Zhang Shu bought some fruit—early spring watermelon, imported cherries, and mangosteen—examining them carefully as he walked, worried that the vendors might have shortchanged him despite the high prices.

As he approached the private club, he looked up and saw a vehicle.

A black Hummer, a massive beast crouching with an intimidating presence, with a row of hunting lights on top like angry, questioning eyes.

Zhang Shu stood motionless.

Luo Ren walked from the back of the vehicle to the front, leaned against the hood, crossed his arms, and looked up at the sky.

The weather was nice today, with one or two wisps of clouds floating across the deep blue sky.

He was waiting for Zhang Shu, but didn’t look at him, maintaining perfect composure.

Zhang Shu smiled; he was starting to like this young man.

He was interesting. Regardless of the outcome, a real man should come after what he wants. That was his girlfriend, and if she was gone, he should find her—without hesitation, taboos, or doubts. As for getting angry, drinking to excess, or wallowing in self-pity, those showed even less character.

Zhang Shu didn’t ask Luo Ren how he had found this place. He felt it was natural—a man should have his methods, whether open or discreet.

If he were selecting a son-in-law, Luo Ren would have passed his test, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Zhang Shu sighed.

He said, “The boss is upstairs. Luo Ren, come in and let’s talk.”

With that, he headed into the club, climbing the stairs step by step, each one seemingly designed to deliberately elevate and distance this world from the ordinary one.

Luo Ren looked up and saw the sign for the psychological counseling center. The logo was a black circle containing the silhouette of a woman with her neck slightly raised and arm extended, touching but not breaking through the circle’s boundary—trapped yet almost free.

In a sense, everyone in this world is trapped in their own shadow. The only differences are that some shadows are lighter, some darker; some have clear boundaries, while others blur fantasy and reality. Thus, some people enter these square buildings, while others wander outside.

At that moment, Yan Hongshe called.

“Luo Ren, any news about Mu Dai?” Her voice was timid. Ever since being reprimanded by Luo Ren in the mountains, she had naturally developed a sense of avoidance and fear toward him.

Luo Ren said, “Yes. For some reason, she’s at a psychological counseling center.”

Earlier, they had speculated that she might have gone to a better hospital for treatment, though this guess didn’t make much sense—changing hospitals wasn’t something that needed to be hidden.

Zhang Shu, walking ahead, turned back, seemingly puzzled why Luo Ren was following so slowly.

“I need to hang up now. I’ll contact you later.”

Yan Hongshe paused for a second or two, then suddenly said urgently, “No, no, Luo Ren, I have something to tell you.”

Luo Ren signaled Zhang Shu to wait for him, standing beneath the center’s logo to finish Yan Hongshe’s call.

The content of the call wasn’t particularly new to him, but he could sense the anxious, cautious mood of the two girls trying to hide a secret. He smiled and said, “I understand.”

Before hanging up, Yan Hongshe hesitated and asked, “Luo Ren, will you look down on Mu Dai?”

Luo Ren said, “You’re overthinking.”

He put away his phone, took a deep breath, and hurried to catch up with Zhang Shu.

His mood was relatively calm, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

It was that feeling of walking alone while the whole world splashed water of suspicion, worry, concealment, and avoidance on you, even if well-intentioned, it still made one feel disheartened.

Climbing up the stairs covered with thick, patterned carpet, he saw portraits of historical and contemporary figures hanging on the walls—Freud, Jung, Vygotsky—masters whose gloomy eyes looked out at the world, invariably full of concern.

What made Luo Ren both amused and bewildered was a portrait of Laozi with an inscription below.

—He who conquers others has force; he who conquers himself has strength.

On second thought, it made sense. Any psychological issue is essentially a struggle with oneself.

At an elaborate double door, Zhang Shu asked Luo Ren to wait.

He didn’t mind waiting. Having come this far, he wasn’t impatient.

After a while, Zhang Shu came out and led him in.

The room had a dark color scheme, elegant, with soft, thick carpet—you wouldn’t worry about breaking anything delicate if it fell.

Luo Ren thought this arrangement was good; the human soul is also fragile, and such an environment would make one feel safe and secure.

Behind a large, luxurious redwood desk sat a refined middle-aged man in a suit. Luo Ren had seen his photo before—He Ruihua.

Huo Zihong was also there, sitting in a camel-colored leather conforming sofa. This type of sofa was popular with clients because it had no personality or shape, conforming to the sitter’s preferences and desires.

Luo Ren greeted Huo Zihong: “Long time no see.”

She had gone away to clear her mind for quite a while, but likely hadn’t found true peace—the heart isn’t a sheep that becomes content just by grazing in a different pasture.

While greeting her, he noticed Huo Zihong was holding an old videotape.

The dark box, compared to today’s data storage cards, seemed enormous and clumsy, but it surely contained long-hidden secrets.

Luo Ren sat down on another sofa. On the small table beside him was a cup of pre-poured tea. Zhang Shu sat in a chair near the door, his fruit bag placed by his feet, like a patient waiting for medical treatment.

Huo Zihong said, “Mr. He Ruihua was working as a physician at a well-known hospital eight years ago. He was Mu Dai’s attending doctor back then. Even after starting his practice, he maintained contact with us and followed Mu Dai’s case.”

Luo Ren asked, “The whole time?”

“The whole time.”

“Does Mu Dai know?”

“No.”

Luo Ren’s heart tightened slightly.

He Ruihua said, “Perhaps you should first tell Mr. Luo about what happened eight years ago.”

Yes, eight years ago.

An intriguing number—Mu Dai had been practicing martial arts for eight years. Huo Zihong suddenly moved her family to Lijiang, also eight years ago.

Huo Zihong was silent for a moment. There were some things she preferred not to think about. Human nature tends to avoid misfortune, and some things one selfishly wishes to discard completely.

Now she had to reconstruct everything bit by bit, unpacking the past thread by thread. Even before speaking, her heart felt heavy.

“Eight years ago, Mu Dai was… fifteen, still a young girl. I had adopted her about ten years before that. Mu Dai was wonderful—lovely, cheerful, mischievous, and clever.”

“She had a good friend at school named Shen Wen. They did everything together except sleep—besties, you could say.”

“One day, something happened. Initially, it seemed like a small matter.”

Hong Yi sighed with a slight smile, thinking that it must have been fate, a cruel twist of destiny.

At that time, a Hollywood blockbuster, “Night at the Museum,” was showing. Mu Dai and Shen Wen had agreed to see it together, and Mu Dai had bought tickets in advance.

But when the day came, plans changed.

Shen Wen said her parents wouldn’t let her go because the high school entrance exam was approaching, and they insisted she stay home and study.

Mu Dai was naturally unhappy. She couldn’t find another friend on such short notice, and she didn’t want to go alone, yet it seemed a shame to waste the ticket money.

She came up with an idea.

She went to Shen Wen’s home with her backpack, knocked on the door, and, facing Shen Wen’s mother’s puzzled expression, said, “I’ve come to take Wen Wen to tutoring.”

They hadn’t coordinated their story, so Shen Wen was confused but had to go along with Mu Dai’s improvisation.

Mu Dai said, “The math teacher got a set of practice tests made by teachers who write the high school entrance exam questions. They have a high probability of predicting the actual exam questions, so he invited a small group of top students from various classes for extra tutoring.”

Shen Wen’s mother didn’t suspect anything. She was pleased: both Mu Dai and Shen Wen were good students who received special attention from teachers, so it made sense that they would get priority for good study materials.

As they left, Shen Wen’s mother instructed, “Take the main road, watch out for traffic, and if the tutoring runs late, call home so I can come pick you up.”

At this point, Huo Zihong paused.

Luo Ren asked quietly, “Something went wrong, didn’t it?”

“They didn’t go to school. They took another route because the movie was about to start. The two of them cut through an abandoned construction site, taking a shortcut that few people used.”

Luo Ren’s hand, resting on the back of the sofa, tightened slightly. Even though he knew this was in the past, listening to her description still made him feel oppressed, for the tragedy that couldn’t be undone.

Huo Zihong took a deep breath, wanting to finish the story in a few sentences, but rushing proved counterproductive—she couldn’t seem to reach the end.

“They encountered a group of thugs, bad kids who dragged the two girls up into the building. Mu Dai at that time… well, though she was a young girl, in some ways she was mature enough to understand what might happen. She struggled desperately. I don’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate…”

Huo Zihong’s voice trembled: “Mu Dai must have struggled violently. She fell from the building. I don’t know if it was from the second or third floor… but it was high. She landed on the back of her head and lost a lot of blood…”

She stopped.

Luo Ren looked at Zhang Shu: “So that’s why you’ve been looking for doctors, asking if hitting her head in the car accident might cause problems?”

Zhang Shu nodded silently. Seeming uncomfortable, he picked up the fruit bag and hugged it to his chest. In the quiet room, only the sound of the plastic bag could be heard.

Rustling, rustling.

Later, they caught those people. The leader confessed that, initially, they just wanted to have ‘fun.’ They didn’t intend to kill anyone. But they thought Mu Dai was dead, so they figured, since they were already facing murder charges, one death or two wouldn’t make a difference.”

“So Wen Wen suffered terribly. She was violated, then strangled to death.”

Luo Ren closed his eyes briefly. These events were far less dangerous or intense than what he had experienced, but the subdued tone, like hands slowly tightening around one’s neck, was suffocatingly oppressive.

“And then?”

Huo Zihong seemed dazed.

She remembered that day clearly. Around ten in the evening, she received a call from Shen Wen’s mother, who was extremely anxious, asking if the two girls weren’t supposed to be at tutoring. Why hadn’t they returned? She had called the school, and the teacher said there was no such tutoring session.

Unlike Shen Wen’s mother, Huo Zihong knew about Mu Dai’s plan to see the movie and had guessed that she had made up an excuse to take Shen Wen along. She felt very embarrassed and told the truth, apologizing on Mu Dai’s behalf.

But as the night grew later, Huo Zihong also became worried.

The movie should have ended long ago.

The two families, along with relatives, friends, and neighbors, went out searching together. At that point, they hadn’t thought to call the police.

They found the construction site.

They discovered Mu Dai first. When Shen Wen’s mother saw the pool of blood, she collapsed on the spot.

Later, they found Shen Wen in the building.

Shen Wen was already dead, but Mu Dai still had a breath of life.

What happened afterward, Huo Zihong couldn’t remember clearly. She only recalled the chaos—countless people talking to her every day. It was a small city, but this was a major case. Police forces were mobilized, and a special task force was formed. Updates came in regularly.

There were leads—one young thug couldn’t bear the psychological pressure and turned himself in. One by one, they were caught. One had fled to another city, but with cooperation from other jurisdictions, he was apprehended too.

They were all captured, every one of them.

On the third day after the case was solved, Mu Dai woke up.

Huo Zihong said, “At that time, I didn’t even think this was good news. Truly, I thought it might have been better if Mu Dai had gone with Shen Wen.”

The gang had been arrested, locked behind iron bars awaiting punishment, but the Shen family’s rage was like bloody fangs, beyond reach.

It was at this time that Mu Dai woke up.

Huo Zihong choked up, tears streaming down her face: “Our home was vandalized several times. Mu Dai was beaten many times. Sometimes she would kneel, and I would kneel beside her. I could understand the Shen family’s anger—it was a natural reaction. We deserved the beatings.”

Zhang Shu lowered his head, clutching the plastic bag, motionless.

By then, he was already working at Huo Zihong’s shop. When his boss was beaten, he stood by—Huo Zihong wouldn’t let him intervene.

He was also beaten. A woman took off her shoe and hit the back of his head. The hard sole caused his ears to ring for a long time.

He Ruihua sighed as he walked over and handed the tissue box on the table to Huo Zihong.

Huo Zihong pulled out several sheets, wiped away her tears, and blew her nose. Luo Ren handed her the water, which she drank in one gulp, like water poured on parched earth.

“I endured it, thinking maybe we could get through it. I made Mu Dai endure it too. When someone makes a mistake, they must atone for it. But there was one time when I felt I couldn’t take it anymore…”

Huo Zihong smiled through her blurry vision.

That time, their home had been vandalized again. She was exhausted, head bowed, completely silent until the Shen family left.

After they were gone, she tried to pour water from the thermos to drink, but the thermos had broken. The water that came out contained many shattered pieces of silver-plated glass. It felt like drinking it would tear through her intestines.

Huo Zihong sighed and pushed the cup away, looking up to see Mu Dai still kneeling there.

She went over to help Mu Dai up and suddenly noticed something shiny on her back, like armor.

She didn’t understand at first and asked curiously, “Mu Dai, what’s this?”

Mu Dai didn’t respond, but Huo Zihong suddenly broke down.

They were thumbtacks.

Later, she counted them—twenty-three in total, each piercing through skin into flesh, arranged neatly in a pattern.

Luo Ren’s eyes stung. He withdrew his hands from the sofa and locked them together tightly, veins bulging on the backs of his hands.

Huo Zihong said, “I realized we couldn’t live there anymore. I couldn’t handle the situation or solve the problem. I wanted to escape. I called Zhang Shu and told him we were moving the shop and leaving immediately, going anywhere.”

She took a deep breath and laughed bitterly: “Looking back, I wasn’t good either. I never set a good example for Mu Dai. I always ran away from problems. When trouble came to our family, I ran. When Mu Dai got into trouble, I took her and ran. Years later, when the truth came out about Li Tan, I couldn’t face it and ran again.”

Huo Zihong removed those twenty-three thumbtacks one by one herself. A porcelain plate sat nearby, and each tack made a clanging sound as it fell in, stained with blood.

Mu Dai didn’t cry out in pain. She kept her head down, legs crossed, staring at something unknown. She only asked one question during the process.

She said, “Auntie Hong, would it have been better if I had died?”

An eerie chill ran through Huo Zihong’s heart. It was only then that she realized something.

After the incident, she had only focused on making Mu Dai endure, atone, and repent. She had never realized that Mu Dai was still young and lacked the resilience, perseverance, and toughness that adults might possess.

Mu Dai’s mental state had already deteriorated.