Chapter 2: Happy Birthday

Lin Chu stumbled back a step in fright and couldn’t help cursing under his breath.

Si Qingxuan said, “What’s going on?”

Lin Chu took a deep breath and hurried back to his desk, rummaging through drawers.

He pulled out the old consultation records and said, “This person came to me twice last week for psychological counseling.

At that time, her condition wasn’t very good.

For some reason, she was extremely afraid of looking into mirrors.

According to her, she had plastic surgery a few months ago, and after that, she always felt that the person in the mirror wasn’t herself.

Sometimes she even felt that the person would step out of the mirror and kill her.”

Lin Chu flipped through the pages quickly, as if the memories were being stirred awake as well.

“My suggestion back then was for her to seek inpatient treatment at a proper hospital, but she obviously didn’t take my advice.”

At that moment, a voice outside the door rang out, right on cue.

“Dr. Lin… open the door.”

The coquettish, charming tone sounded to Lin Chu no different from, “Dalang, it’s time to take your medicine.”

Si Qingxuan said, “…How are you this unlucky.

You take a consultation and end up attracting rotten peach blossoms?”

Lin Chu was calling security while dialing 110 at the same time.

Sweat was already starting to bead on his forehead when he saw Si Qingxuan walk over to the desk and pick up his black long-handled umbrella.

Lin Chu couldn’t help complaining, “Using that umbrella on me is one thing.

You’re planning to use it on someone else too?”

“You should have more confidence in yourself.

The person outside is, at least on the surface, a much weaker woman than you.”

Si Qingxuan replied calmly.

“If I can use the umbrella to restrain you, I can of course use it for self-defense.”

While they were talking, the outside suddenly went quiet.

About half a minute later, a fire axe slammed down at the lock.

With a loud crash, wood chips flew everywhere.

The red fire axe pierced through the door panel, stinging Lin Chu and Si Qingxuan’s eyes.

Lin Chu’s face went pale.

He forced a grim smile and turned to ask Si Qingxuan, “This is what you call weak?”

Fortunately, that blow hadn’t landed properly.

The fire axe didn’t split the lock open, instead getting stuck between the two doors.

The woman yanked at the axe with all her strength, and the door began to creak and sway.

“Dr. Lin, if you won’t come see me, then I’ll come see you.

Hahahahaha—”

“Is anyone answering the phone?” Si Qingxuan asked Lin Chu.

“No.

I don’t know why the security office line isn’t going through—”

As he spoke, Lin Chu suddenly slapped his forehead.

“I’m such an idiot.

I’m not seeing patients this afternoon, and the security guard took leave!”

Si Qingxuan said, “……”

Lin Chu said, “I’m calling 110.”

Si Qingxuan said, “It’s too late.

She’s about to break the door down.

And have you thought about this.

If the front desk nurse knew you weren’t seeing patients, why would she let this woman in?”

The woman had been screaming and smashing the door for so long.

The nurse should have heard it by now.

But she hadn’t appeared at all.

That meant the woman in black had very likely already attacked her before coming upstairs.

Which also meant that downstairs, there was probably someone badly injured and in urgent need of help.

Lin Chu cursed under his breath.

The call to 110 finally connected.

He quickly explained the situation in a few sentences, hung up, and started searching for something usable as a weapon.

In the end, he only found a fruit knife.

It was ceramic.

Sharp enough, but not sturdy.

Using that against a fire axe was basically an egg hitting a rock.

Besides, if it really came down to stabbing someone, Lin Chu wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do it.

Still, he felt this knife was at least more reliable than Si Qingxuan’s umbrella.

“Don’t use the fruit knife.”

Si Qingxuan pointed to the brass globe on the bookshelf.

“Use that.”

“That thing is round and smooth.

It doesn’t even have edges.

What are you going to use it to block her with?

Don’t tell me you want me to trip her with it.

Do you think we’re playing bowling?”

Lin Chu was nervous, but he couldn’t suppress his urge to complain.

“What matters is that it’s big and heavy.”

Seeing that the door was about to give way, Si Qingxuan said, “When the time comes, aim for the most vulnerable spot on her body.”

“What spot.

The carotid artery on the side of her neck.

The back of her head.

Or the spleen in the upper left abdomen?”

“……I said restrain her, not kill her.

Try hitting her face first.

If that doesn’t work, then think of something else.”

“Her face?”

“Didn’t you say she just had plastic surgery?

She should care a lot about her face.”

“……”

Lin Chu silently gave Si Qingxuan a thumbs-up.

He stuffed the fruit knife into his pocket, climbed onto the desk, and reached for the brass globe on the bookshelf.

Weapons ready, the two of them hid on either side of the shaking door.

The fire axe finally split the lock open.

One of the doors crashed heavily onto the floor.

The woman in black stood there, panting, fire axe raised.

Before her high heels could step onto the consultation room floor, Lin Chu swung the globe and hurled it straight at her face.

“Take that!” Lin Chu shouted.

Although the woman was wearing a mask that tightly covered her face, she couldn’t withstand such a sudden blow.

Pain exploded across her face, and stars burst before her eyes.

She staggered back two steps.

Her mask fell off, revealing a well-shaped face.

But only seconds later, she reacted to what had just happened.

She screamed, dropped the axe, and trembled as she touched her chin and the bridge of her nose with both hands.

“My face…

My face…”

Her fingers smeared wildly across her face.

In reality, only her nose was bleeding.

But she wiped the blood all over her face, making herself look both pathetic and terrifying.

Lin Chu seized the chance and slid forward, kicking the fire axe away from her feet.

At the same time, Si Qingxuan looped the umbrella horizontally around the woman’s neck from behind, pinning her in place.

“You ruined my face—”

The woman suddenly flew into a rage.

Si Qingxuan instinctively tightened his grip to keep her from clawing or biting wildly.

However, at the moment the woman strained to lift her head and see Si Qingxuan’s face clearly, her eyelids suddenly began to tremble.

She stared straight into his eyes.

They were a blue so pure and rare, as if refined from lapis lazuli.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her gaze revealed a bone-deep obsession.

Like someone worshiping a god, she murmured drunkenly, “Especially your…”

Si Qingxuan frowned and stepped back, widening the distance between them.

But the woman in black refused to give up.

She leaned forward, her blood-splattered face moving closer, wearing a pale, sinister smile.

Her facial features were still intact.

Her smooth neck glowed like polished jade.

The black dress draped over her graceful figure.

Ignoring her ruined face, she actually possessed a shocking, irresistible allure.

At this moment, she was completely different from the madwoman she had been earlier.

Suddenly, the woman in black let out a soft laugh.

Her face seemed to float upward like a painted skin.

Her features slowly became transparent.

Invisible hands reached beneath the skin on both sides of her cheeks, pushing outward, the outline of fingers clearly visible.

It was as if they were about to peel the face right off her.

The woman in black slowly leaned closer to Si Qingxuan, as if wanting him to see that skin clearly.

As she moved, a chaotic, grating noise suddenly rang by Si Qingxuan’s ears.

The sound came and went, but wrapped around him and the woman, leaving no place to escape.

Si Qingxuan found the sound rather piercing, yet it didn’t affect him much.

He turned to look at Lin Chu, only to find him standing frozen in place, eyes dull, staring at some point in empty space.

Without hesitation, Si Qingxuan shoved the woman away, turned, grabbed Lin Chu, and yanked him out of his frozen state.

“Run!” he shouted.

…There was something very wrong with this woman.

“Huh?”

Lin Chu snapped back to his senses.

He seemed not to see any of the abnormalities on the woman.

Instinctively, he turned and ran with Si Qingxuan.

From the second floor to the first, fewer than thirty steps.

Yet the staircase felt endless, as if it would never end.

Si Qingxuan lowered his head.

On the smooth marble floor, a dark shadow seemed to be reflected at all times.

But that shadow appeared to be wary of something, never pouncing on them.

The two of them reached the first floor just as the police arrived.

A surge of relief after surviving disaster washed over them.

“Officer, please go upstairs and take a look.”

Lin Chu’s glasses were nearly falling off, but he had no time to care.

Panting, he said, “We were almost hacked to death by that woman!”

If lives had nearly been lost, then it was an extremely serious case.

Hearing that the suspect had a weapon, the officers immediately went on full alert.

They found the on-duty nurse by the front desk sofa.

Thankfully, she had only been knocked unconscious, with no obvious injuries.

Three armed officers cautiously entered the second floor.

They found the woman in black lying on the ground, completely unresponsive.

Blood snaked out from beneath her, soaking through her clothes.

The officers: “……”

After checking, they confirmed that the woman was severely injured but still barely alive.

In the end, they first loaded both injured people into ambulances.

Given the special condition of the woman in black, the medical staff secured her with restraints, afraid she might suddenly regain consciousness and go mad again.

Si Qingxuan and Lin Chu followed the ambulance to send the nurse to the hospital first.

After confirming she was out of danger, they were then taken to the police station as witnesses to give statements.

Since all the surveillance cameras in the clinic were functioning properly, the entire process of the woman’s attack had been recorded.

The case was clear, with little room for dispute.

Even the unexplained injuries on the woman’s body seemed unrelated to Si Qingxuan and Lin Chu.

The footage showed they hadn’t dealt her any heavy blows.

After the two of them fled downstairs, the woman suddenly began convulsing as if having an episode, vomiting large amounts of blood, along with bits of organ tissue.

A few minutes later, the hospital called.

The woman in black had failed to be resuscitated and was confirmed dead.

However, the police were experienced.

They quickly raised several points of doubt.

“The suspect—no, the deceased—only came to your clinic twice for psychological evaluations.

But judging from what she said at the scene, she seemed very fixated on you.”

The lead investigator was a young officer with sharp brows and bright, keen eyes.

He didn’t look easy to fool.

“Other than meeting at the clinic, did you have any private contact?”

“No.”

Lin Chu answered decisively.

“Are you sure?” the young officer asked.

Lin Chu nodded.

“If you weren’t familiar at all, why would she come to your clinic and fixate on you like that?”

The officer frowned.

Lin Chu frowned as well, but answered honestly.

“I don’t know either.

To be frank, if that woman really suffered from a mental illness, then using normal logic to infer her motives wouldn’t be very rigorous.”

The officer knew this as well.

So his questioning could only go so far.

After Lin Chu denied it, he turned his gaze to the other person.

“Mr. Si, right.

I also have a question for you.”

The officer instructed a colleague to rewind the footage and pause at a certain moment.

“At this moment here, you had already restrained her with the umbrella, and she had no weapon in her hands.

Why did you give up restraining her just a few seconds after approaching her face?”

“……”

Si Qingxuan said nothing.

He watched the slowed footage carefully, confirming that the bizarre scene that had occurred on the woman was not captured on camera.

Because of the camera angle, however, the strange expression on Si Qingxuan’s own face was recorded quite clearly.

His silence caught the officer’s attention.

The officer’s scrutiny grew sharper.

“And your explanation, Mr. Si?”

“Nothing special.”

Recalling the bizarre scene he had witnessed, Si Qingxuan showed just the right amount of faint disgust.

“I was just… grossed out by how ugly she was.”

The young officer said, “……Please answer the police’s questions seriously.”

Si Qingxuan said, “Alright.

After she saw my face clearly, she confessed to me.

I was afraid she’d fixate on me, so I could only take my friend and leave quickly.”

It sounded absurd.

But everyone looked at Si Qingxuan’s face…

And after thinking about it carefully, it somehow seemed understandable.

And it also seemed to explain why the woman had fixated on Lin Chu earlier.

Although he couldn’t compare to Si Qingxuan’s almost demonic looks, Lin Chu’s appearance stood out even among psychologists.

He looked strikingly beautiful, yet carried a clean, scholarly air.

When flustered, he was like a puppy soaked by rain, easily stirring women’s sympathy.

The young officer twitched his mouth.

He clearly didn’t accept the explanation and wanted to ask more.

But an older colleague beside him stopped him.

“That’s enough.

The two of you have had a long day.

Go back and get some rest.”

Lin Chu and Si Qingxuan didn’t intend to linger.

They took their leave immediately.

Watching them walk out of the interrogation room, the young officer couldn’t help saying, “Why were you so quick to let them go.

I always feel like there’s something off about them.”

“Jingshan, I know your intuition is usually sharp.”

The older officer spoke patiently.

“But cases can’t rely on intuition alone.

The suspect in this case was a psychiatric patient, and the victim was only knocked unconscious.

Other than that, there were no serious casualties.

These factors determine that this is a case that’s very hard to pursue further.

Given that, we can only stop here for now.”

The young officer called “Jingshan” said nothing.

He lowered his head and glanced at the files in the folder.

Inside was a photo of a woman smiling brightly.

Behind it were several older photos of her.

She had once been a mentally healthy person.

Why had she suddenly gone mad.

No one could explain it.

…

By the time everything ended, the moon was already high in the sky.

Si Qingxuan and Lin Chu sat exhausted in the car, staring blankly at the pale moon for a while.

“The moon’s pretty round today.”

Lin Chu muttered.

“Every year on your birthday, the moon is pretty round.”

Because of today’s unexpected incident, the birthday celebration for Si Qingxuan had fallen through.

Lin Chu had already called home to explain.

Although his mother was disappointed, she said plainly that as long as they were safe, that was what mattered.

“Looks like I’m the only one celebrating your birthday with you today.”

Lin Chu went to the convenience store on the corner and bought a small cake.

He also asked the clerk for two candles.

After sticking them in and lighting the small flames, he pushed the cake in front of Si Qingxuan.

“This cake is a bit shabby, but at this point, you don’t get to be picky.”

“Make a wish, Qingxuan.

Happy birthday.”

Si Qingxuan stared at the candlelight, momentarily dazed.

He involuntarily thought of someone else.

Si Qingxuan’s last birthday had been spent with another person.

They had gone to great lengths to carry a telescope up a barren mountain top, sitting in a tent and waiting for a meteor shower.

They waited until midnight, huddled together like two penguins.

Si Qingxuan fell asleep halfway through the wait, then woke up again.

The cold wind was biting.

His fingertips were frozen numb.

Only his chest was warm.

When he was woken, he saw the meteor shower pass through their night sky.

“……”

Seeing Si Qingxuan fall silent, Lin Chu knew he was thinking of his ex-boyfriend.

Si Qingxuan had been a favored child of heaven his entire life.

Only in love had he suffered deeply.

He had an ex-boyfriend.

They dated from high school through college.

But half a year ago, the other person had begun to distance himself, proposed a breakup, and then vanished without a trace.

During that period, Si Qingxuan’s insomnia had suddenly worsened.

Lin Chu could only worry helplessly.

Thankfully, Si Qingxuan soon returned to normal.

Lin Chu then made up his mind to never mention that scumbag in front of him again.

He could only curse that bastard silently in his heart day and night, hoping he’d die miserably somewhere far away and never reappear in their lives.

So Lin Chu decisively cut off the silence.

“Have you finished making your wish?”

Si Qingxuan looked up at Lin Chu and sighed.

“Forget it.

None of the birthday wishes I’ve made before ever came true.”

Lin Chu said, “……”

Si Qingxuan slouched lazily, not wanting to move.

“I think you should hurry home, take a shower, and go to bed.”

Lin Chu sighed tiredly.

Si Qingxuan smiled faintly.

Maybe Lin Chu couldn’t feel it…

But there was a pair of eyes hidden in the darkness, watching them with ill intent.

No matter where they went, they couldn’t shake that cold feeling of being targeted.

What happened today was clearly not the end.