Depressed Chapter 11

[Heaven, like a bell,
Exists, and thus is an ear.
Silent, I am an anomaly,
Alone here, decaying here.]

Shen Lian was organizing information on a scrap of paper.

The first victim: male, a student from Class 3, Grade 11. His grades were neither good nor bad. The body was found in the small woods behind the school. It was said that when he was discovered, his body was covered in footprints.

The second victim: male, a student from Class 7, Grade 11. His grades were fairly decent. The body was left exposed on the stage for the school’s arts performance, his head smashed to a pulp.

The current similarities were that both were male and both were in Grade 11.

The killer might have some obsession with the second year of high school, was familiar with the school’s layout, and probably came and went from the campus often.

The possibility of multiple perpetrators could not be ruled out.

There were simply too few clues.

Shen Lian wanted to throw down his pen, but he couldn’t—he still had to answer the test questions.

—He was in the examination hall right now.

The nation’s future depends on education. Just two students dead—how could that possibly interfere with the diligent pursuit of knowledge?

At this moment, Shen Lian didn’t want to kill himself; he wanted to kill the school administrators.

Forget it. He really didn’t want to answer any more questions. He’d just hand in his paper early.

He handed his exam to the proctor and was about to leave when he was stopped. “Student!”

“Yes, what is it?”

“You didn’t fill in your exam number.”

“My exam number?”

“Oh, come on, you’re already in Grade 11—don’t act like you just started school. Your exam number is the same as your student number.”

“Thank you, teacher.”

Shen Lian wrote “05” in the exam number field and left the examination room.

“Hey!”

“Is there anything else, teacher?”

“Be careful walking home these days!”

“Thank you, teacher.”

Shen Lian managed a smile.

The phone rang.

“Hello? Shen Lian?”

“Doctor? What’s wrong?”

“The third body has been found.”

Shen Lian’s smile vanished.

“It’s the girl who danced ballet at the arts performance the other day. Her feet were cut off, iron blocks tied on, and she was placed in a coffin.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’m the student council president. I got the news first.”

“That girl—was she also in Grade 11?”

“Yes.”

“Any other news?”

“That’s all.”

“Oh. Goodbye, Doctor.” Shen Lian hung up.

A nameless irritation welled up.

*

That basement again.

From the shadows, someone asked, “Dear student, do you like Van Gogh?”

The person tied to the chair was crying, unable to speak.

“Van Gogh’s ear, you know… How about I make you just like Van Gogh?”

The one being questioned wept desperately, shaking their head in utter collapse.

“Be good now. Sheep in the pen must behave.”

“382, 27, 117, 86, 5…”

*

“The fifth one… five…”

Shen Lian was talking to the mirror again.

“Footprints, head, auditorium, stage, feet, iron blocks, coffin… Can you string these together?”

The reflection in the mirror only smiled, saying nothing.

Shen Lian kept muttering, “Who was that person in the mirror that day? Why do both the doctor and I feel like we’ve seen him before?”

“Why don’t we know who the third player is even now?”

“Could the killer be the third player?”

“Was the doctor lying?”

“Could it be the doctor crying thief to catch a thief?”

Staring at the mirror, Shen Lian said again, “Could it be my condition’s getting worse, and you’re just a hallucination I’m having?”

“…No… that’s not right, I took a photo, the doctor could see it too…”

Shen Lian’s thoughts began to spiral.

“When all this ends, I’ll open my eyes and find myself in a straitjacket, lying in a psychiatric hospital.”

“Everything—every last thing—was just the fantasy of a delusional man with histrionic personality disorder, including the depression.”

“Tell me, isn’t that funny?”

Sure enough, his reflection in the mirror was laughing.

How nice, for once, no one felt cold.

A towel pressed over his mouth from behind.

There was something eerily sweet, something eerily fragrant.

Before losing consciousness, countless strange thoughts flashed through Shen Lian’s mind.

“Someone can just walk in like this? Is the killer cheating? There are too many bugs in this world…”

“Ether? Idiot…”

“What’s the use of this damn mirror anyway…”

He was suffocating.

At the same time, Zheng Qing, holding a collection of poems by the nineteenth-century British poet Emily Dickinson, was calling Shen Lian.

“Hello, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later…”