou. Who knows when the next time I’ll see him might be?

I turned to Gu Chen and the others and said, “You guys head back, I’ll go see Wang Ergou.”

Guan Zengbin spoke up, “Alright, you go ahead. Catch up with us when you’re done. After all, Wang Ergou is your dog—wait, that just sounds so weird.”

I waved it off with a grin. “It’s not weird. Wang Ergou thinks of himself as a dog. And honestly, he’s the most loyal and amazing dog in the world. That’s the highest compliment you could give him.”

Guan Zengbin shook his head and let out a sigh. “What can you say about Wang Ergou? He’s a good guy, but he’s been through so much. Sometimes you really can’t tell what’s a blessing and what’s a curse.”

I chuckled. “At least Wang Ergou is happy now. He’s forgotten that terrible thing he did to his father, forgotten that his own dad abandoned him for three days in the dark…”

“Sometimes, when you look at these psychiatric patients…”

I gestured toward a group of them nearby—some crouching, some standing, some shouting, some laughing. “To everyone else, they look like they’ve lost it. But at least right now they’re truly happy. Before they ended up here, none of them were. If life had made them happy, would they have become patients in the first place?”

“Maybe this really is fate’s strange mercy.”

Our little group split up and I set out to find Wang Ergou.

I found him curled up in the sunlight, just like a real dog. His face still had a big lipstick mark on it—I could only guess his girlfriend left it. In its own way, maybe this isn’t so bad. He’s happy and there’s someone who cares about him.

Before I even got close, Wang Ergou suddenly sat up, darting his gaze left and right like a dog before finally spotting me. Joy broke out all over his face, and he came running toward me, barking all the way.

“Master, you came to see me!” Wang Ergou licked my hand as he spoke.

I nodded, patting his head. “How are you doing?”

Wang Ergou panted, “I’m doing great! There’s food, water, and a bunch of people to play with. The only thing is, I miss you sometimes. Promise you’ll visit me more often, okay?”

Seeing him like this warmed my heart. Sometimes I wonder if only after you believe you’re a dog can you live without scheming or bitterness and stay truly happy.

Humans think they can see right through every animal, understand all their instincts, know what part of their body is good to eat. Yet, we never really know what the person across from us is thinking—or even what’s truly in our own minds.

I sat quietly with Wang Ergou for more than half an hour, tossing a frisbee and playing with him until dusk fell and I had to go.

When I returned, everyone was there. Xiao Liu was still waiting for me in the meeting room.

As soon as I walked in, Xiao Liu said, “Wu Meng, you’re back. Did you find any leads?”

“Hm?” I looked at Xiao Liu. “What leads?”

Xiao Liu handed me a file and said, “I found the man who left with the woman boss. He’s still alive. It turns out they both just wanted something from each other—that’s all. When they left, the man walked the woman to that alley. Then…”

“What happened?” I asked.

Xiao Liu glanced at me, his face a mix of disbelief and fear. “The woman boss never made it back to the shop. The man said he just blinked, and she was gone. He swears she’d only walked halfway, and then—just like that—she vanished.”

It was downright weird. I pressed on, “And then?”

Xiao Liu said, “The bones we recovered—they ran DNA tests and confirmed they belonged to the woman boss. Her time of death was twenty-three nights ago. She died the very moment that man blinked.”

“What was the cause of death?” I asked.

Xiao Liu swallowed. “That’s just it. According to Zhang Qinrui, the forensic doctor, she was killed by someone biting right through her windpipe. They even found the killer’s DNA, but since there’s nothing to compare it to, it doesn’t help.”

A scene played out in my mind—a man walking the woman home at night. The alley is narrow, so he parks his car outside. The woman’s scared and he promises to watch her walk in from the entrance.

Then suddenly, his eyes start to itch so he rubs them. By the time he looks up, she’s gone.

The man is confused—she’d only walked halfway. No way she could’ve unlocked the door that fast. But he wasn’t that invested in her, so he doesn’t bother to call. He simply drives off, leaving the alley even darker.

But in that same moment, the woman is pressed against the wall, fighting for her life.

She’s terrified, desperate to cry out, but it’s no use. Her throat is clamped in someone’s jaws. As her mouth opens, she flashes back to her toothless childhood and how she used to whistle her words.

But now the wind whistles through her ruined neck.

And just like that, she slips away. The killer unlocks the door and heads into the warehouse.

Days go by and the stray cats get used to seeing this human. They eat, play, and chase each other in front of the killer—almost as though he’s one of them. Once the cats trust him, he pens the second story.

“Did the man raise any suspicions?” I asked.

Xiao Liu shook his head. “It couldn’t have been him. He’s the CEO of a big company—dozens of people see him every day, no time for any funny business. But he did try to call the woman a few times afterwards. She never answered.”

Xiao Liu added, “He even dropped by a few times looking for her, but she wasn’t home. There was one time though—he happened to see a woman come out of the place. He just casually asked her, and she said the woman boss had quit and gone home, and she’d just taken over the shop.”

I nodded for Xiao Liu to go on.

He continued, flipping through the file. “The man didn’t think much of it—figured the woman had found a new boyfriend and was cutting ties. But he remembered what the other woman looked like.”

“What did she look like?” My interest piqued.

Xiao Liu handed me a sketch. “This is what she looked like—drawn from the man’s description.”

As I studied the sketch, Xiao Liu explained, “She was dressed in a black hoodie with the hood up. About 1.68 meters tall, wearing flats. She wore light makeup—‘pure and innocent’ is how the man described her. Age-wise, she looked maybe eighteen.”

Xiao Liu paused, then added, “She had super white teeth, black eyeliner, big dark eyes, a tiny nose, and straight bangs on short hair.”

Xiao Liu nodded, “The man’s a rich kid—he claims he’s never been short of women since he was fourteen…”

“That sounds kind of shady,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Xiao Liu shook his head, serious. “I double-checked. The guy’s expression was genuine, I don’t think he was lying.”

“Then something doesn’t add up.” I slapped my hand on the desk.

Xiao Liu sighed, “Exactly. If she’s the killer, but the killer’s a woman, then who left those traces in the first case? Is the murderer a man, or a woman, or maybe there are more than one?”

I leaned on my chin, thinking out loud. “Hard to say. This case is getting way more complicated. And if the woman boss died twenty-three days ago, the killer isn’t working one story at a time, but weaving through different stories.”

I slipped my hand into my pocket, only to find a small scrap of paper I didn’t remember putting there.

I pulled it out and spotted a line of writing.

And I recognized that handwriting.