Chapter 3

…

“Do you know what makes a person feel most helpless?”

Her anger seemed burned out.

Only deep exhaustion and a cold trace of disappointment remained.

“You’re not the only one with secrets.”

“In this job, who doesn’t have dark corners they don’t want anyone touching?”

“The sad part is that you’ve never believed anyone would help carry yours.”

Only the distant sounds of work remained in the warehouse.

A single step separated us.

It felt like a chasm had opened between us.

…

In the end, Lâm Hiểu looked away first.

She wasn’t yielding.

She had simply spent every emotion she had.

Only the cold professional shell remained.

She turned toward Trần Kiến Quốc as they escorted him into a police car.

“As your partner, I have two requirements.”

“Not requests.”

“Requirements of the job.”

“You will meet them.”

“First, your life doesn’t belong only to you.”

“It affects whether we uncover the truth.”

“Whether the victims get justice.”

“And your colleagues’ safety and careers.”

“Second.”

“If you discover something next time and feel you have to jump into the fire…”

“I won’t stop you.”

“But before you jump, leave me a signal.”

“One only I will understand.”

“So I know what you’ve found.”

“And where you’re going.”

She turned fully toward me.

Our eyes met.

There was no anger left.

No probing.

Only the unfathomable composure of a detective.

It wasn’t forgiveness.

Or understanding.

It was something firmer than either.

I looked into her eyes.

The pain in my lower back seemed to ease a little, replaced by a heavier, more complicated feeling.

After a long time, I swallowed all the explanations and emotions surging inside me.

I nodded slightly.

“All right.”

Lâm Hiểu looked at me in disbelief, as though we had just completed a difficult handover.

Then she looked away and walked to a blue plastic tub.

“Open it. Carefully.”

Inside were ledgers, old phones, surgical instruments.

And dozens of vacuum-sealed bags of meat.

The labels listed dates and body parts.

I leafed through the ledger.

Times.

Locations.

“Donor” codes.

Organs.

Prices.

“Recipient” codes.

Five years’ worth.

Near the final pages, beside Lý Vũ Đồng’s name, it read:

Heart, liver, both kidneys.

Special requirement: meat must be fresh. Process immediately after removal.

“An underground organ-trafficking network.”

I looked toward Trần Kiến Quốc as they led him away, then spoke to Lâm Hiểu.

“He handles ‘collection’ and ‘initial processing.’”

“The organs are shipped out.”

“The rest is made into food.”

“The ingredients in that stock conceal what’s left after the organs are removed.”

“Making the bodies disappear more completely.”

A week later, Trần Kiến Quốc confessed to murdering seven women over five years and selling their organs.

After processing the bodies, he mixed the remains with goat meat and sold them.

Lý Vũ Đồng was the eighth victim.

Leads from the organ-trafficking operation pointed to a cross-border criminal organization. The investigation was continuing.

The technicians recovered the original camera footage.

After paying, Lý Vũ Đồng had walked toward the kitchen.

She never appeared again.

Some remains of seven victims were found in a waste tank at an abandoned farm on the outskirts.

They were no longer recognizable.

After the meeting, Lâm Hiểu stopped me.

“You knew beforehand, didn’t you?”

“From the moment you ate that piece of goat meat.”

“I read the black notebook.”

“Seven years.”

“More than twenty entries.”

“Three connected to unsolved cold cases.”

“Trần Mặc, what exactly are you…”

“I can’t say.”

I looked directly into her eyes.

“If I tell you, I won’t be able to keep working as a forensic pathologist.”

I couldn’t lose this ability.

It could prevent more tragedies.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“But I still can’t tell you.”

“Not yet.”

She watched me for a long time.

“Then I’ll help you keep your secret.”

She nodded slightly, then said:

“But promise me.”

“From now on… don’t act alone.”

“All right.”

I answered at once.

She turned to leave, then stopped.

“Trần Mặc.”

“Your ability… does it hurt?”

I remembered the fear in that piece of goat meat.

The despair of seven women.

My mother’s final thought about a bowl of soup.

Every flavor rose at once.

“Yes.”

“Very much.”

I didn’t hide it.

I answered honestly.

Her voice was very soft.

For some reason, she held me tight.

“Then don’t use it lightly.”

“At least… don’t bear it alone.”

Three months later, Trần Kiến Quốc’s case went to its first trial.

Death sentence.

The underground organ-trafficking network was completely dismantled.

Twelve suspects were arrested.

Three living victims were rescued.

Lý Vũ Đồng’s parents came to collect their daughter’s remains.

I handed them the red cord and silver bell, carefully cleaned, and said they had been found at the scene.

They wept bitterly and thanked me again and again.

I didn’t tell them their daughter had been cooked into soup.

Or that, in that soup, I had tasted her profound attachment to this world.

Some truths the living didn’t need to know.

Remembering how desperately she had wanted to live mattered far more than knowing how her life had been taken.

That night, I dreamed.

I stood in the kitchen at Old Trần’s, watching the clay pot bubble.

Trần Kiến Quốc stood beside it, humming.

He lifted pieces of meat with an iron hook.

Then turned to me with a cold smile.

“Care for a taste, Dr. Trần?”

“This batch… is even fresher and more delicious.”

I stepped forward.

Scooped up a spoonful.

The broth was clear as water.

I drank.

There was no flavor.

No fear.

No despair.

No death.

Only endless emptiness.

I woke at three in the morning.

Went to the bathroom.

Turned on the tap.

Rinsed my mouth again and again until it was numb.

The man in the mirror was pale, with dark hollows beneath his eyes.

I stared at my tongue.

Seven years.

It had made me “see” too many things I should never have seen.

And today…

Something suddenly struck me.

Trần Kiến Quốc had said he could only taste whether meat was good or bad, not memories.

Yet when I sampled the stock, he had warned me specifically about my tongue.

Had he been lying?

Could he actually taste memories too, but refused to admit it?

Or…

Had he learned of my ability some other way?

I wiped my face and returned to the living room.

The black notebook lay on the coffee table.

I opened it and looked at the densely written pages.

Every word was steeped in other people’s regrets and my helplessness.

Then I picked up a pen and slowly wrote on the final page:

“Perhaps he can taste them too.

He simply chose to become a demon, squeezing every benefit from the things other people were too late to do.

And I…

I choose to remember.

To remember the taste of every ‘too late.’

Then do everything I can to make the next time an ‘in time.’”

Outside, the sky was brightening.

A new day had begun.

I put on my coat, ready to go to headquarters.

Three bodies were waiting for autopsy today.

One was an unidentified woman recovered from the river the previous week.

The preliminary finding was drowning.

But I knew.

When my scalpel opened her stomach—

I would know her last meal.

Taste her final memories.

See the last images of her life.

That was my curse.

But from today…

It was also my responsibility.

I locked the door and went downstairs.

That complicated flavor seemed to return to my tongue.

Fear.

Despair.

Death.

But perhaps…

Something else was mixed in too.

I swallowed.

As I had swallowed again and again for seven years.

Some flavors you must learn to carry as you go on living.

Because…

We remember so we won’t have to lose again.

Life seemed to become peaceful once more.

Trần Kiến Quốc’s case file was sealed, awaiting the final judgment.

I received a commendation.

But still refused every celebration dinner.

Change began with the smallest things.

I started allowing myself to visit a familiar noodle shop after work.

A bowl of noodles in clear broth.

The owner was a quiet old man.

The noodles weren’t especially good.

But they were clean.

It was my deliberate way of learning ordinary flavors again.

A small safe corner I made for myself.

Sometimes Lâm Hiểu came too.

We didn’t discuss cases.

Or secrets.

We simply ate noodles in silence.

Occasionally, she told me little things about her life.

Those ordinary moments.

Those everyday sounds.

They soothed me more than any medicine.

Until a week later.

I was examining evidence seized from the home of a member of the cross-border organ-trafficking network.

An unremarkable book of traditional recipes.

I turned a page.

My gaze stopped.

In the corner was a line of tiny handwriting.

No explanation. No context.

“There is surely more than one who knows the taste.

When the broth boils, a hundred flavors become one.”

The handwriting was entirely different from Trần Kiến Quốc’s ledger.

I closed the book, my expression calm, and placed it in an evidence bag.

Inside, I was ice-cold.

Perhaps Trần Kiến Quốc had fallen.

But the dark world he had hinted at—

The world of those who knew the taste…

Seemed only to have opened its door a crack.

I walked to the window.

The sunlight was dazzling.

I knew.

The next time might already be waiting somewhere in the future.

The only difference…

Was that I would no longer passively bear everything that happened to me.

The regret my mother had left.

The attachment to life that Lý Vũ Đồng and the others had written with their lives.

All of it had become the lining of my armor.

This time, as I walked toward my battlefield, my steps were steadier than ever.

(The End)