The Zhang family’s apartment had very convenient transportation. They quickly arrived at the People’s Hospital. One bodyguard went to register while the other stayed with Li Weiyi as she sat waiting for her examination. Li Xiaoyi and the others hadn’t arrived yet.

The People’s Hospital was the city’s best Grade-A tertiary hospital. Even in the middle of the night, the emergency room was still very crowded.

Li Weiyi stopped crying. Clutching her stomach, she lay listlessly on the chair, her eyes gazing blankly around her. To her right was a row of examination rooms. The corridor was filled with people, and at the end of the corridor was the fire escape stairwell. The lights were as bright as daytime, with crowds of people and noisy sounds.

Li Weiyi just sat there quietly, watching and waiting.

At a certain moment, her eyes blurred.

She wondered if she was seeing things. She seemed to see Zhang Jingchan standing in the crowd, smiling at her. He was wearing the same athletic jacket and pants from the daytime. But when she looked more carefully, there was no one there.

She stared blankly in that direction for a moment, then suddenly stood up, slipped into the crowd, and walked quickly toward the fire escape. Where was there any sign of stomach pain?

The bodyguard beside her was looking down at his phone. He suddenly came to his senses and saw the empty chair beside him, breaking out in a cold sweat. At this moment, the bodyguard who’d gone to register also returned. The two stared at each other wide-eyed. “Where is she?”

The two quickly split up—one heading outside, one running toward the examination rooms.

Li Weiyi couldn’t explain what impulse was driving her. Had that just been a hallucination? But she was healthy and had never had hallucinations. Or was it… a residual shadow from another timeline? Since this morning, that feeling that something was wrong surged through her heart again. She pulled open the fire escape door. The stairwell was dim going upward. Because of Zhang Jingchan’s past as a vegetable, she was intimately familiar with this hospital’s layout. She ran up the stairs continuously.

After running up three floors, breathless, she still hadn’t seen a single person.

Li Weiyi gripped the stair railing, thinking perhaps she was being overly sensitive—clearly there was nothing. But her heart still felt a wave of disappointment. Just as she was about to turn back, the fire door beside her suddenly opened and a man walked in.

Li Weiyi’s entire body tensed like a startled ostrich as she watched him approach step by step. He was still wearing the black shirt and black pants from the daytime, face mask and baseball cap. Under the brim, he wasn’t wearing glasses, clearly revealing a pair of eyes—familiar yet strange.

Their eyes met. Li Weiyi felt like she was gazing into a dark, silent starry sky.

Her legs felt like they were filled with lead, standing frozen in place. Her entire throat was blocked—she couldn’t make a sound.

He looked at her deeply, then suddenly grabbed one of her hands and pulled her rapidly upward.

From below on the stairs came footsteps and the bodyguard’s shouts. “Miss Li? Li Weiyi?”

Li Weiyi’s mind was completely blank as she followed him, running and running. His hand was large and warm, their fingers intertwined, leaving no gaps. He occasionally looked back at her. Li Weiyi just stared at him blankly.

When they reached the top floor, the two stopped in front of the fire door. The bodyguard’s footsteps from below were closer now, and through the window, they could see figures in police uniforms flashing past in the corridor. The other bodyguard was also running in this direction.

He suddenly bent down, gently embracing Li Weiyi’s waist, burying his head in the hollow of her shoulder, his face pressed against hers for just a moment before pulling away.

A tingling sensation descended from above, spreading through Li Weiyi’s entire body. More intense than the sensation was her suddenly accelerating heartbeat. She watched helplessly as he pulled open the door and left. Chaotic footsteps and faint shouts echoed in the corridor.

——

Li Weiyi followed the two bodyguards back to the emergency room without saying a word, only then noticing something was wrong. Outside the emergency room, many nurses were running about, and seven or eight police officers had arrived. Outside, police sirens were also wailing. Thinking of the man who had just run away, her heart suddenly tightened.

Li Weiyi saw a familiar figure standing outside the emergency room. She walked over and asked, “Old Ding, what happened? Why are you here?”

Ding Chenmo turned his head, his eyes as deep as the sea. “Zhang Moyun and Wu Xinhui had an accident. They were poisoned with a deadly poison—cyanide. They’re being resuscitated now.”

Li Weiyi couldn’t believe her ears. “How is that possible? Weren’t police and bodyguards watching them?”

Ding Chenmo glanced around, grabbed her shoulder, and said in a low voice, “I looked at the surveillance footage. An hour ago, someone entered the villa through the back door. He was very familiar with the villa and had a key. He avoided the bodyguards and police, sneaked into Zhang Moyun and his wife’s room. We found his footprints on the windowsill and in the room. He stayed for about ten minutes before leaving. When he left, he alerted the police, and that’s when we discovered Zhang Moyun and his wife unconscious.”

Li Weiyi’s face turned deathly pale. She opened her mouth, then closed it, asking in a trembling voice, “That person… who was it? Did the surveillance capture it?”

Ding Chenmo looked at her thoughtfully and said, “Black clothes and black pants, wearing a mask and hat—couldn’t see his face. But we’re already doing body type and footprint analysis. Just looking at the clothing and appearance, we can’t rashly judge who the real culprit is.”

Li Weiyi was distraught, nearly collapsing to the ground. Ding Chenmo steadied her and jerked his chin in another direction. “He’s over there.”

Li Weiyi looked up to see Zhang Jingchan sitting on a chair in the waiting area, his face buried in both palms, his back seeming to have collapsed overnight.

Li Weiyi’s feet felt like they couldn’t touch solid ground. In a daze, she walked over. He noticed, lifted his head, revealing bloodshot eyes, his handsome face full of dejection.

“Weiyi, I…” He couldn’t speak. A tear slid down from the corner of his eye.

But Li Weiyi only felt a bone-chilling horror.

Because just now in the stairwell, the man in black had whispered two sentences to her:

“Weiyi, I’m Zhang Jingchan. Xu Yi and I have swapped bodies.”

“No matter what happens, don’t be afraid. Don’t let him notice. Wait for me to come back.”