Chapter 3

Creak.

A bedroom door opened. A man in a white coat and a face mask stepped out, carrying a small case.

“Good morning, Doctor.”

All three people at the table greeted him together.

The masked man surveyed them with cold, brooding eyes.

He opened the case and languidly took out a syringe and a vial, then filled the syringe with practiced ease.

The pale man watched the needle meekly as a lamb.

“Still strawberry-flavored today?” he asked with a smile.

Ignoring him, the masked man walked to the table and pushed the needle into his neck.

Soon all three had received injections.

Their smiles vanished. A blank, vacant expression settled stiffly over each face.

They continued lifting food to their mouths with their chopsticks, mechanically, but no longer spoke.

The masked man removed his gloves, stretched and yawned. Then he sat on the sofa, crossed his legs and began scrolling through short videos on his phone.

Their maddeningly repetitive music filled the silent apartment.

Hidden outside the window, I watched it all.

What horrified me most was the red lettering on his little case:

HANSHAN PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL.

By the time I left Yangjia Village, I was drenched in cold sweat.

Everything I’d seen in Yang Xinghua’s home was so bizarre, so grotesque, that I could never have imagined it.

All three members of this “family” were seriously disturbed.

The mother and son didn’t act like mother and son.

The husband and wife didn’t act like husband and wife.

Clearly, they were all impostors. All psychiatric patients.

And the masked man they called “Doctor” must have worked for Hanshan Psychiatric Hospital.

The apartment was effectively a ward. A doctor stationed there watched the “family’s” every move, diligently keeping them under control.

What on earth was going on?

The crash. The escaped patients. The strange people in Yangjia Village. The nighttime roundup. The people without tongues…

I went over every event, but still couldn’t make sense of it.

Why?

What connected them?

I was convinced that something far from simple lay behind it all.

Who was the mastermind?

What did he want?

The sunlight was blinding. A terrible premonition rose inside me.

If I kept digging, I would be dragged in too—and fall into an abyss from which I’d never return.

Only when Yangjia Village began collapsing beneath the roar of excavators did I understand.

The demolition crews had arrived.

Rows of old buildings and single-story houses buckled and fell under their brutal assault. Bricks and tiles crashed to the ground in clouds of dust.

A banner brazenly displayed on one of the demolition trucks read:

XXX PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT GROUP.

The building where Yang Xinghua’s family lived met the same fate.

His home was gone.

So were the “three people” who had occupied it, along with the masked doctor.

They had vanished. I had no idea where.

The developer posted a statement online.

“This demolition has the consent of every resident of Yangjia Village. All affected households have signed the compensation agreement. The signing rate is 100 percent.”

The demolition connected every strange event, threading them together like beads on a string.

Their objective was plain.

The developer wanted the land. Thirty-two holdout households were dissatisfied with the compensation and refused to sign.

The developer didn’t want to pay more.

What could they do?

Make the holdouts disappear.

Killing that many people at once was more than they dared.

So replace them first.

Find thirty-two people to stand in for the thirty-two holdouts.

The substitutes had to be reliable, obedient and tight-lipped. They also had to serve the scheme willingly, without asking to be paid.

Patients kept under medication for years, stripped of their ability to exercise their own will, were ideal.

And so a carefully staged accident took place on the highway.

At a command, thirty-two patients rushed toward designated locations in Yangjia Village, like sheep following the lead animal under a shepherd’s direction.

The two doctors’ shouting and cursing were all an act.

Their colleagues had mingled with the fleeing patients, covertly supervising and directing the operation.

The mass escape frightened the public. People online demanded that the patients be caught immediately.

Then the sham roundup began.

Doctors marched openly into the old neighborhood and took away the thirty-two holdouts.

The online rumors about a grave-digger, a naked man and a madwoman looking for her arm were part of the plan too. The accounts posting them were sock puppets arranged by the developer.

The point was to direct attention to Yangjia Village, making the roundup seem reasonable and allowing it to proceed smoothly.

The village was chaotic, full of people from every walk of life. Many longtime residents had already moved out. Outsiders renting rooms, temporary residents and small traders came and went every day.

Neighbors weren’t particularly close.

A few faces could change without anyone noticing.

Once the holdouts disappeared, their replacements assumed their identities, lived in their homes and signed the compensation agreements in their names.

The conspiracy was complete.

What about afterward?

They’d worry about that later.

As long as they could demolish Yangjia Village and build their development, what trouble could thirty-two lunatics and thirty-two people who couldn’t speak possibly cause?

They could be dealt with in due course.

…

As I organized my thoughts, I organized my evidence too.

There were four parts.

First: from outside a hospital window, I had recorded the ward on my phone. Under my helmet lamp, a “patient” lay bound hand and foot, mouth wide open, with no tongue inside.

Second: from outside Yang Xinghua’s window, I had secretly recorded the doctor injecting the “family of three.”

Third: on a business-information website, I had found that several shareholders in the property company shared names with shareholders in Hanshan Psychiatric Hospital. This demonstrated the extensive connections between the two. I had taken screenshots.

Fourth: the account I was writing now.

In it, I recorded in detail how I had become involved and everything that had followed.

I made multiple copies of the evidence, preparing to send them to the police, procuratorates and courts at both city and provincial level.

I asked the authorities to investigate the truth and secure justice for the thirty-two residents of Yangjia Village.

I knew what I was doing was immensely dangerous. I was taking on wolves.

If they retaliated, I could lose my life.

Danger had shadowed me from the moment I became involved. I couldn’t be sure they hadn’t discovered my investigation already.

I had put myself at risk.

Now I had to take the gamble.

For justice—and for my own protection.

—Fu Qiong, Head of the Fu Qiong Detective Agency

A month after sending my report, I finally received good news.

The director of Hanshan Psychiatric Hospital and the chairman of the company developing Yangjia Village had both been arrested and imprisoned.

The authorities’ published findings confirmed my deductions.

Thirty-two holdout households had been replaced by thirty-two psychiatric patients.

Media coverage of the shocking conspiracy provoked an enormous public outcry. Condemnation came in waves.

The police rescued the thirty-two innocent captives and sent them to public hospitals for treatment and psychological counseling.

The psychiatric hospital was shut down.

The redevelopment project was suspended.

Lily was reunited with her father. She even sent me a thank-you letter.

At last, sunlight had driven out the darkness. Everything was moving in the right direction.

Yet I could faintly sense… death approaching.

That day, a message arrived.

“Qiong, why did you have to do this?”

The sender was saved as Gray Owl.

The moment I read it, I understood.

I had signed my report “Fu Qiong.”

Somewhere along the way, that name had leaked and reached Gray Owl. Now he was demanding an explanation.

I replied:

“Because I felt like it.”

He wrote back:

“I want to talk to you.”

I gripped the phone and laughed.

Exactly what I’d wanted.

I knew Gray Owl all too well.

He was the real power behind Hanshan Psychiatric Hospital. Its true owner.

Cautious and cunning, he had put someone else forward as director to take the heat, while he stayed comfortably in the shadows and pulled the strings.

When the conspiracy was exposed, the director took the fall.

Gray Owl escaped investigation and remained free.

Now the man who believed he could get away with anything must be hunched in his gloomy office, tearing his hair out.

Why had Qiong done it?

Why would his once-intimate lover write that report and try to destroy his hospital?

Patience, Gray Owl.

I was coming to tell him everything.

Pulling my coat close, I put on a mask and sunglasses and went to meet him.

Only one lamp lit the dark office. He sat with his feet on the desk, cigar smoke curling from his fingers.

He stared at me.

His piercing eyes asked:

Why?

I advanced toward him.

“Qiong, I know you hate me. We can sit down and talk. Name your terms. Did you have to burn every bridge?

“What do you gain by destroying everything I’ve built?

“You know better than anyone about my work with the developer. You’ve had a hand in plenty of my dirty business over the years. Aren’t you afraid they’ll keep digging until they ruin you too? Qiong, why?”

Gray Owl’s voice echoed between the cold walls.

I didn’t answer.